TWBA

For my blog assignment over at The Dressing Room, a list of my favorite books! I do love to read. In fact, I sometimes have a hard time deciding whether to read or sew when I have a few minutes to myself. And I'm totally intrigued by the Kindle, but too cheap to buy one. Here is my spur-of-the-moment list o' favorites. It's got a little bit of everything.

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (so complex and perfect, my absolute favorite)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo (heartbreaking and beautiful)
Sheep on a Ship, by Nancy E. Shaw (just plain fun)
Hippos Go Berserk, by Sandra Boynton (best counting book we have)
The Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester
The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman (super, super useful stuff)
Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (This one kept me up for hours, way past my bedtime)
The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas
Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss (This book gave creedence to the part of me that screams when I see a misplaced apostrophe at the grocery store...)


That's it for today's peek into my brain. Now I have to go make dinner.

Happy dishes

I made some cloth dinner napkins out of some "Lizzie Dish" fabric that is totally cute for kitchen stuff. A super simple, useful and satisfying Sunday project. Aren't they cute?

Ottoman slipcover

Note to parents, sloppy people, and anyone who wears shoes in the house: NEVER get a beige ottoman. Baaaaad idea. This puppy looked bad after about 14 minutes of use. I've been slipcovering it since. The first slipcover was dark blue, and the color rubbed off on the edges. Oy. We covered it with a sheet and used it anyways. This is take two, about 7 years later. Much better!

I'm proud of the corners on this. I didn't want to make them square, since the edge of the ottoman is rounded. But I also am not careful enough to actually make round corners that would fit. So I cut the pieces for square corners, but sewed in a little inverted box pleat to round them out a bit. It came out pretty cute.

Not all yummy things...

Are made of fabric! Behold, Red Beans and Rice Enchiladas! This is also repurposing, ha! In our home, we believe that almost any leftovers can be made into quasi-TexMex dishes. So we eat a lot of fish tacos, chicken enchiladas, etcetera. But this- oh, baby. I might even like it better than the original dish.

Oh, yeah. I also made the cloth napkins, out of fabric from my maternal great-grandmother's stash. That proves that fabric hoarding runs in the family!

More on reusing...

I'm trying to get back to updating here more often. I realized that I never posted what I did with the rest of the old uniforms....


Made a coat!

I used a pattern from Ottobre magazine, with some modifications. I used the existing uniform sleeves to make the sleeves of the jacket, so that I did not have to hem them or make cuffs. I also kept one pocket on the coat, and added an old insignia. I love it!

I'm not sure if the little dude likes it as much as I do.