In The Bag

Hi Everyone,
I've been a busy little bee over the last two weeks and have some big things to share and some fun things coming up for a big personal milestone, so stay tuned!

Today I thought I'd go back a little ways to show you something I made for Christmas for a friend. I had big plans to make several of these for other friends, and I still still hope to, but time has a sneaky way of getting away from me and I get distracted by new ideas. I can't be the only one, right?
**crickets**
Right, guys?

Ok, moving right along...

This handy, dandy tote is not earth shattering , but I claim it all my own. I didn't have a pattern, I just knew wanted to make a big (bigger than average) sturdy, lined tote with a matching pocket and a wide gusset. My aim was for my friends to be able to carry a weekends worth of clothes & stuff in this bag, it's definitely big enough. Without much more than a few measurements sketched out in my notebook, I kind of eyeballed the whole thing and it turned out great!

I bought a big, canvas painters tarp from Home Depot to use for the exterior of the bag. Do you know how much yardage you can get out of those? Lots! I bought a 12' x 10' and I believe it was about $13. I could not buy heavy canvas for that price at the fabric store, no way, no how. It pays to think outside the box.

I stitched a little tag for the inside pocket, actually, it's kind of a big tag, and it's the only thing I wish now that I'd done differently...  I made the lining, handles and pocket out of some pretty remnant yardage I picked up at JoAnn's. I love this fabric, I have a lot of it too, I think I'd like to try to make a blouse. We'll see.

And here's the bag all finished! My friend really liked it (yaaay!) and now, not only do I want to make the rest for my other friends like I'd planned to, I want to make one for myself! The last one I made for myself was plenty big, but I didn't do something right with the handles and they keep coming apart at the top. 

Here was the bag just before I delivered it (way back at Cristmas, sheesh, did I take my time posting this or what?), filled with goodies. I'm very pleased with it. I'm having pretty good luck winging sewing projects lately. Whew! Maybe I'm finally gaining enough experience to do that with some success. I've certainly paid my dues with flops, that's for sure!

I can't wait to show you what I've been working on so feverishly the last few weeks, come back soon, m'kay!

What have you been up to, m'dearies? Do tell!

oxo,

Lisa

Easy Peasy Pillowcases

Hi Friends!

I thought I'd show you a new little obsession that I can totally blame on my mom. (Yes mom, you.) Pillow cases, I know, totally revolutionary! They're so simple to make and the possibilities are endless. I made pairs for some of my married & co-habitating friends for Christmas.

A Christmas-y set...

With a fun specialty stitch, tiny Christmas trees. These ones were for a newishly married pair starting their own new traditions.

A boy/girl cow poke set for my favorite rodeo fans. These prints were just too cute to resist! 

See how they're similar, but different? Absolutely adorable!

And a pretty batik set for my uber talented friend who made her own bed set last spring.

I really wanted to make something coordinating, but not too matchy-matchy. I think these hit the mark.

These pillow cases are really so simple to make and they don't take that much fabric, less than a yard for one, and singles are great, especially for kiddos, but for us grown ups too! I have some flannel that I'm going to use to make my husband and I each a new pillow case for camping, soft, warm flannel makes lovely pillowcases (and warm ears!).

 I've made a few more since these ones at Christmas, this newest one is my favorite, I made it for my nine year old niece.

 I found this colorful shoe ribbon and had to get it, I used it as a special trim on the very edge of her pillowcase. I hope she likes it, I'm sending it to her for Valentines Day.

This is the tutorial I used to make my cases. Try one, it's fun! Especially great for you quilters who need a quick fix and have left overs. Oooh, a matching quilt & pillow case! I'll have to keep that in mind for my next quilt.

I really enjoy simple and quick sewing projects like these, it's nice to be able to knock something out and be happy with the results, I see more pillow cases in my future. As I'd mentioned before, my mom introduced me to this, she was making them for a pillowcase drive for ConKerr Cancer, it's a great cause, check it out if you have a moment.

Hope you're having a great weekend!

oxo,

Lisa

Let's Bounce

Hi Y'all!
Hey, it's Friday! And boy howdy, it's been one of those weeks! How about we relax with a cocktail?

Going back to some Christmas makings, I bring to the table Vodka Cherry Bounce. Really this goes back to the 4th of July, 2013 because that's when I started this cherry infused vodka. 

Cherry infused vodka? Sounds intriguing, no?

I was inspired to make the "bounce" after learning about it on Outlander Kitchen. Lacking the original ingredients, sour cherries and whiskey, I used what I had on hand, Rainier cherries and vodka. 

To a great big jar, I added two pounds of Ranier cherries, about a 1/2 C sugar, and two liters of vodka. Pretty hoochy stuff too, Costco brand. Eeech.

Once all together in the jar, I gave them a stir and stuck the whole thing in a dark closet for about 5 months, occasionally swishing the liquid around. Now, I'm not going to lie, towards the end it was looking pretty nasty in that jar, I was worried. My husband scared me into thinking I could blind people with this stuff. I did some research and asked some trusted resources who assured me that I could not in fact blind anyone, this isn't moonshine after all.

To my delight, filtering the bounce (two nights and countless coffee filters) produced a bright, clear liquid devoid of any cherry flotsam. 

I dressed up a few bottles for Christmas, special gifts for friends who love Outlander as much as I do. Gosh that story... takes my breath away. Are any of you fans? Let's chat! You know Starz is making a series out of it, yes? Everything about the production so far is perfection, I am SO excited. Here's a peek at the trailer!

Turn up your volume a bit, it seems a little low in this video.

Isn't that awesome?? Jamie speaks!

So how was the bounce? Well, I've had it twice. It's uhh... unique. I don't think I could drink it straight (then again, I don't drink any liquor straight, those days have long since past me by), but mixed with some fizzy water, a squeeze of lime and a dash of grenadine, it was pretty tasty. I'm going to try making traditional Cherry Bounce as soon as cherries are available this spring. I bought and set aside a bottle of whiskey last year, so I am ready. Je Suis Prest!

 Je Suis Prest for this weekend, that's for dang sure. Now where's my cocktail?

oxo,

Lisa

Merry Little Things

Hi Everyone!

Did you have a nice little Christmas? I hope that it was cozy and merry and bright!

Mine? Well, I slept through most of it. No kidding, about 20 hours on Wednesday. Worst cold ever. Coughing, hacking, flop sweats and looking like an extra zombie from the Walking Dead, slime and all. Yee-uck. All my plans, dashed. Christmas dinner? Ha! I'm embarrassed to say that my poor husband and I had Carl's Jr for our Christmas dinner. Ooof, lets call that a "keeping it real moment".  After so much sleep on Wednesday, I felt a LOT better on Thursday and since I took a couple of days of work I made it up to my hard working husband who himself had to return to work and made him a nice Christmas dinner on Thursday, only a day late, not so bad :)

So December was a pretty busy month and I didn't make anywhere near the amount of Christmas goodies and gifts I as I have in years past, and what I have made (and am still making) are yet to be delivered, so I can't share much just yet, but I do have a few little things...

Like this cute little vintage inspired ornament

I went on a pipe cleaner binge early on in December, pinned several cute things and hoped to make a bunch of them. But you know what they say about good intentions, right? Teehee...

I also made this little ice skating snowman. 

Just fun little things... Also this year I actually got to display my little bleached out, dyed & glittered trees that I made last year. I didn't know what I was going to do with them, so I simply put them on a little tray and filled it with "snow". 

I put them under the white/candy colored in our guest room this year, they're so pretty. As much as I love them, I won't be doing them the same way again, my friend shared this pin with me and I think I'd really like to try this next time I want to use little bottle brush trees.

I really like the way these all look sitting together though, each one is different from the others, I like the variety!

So what kinds of little things did you make this season, do tell and point me to it, I'd love to see!

oxo,

Lisa

Merry Christmas!

From our house to yours, 

we're wishing you a season 

of laughter & fun!!

Much love to you, from me!

oxo,

Lisa

Stitched Christmas Stockting

Well hello there!

Boy, time is really flying by and December is no exception, if anything December seems to run faster than all the other months! How are you doing, bloggy chums? Is your Christmas making season in full swing?

I am getting a bit of a late start on making some of my gifts this year, but one little thing I completed was for a quick swap with a few of my stitchy pals. This little felt stocking is something I made for my friend, Crystal. The pattern is from Fa La La La Felt, I think it's just darling, it's one of the first things in the book that I wanted to make when I cracked it open for the first time, and I finally had a reason. (not that you have to have a reason, but it helps with the motivation!)

I love the sweet little flowers & leaves near the bottom and the French knot polka dots...

The fun little diamond shapes  form a sort of argyle pattern ♥

I stuffed that little stocking full of "Sweet Sticks" and send it whizzing over hill and dale all the way to North Carolina.

Fun stuff, swaps! This was a fun item to make, and bigger than it probably looks. I'd say... maybe 6"-8"? Pretty good size anyway.

So yeah, that's the first Christmas item completed! One down, many to go.

In other news, my beloved niece Ana has come home for a quick Christmas vacation, and she's brought her beau! Today we're all heading San Francisco to goof around. Chad has never been to California before so we're smashing in as much Golden State goodness as we can, Saturday we're going to Tahoe to the kids can go snow boarding. I myself will be sitting, warm and snug in a lodge somewhere near the bottom of the mountain stitching or reading and drinking something hot & yummy! Auntie Lisa is NOT a big fan of snow sports beyond lobbing snowballs at unsuspecting family members :)

So I've got to run! Time to get on the road to the City!

Ta ta for now!

oxo,

Lisa

Watch The Leather, Man

Hi Everyone!

I can't believe we're already into March! I'm working on a few stitchy things that I can't show just yet, things I'm pretty jazzed about, but my projects always seem to take a little longer to complete than I initially estimate. Does that happen to you guys, too? Since I can't show you what I'd planned to, I'm breaking out something I was particularly proud of that I made for my brother for Christmas this year. 

These items were a bit of a departure for me, I've never worked with leather before (well, yes, I have, but that was back when I was a Camp Fire girl, and we just stamped leather strips to make bookmarks, so that doesn't really count) and since I like to make as many of my Christmas gifts by hand as I can for my family and friends, but I struggle with making "guy things" I had to get crafty.

I've been holding on to a stash of  small leather samples that I got from work a few years ago, and this year I finally got to use a few of them to make my brother a suite of small leather goods. 

A simple billfold, hand stitched.

(and some business cards to encourage my super talented, hard working brother to go into business for himself)

A nightstand bowl for the odds & ends a busy dad finds in his pockets at the end of the day.

This bowl was very simple to make, I found a link to a tutorial on Pinterest (naturally). The bowls in the  tutorial are made with felt, but hey, same technique. Just sore-er fingers, stitching leather is hard, yo! I made one of these dresser/nightstand bowls for my sister-in-law too, I made hers in the super soft red leather pictured below.

I made her a pretty little necklace, too, but the picture above isn't very good, here's a better one.

But my favorite thing that I made for Greg was this little journal. I love this wee book, I was tickled with the finished project.

Love it! I used a pretty stone button I had in my button jar and cut a thin strap to keep the journal closed as my brother adds little bits of this & that to it over the course of its life.

The signatures are stitched up, all proper like! I used a medium card stock for the paper so the pages are nice & sturdy for drawing or painting or what have you.

I used this excellent tutorial, and the journal came out perfectly! Not only have I never worked with leather, I've never made a book, so this was a double lesson for me, and I was very happy with the result. I'm very much looking forward to making more of these journals in the future. 

So there you are, a trio of "masculine" handmade gifts! 

I only had to buy one tool (two, if you count the rubber cement used to secure the book pages the leather) to make this trio, this spikey wheel jobbie used to mark even spaces in the leather that I then punched through with my awl. This was a project that was all labor, and practically no moolah. But the labor, oooh, let me tell you, I had practically no feeling in the fingertips of my right hand for two weeks. I found that even though I pre-punched the leather, it was still hard to pull the thick needle through over & over again. Ouch. I wonder if there's a better way...?

So yeah, leather, man! 

oxo,

Lisa

p.s. Curious about the title of this post, lookie here. Love that movie. Have seen it waaaay more times than I should admit. :)

Oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?

Hi All!

Oh my goodness where have the last couple of weeks run off to? I'm so behind on blogging, both in posting and reading. I feel rather out of the bloggy loop at the moment. I need one good rainy Saturday and a large cup of tea (or several) and all will be right again, le sigh.

Today I thought I'd share one last thing I made for my family for Christmas (yep, I know, we're a week into February) but they only recently received this, so it's finally safe to share.

For my brother, his wife and their two kiddos.

I traced their hands the day they moved to South Lake Tahoe a few months ago. An exciting, new beginning for them, bringing them one step closer to their dreams.

Like all families they're entwined, and so their hand prints should be. Everybody's hands are touching or over lapping somewhere on this piece, in those places I did a little intertwining of my own.

Normally I don't show the backs of my embroideries...(i use knots, shhh!)... but I really liked this one, its clean, flat, and like all families, perfectly not perfect. I left it unfinished when I sent it to them instead of covering it in my usual way. I just trimmed the fabric close and glued it neatly to the inner hoop.

I hope they like it, I liked making it for them.

I made a few other things for the kids, but nothing earth shatteringly rad, so I'll just post those in my Flickr, come on over and have a peek if you like.

I'll be back soon, I want to share a few pics from last weeks Creativi-tea!

I hope you've all been well, I miss reading your blogs and will catch up soon!

oxo,

Lisa

Peace, Love & Joy

Happy Christmas Eve!

Peace, Love & Joy are what I wish for all of you, and for all of my friends & family,

Three of my good friends are coming over tonight, Christmas Eve cocktails & munchies, it's our "girlfriends" tradition. These three smart, funny, kind, beautiful ladies are sisters, and they are so dear to me.

I made these three hoop stitchies this afternoon, a gift for each of them. I'll let them decide who gets what.

 ♥

All three of these came together in no time, 2 hours flat from start to finish which included painting the hoops, stitching the words and adding the fabric in a quilted style, then placing them in a hoop and adding some gingham hanging ribbon. Everything came from my stash... a little bit of Mary Englebreit Christmas, and a little bit of Bliss. Christmas & Bliss, what a great combination!

I hope they like them.

Thank you so much for you kind comments about my little craft room. It looks pretty different as I sit here looking around right now, and writing to you after just finishing a project than it did in those pictures, lol. But that's the whole point, a place to play! If you haven't seen it yet, keep scrolling, it'll be the post right under this one.

♥oxo♥

Lisa 

Now if it's late in your part of the world, off to bed, you! As my mom used to tell my brother and I when we were little, Santa won't come if you're awake!



Christmas Tea At The Crown & Cumpet

Ho, ho ho y'all!

Jill and I snuck off to San Francisco yesterday. Ah, the city at Christmas... I love San Francisco always, but at Christmas, I think I love it even more, if that's possible. Everything was merry & bright and we had a grand ol time first at the Ferry Building, then wandering at Ghiradelli Square, then taking tea at The Crown & Crumpet, and afterwards, meandering around SF enjoying the scenery. It was a great day, I thought I'd share some pictures with you.

The Crown & Crumpet is starting to feel like our little hiding place in SF, this was our third trip to the C&C, but our first at Christmas and to our delight the C&C was dressed for a party and full of holiday merriment. It is really such a special place, we love, love, love it.

A holiday tea! Those words alone make me all kinds of happy.

Look at all these sweets!

And these sweets, too.

This fabulous red Christmas tree grabs your attention as soon as you walk into the Crown & Crumpet.

A cheery fireplace mantle. Love those fabulous, pink feather trees!

The tea, service and food were as fabulous as always. That's one thing about the Crown & Crumpet that I especially love, the consistency of the product. Each time we've been there, we feel like "friends" of the shop, like they've been waiting for us to arrive. It's awesome, and not stuffy. Such a joy!

Of course no trip is complete without a memento, or three. I bought this happy, little soldier at the Crown & Crumpet's gift shop, so sweet.

He went straight onto the tree in our family room.

And my happiest purchase of the day, this lovely little broach! I've loved the work of the maker, Lorie Marie for some time and she has a terrific blog which I follow (it's over there on my side bar too, have a look!) as well. I knew that she sells some of her wares at the Crown & Crumpets gift shop, and I was excited to see them in person. When I did, I HAD to have one of these pins. It's everything I love, felt, happy colors, flowers, stitching, in a word; perfect. I really wanted one of these, but it's just not in the budget at the mo... maybe for my birthday.   

Oh, and then there's this! Couldn't leave Ghiradelli Square at Christmas without some, it's my favorite.

I know I've said it before, but you can be sure I'll say it again, if you're a tea fan, and ever you're in San Francisco, you must find the time to have tea at the Crown & Crumpet, you will love it. I promise.

I know this has already been a picture heavy post, but I'm really enjoying and learning to use my new camera, so I hope you'll forgive my photo indulgence a little more. Here are a few snaps that I think are pretty from the Ferry Building...

Just inside the Ferry Building.

Rose & geranium French macaroons, tasted as pretty as they looked. Miette.

Beautiful shrooms, Far West Fungi.

Gifts from the hive, Bee Kind.

All sorts of wondrous fromage (hot guy not included), Cowgirl Creamery.

Mine! Mine! Mine! This guy crept up on me, good thing Jill was watching.

So that about wraps it up, I hope you've enjoyed another trip to my favorite city by the bay!

More Christmas goodness coming soon, stay tuned!

oxo,

Lisa