I can’t help it, I am addicted to this summer’s Big Brother.  Jeff is one of my favorites, DUH!  Chima…not so much!  I keep wondering why the producer’s keep choosing to keep her in the house, but then HELLO!  Look at the ratings!  7.61 million viewers for the episode on Thursday, Aug 13.

Maybe those of us that don’t care for the dramariffic-high maintenance-drama queen will be graced with her exit from the Big Brother house next Thursday.  Crossing my fingers and toes, thank you very much!

***

Anyway, since I have been glued to BBAD, I have been getting my fabric organized, ironed, and ready for some new bags and other little items I have been thinking about.   I have been thinking about some mini-quilts for kids to have on a car ride, as well as some varying sizes of my Farmer’s Market totes.  I need to also get some more diaper bags finished up.

I have also been thinking about trying out some little skirts for girls, with an elastic waistband, but I need to see what it is going on with the whole CPSIA thing.  That is a headache that I don’t want to mess with, let alone I can’t afford it.

I also need to retake pictures of items I already have listed.  The worst pictures were taken during the winter months when it was raining and flooding our little town.  I am embarrassed to still have the bad pictures still up there!

So please make sure you check out http://29cherryblossoms.etsy.com sometime next week for some new listings!

Due to pending CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act), I may need to pull my cloth diapers on Feb 9. The law takes affect on Feb. 10, so I will be ready just in case. If you value the work of WAHMs, OOAK children’s clothing, cloth diapers, lovingly crafted children’s toys, etc., or the freedom to choose what you purchase for your child under the age of 12, please contact your state legislator(s) about changing the CPSIA.

http://29cherryblossoms.etsy.com

Has it really been almost FOUR MONTHS since I last updated?  I guess summer has gotten to be a bit hectic and I kinda forgot about this blog.

I am working on some things today and will hopefully have most of them listed tomorrow (Mon. 8/18).  If not Monday, then Tuesday.  One of the items is something I am very excited about since it took me over a year to find the right fabric.

And for the next two days, one of my two listed items (yes, I have been slacking!) is featured in the Treasury on Etsy!

I know my mom will read this, so I thought I would share just how awesome she is:

Yesterday she had an appointment out of town, so of course I had to get an order in of stuff I needed/wanted/couldn’t live without. I gave her a list of serger thread colors and what brand I wanted, as well as which colors of 3/8″ grosgrain ribbon I wanted.

SHE DELIVERED…EVERYTHING! I think there are 9 spools of ribbon, so I am happy and content for a good long while.

I was surprised that she was able to get everything I wanted, because there was a lot on the list. I wasn’t holding my breath on the serger thread, but I was lucky to get all three colors. Now I just need to get the velour ordered so I can get my mystery items made.

And of course pay my mom back! I need to get a bunch of stuff listed this weekend on both Hyena Cart and Etsy. I can say right now that Etsy will be first since that is all set up and ready to go.

Hyena Cart…that’s another story! I need to get everything sewn up and pay my $5 monthly fee so I can start to list stuff. I have looked at the stocking calendar for next week and I need to decide which day I want to start. I might go with Friday, May 2. That gives me a week to get stuff finished and some others started in time for the listings.

Am I rambling? I’m tired, so I feel like I am rambling. Maybe I should call it quits and pick up where I left off in the morning. And then I will update this with whatever progress I have made.

And mom, THANKS!!!

I sold one of the bags I listed on Etsy last night. I sold it this afternoon to a friend here in town, so I had to delete the listing before anyone had a chance to buy it and there wasn’t a bag available! If I had to, I could get more of the same fabric and make another. I am actually thinking about getting more of the same fabric to make a few more just like it. But it will probably be in different colors from the “My Folklore” line.

Here is what the bag looked like:

Diane, from Bee Square Fabrics did a nice write up of the bag.

I purchased the fabric from her Etsy shop.

I need to start cutting out my bags and getting them sewn and listed. I don’t know why I am having such a hard time with it. I can sew them up so fast, but the cutting the fabric part is what is time consuming and annoying to me. I need to get past that if I want to make anything of this.

Later on today I will be stocking two bags on my Etsy site. The bag pictured below, as well as another bag – same design, but different prints. The prints are actually a Japanese import fabric called “My Folklore”. It is in orange. I am thinking about getting some in black, blue, and purple. I can’t say enough how much I love this fabric! What can I say, I’m a sucker for Japanese prints.

Coming up next will be some Japanese fairy tale prints, as well as some more Alexander Henry. I might toss in some Kaffe Fassett as well. I also need to get some items stocked in my Hyena Cart sometime this week – I hope!

The Hyena Cart will have at least one bag – ‘the undiaper bag’ – that will come with three embellished infant prefolds. The bag, as well as the prefolds, will have Amy Butler fabric. The bag is turning out to look really pretty. I am quite happy with how it has turned out. Now I just need to decide what the third print will be for the third prefold! Decisions, decisions.

Time to get my oldest off to daycare, then to get my youngest down for his nap so I can get cutting, ironing, and sewing.

WOW!  I can’t believe it has been over a week since I last updated here.  I guess I just tend to update my other blog more than this one.  I have also been ironing fabric, ironing on the interfacing, pinning, and sewing lots of tote bags.  As to how many will make it to either the Etsy shop or Hyena Cart?  I won’t know until Monday.  Maybe earlier, but I’m not holding my breath.

I finished a bag on Saturday that I absolutely love and have received numerous compliments on.  Now I just need to get some more of the fabric and make more of them!

Here is a picture:

I have also been given a bunch of fabric to sew up some of the same style of bags for the local quilt shop.

I can’t express how excited I am about all of this work happening so quickly, whether it be for my Etsy or Hyena Cart, or the local quilt shop.  Now I just need to get everything organized better so it’s easier to work through the messes.

My husband has a few weeks off from work, so I think we are going to convert the bathroom we don’t use into my sewing room.  We have lived in this house for almost three years and we only used the shower in that bathroom for the six weeks or so.  Currently it is used to store all of the toys for our two young sons.  The toys need to be sorted and divided to see what stays, what gets tossed, and what gets donated.

This Saturday is also the open sew at the local quilt shop, so I will be able to get a lot of sewing done, I hope.  I need to charge up my iPod so I can get a lot done.  I took my iPod with me one time and got a lot done, even though it meant I was anti-social with everyone else there.  But I think they tend to understand that I need to get a lot done and it helps me move faster.

Now if I can just find where my iPod has gone and hid out at!

Nap time was very productive today.  Justin was off at daycare for three hours, and once Ryan was down for his nap, I had nearly 2.5 hours to get some fabric cut and interfacing ironed on.

Now the next step is getting the table cleaned off enough to get my machine set back up.  Saturday will mark four weeks since I last sewed anything.  My machine has been in it’s bag since the Open Sew the local quilt shop has, which is the third Saturday of every month.  I was able to get quite a bit accomplished at the last open sew, but then I got sick.

Being sick with a nasty cold makes me want to veg out and not do anything.  Well fabric shopping is always lots of fun, but the actual getting a project all put together is not my idea of fun.  But once everything is all cut and interfaced, it’s easy as pie.

I’m crossing all fingers and toes that Justin is good, as well as quiet, during Ryan’s nap time tomorrow so I can get a bunch of stuff sewn up.

It’s a itch that needs to be scratched.

And that itch is only going to get worse as long as my machine sits in it’s bag.

I thought it would be easy for me to get my fabric all organized: neatly folded, all the designers in their own stacks, then into a color coded type fashion.

I have been so wrong.

Instead I am wanting to guesstimate just how much yardage I have, how much I paid for it, and what projects I will use it for.

Do I want to use it for personal use, or do I want to make a bag and sell it on Etsy? Would I rather use it to embellish a prefold for a burp cloth or cloth diapering?

I am faced with all of these questions I didn’t think I would encounter. All I wanted to do was organize my fabric.

My thread has been easy: spools go into a Ziploc bag, bobbins with thread go into a sandwich bag. This is my solution until I get a sewing area/room an I can have a rack on the wall for all of the thread.

Off to figure out the fabric dilemma.

I decided to keep the title of the default entry on here because it kind of fits. After all, I am saying “Hello world!” when I open up my Etsy shop for business. Well, more like the US and Canada since I am not doing that much international shipping just yet. I want to make sure I have the kinks out before I start venturing off to far off foreign lands. I want to stick with what’s familiar for the time being.

So that’s where I am at right now.

I also just noticed that today is the 29th. Time has been flying this week. I guess that’s what happens when you are a stay-at-home-mom(SAHM), sick, and have a birthday. I turned 30 on the 25th. I felt old before my “official” time of no longer being 29. My “official” time is 10:27am Pacific Standard Time. I woke up at 4am on the 25th with pink eye. I was not pleased to say the least.

Monday, the 24th, was the first night my three-year old son Justin stayed the night away from home. Yeah, it was just my parents house, but he wasn’t with me. That was only the 8th night in his life that we had been apart over night. There were the first four nights of his life when we were in the hospital. He was in the nursery for the first night, then the NICU the remaining three nights. When he was two and a half, his little brother Ryan was born. That is when the next three nights came along. I was in the hospital and Justin was either with my mom (who was absolutely awesome for showing up at 5:10am) or with his daddy, John.

I was at a loss as to what Ryan and I were going to do for the evening while John was at work. So much of my evening routine has involved Justin running around the house, bathtime, dinner, etc. Ryan and I went about things like normal, but just at a faster pace. John got home from work around 10:30pm and I was in bed by 11:15. I was tired! I thought I was going to get this awesome night of sleep and be so refreshed in the morning. I had been dragging with this nasty winter cold and a good night’s sleep is just what I needed.

Ryan woke up at 1am and I had him back to bed by 1:20. I had drank about a liter of water in the two hours leading up to my bedtime, so I woke up at 4am with a full bladder and eyes sealed shut. I was wondering why the bathroom was so dark. “Where was the nightlight? I never turn it off,” I thought to myself. I rubbed my eyes and then realized my left eye was sealed shut ever so tightly. Lovely! I knew just what this was!

Last year in February, we had to take Justin to the ER at 9pm on a Saturday night. He had woken up from a nap several hours earlier with his eyes sealed shut and they weren’t getting any better. We all got ready and made the thirty minute drive to the hospital. We weren’t even a half mile away from our house when my eyes started to kill me. Yup. I had it too. While we waited at the ER, I noticed that 3.5mo old Ryan was rubbing his eyes. OH NO! By the time they called us back, all the three of us had the reddest eyes. John was the lucky one. He never did get it. I was so jealous.

Justin, Ryan, and I fought that pink eye long and hard for THREE WEEKS! I was SO ready for it to be over and done with. By the time we were, we had gone through three bottles of eye drops and were just starting in on the fourth bottle. It was horrible.

But this time I was the lucky one. (If that’s what one would like to call it.) I am the only one to have to battle this round of pink eye. I think I have a sinus infection and bronchitis. I can’t get in to see the doctor until Wednesday, so I am trying to take it easy, but I have this horrible itch I can’t scratch. I want to sew so bad. I want to get all of my sewing supplies organized and enjoy it. I am ashamed of what it looks like right now. It is seriously disgusting. Papers, shipping boxes, tissue paper, yards, half-yards, fat quarters of fabric, thread, scraps, etc. are scattered every where. It looks like a hurricane swirled around in my dining room for a good few weeks and then disappeared.

My local quilt shop(LQS) has an open sew on the third Saturday of the month. Take whatever projects you are working on and talk with other women(and one man) about sewing, fabric, etc. I have been to several and I love going. I can usually get quite a bit done when I go. I don’t have two little boys pulling and tugging at me. I have even taken my iPod with me to tune everyone out when I had a deadline for a project.

But the problem is getting everything all packed up and ready to go. Such a mess is made and then it is a pain to clean up. As it is, my sewing machine is still packed away from two weeks ago. I have been too busy playing sick mom.

That will change this week. I have bought some new fabrics and I have some new styles of bags want to try out. I have been looking at other tote bags others make and gathered a few ideas of what I want to do. I usually don’t use a pattern. Sometimes I will use part of a pattern to get the shape, but all the details…that’s all from my creative juices.

I think I have written enough to bore and kill a horse, so I guess I will stop. Until next time, have a good night.

-Melanie