Where I attempt to create

Listmom challenged the members of the FGM group to post pictures of their sewing area. Some people seem ashamed to show pictures of their mess, so I am posting mine. Since my husband was supposed to go backpacking this weekend, it's actually messier now than when I took the pictures. I do try to clean it up, putting away a thing or two while waiting for the iron to heat up, but it's pure chaos in there.

First, a couple of things you should know about the room. Our house came with something called a "hobby room" tacked on the back. It's about 12 feet wide by 40 feet long. We partitioned it with boxes and trunks into the kids' area and the grownups' area. The second thing is that our house has no basement, so the grownups' area is both storage and dumping ground for crafts, camping gear, and anything else we don't want the kids to touch.

With those disclaimers in place, on to the mess!


My sewing machine is in there somewhere.
The dresser is stuffed with random bits of crafting material, used mostly with the kids.
The closet holds fabric and all sorts of other treasures.
In the back is a "Martha Washington" chest from my grandmother. I'm a bit ashamed that it's used to hold the ironing basket.


The ironing board is in the back along with a table full of projects.
I see charms being cut, fabric ready to be sewn into little pouches, a pair of my daughter's jeans waiting to be made into a tote bag...
Can you see that flat roll of paper draped around the middle of the table? *sigh* That's my untouched FGM quilt...

A positive - the natural light here is great during the day!



And one more view of the table from another angle, including the TV that entertains me as I work and a big plastic bin of broken toys, waiting to be repaired or thrown out under cover of darkness.

Starting to crochet

I don't know why, but I had the urge to learn to crochet. I finished stitching around one little cloth that my mom started with me. Then I moved on to a second.

I also picked up a little spool knitter and started making a little snake of yarn. What is it for? I don't know, but it's relaxing to sit and fiddle with it.

Penguin pouch

Another pouch, made from Marc's jeans and an elderly neighbor's discarded fabric. The embroidery is a penguin wizard, designed by my daughter.

I didn't make this awesome sweater. My mom did.

I forgot to take pictures of the crafts I made for Christmas, so I'm including this instead. I made another jeans purse for my goddaughter, with a dolphin embroidered on the pocket. I also carved a rubber stamp to match. For my daughter's dance teacher, I carved a sun stamp, similar to our letterboxing stamp. Since their class is dancing to "You Are My Sunshine", I thought it was appropriate.

Kitty hat!

Since Junior is always pretending to be a kitty, he got a simple kitty hat for his birthday.

It wasn't too hard - two measurements, 1 rectangle of fleece, two seams, and a bit of trim to make it fancy.

After she saw it, Snurf wanted one, too. It took me a whole 15 minutes to put another one together, and it was that long only because I had to change my bobbin thread!

Now there's two kitties in my house!

Little jeans bag

I made this a few months ago, but I'm posting it by request. When I make my next one, I'm going to cut the bottom of the bag to follow the contours of the pocket instead of squaring them off like this one. The handle is the inside seam of the jeans.

Penguin hitchhiker

Here's today's project - a penguin rubber stamp and logbook - for tomorrow's letterboxing outing. The penguin was inspired by a school assignment. A co-worker brought his son's plush penguin to work for us to take on vacations all over the country. I took pictures of that plush all over Germany and thought it was so much fun. This little guy will be traveling from letterbox to letterbox, hopefully checking in with us from time to time.