Gettin crafty! ;)

So any of you who have kids or dogs or cars or a house (well you get the point) but mainly kids...  know how much stuff them come along with.  Not all of it essential, I know women raised babies ages ago with a sharp rock and a strap of canvas, but the probably didn't have to worry about traffic in the fields, work or school so we'll acknowledge that the times, they are a-changin'!  So for a mommy like me, without the unlimited funds to buy all this fun (and helpful) stuff, there's really only one solution...  you guessed it:  Gettin Crafty!

Now let me back up about 20 years or so to a modest home in Newark, Delaware where my mother was teaching me some life basics: ironing and sewing.  My ironing lesson began with a disclaimer: "Now honey, you've got to be really careful because the iron gets really hot, odds are, someday you will burn yourself with it."  Ok, got it, I can take a little heat, not really a big deal.  Well she was right, I did (and do) burn myself, still, no biggie.  But then we move onto sewing, an evil looking machine, and I get a similar disclaimer.  "Now honey, you need to make sure to keep your fingers away from the needle, but at some point, you probably will run over your hand."  And...  I'm done!  Nope, not gonna happen.  I picture in my head some final destination stuff of sewing my hand to my jeans!  No thank you!  So needless to say, until this week, I have spent the last 20 years avoiding sewing machines like it's my job! 

So now that you know the backstory you can understand where I'm coming from.  Well I decided recently that I would love to have a little bean bag chair that Sam can sit in in the den and watch tv.  Since our tv is mounted above the fireplace the very bottom of it is about eye level for me so she needs something she can kinda recline back in to not have to crank her neck up to see it.  So with my mother coming to visit soon, I asked her if I got the fabric if she'd help me make it.

Soon after my mom got here, she went out on secret maneuvers...  cryptic I know!  But these maneuvers turned out to be her purchasing a new sewing machine.  While technically it is HER sewing machine, it will be living at my house for the foreseeable future.  <3   After this, SEW 101 began, wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, and now I'm hooked.  I've got "I-can-make-that-itis" and while the beanbag chair was wildly successful, I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a project.  It's not easy (my mom did the brunt of this work) and it's really not all that cost effective, it is however, wicked cool!  So now I'm making blankets, mini blankets, burp cloths, yada, yada, yada.

She loves her bean bag chair her Grandmommy made her!!!!

So next, once I find a fabric I like and can afford, I'm going to attempt a duvet cover for my hard to fit oversized king comforter!  Anyone have any ideas of stuff for me to try?  Or wanna show off stuff you've tried??

I made a blanket to match her bean bag chair!!  <3

Burp cloths everywhere!!!

A fleecy blanket I made for a friend!

Pink & Green burp cloths