Maybe not THREE months, but it feels like I’ve been making or trying out a lot of things that I’ve neglected to report on. Some of which is DARN CUTE or DARN TASTY!

Darn cute:

Baby Blanket

Big Footed Bunny with reversable dress (this shot was still in progress, never got a completed shot):
Dress on side A

Dress on side B

Granola (it was OK at best):

And with no photo accompaniment,
Monkey Bread

Potato soup (it was ok, but got much better as it aged)

Beef Stew (Still have some of this in the fridge, and it was Yum, despite some technical difficulties)

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (orange, with jack-o-lantern faces painted on) (I guess I could still take some photos of these) (for some reason everytime I eat one, I think of our friend Kurt, who loves anything with pumpkin – Kurt, you would love these)

I also have a bunch of things on deck that I am aching to get started on.

I need, nay, I REQUIRE myself to make chili in the very near future, along with some cornbread.

Butternut Squash soup

Butternut squash risotto (this one may be dropped)

Braided Challah Bread

Picture Day dress for Jocelyn
I saw this adorable corderoy jumper at Kolh’s yesterday that I am going to try to make for Jocelyn. It was a dark chocolate brown with a pink long sleeved knit shirt underneath. Pink and brown always make me swoon, so sweet. We’ll see if this actually gets accomplished. There was another one next to it, pink with cute little princess embroidery embellishments along the bottom.

It is also at Kohls.com.

Very sweet. I am not going to repeat my mistake from last year and put her in a busy print for picture day. NO SIR.

Circle Skirt for Jocelyn
This, I actually did for Jocelyn last night, using the Fold Over Elastic that Angry Chicken has been going on about. Now, with normal elastic, you measure the waist and then make the elastic 2 inches shorter. I cut the elastic about 5 inches shorter with some trepidation, and it is still too loose. I should have just not worried about the actual measurement and just stretched it as tight as I could while sewing it on. There will be sewing and adjustments made tonight. I also don’t like the look of the full circle of the skirt, so I may be fiddling around with using only half a circle as well.
Final note on this skirt, I cut into some beloved fabric that I had been saving forever, but looking at the HUGE STACK OF PINK fabric, I shook it off and cut (the fabric I used is the top right in the picture in that link). As my mother always says, there will always be cute fabric, no need to hoard. I will be showing this skirt off when I finally work out the kinks.

*UPDATE* SKIRT COMPLETED! Here it is!

Picture taken last night, immediately after finishing

Taken this morning.

Hopefully James got some good pictures with the camera, as these iphone photos leave much to be desired. Still, I am VERY proud of myself, as this sucker pretty much came directly out of my head, no patterns involved (though some tulle inspiration probably came from the dress I saw in Kohl’s).

And finally, I have ordered a bunch of stuff to start beading jewelry again. I say “again” like I used to do it last week, but I haven’t done anything with beads since high school, when me & friends used to string beads onto fishing line, melt the knot with a lighter and call it good. I have actually ordered some tools and got a book and even am going to take a CLASS! My initial order should have been here by now, but due to my recent ordering of fabric on the internet for my mother, I accidently put down an address that was half my own, and half my mom’s, for my bead order. Who knows where it is now, DOH. So this, “Did it come did it come??!” ending with deflation and RE-ordering has made me super excited to GET GOING ALREADY!

– amy will string you along with a trinket or two

Otherwise known as:
OMG SHE ACTUALLY MANAGED TO POST SOMETHING! WITH PHOTOS NO LESS! BRACE YOURSELF!

SATURDAY:
Pumpkin patch with corn maze (tricksier this year!)(we made it out alive)
pumpkin cupcakes with detailed instructions and help given by Jocelyn
visit to firehouse’ open house, complete with HELICOPTER parked out front
t-ball game
t-ball snacks
home to make frosting with detailed instructions and help given by jocelyn (must be orange! we need black for jackolantern features! LET ME HOLD THE MIXER!)
Toy Story 2
bed, oh thank god, bed, Zzzzzzzzz..

SUNDAY
train ride up to Clifton for a Clifton festival
colored hair spraying (jocelyn)
face painting (jocelyn)
getting of balloons (whoops, they were from republicans, oh well)
park playing
denial of buying children tickets for big bouncy thingees
tears shed
accidental letting go of balloon (Jocelyn)
denial of buying ANYTHING that has to be carried home
tears shed
seeing of McCain | Palin stickers EVERYWHERE
seeing NO ONE at McCain|Palin booth, Obama|Biden booth very busy, with all stickers gone
democratic balloon obtained (Jocelyn)
Obama|Biden car bumper sticker obtained
Sighting of Wonder Sarah Palin Woman
(Bipartisan balloons in the family! W00T!)
Funnel cake BOUGHT AND CONSUMED OH YUM!
losing of democratic balloon
tears shed
AND SHED
bipartisanship lasted an entire 5 minutes
Bye bye clifton, drove into fairfax
good vanilla purchased at whole foods (at least i hope, it looks suspicious to me)
book store with kids while
apple store (james) to exchange white recalled outlet thingees
soft serve Kline’s ice cream in Manassas on the way home
GROUP COLLAPSE FROM EXHAUSTION AT HOME
and then to cap the day off… 20 minutes of washing and rewashing Jocelyn’s hair to get all the pink out….
and putting my Obama|Biden sticker in my car in the dark. I didn’t do that great a job. I have never put a bumper sticker on my car.

MONDAY:
James and I stealthily took the kids to their respective schools w/out dropping a hint that it was a day off for us.
Watched a few Futurama’s
Went and saw Burn After Reading (not sure I recommend it)
Lazy long lunch at Rio Grande
Sat and watched kids playing in the water fountain (aren’t they COLD??)
best buy (Sleeping Beauty & Speed Racer purchased)
book store (james)
old navy & kohl’s (me)(new clothes for kids purchased)
kid pickup
surprise dinner at mcdonalds (for the kids, we were still stuffed from lunch)
home

THE END!

EXCEPT FOR!

PICTURES!

Children Posed for Picture In Corn Maze

Children NOT Posed for Picture In Corn Maze

Ethan Shuffling Into Third Base

Jocelyn Girl-Running Into Third Base

Jocelyn’s Pink Festival Hair That Later Took 2 Shampoos To Get Out

Jocelyn’s Butterfly Face Painting

Very Busy Democrat Booth

Totally Dead Republican Booth Directly Opposite Democrat Booth
(to be fair, they could have just been grouped around Wonder Sarah Palin Woman)

Sarah Palin Wonder Woman

Handsome Man Relaxing at Rio Grande

Busy weekend for the Panders.

I slacked off on the September banner, and yeah, I am somewhat slacking on this banner since.. *ahem* this photo was taken back in… *cough* August.

Oh well. AT LEAST I GOT A NEW ONE UP THERE PEOPLE!

Plus, this girl, she’s SO DAMN CUTE in this photo!

Click to see all banners.

It was a great 3 day weekend, that was filled to the brim with fun things, so I’m going to work my way backward starting with yesterday – Monday, Labor day.

I’ve always thought this was a fun idea – a cake to celebrate the beginning of the new school year. It originally was a cake a friend of mine made because she was so relieved to have the kids out of the house for a large portion of the day again, but I think it still works for us.

I put a twist on it though, we made it a KID-ONLY cake. Meaning, only KIDS are allowed to make it! I told them what to do, I held the bowl when they scraped it into the pan, and I put it into the oven, but other than that, this cake was made by KIDS ONLY! They were SO PROUD!

View all the photos in this here fancy photo-scrollin’-seein’ thingee below:

I haven’t showcased any kid creations for a while, but rest assured it’s not because there hasn’t been any creativity! It’s because Mommy is LAZY!

But in honor of the upcoming BRICK FAIR (which we are VERY excited about in our house! This weekend! Still time to make plans to go!) here is one of Ethan’s recent creations. (And by “recent” I mean, “has already been destroyed to make something even BETTER.”)

You can imagine Ethan’s GLEE when his class at his new (daycare) school went on a field trip to THE LEGO STORE! He came back with a clone trooper bobble-dude (the name used in MY childhood household for minifigs*) on a keychain which, through my winning charm and mommy-ness, Ethan gave to ME instead of Daddy. (HA!) (I RAWK!)

BEHOLD!

He also came home with several lego catalog/magazines which he has pored over nonstop ever since.

It’s going to be an AWESOME weekend at the brick fair.

*Just so you realize how much legos played a part in my childhood, I was actually not all that interested in them. My brothers, however, were very interested in them. Santa brought legos to my brothers every christmas, a tradition that lives on in our household to this day, except he brings them to everyone (mommy and daddy included) instead of just the boys. My brothers had a bucket filled to the brim with legos and my mother required a sheet put down before any were poured out. That’s how many there were. My brother Larry’s dog is now named, you guessed it, ‘Lego’. So, I guess you could say I’ve been training for carefully stepping over lego bricks for 34 years now!

-amy

Well, that was a quick sewing goal accomplished! The bag went very quickly with only 1 place where I had to stop and scratch my head. (Not doing the patchwork = EASY bag!) I think it took maybe 4 hours to sew all together, including cutting out.

I was going to wait until I could take prettier pictures of it, but oh well. iPhone photos below! Once again, the pattern can be purchased here.

I used the material I had left over from Jocelyn’s sundress. I did buy a new walking foot for my machine, and I must say, I wish I had bought one of these things YEARS ago. Sewing machines have this jagged little thingee that comes up from the bottom and “feeds” the material through — called the feed dog. If you have several layers however, the feed dog only pushes the bottom through and the top layer can go through at a slower speed than the bottom layer causing some wonkiness. A walking foot feeds the top side of the material through so there’s no wonkiness. This will be VERY handy on the satin binding of the baby blankets I make from time to time!

The only real question I had was the bias tape binding for the top edging and handle. The pattern calls for 1″ double folded bias tape. First of all, the tape I was looking at didn’t come in 1″ wide, only 7/8″ wide. And second of all, it looked much too wide. But, I bought some anyway and took it home. When it came to the binding/handles/tape part though, I still wasn’t quite sure. I had some 1/2″ tape on hand so I used that, which looked VERY nice. When I was pinning it on for the handles, it struck me that it would make very flimsy handles/straps. So I ended up taking the 7/8″ bias tape and folding it over – this made for a VERY thick binding/straps (my machine complained a little) but the end result is very satisfactory – nice thick handles to hang on to.

I love this bag SO much. I think it would be especially cute to do a little hand quilting on it – outline a flower or two, maybe sew on a few beads. That’s the kind of time-consuming hand work that I am not good at finishing though, so I doubt it will happen.

I definitely think I’ll be making another one of these. Or two. Or three!

-amy