How I spent Sunday

On August 27th, 1999, I fell in love with my husband and we've been together ever since. Honestly I think we were in love before this, but this is the day we celebrate as our anniversary of being together. Sunday we celebrated our 8th year of happiness. On that wonderful day 8 year ago, he took me out and missed the exit for the restaurant 3 times before getting it right. I must have been really captivating! And beautiful, did I say beautiful? Anyways, it only seemed appropriate that we spend this day adventurously too. So we headed out to Gole dell' Alacantara (Alacantara Gorge). And we got lost. Several times. But once we found it, it was gorgeous!



The water was freezing. Not like, oh, that's cold, but ouch, my legs have no feeling anymore. And no my husband couldn't be satisfied hanging out right by the stairs. We had to climb rocks and walk through rapids that threatened to take my shoes from my feet. But we finally found a pretty secluded area. In typical Italian fashion, we were surrounded within 15 minutes.
Cale had a great time throwing rocks. He hit a lady so his dad put him in timeout. So then the little boogerhead threw another rock and hit me! In the face!

We had a nice afternoon and on the way back, walked through the cave part. It looks like french fries.

Here you can see the french fries. And the man in a speedo and the other man whose package you can also see who's wearing a funny hat. (sorry guys, when you don't move for my picture, you end up on my blog.) Those things really leave nothing to the imagination!

After seeing all those french fries, we were hungry so we went to McDonalds. McD's is the only fast food here. And it is nothing like the states. Its serious stuff!! People dress up to go. The food is decent and doesn't make you sick! Its quite worthy of taking pictures when you go to McDonalds in Sicily.

And that was our day. This weekend we really wanted to go to The Zingaro Nature Reserve. It looks beautiful. We planned on camping nearby but then we heard about the bacteria in the water. :( Now I'm not sure where we will go. Its a 3 day weekend (possibly 4) so we wanted a pretty nice trip. We were going to go to Palermo, the capital city of Sicily. We wanted to see the catacombs that holds all the mummies. And I really wanted to go see Mr Nino and buy some of his lovely pottery. Its my favorite here. So now I'm sad and pouty faced. Where will we go now?

PS. thanks for all the nice comments everyone! They made my day! Jen, I'll try to get some kind of tute up some time soon. Sheena, I'll be glad to teach you! Just name a time. :D

Lots of crafting lately

1. Shirred shirt. Made with elastic thread. I wish I could say my machine handled it better but it doesn't. Also wish I could say that its flattering, but that is also not true. I still like it though...

2.Made from two camo jackets. I also made Cale a pair of shorts. Someone asked me the other day where I bought it! That's always a complement. I love the way it fits.

3. I made this last year, but altered it the other day to fit better. I put a lot of work into those pintucks (done before I had a serger or a pintuck foot!) I made it longer and made the straps skinnier.

4. Okay so I finished this months ago, but forgot to post it. I started working on this before Cale was even conceived! I had to add little panels to make it fit (Thanks Cale!) Its a halter dress. I have yet to wear it out.

NEXT ROW
5. I made this corset top. Its fully lined with bleached muslin. I decided to not use boning or hook and eyes because the fabric was so sweet. I wanted to keep it sweet so I went with buttons. This pattern was much easier than I expected. Its an older pattern, so its not in stock anymore. The very top doesn't fit well, so alterations are still needed. I just need to figure out what to do.

6. I am really loving long projects lately. I made this quilt recently and I am quite in love with it. It was very much inspired by this Denyse Schmidt quilt. I changed the colors a bit. The background is chocolate brown with a green vine and red and aqua flowers. I used really cool varigated brown thread. I'm loving the varigated thread lately. Sorry for the crap pic. I really need to take lessons or something.

7.I finished my Cabo halter. I had no invisible zippers in my stash and no desire to wait for one to come in the mail, so I made it button up the back instead. I may go back and change it eventually but for now it works. This pattern was incredibly easy to make and really fast. I actually got confused because that Amy spells out every single little detail.
Let me note that it took about a yard of fabric, even for medium. I also made this with jersey knit and it did not turn out so nice. It reminds me too much of a sports bra.

8. I bought plain white plastic and ceramic bathroom stuff so I could embellish them. They're too rounded for real mosaics so I faked it. I used tissue paper and watered down glue to make these. They need a few coats of spray paint and they should be good to go.

LAST ROW
9. Oil painting of a dandelion. My husband brought home a huge box of art supplies one night and some oil paints were in there. I finally tried them out and this is the results. Plus messy hands, a headache and nausea. :D I was really going for a not dreary typical oil painting. I kinda like it.

10. My absolute favorite creation of late. I made this skirt from Denyse Schmidt fabrics plus a strip of vintage fabric for the waistband. I was going to do ruffles but once I got some on, it seemed a little too square-dancey for me. So here it is finished and lovely.

11. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or when your husband goes through his clothes to get rid of stuff, grab stuff to make new stuff out of! This used to be a polo shirt. Its vintage and so soft, I couldn't let it go. So now its cute and girly and ruffly. I love the way the ruffles turned out.

12. This shirt used to be peach. But I dyed it red and it came out pink with red trim. I liked it so I made it short sleeved, and cut it shorter. I'm still trying to decide if it needs some Sublime Stitching. And rickrack perhaps?


I hope I have time in September for crafting. I have several baby showers coming up in the next few months so probably lots of cute stuff. Maybe some travel tags for my luggage to distinguish my black suitcase from the sea of other black suitcases. More experimenting with Sergio, my lovely serger (I just changed the thread from white to black and tried out the rolled hem!!) So more of that is due.

My Living and Dining Rooms

For Angela. Late but better than never!

Really bad pic of my living room but you get the idea. I'll post again once we get new couches in a few months.

How it looked today. We picked up another train set today for $5. This thing is HUGE, but Cale had tons of fun.


My dining room. This was taken a long time ago, but this is still pretty much how it looks.

The hutch has been reorganized several times. I think it will be repainted either aqua or mint green in the next few weeks.

2 of my favorite things from inside the hutch. Sicilian souviniers of Sicilian carts. I love the color. And look at the little bitty one. Awwwwwww.

One of my less pretty corners. Cale's picnic table and easel.

And even less pretty. The Star Wars table. Cale has no idea what Star Wars even is, so surely he won't mind if I redo it in pretty oilcloth right? He uses this table for tea parties with his bunny (not pictured) and Monkey George (he doesn't sit well on a chair, so he sits on the table).
Be glad I left out the corner that houses the recycle bin and giant dry erase board filled with the list of all lists.

Coming soon, post of what I've been up to lately, craft wise. But first check out this crazy thing:

This is growing on what I thought was a zucchini plant. However this looks like no zucchini I have ever seen. Zucchini are about this color here, but I've never seen a pointy one. And I have never seen one so large. We thought it was funny looking when it was a foot long. Now its longer than my arm and still growing. We joke that we can feed the entire block with this thing. The plant itself is pretty scary too. It has taken over my entire garden and we often say its only a matter of time before its knocking on the door. Comparisons to Little Shop of Horrors are often made.
I'll let you know how it tastes when we harvest it (and if we mutate....)

The Case of the Missing Blogger

starring Emy Lou (Kind of rhymes with Nancy Drew...Use your imagination, people).

My computer crashed and it has taken this long for my husband to figure out a way to get my info off of it and make it work again. For how long is the question. So after that it looks like I will be using his computer which I hate. Oh well.

Lots of computer free time + hot ass month = lots and lots of crafting. I really missed reading blogs but I kind of enjoyed the extra time as well. So maybe I need to designate a few days a week "computer free".

Lots of stuff coming up for us. In September, I will be watching my friend's 5 month old. I'm hoping this will help convince me that I can handle a second child. :D
In October, we're flying home to good old Norfolk. I have lots of thrifting planned, plus stocking up on stuff like apple butter (the kind from small farm stands), thread, zippers, and stuff for Cale. I wonder if I can smuggle a quart of house paint home in my suitcase. Its so expensive here! I'm hoping to get a day or two in Norfolk, then we plan on driving down to Pensacola. I want to take the "scenic route" and hit towns like Savannah, Charleston SC, and Jacksonville. These all seem like good options for places to live when we move from here. I don't know what the future holds, but I want to be knowledgable on my options when it comes to it.

I'll try to photograph everything I've made recently. And I promise to post more in the future. Hopefully I still have a few readers. :D