Of all things

My computer desktop has decided to crap out on me. It gave up the ghost last night which means alot of my pictures and shop data are currently being held hostage on a hard drive I can't access. I've 90% of it backed up to an external drive which is always, ALWAYS a good idea....BUT that doesn't make it any less annoying that I can't do my normal stuff and face the possibility of
buying and building a new computer.

Hope everyone has a much better weekend and I hope to have things fixed by Monday.

Work Space Part 2

Table 1: the sewing machine table

(forgive the dark pictures)

You might recall my previous post about my workspace and the love I have for my sewing tables that my hub's built for me. Here's the first table, the mysterious hole is the finger grab for the sewing machine drop in. Just put your finger in and lift!

(ledge & "fancy" cut out)

There's the other cut out that I keep stored on the actual ledge you see above. It's what will go around the sewing machine once it's place on the drop ledge to make it flush with the main table. The cut out rests on that tiny ledge you see below going around the opening.


Once I place the machine on the ledge, the "fancy" cut out you saw in the previous picture gets dropped in around it. It's even got a notch for the power cord to have space in the back.


See how flush that is? It's pretty sweet. The table top is covered with melamine which makes it smooth and easy to clean. The only bad thing about melamine is it chips something awful when you cut it so it can be time consuming when you're working with large pieces like this.

And PRESTO! I usually move all the stuff behind the sewing machine onto the other table to the left so I can push fabric thru without too much bunching.
That's a Pfaff 1475 machine, one of the best machines I've ever owned and it was used when I picked it up ^_^ Sadly Pfaff's are no longer being made in Germany so I can't speak for the quality nowadays, but hopefully they're just as good. Mine is about 20 years old and still kickin'.

Haven't Been Sewing Much

(new design rough sketch for Tumus)

I have been drawing and sketching for Tumus.

But alot of my energy has been on brainstorming and pondering new ideas for Pinpinn. It might be headed in a direction I never even imagined. How weird is that? But it feels right and it would give me more creative freedom. I've also been contemplating if Etsy is a good venue for how I'd like to set up and market Pinpinn's new idea. Lately I've felt a little drowned in the Etsy "economy" and I'm not alone, but it is a good site for all it's up's and down's and it does have many things other sites don't.

I'm not going anywhere yet and the idea may fizzle out. I tend to have a bad case of ADD in the Winter. My mind goes stir crazy and I can't seem to get any sort of organization to my thoughts.

So to help I ordered some vegetable seeds and plotted and planned new plants for the newest backyard flowerbed. Girl's gotta have hobbies, right?

Good Stuff

I saw these on Lupin's blog over a month ago and ended up getting one....
then I got another one, for mom....
and then a third for my sister Sarah.
The towels had an adventure getting to my doorstep since customs has been really locked down as of late. Seeing as they were coming from South Africa I was very glad they arrived when they did.


Skinny LaMinx has a really pretty shop with lots of organic prints and textures. The tea towels themselves are quite large and the print is bold and beautiful.

What a Difference a Quiet Week Makes

(1.5 inches of ice)

I think we've finally dug out. That was around this time approx. 2 weeks ago when we had our first BIG ice storm in quite a while. It took me a while to get all the pictures as the weather was unbelievably bad. I couldn't keep my lens dry for the life of me and the wind, omg, the wind.


(my road covered in ice and sleet)


In any case hope you're staying warm because it's about 15 degrees as I write this and it's windy, again. That groundhog better be right because this el Nino weather pattern is sucky. One of the local news stations posed the question on their Facebook page:

Would you rather 2 ft of snow or 2 inches of ice?

I really don't think that's a hard question because no one will ever pick ice over snow.

Nostalgic

Between the ice, the snow and the solid grey I'm itching to get outside
and dig around in the dirt and grass. I want to plant very badly.
I ordered so many bulbs last Fall that I have leftovers and I'm wondering if
they're any good and if I could force some early tulips....

In any case I can't dig in the dirt right now. So I dug thru my old photos and found
my Bon Bon Bunnies. It amazes me that I still only sold one while they
were listed on Tumus, but in a way I'm kind of glad because I love them dearly
and I sort of made them for myself to begin with.

Work Space Part 1

I have been wanting show my work space ever since I started this blog.
It's evolution is pretty amazing.
When we bought our house I only had a fold up table and fold up chair.
This was how I started out when I first joined up on Etsy.

(2007)

After that first year I decided I REALLY needed something
better and more functional.
It's taken about three full years to get it to what you see down there.
Yes it's messy, but if I didn't have a messy, used workspace you
would all think I didn't actually sew much or maybe that I was a neat freak.

(2011)

I'm going to do a whole OTHER post about those two ingenious
tables you see there. Because they are incredible for two reasons.
Chris, hubby, made them for me and they were designed to what I really wanted in a table.

The one on the right (against the non-window wall) has a cut out
drop down that I can sit my sewing machine in so it's flush with the surface, but
I can take it out and lay in another piece to make it a solid surface again. It's
actually covered up by the mini cutting mat so you can't see it at the moment.

The second table, which is the REAL masterpiece, its legs actually pull out
and the top half folds out to extend to the full size of the table beside it.
I wanted it to fold so I could have the sitting area when needed and unfold
when I do large piecing and strip cuttings for quilts.

You guys have no idea how cool this set up is. So I promise to show you
because it's too cool to keep secret ^_~

You Couldn't Have Just ONE Piece

(Lemon Cake, from Barefoot Contessa)

We've been having some pretty "awesome" wintery weather lately.
Being crammed inside due to a half inch of ice makes me bake and cook
alot more than normal. I don't know why.
It's a peculiar phenomenon that happens with all the women in my family.

I also vow to never again use fake / concentrated lemon juice. It can't
beat the real thing. I used about 8 lemons for their zest and juice
so the cake has ZING, but it's not overly tart, just right.

When the weather's grey, bake away.

Buttons Buttons, Whose Got My Buttons?

Lisa over at Lilfishstudios has been cleaning out her much envied button stash.
Naturally I had to have a bag, a whole 1 pound bag. A bag
that was randomly picked and stuffed by one of her onery, lovable and creative children.
That only upped the "I need to have it" factor. Children have a great mind
to fill any kind of bag with any number of unique



and sometimes painfully funny artifacts.




My favorite button is the "SMR" one, but I'm totally in love with all the small white
buttons that will probably work their way into alot of my pincushions.
My regular Etsy work schedule is set to start next Monday.
Procrastination will have to wait.