A flower rug

I saw this idea, and thought it would be cool to make my brother, Jonathan, a rug like that.

So I hunted through Goodwill, and in very short order, found a sheet:

Perfect.

What was not perfect was the next 10-odd hours of rug making process.  Cutting into strips and braiding it was okay - that just took watching The Office for awhile.  Not a hardship.  The problem came when I first went to sew the rug down.  I broke 7 needles (I think that was the final count).  And when I finally pulled the rug away from the machine, it looked like a giant bowl.  I was ready to throw the whole thing out.  Instead, I ripped up what can only be described as a ghastly amount of thread, pinned the rug together this time, and re-sewed.

Its still a little curvy but it is no longer a big bowl.

And upclose...

Jonathan called this morning and said something to the effect of "Thanks for my batman flower rug".  Hmmm...whoops.  Didn't mean for it to resemble a flower, but now that I look at it...

Oh, yeah, and here's his card.  This is getting to be my favorite part of any project - making a card from the leftover scraps.

Happy belated birthday, brother!

Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring. ~ Edward Gorey

Wordless Friday

Only wordless cause I'm laughing too much...

Carry laughter with you wherever you go. ~ Hugh Sidey

Something for me

My friend Sarah gave me two oversize red quilted pillow shams with the question, "Can you use these?"

Why of course I can! 

While I'm not really a red quilted bag kind of girl, here's a look at a bag I made for myself yesterday....I used the general idea from when I made Katie's leather purse, but tweaked it a bit. 

With an up-close look at the Moda fabric interior (clearance from fabric.com!)

Its a bit too big to be just a purse, so I turned it into my new work bag/purse.  It satisfies my need for variety.

p.s.  Mom - another big button!!!!

"I've neutered almost all the males in my family." ~ m.s.

New life

Its nice when I realize I can still do some things right...

African Violet babies.  :)

Finishing up my homemade watermelon wine before I head to bed.  (My coworker makes it.  And to answer your next question - it is 10 shades beyond delicious, but highly potent!)

"Gus, there are no rules against having a seance.  Anyone can have one.  It's like a garage sale.  Or plastic surgery." ~ Shawn Spencer, Psych

Maleficient

Here's some griping. 

I have one line of a Shel Silverstein poem playing on repeat in my head.  The poem goes like this: "I do not want to go to school today, said little Peggy Ann Mckay..."

The line in my head is going: "I do not want to go to work today..."

Same old same old. 

I know a lot of it is me - I need to learn to work with some people and I need to figure out a way to overcome MY shortcomings in working with them so I can help them deal with THEIR shortcomings as below-par coworkers.  Man, if that isn't passive aggressive.  But its true.  Unfortunately, with my job, their shortcomings fall on my shoulders, and then the fact that I can't be perfect and deal with their shortcomings in a perfect way falls on my shoulders too.  No wonder I have no patience.  Because I know: every misstep, every mess-up big or small.  My fault.  Doesn't matter who did it.  Its my fault.  Its starting to get on my nerves.  I told my supervisor I was starting to dread coming to work.  He told me thats something else I need to work on. 

Blargh Blah Hiss

I have all this advice roaring around in my head, so I really don't need any more.  I'm trying to walk in other people's shoes, get in their heads, see life from their direction, trying to bring them up to "my level", trying this trying that etc.  And it always falls down to one moment when I just snap and say the wrong thing the right way or the right thing the wrong way etc.  Then all the past hours of me being patient, grinding my teeth over petty annoyances, and the effort I made to help my coworker all gets flushed away.  And I end up metaphorically banging my head on my keyboard because I know I have to start all over, and do this again day after day after day.  AFTER being contacted by my supervisor who tells me everything I'm doing wrong.

And thats just on my regular shift.  Heaven help me if I work partially on another shift.  Thats a whole other can of worms.

I was told that I need to be myself while being a better version of myself.  Yes, I know.  I'm getting head-pains from all my internal eye rolls.

Wonder why I don't want to go to work?

Anyways, I'm running about 4 hours behind today because of a 12 hour shift yesterday.  Late start, and I'm already feeling blargh-ish.  GREAT!

So, here's a picture of Atticus I took with another special effects camera - Warhol style.

"Sometimes we don't do things we want to do so that others won't know we want to do them." ~ Ivy Walker, The Village

For Emily

For my sweet little niece, Emily...

Happy Birthday!

Her very own apron...with Candyland fabric.  I couldn't help it.....

Up close details....

Atticus helping to showcase the other side (yes, its reversible!)...

She also gets a matching placemat....this side has a Shel Silverstein poem on it...stamped on with fabric paint and rubber alphabet stencils.  You can tell towards the end the letters were getting gunked up.  I should have washed them out halfway through....

The other side.  Its hard to see, but there's a thread sketch of a fork/knife/spoon/plate on there.

The fork up close...

The knife & spoon...

Its all boxed up...waiting for my lazy bum to go to the post office!!

I was going to have PF Changs for dinner.

Maybe not.

p.s.  Thanks for the smile, Michelle.  :)

"I will not play at tug o' war

I'd rather play at hug o' war

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug

Where everyone kisses

And everyone grins

And everyone cuddles

And everyone wins."

~ Hug O' War by Shel Silverstein

The weekend

I had a poopy weekend.  Not in the bathroom sense, just in the sense that nothing went right and my mood was in the crapper.  It continually got worse with just about every contact I had with people both in person or via email.  I was about ready to picket the apartment office where I live.  That kind of thing. 

Even poor Atticus didn't know what to do and just about everything he did ticked me off.  Of course his list of accomplishments includes a destroyed stuffed pumpkin that he stole and muddy footprints on my bed, but still.  I couldn't seem to shake anything off. 

The only thing that went right?  My niece's birthday present.  Her mother suggested something along the lines of a backpack, so that was my goal.

I'm discovering more and more that if I have an actual picture pattern (even if I'm the one who draws it), including dimensions, and take my time, I can make just about anything by myself.  I was going to follow someone else's pattern for this, but I didn't really like anything I saw.  So, taking a good look at my old Eastpak, and a little imagination, this is what I came up with for my niece, Eden...

I used pear fabric I got last year before Christmas....I can't remember what I used it for before.  The blue fabric is from a stash I found with my mom while yard-saleing in Pennsylvania this summer.  I think it was an old pair of polyester-blend pants.  :)  

Here's another view...

The back....

A closer look at the straps.  I thought ahead and made them slightly padded.

As always, the next step will be getting it to the post office.  It will join my brother Jonathan's present, which has been sitting in a box just inside my front door for over a week now.  It will also join my niece Emily's present, which I have yet to box up.  Both of those things I will show you another day. 

Sadly enough, I'm looking foward to work tomorrow, only so it might break up my bad mood.  Likely?  Not really.  But one can hope.

"If I can do better, should I?" ~ Jim Rohn