Give a Homemade craft kit for a gift

I was rearranging  a box of fabric in my sewing room and found  a snow man panel.  I had purchased this and a Santa panel when my daughter was young.  I had made the Santa and even hung him up for several years but I no longer want to make or hang the snowman.   I thought that my niece might like to make this panel as she has 2 young children and rather than just send her the panel I thought it would be nice to send her a complete kit.  I had everything needed and I think it will be much more fun for her not have to shop for anything.  The picture below shows the batting, backing fabric, and panel.  If you look into the plastic bag you can see I have included the buttons thread, fiberfill as well as the plastic rings and wire needed to hang up the snowman when finished.  This idea could also work using any craft idea, beads, yarn, note cards, cooking items.  I hope she likes the kit as much as I liked putting it together.

New years resolutions or rather goals for 2014

Ok it is time to face the music.

When I started my blog I said that I didn't like to made resolution but would make goals.  I didn't meet most of my goals but that is really okay.  I still think goals are important so I am going to continue working toward these in 2014 and have even added a couple of items.

 1.  Start a blog and post at least weekly             

      I published 43 posts so I am 9 short by number but there were more than a week between many posts. 

 

2.  Sew a winter coat

     No, this didn't get done yet but it is cold and I have been eying some of my wools.

 

3.   Sew slacks
     I did sew a pair of elastic waist one seam pants mock up but I am not counting those even though I will probably make some in the future.

4.  Knit a sweater
     Not yet, couldn't find a pattern, yarn match that I wanted to spend money on. I can' spend on yarn, beads and fabric.

5.  Make most of my own clothing in 2013
     Yes, I did.  I prefer making my own clothes but haven't quite committed to not purchasing any for an entire year.         That would be like going on a diet, it would just make me hungry to buy something new.

6.  Clean and organize my sewing room
     Pipe dream

7.  Learn German
     I think adding 5 words to my vocabulary doesn't qualify so I need to book time weekly for this.

8. Be less wasteful
     Yes, I am less wasteful.   Before I made a purchase  I am conscious of where an item was manufactured, how it will be used and  how will it be disposed of.  This includes food as well as other goods.  The problem is that this is hard to measure.  I could take a picture of any wasted food, the amount of recycling done and the amount of trash picked up or items donated and post weakly.  What do you think?

9.  Keep my paperwork up to date.  This includes balancing my check book.

10.  Sew 2 yards of stash fabric for every yard purchased. 

Wish me luck and I hope you all have a happy and prosperous New Year.

Snow, frigid temps and empty store shelves

We have had some extremely cold weather the last couple of days.

 Luckily we had some warning and knew since Friday that we would be getting lots of snow on Sunday  and frigid temps on Monday and Tuesday.  We received about 11 inches of snow some more or less in the central Indiana area.  Shoveling snow is good exercise.  The real more serious problem is the temperature which started dropping late Sunday early Monday.  Right now it has warmed up a bit, it is -9 degrees F which is -23C  Earlier today it was -13 with a wind chill of -25 to -40 degrees F.  Baby it is cold outside.

Churches were closed on Sunday and many business were closed today and will be closed tomorrow.  This I am sure will be a financial strain for many people and small business.  I brought my laptop home on Friday so I was able to work today.

We  adopted a cat from the animal shelter and  on Saturday evening I wanted to get a couple of toys for her so I went to Walmart.  I knew that there would not be any bread or milk, but I was surprised to see so many empty shelves.  It was like this all over the store especially in the freezer case, with the exception of the ice cream  the pickings were slim.

 

Good thing I was only looking for cat toys.  She loves these and already has received 3 of the 6 to play with.