Bouncing Around

A couple of weeks ago, my dear sewing machine broke. I was working on a shopping cart cover (avoid this pattern for dear life…it’s written TERRIBLY and the steps just made no sense), and in the finishing steps, the nylon webbing decided that it didn’t like my needle and took it out on my beloved machine. According to the repair guy, the timing was off and some needle hook thing broke. Erg…never working with nylon webbing on a machine again….

This lovely repair costs $99. $99?! Totally not cool, but since I’ve been trying to open my Etsy shop a while, I really had no choice but to get this taken care of ASAP. 🙁 Good news: My machine will be back on the table tonight, sewing Etsy things like it’s nobody’s business.

Anyway, the past couple of weeks involved no sewing. It kind of blows, but stupid me realized that while my machine is out, I can still cut fabric, which is SO not fun, but needs to get done. 🙂

So, I cut patterns and fabrics for Christmas gifts.

Don’t you just LOVE this? It’s going to be made into a laptop bag (this pattern/this fabric). Delightful.

I also decided that my dog should dress up for Halloween. I’m that puppy mom, and I think she’d have a blast at the costume contest that Petsmart is hosting. She loves that store! So, she’s going to be a sea monster…check out the fabric to the left. It’s a shimmery looking fabric with fish scale print. 🙂 I’m sort of winging it with a simple dog jacket pattern, because they don’t make costume patterns for 40 lbs. dogs. Go figure.

To the right is a handbag that will be made with this fabric. The pattern looks simple enough, but we’ll see how this one goes. 🙂 My first lined handbag…whoa!

Oh, and packages have started to come in for the quilt block swap! From what I’ve looked at so far, the fabrics are awesome, but I’ve only received 2 packages. I’m hoping the other 3 come in soon! ::hint hint to the participants:: I can’t wait to bundle these up and send them out. Since my sewing machine broke, I didn’t get to finish all of my blocks, but I’m pretty sure I can hammer those out this weekend too. 🙂

And, new project, of course. Instead of trashing the pillows we have in the house, I’m pretty sure Millie is getting a new dog bed and our sofas will be adequately decorated as well. I want to reuse this crazy amount of pillow fluff…I’d feel terrible trashing it all now, and the gears in my head would never forgive me :). I think I have about 10 pillows total to tear into….whoa.

I’m sure most of you are thinking that I’m just plainly wacky for all of these projects looming around, but I told myself that I really need to use up some fabric. I really have too much in my basket, and don’t really have room to sprawl out with a huge stash, sadly.