the twilight scoody

Whenever I finish sewing something I show it to my husband.  Much like a child says to their parent “listen to this! watch me!”, he feigns interest at this point… I think it’s to encourage me to show him *only* the finished product, not the 59372 steps in between.  He calls it “inspection”, and my work is usually “approved”… sort of a quality control I guess 😉

I can tell when he really likes something that I’ve been working on because his eyes get really wide and he usually says something like “WOW”… if he doesn’t care for it he makes a face, then pretends that he didn’t make the face, then asks me pointed questions to guide me to the “right way”.

When I showed him this new scoody, his eyes got really wide.  Then he told me to flip it around (they’re all reversible) and said I looked like a vampire.  It’s totally a vampire scoody!

He thinks that the black side out looks more vampire-ish, but I think the black side in is cozier.  I do have to tell you that this black rose swirl fabric was the WORST to cut.  I’ve cut and sewn shag minky and it wasn’t as bad as this stuff.  It looks like black muppet exploded all over the kitchen and the static is keeping all of it attached to every surface.  But it’s pretty snuggly…

more monkeys!

I was going to name this post, “monkey see, monkey do”, but then I figured out that I had already used that name! So I failed to come up with anything witty for this title, but I’ll be sure to put more thought into it for the next monkey post… because you know that there will be more! I’m actually writing this on Wednesday May 18th, but I’ve scheduled it to appear AFTER the long weekend. AFTER the surprise birthday party for my MIL. I don’t think she’s ever read my blog, but I don’t want her to stumble upon it and ruin the surprise, and I’m really terrible at writing about things after the excitement has worn off, so I figure this is the best of both worlds!

ANYWAYS, besides the birthday party being a surprise, my husband also got me to make her a blanket:

and this is where the monkeys come in! It’s about 60″x72″, the front is a minky pink with monkeys all over, and the back is a chocolate shag. It’s such a beautiful color of brown that I ordered enough for 3 blankets, one yet unfinished, the other one I test-drove last night and am proud to announce that it is of the high ninja-quality that you’ve come to expect.

I find one of the most feminine things in the world to be pink camo. Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard, but I think it’s delightfully delicate, while still being powerful and tough. So here is “chocolate camo”:

This one is also about 60″x72″, and I have another yard of the camo, for which I have other plans already. I’ve learned a whole lot about sewing with minky and especially working with shag, but I’ll save that for another day.

tear… :'(

You would not believe what happened last night:

That big brown furry beast is the minky shag that I was trying to sew.  That white part sitting on top of it is the automatically needle threader that BROKE OFF ARM AND ALL!  I don’t know what happened, I was sewing along and stopped to clean some fluff out of around the needle post, and then in the next step, *SNAP*. I would try gluing back together, but it broke into 3 pieces and I can’t find the other piece.  I looked online and you can get replacement metal pieces, but I think I’m slightly hooped now.  I use it SO MUCH that I was considering phoning the sewing machine place and asking how much it would be to get it fixed.

And I only cried a little!

lime is the new black

After the owls & chocolate minky blanket I made as a housewarming gift for my friend, her brother came to live with her and he decided that he wanted one too. Now pink and brown is kinda girly, so I chose the whales in the carnival colorway with a lime green dimple dot, and I quite liked the punch that the green gave!

So there I am, thinking how much I like that green color, and how the store where I bought it at tried to get more in and can’t, and I saw a gorgeous lime green minky shag.  This is at the same time that I got my husband’s black shag for his man cave blanket, and he started telling me every day how amazing the minky shag is and how I need my OWN minky shag blanket. So I made one!

And I LOVE it!  This one, like the other shag, is about 72″x60″ making it the perfect size to curl up underneath and snuggle up to! And the green makes me forget that just last week, our house looked like this:

And there’s likely going to be more before summer is officially here.

the man cave

My husband has decided that he likes watching tv in the basement.  He bought a beautiful new leather chair, a very soft new chunk of carpet, and a bluray player that connects via wifi to netflix.  I started calling it his “man cave”.  But it’s very cold in the man cave (aka, unfinished basement) and I could tell that he needed a blanket… but it had to be one manly enough for the man cave:

black argyle is pretty manly

A minky black and white argyle from shannon fabrics was just the ticket. I paired that with a black minky shag and ended up with a blanket that was superbly soft and very warm! It measures about 72″x60″, so there’s more than enough room to tuck it around the toes and even pull it up to the nose, yet feels like some sort of wild animal on the back… very manly. I even managed an action shot! Very rare…

a man in his natural environment