Surprise!

It's a boy! He's not here yet, and I am exploiting him, just slightly, while he is in the womb by using him as an excuse for my absence. But for these last few months, if I wasn't working (day job, that is) I was sleeping, and when I wasn't doing that, I was too busy eating. I had every intention of posting life goals, like I mentioned 4 months ago in my previous post, but for now I am just going to be satisfied that I am growing a person inside of me and leave well enough alone.

These last few weeks I have been feeling a little more energetic, however. I bought this book at Barnes and Noble last Sunday and I have been staring at the pictures in it ever since! I think Lotta Jansdotter and I are supposed to be best friends. Her family looks so adorable, my goodness. So from the book, I sewed my first ever project from a pattern (which I found both hard and exciting). I spent over an hour at the store trying to chose the fabric for it. I kept hoping that the little fellow inside of me would give my some kind of indication of his choice pattern via some excited kicks, but I think he was tired that day. But I hope he likes this snuggie! Joseph has already asked for a matching daddy one.

It feels good to be able to share my good news over the internets! I promise to blog again soon, I actually have a couple of projects going on to share with you. Take care!

Signing off,
Nichol and bump

Hello June!

And "I'm sorry May!" I didn't sew much during May, sigh. When are they going to invent that pill that allows you to skip sleep altogether so that I can bring more Pink Cheeks into the world? On the note of bringing things into the world, I turned 29 a few days ago. I'm inching closer and closer to 30, but my wardrobe keeps inching closer and closer to my tween years. For some reason, I bought the most obnoxious pair of sneakers--they are fluorescent with hot pink laces and they make me want to skip everywhere. I enjoy them, I also enjoy that I live in a town where people respect fluorescent sneakers instead of just dismissing the sneaker-ee as some sort of color-blind-crazy-lady. Anyway, I need to make up a sort of list of goals, and I want to post it here so that I am accountable, at least in cyber-world. I want to make it good, so I need to let it percolate (spell check made me write it that way, but I sure would have thought it was spelled 'perculate') for a day or so. In the mean time, I want to post a great link to the Happiness Project----if you're in a slump or really want to work on your happiness, it's a really wonderful daily read.

Gregory

Greg polishes the buttons of his suspenders every morning. He believes it is respectful of others to have good hygiene and to wear things that are shiny rather than dull. He's a good fellow though. He doesn't scrutinize others' appearances as he does his own. Greg once spent over an hour ensuring that his mustache curls were symmetrical. He keeps an emergency mustache repair kit in his carry-all which includes a small ruler, a pair of trimming scissors, some mustache wax and a bit of chocolate because everyone deserves a treat once in awhile.

Again, I had arm issues with Greg. I just couldn't bring myself to sew them---it took me forever to motivate myself, but now they are complete and on a whim I turned one of them upside down so that it looks like Greg is in a pose that suggests he is always saying "O'Lay!"

It's rainy where I am and it is making me want to lounge around in my pajamas all day. I am a little bit sad because my husband is gone for a week. It feels strange here without him, I feel slightly lost, but I have a good friend coming for a slumber party today and she will make everything okay. Wine will be drunk and lives will be caught up on and tomorrow I bet the sun will come out and if it does, I will celebrate with pancakes.

A Mustache Man Start and Container Veggies

Things have been quiet in  my studio.  I got the urge today though to go back to the basics and make another mustache man.  He'll be wearing overalls (made out of the blue and white fabric pictured above).  I think the urge came while shopping today and spotting a man with a curly-que mustache, the really great kind of curly-que mustache in which the mustachee uses some sort of waxing product to get the curl to stay.  He was older too, with a gray mustache and I can't help but think how sweet it is that an older man puts so much effort into his facial hair.  It's just sort of nice.  Oh the little things.    

And pictured above is my container vegetable garden, which I am beaming about.  The terra cotta and red container both contain radishes and the green and white container is growing some cucumbers.  I have no idea how tall these plants are going to get, and I can't imagine the cucumber fellow being able to bear the weight of cucumbers, but I am so excited to see what happens.  I talk to them every morning and apologize for my container gardening naivete, and then I ask them if they need anything besides some water, and they politely don't request anything else, so hopefully they will live on and yield me some salad ingredients!  

Have a lovely week, and I'll update you when my mustache man is complete!

Hello There.

Sorry it has been so long.  It was even hard for me to find my blog after letting so much dust fall on it.  The blogging gods are definitely frowning on me.  This Pink Cheeks is a special request from a lovely woman who made me blush when she described how much her daughter liked Carlos Jr..  She has a bun in the oven and wanted a Mary Poppins doll for her daughter to give as a gift to her brand new, yet to enter this world sister, which I think is completely sweet.  I did Mary Poppin's body weeks ago, and then for some reason I got stuck in a sewing funk.  I was stuck.  It was like being waste-deep in tar.  Mary Poppins kept staring at me with her button eyes, sad and arm-less.  Every day I would come home from work and say, "Today is the day I sew Mary some upper limbs!"  Then, I wouldn't even be able to exert enough sewing energy to plug in the machine.  I kept imagining how the musical would have been if Mary Poppins was arm-less, and how she would have had to hold the handle of the umbrella she floated down with in between her toes and it made me so sad.  But, today Mary demanded at me that I suck it up, take a spoon-full of sugar and sew her up some arms!  And I did!  Woo!  

In other news, my husband, Joseph, finished his MFA degree!  I am so happy and proud of him (and also excited that he finally has time to do laundry again).  I wanted to include some images from his thesis show for you to Ooooooh and Ahhhhh at:

Enjoy the sunshine!  

The Pleasantly Plump Stylish Ladies Complete!

The Stylish Ladies are done!  I don't know which is my favorite, the senior lady or the tiniest one with the bee-hive, but they all sort of make my giggle.  They will be up in my shop shortly.   

The dance that I mentioned in my previous post was intensely fun, though none of my photos were post-worthy, sorry.  It's a shame too because one of my most favorite clients wore this dress from the eighties that had the most emormously puffy sleeves you could ever imagine.  It was completely great.  

So, has mother nature gone completely mad?  I don't know about where you are, but by me there were flurries!  I am boy-cotting though.  I WILL not wear my winter coat any more!  No sir.    

What My Saturday Looks Like

My Stylish Lady Matryoshka dolls are going to need another day for me to finish them up.  It makes me laugh that I am calling them "stylish" and currently wearing black tights with white shoes.  I am all dressed for the Stone Belt spring dance.  Joseph (husband) made a comment before that I am not so good at style "from the ankle down", otherwise I wouldn't have Googled is it okay to wear white shoes with black tights just to be sure I was in the clear, which I am definitely not.  I am not, however, a "shoe" person.  I don't have any alternatives, so I am just going to wear them and pretend that I am "fashion-forward".  I am very excited about the dance, regardless of my fashion no-no.  I never went to a prom, and even though most of my friends say I didn't miss much, and then they recite the horrible-ness of it all, I think a prom-nightmare-story is better than no-prom-story at all.  But now, finally(!) a decade later, I get to redeem myself at the Stone Belt dance!  Woo!  

I will update you tomorrow on Monday with pictures of the event, the shoes and the finished matryoshkas which will be up in the shop then! Enjoy your Saturday!