Putting it together

Howdy, all. Happy St. Patrick's Day. I must admit that we did absolutely NOTHING in honor of the day. No green. No corned beef. Nada. I kind of forgot about it.

But we did have a good day. Meggie and Alan went to the flooring store and ordered new flooring for our entryway and both bathrooms. Yay! Then then tromped around outside for about an hour. Man, was she beat. She was begging to go to sleep: "Can I just go lie down in my bed for a little bit?" Funny.

Laurel did her usual thing: rolling around on the floor, playing. You know, the grind.

I lounged around pretty much all day. I sewed Laurel's top. I guess it's not finished, because I'm supposed to apply single-layer bias tape. I think I'll just make a strip out of the material. But after I declared the top finished, I re-read the directions and found that they differed from what I had done. And, while I'm at it, let me just say this about the sewing pattern: " 'Simplicity' my eye." The instructions might as well have been diagrams for assembling a nuclear ("nuke-you-lur") reactor. But I learned A LOT from making this top, and look, Mom, sleeves! Alas, not Greensleeves.

Little wrappy shirt.

It's a little big right now, but by the time I finish Meggie's shorts and Laurel's pants, the top will be just right.

Another look at the ribbon ties.

This is what I'm doing with the remants. No patterns or directions. I'm using all the different colors, patterns and textures to make a 9x9 inch quilted cube for the girls to play with. It's just mindless and fun.

I'd like to put in a quick plug for using tackle boxes and toolboxes for craft storage. Of course, I also had a tackle box for ... tackle (quelle surprise). But I ran over Alan's tackle box with the jeep when we last went dipnetting, so he appropriated mine to himself. But I've always been a fan of tackle boxes. My sewing (tackle) box is heavy-duty, water-proof and functional, and it cost only 6 bucks! That's half the price of the cheapest sewing box I could find, and I didn't like the ones I saw. And there's the added benefit that the sporting goods guy at Wal-Mart got all agitated when I told him I was going store my sewing stuff in the box to which he had just guided me. It made me chuckle a bit.