FHS Patterns and a Giveaway!

Today is Day 6 of the FHS Blog Tour, FHS stands for FABulous Home Sewn, a blog written by Fenna, she is amazing and blows my mind, she has a whole passel of kids, and she sews for them all AND herself, plus  she is in charge of the Sewing For Pregnancy Care Centers, a really nice organization that helps women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant and to encourage them and show them that they are not alone--that there are people who would love to and are trying to help them and their babies!  If you would like to sew for the Pregnancy Care Center, just get in touch with Fenna!

So let's look at what I made!  I got to make both of her patterns, the Pirate's Treasure Wallet and the Perfect Petal Purse, both available through Craftsy at very reasonable prices.

A little bit of Sunshine and Rain brings the Flowers!
My son loves yellow and I picked out a few fabrics, I thought he might like and then had him decide, he looked at my selection for all of 1 second and chose the 2 fabrics he liked, lol, so not like his mama who takes days on deciding what fabrics to use.
For the exterior we used this nice bright yellow and for the interior a space themed fabric.

The wallet is a tri-fold style wallet with a small zipper compartment on the left, a vinyl pocket in the middle, and three credit card slots on the right. It also has a pocket for paper money and closes with a strip of velcro.
This is the first time I have sewn up a wallet and the pattern is easy to follow, in fact I liked it so much and it was pretty easy to do, I made a second one!

First one on the left, second one on the right

The second time around I decided to make a few changes, the first was to only put interfacing on on of the exterior pieces, you can notice the difference in the size right away, the wallet is still stable, I use Pellon TP971F Fusible Thermolam, it could have been a little too thick doubled on such a small item.  Also with the vinyl pocket I had difficulty folding it into the seam line so I cut the long side 1/2" smaller and sewed the smaller fabric strips at a 1/4" instead of the recommended 1/2" and this made it so the vinyl was out of the seam allowance, but the fabric was not.

 That zipper that you see at the top, was my son's idea, you see I don't give them paper bills, since the first Euro bill is the $5, so they get lots and lots of change, he wanted a bigger pocket for the change and he suggested making on at the top, well it worked.

zipper pulls added to both

The second wallet went super easy together and my daughter has picked out her fabrics, cause she wants a wallet too :-  but with pink Tula Pink fabric.

The Petal Purse, ADORE!

Loved making the petal purse, found the instructions easy to understand and I had no problems putting it together, I am going to make a ton of these, one for each dress I make for Kat, in fact I am already working on the second one, but it will take me a while to do it, since I am making it match her sunflower dress and I am doing a ton of french knots for the front of the Perfect Petal Purse.

 She wore it to school and the teacher's, parents and other girls all wanted one.  Now she is economical and fills her's with what is important, money.

I tried to get her to put other things in there, but nope she wanted her change in it.

The only "change" I made to this pattern was in how I sewed up the Petals, I cheated... I cut out the interfacing, I used Pellon SF101, in the petal shape, then I ironed it onto the back of a strip of fabric, put the 2 strips of fabric rights sides facing, sewed it down and cut the petals out with my handy wavy rotary cutter.

So fast and easy, okay if you want to add cute ricrac, like this lady did, then you can't cheat, but I love it when I can make things go faster, plus I am horrible at cutting with scissors.

Both of these patterns are so fast and easy to do, the hardest part for me is finding the zippers, I don't have that great of a choice here in my town.  I will be sewing these up as quick little presents, especially the wallet it is the perfect size for me to start using all of my "brick" sized fabrics, hey did you see that the Fat Quarter Shop now sells what they have termed the "Jolly Bar".

Be sure to go to the other ladies showing off what they have made with the patterns.

September 28

Nosy Pepper

September 29

From a Box

Gracious Threads

September 30

Project Destash

October 1

Filles a Maman

October 2

Sew Very

October 3

Friends Stitched Together

Secretly Stitching

October 4

Lulu and Celeste

Made By Sara

 And if you haven't yet, be sure to enter in the giveaway for your choice of one of the patterns.

September 28

Nosy Pepper

September 29

From a Box

Gracious Threads

September 30

Project Destash

October 1

Filles a Maman

October 2

Sew Very

October 3

Friends Stitched Together

Secretly Stitching

October 4

Lulu and Celeste

Made By Sara

- See more at: http://secretlystitching.blogspot.gr/#sthash.HaaQeHXq.dpuf

September 28

Nosy Pepper

September 29

From a Box

Gracious Threads

September 30

Project Destash

October 1

Filles a Maman

October 2

Sew Very

October 3

Friends Stitched Together

Secretly Stitching

October 4

Lulu and Celeste

Made By Sara

- See more at: http://secretlystitching.blogspot.gr/#sthash.HaaQeHXq.dpuf

September 28

Nosy Pepper

September 29

From a Box

Gracious Threads

September 30

Project Destash

October 1

Filles a Maman

October 2

Sew Very

October 3

Friends Stitched Together

Secretly Stitching

October 4

Lulu and Celeste

Made By Sara

- See more at: http://secretlystitching.blogspot.gr/#sthash.HaaQeHXq.dpuf

a Rafflecopter giveaway

MIA

I am so sorry, I have to apologize to my friends and blog readers, I have been slightly MIA (Missing In Action) due to a few reasons the least being that I was sick last week and my tonsils were the size of lemons, I am now on 2 antibiotics and doing fine, I can talk and breath now :)
My first reason is why I will continue to be a little more MIA, I have a major addiction to buying, or I like to say collecting, and right now my favorite thing to collect is fabric, hehe.  After College I was a collector of books, I have almost 1000 books, then movies, scrapbook supplies, stamps, make-up, essential oils and herbal/vitamins.  Spending thousands of dollars on every new "collection" after all, I needed to make sure I had everything.  My first real love of color came when I started collecting glass to do stained glass windows and hot glass work.  So addicting all of the pretty glasses, just  like fabric, the different brands the different colors, they even have limited edition collections of glass, like AGF's limited designer editions.  So when I moved to Greece I left my crates of glass with a girlfriend who owned a Stained glass Store.  I threw away the majority of the make-up and herbal/vitamins, the rest of the stuff moved with me.  I have boxes and boxes of basically unused Scrapbooking supplies, lots of essential oils and boxes of books (mostly read) and movies (all watched once).

A finish 2 weeks ago

And my new addiction happened last year, Fabric.  Last month I read a blog post written by Diane of "From Blank Pages" talking about her fabric buying addiction.  And it made me slow down, mostly slow down on my blogging and blog reading, cause I am tempted, sorry I like pretty things.  So to keep the story short, I am on a "no shopping" diet, I have enough fabrics to do a lot of things, wish I had been smarter and bought more yardage than so many FQ's, but hey that will just keep my projects small too!

My other reason for being MIA is getting the kids into school, this week has been a blessing the first 2 weeks were pure hell.  Can I tell you about Greek schools, or the way I see them.

First Day: The priest comes to bless the school (no separation of church and state, here),  A little over an hour and half at each school, Kat is going to a pre-school/kindergarten School (that her Grandfather went to school when he was young), Nik's school is just down the block from hers and it is an Elementary school, he started 1st grade.

"Second" Day of School

Second Day: Kat wants to go to Nik's school, his teacher doesn't even realize that she has included a 4 yr. old in her class, gave her a chair/desk and everything, lol, I really think we could have left her there and she would have been happy to stay.  But we forced her to leave after the teacher spoke to the parents and it was time for us to go and Nik stayed another 2 hours on the "first" day.
Well this was Kat outside of the school after I dragged her away, she weighs a ton, like cement.

Okay you can't tell to much, but she is rubbing her back up and down on the dirty car and there is dog shit all over the gravel area, do you see that piece right there?  Screaming her head off about not wanting to go to her school just up the block.  Gah, we went home.

Over the weekend my Auntie and Uncle came to visit, Monday was a holiday for our town so the kids had no school and we took them on a trip to the lake.

Third day of school:  I am so proud of Nik, he is going to school with no problem at all, what a sweetheart.  Katerina went to school with an entourage or in Greek we call it a "Parea", first it was just me and Auntie, but then she wanted Grandma to go to, so the 3 of us ladies walked her to school.  Uncle and Dad had taken Nik to school and we met them on the road so they came along with us to take Kat to school, so she had 5 adults tagging along behind her to go into school, it was hilarious, I am sure it was the largest group of adults to ever accompany any one child to school.  Well all of the yohumdinging and she still didn't want to go to school, Nope, no school.  Bloody hell.

4th day: Nik does great, Kat refuses.

5th day: Nik does great, Kat finally stays in school as long as I am outside waiting for her, she lasted 45 minutes.

6th day: Nik tells me he feels sick, I make him go to school anyways, Kat stays in school as long as I am outside waiting for her, she lasted almost 2 hours. Thank god I was outside because she ran out of the school shouting "mommy, mommy" (with out the teacher) and I was sitting in the front and I was like here I am.
        (by the way Nik was sick, he ended up throwing up that night, a Friday night and was sick over the weekend)

A new week:
Monday: Nik goes to school, Kat goes to school as long as I stay outside, for some reason the normal teacher is not here and we have the afternoon teacher teaching this throws Katerina for a loop but she stayed for 3 hours.

Okay we are doing good right?  slowly slowly she is staying longer, well I have NO idea what happened but the next day, 

Tuesday: Nik goes to school, Kat refuses.
Wed: Nik goes to school, Kat refuses.  We tell her, we have thrown away all of your barbies.  She comes home and starts to play with my curtain holders, like they are dolls.

playing with the curtain holder things, what are they called?

Thursday: Nik goes to school, we tell Kat that her teacher has a barbie for her, if she stays in school.  It doesn't work, she has a major tantrum and is screaming and yelling at the top of her lungs, the teachers are freaked out (really) and well let's just say it was CRAZY!

Friday:  I take Kat to school first, early, so early we are there before the teachers, SHE STAYS, yep, I found the ticket, she wants to be the first one there, she wants to have her teachers undivided attention for a few minutes before the other kids come.  She didn't even care about the barbie that was given to her at the end of the day, she stayed for the whole 4 hours.

Now this is what I dislike and probably what had Katerina so freaked out, the first hour and half, is free time, the kids do whatever they want and I think this kind of confused Kat, she was like, what do I do?  It's 35 kids running around getting different things out and it is very noisy.  I think this is a long time to have free time, any pre-school/kindergarten teacher's out there, is this long?  Plus they don't lock the doors till 9, so this past week, I have been staying outside till I hear it quiet down inside cause then I know they have her in the classroom and with the door locked she can't run away.  Nik one time escaped school and ran home when he was 4 so the possibility of Kat doing it is very probable.

So how is this week, pure bliss, she has stayed every day the full time, I still stay in the mornings till I hear the key turn in the lock and when it starts to get quiet, so at about 9:30, I work on my embroidery projects, while waiting and then when I leave I walk down to my favorite coffee shop, get a nice hot latte, walk by Nik's school cause then he is having a recess, still have not been able to catch his attention, but I can hear them yelling.  Then walk by Kat's school to make sure all is still quiet I try to listen for a bit so then when I pick her up I tell her I heard "....." and she thinks I have been sitting outside the whole time.  She really likes being "the teacher's helper" and I hear her greet the kids in the morning as they come in and this way she is kind of in charge, I think when I was bringing her later and all of the other kids were already there it just freaked her out, so many kids doing so many different things.

Okay all done, if you stayed this long Thank you.  here is a pretty little piece I worked on last week while waiting at Kat's school.

For a swap package.

And if you can stop by and say hello to my friend Shirley, of SimpleSew, she is having some health and family problems and needs a good internet hug, or on facebook. She is also the one who supplied me with the vinyl you see that I used in the top photo for Nik's pencil case and the really cute super hero fabric I used for the back side.