today's goodwill finds

So, after seeing this cute idea on Design*Sponge this morning, I was inspired to stop by the closest Goodwill on my way home earlier today. Look at all of the great things I found! All for $20 :) Gotta love it.

Vintage pillowcases for my cocktail napkin project (see above)

A cool wall hanging handmade in Peru!

Awesome green glass dishes... set of 4 for $12 :)

A lovely painting of a giraffe. He is so handsome!

A great Ball mason jar with a glass lid

Thank goodness for thrifting. It's so inspiring. I didn't find what I was looking for, an enamel pot for my yarn dyeing, but I sure found really cool stuff for 20 bucks. Amazing. Now I need to go search out the other places. I think there are some good ones down the street...and one really interesting place that's only open on Saturdays. I need to be sure to TAKE some loads to the thrift stores, too :) I found this great coat and this awesome skirt a couple of years ago at a thrift store in Nashville.  What are your favorite thrifting finds?

Tribute to Nashville

This is my tribute to Nashville. I designed it and stitched it. I will always love my Nashville, TN. ♥

posh pillows!! ♥

Here is a GREAT crafty project that will make your house even more lovely and will give you tons of crafty satisfaction! My goal this week was to buy pillowcases and make these, but lo and behold, I found CUTE fabric the other day and actually made my own!

This is from a wonderful tutorial I found online a while ago. I rediscovered it last week and just HAD to make some for myself. I'm very proud of myself for sewing these nifty pillowcases. They are quite posh because not only are they made of cute fabric with a cute crocheted edging, but they have a little pocket inside to hide the side of the pillow! See:

That is a nifty pillow. I made 2 of them and need to crochet the edge on the second one, but I couldn't be happier with how they look on the bed. We needed some more color and now they give me a great color scheme to work from for the bedroom.

Some tips when making these: 

1) take your time cutting the fabric and use a rotary cutter if you have one. I don't have a large self-healing mat to cut on, but even so, the rotary cutter gave me such a better cut than the first piece I cut by hand. Seriously. I cannot cut a straight line, as crafty as I am. Ugh.

2) I might suggest using a yarn for the edging that has a bit of nylon, silk, bamboo or something a bit sturdier than just 100% cotton. It turned out just fine, but after having to pull the cotton yarn through a bunch of times to do the blanket stitch foundation for the crochet, the yarn got a little bit worn looking at the end. Not a huge deal, but something with an additional fiber in it will probably hold up better. Be sure to use something machine washable though to make your life easier. You don't want to have to hand wash pillow cases. 

3) Iron, iron your seams, etc. It really does help as you're sewing. If you're a pro, you know this. I'm not a pro, but I realized how much it helps. 

4) The original post says to give yourself some chocolates while you work to reward yourself. I think that's a good idea, but I did not because with my luck, I'd get the chocolate all over my lovely new fabric.

I hope you'll make some of these! Here is the tutorial here. Have fun and let me know if you make some! I'd love to see your pictures ♥

dress revitalized

I love when inspiration hits, don't you? I was out shopping today and purchased this dress from Free People.

I LOVE it. It's the perfect summer dress. Maxi dresses are everywhere this year and being short, sometimes I feel like they overwhelm me. That was what was so wonderful about this dress. Being shorter in the front, not only do you not trip over your own dress, but it's much more flattering for those of us who aren't model height.

I'm about 5'4" and I LOVE long dresses. I could live in them, but many times mine just sit in the closet because I feel like they are too much for me to wear. I realized on the way home that I could repurpose some of those dresses in my closet by simply shortening the front. Yay!

Trust me, I'm not a seamstress, but if you can sew a simple hem, you can do this. I went by my Free People dress as an example and marked where the front of the dress hit on the front of another dress. (If you don't have an example dress, just try on the dress you're re-doing and mark where you want it to hit in the front.) Then I ever so carefully (not really) cut from one bottom side of the dress, up to that center mark I made and sloping down to the other side hem. I pinned a folded hem (probably approx. 1/2" hem - I'm not good at tiny hems). I ironed the hem after pinning (do this!). Then I sewed it up. This particular dress has a lining, so after doing the top layer, I essentially did the same to the lining, but made sure it turned out shorter than the top. Iron the hems again after stitching and voila!

I think I bought this dress last spring and never wore it. It touched the ground and it just looked too heavy for my frame. While the skirt is still full, now I show a little leg so it's much more flattering! This would of course work well with long skirts also. I hope you'll try something like this if you've encountered the same dilemmas as I have. Have fun revitalizing your wardrobe!! And thanks for excusing my pale whiteness in the photos :)

I'm off to shorten more dresses! Yay!

Mattie gets a haircut and I get new fun things

So, it gets super super hot in Nashville in the summer and I have a very poofy border collie. I usually get her Summer Smoothie haircut at the groomer's, because I have attempted to perform this act myself before and I know the outcome. But this year Pinky insisted we do it on our own. He ordered some clippers and was intent on 'saving' us the money. After 3 hours, a mishap with the shop vac (it blew Mattie's clippings all over the hall upstairs), an aching back for me, and a scene where it looked like Mattie literally exploded all over the backyard, we ended up with this...

It's a little rough around the edges and I would definitely not show you a close-up, but I found there's a tiny adorable dog under all that fur!!! I mean, I think she's adorable to start with, but how cute is she with a tiny body and a giant head! Here she is quite skeptical of me and is letting me know she was not happy having to sit still for 3 hours. Her reward was getting to play in the sprinkler for 1/2 an hour though, so I know she thinks it was worth it :)

In other fun news, I recently got my first hoola hoop! I'm taking a class at my neighbor's hooping studio, Hooprama, where I've been taking Zumba for almost a year now. I have to tell you...it is SO fun!! And a great workout for the abs. Here is my lovely hoop she made for me!

The part of town we live in, East Nashville, is a superb community with really interesting people. The listserve is well-used by our area and I recently found someone through it that was asking for new sewers. I've sewn a few napkins and the odd straight line here and there, so I emailed her. Look what she sent! A beautiful sewing kit with ALL THE PIECES ALREADY CUT OUT! Wow. Now this is the sewing I can get into. I loathe cutting out fabric. But I really do enjoy sewing. She needed people to test out her kits and give her feedback. I happily agreed and got this great package in the mail last week. I'm hoping to put my skirt together today. I'll let you know the result and eventually where to get these awesome kits!

Finally, yesterday I received beautiful yarn in the mail to make a new project. The sweater is called "Thulstone" and is from Louisa Harding's book Little Cake. I've had this book for a while and am excited to start a project out of it now.

It's a gorgeous striped cardigan with pretty edging. I'm making it out of Knit One, Crochet, Too's "Second Time Cotton." It is a nice weight, slightly textured cotton yarn made from recycled mill-ends. The lighter color I bought is actually more grey than the photo shows, and the edging will be in the muted teal color. I'm very excited to start it this afternoon!

Well, I'm off to trim Mattie's cut up a bit and then take the fur to my hair salon. They are sending their hair clippings from their cuts to help clean up the oil spill and have agreed to send Mattie's bag o' hair clippings along with their next shipment. I'm excited that all that work not only created an adorable summer version of my dog, but that it is also going to be put to good use. Check with your local salon and get them to send in their clippings as well. Go get a trim and help out the clean up! ♥