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Today’s Post Brought to you by the color ORANGE

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To show you some orange I figured I’d show you what Zander and I did today. We made some Bears and colts colored paper chains to decorate.
First up you need one bored soon to be four year old (curious bassett hound included)

orange! and blue strips

Ok is you home like this? anything on the floor ready for you to work on quickly and i do mean quickly results in this:

Yes the hounds have to come stand or sit on ANYTHING you put in front of you. This also happens in the sewing room On monday they were impossible.

now zander will demonstrate

look how intent he is about holding the glue down!

hold it up!

we hung them over grandma’s and grandpa’s chairs. Since grandma is rooting for the colts and grandpa for the bears this weekend.

Posted by Jennifer on 01/31 at 04:30 PM ♥ Comments (5)

It ain’t easy being green

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I looked around the house today and there was plenty of green lurking around.

how about a bassett hound in her blankie which is green?

Two new pouches we put up in the shop today.

New fabric Wendy ordered that arrived today.

A sleeping beagle on the green sofa

Nat’s favorite sesame street character and Mr. Pickles

Posted by Jennifer on 01/30 at 02:54 PM ♥ Comments (4)

Favor Completed

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Again. I APPRECIATE (yes in giant letters) everyone looking far and wide for monkey socks. Because hell, i’ve now been to all the targets with in driving distance from me and nat. So Amy (Seacrest OUT!) has managed to out do herself in finding monkey socks. She even pushed people out of the way and dug thru the clearnace racks. Now that’s a trooper. So y’all don’t have to look anymore, but if you happen to find a pair you can still let me know. (free stuff still abounds) I just wanted to say i wasn’t planning of crafting them into anything..i was just jealous of the pair Erin got for her b-day. ANd the lil sock monkey was SO cute and i am a sock freak. So if you ever need a favor just come callin’ i’ll look far and wide for you as well. Now amy i can’t thank you enough...but you’ll be getting a giant box of prizes and other assorted things as soon as the damn donuts show up from UPS! I can’t thank the bloggiddty-blog-blog world enough!

Posted by Jennifer on 01/29 at 06:27 PM ♥ Comments (6)

Monday Blues

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I wanted to thank all of you who might have taken a minute to breeze past the sock section at your local target for me. So far it’s a no go. I’ve checked all my local targets now, to no avail. I’m hoping one of you will stumble upon a pair and want some awesome free stuff in return. So now on to the colors!

Who’s blue? Miss Stieve over at Trudesign has got your color. Please feel free to participate.

Ok so i kind of prepared for this one this weekend. While sewing at Nat’s sunday i looked around for some things that are blue.
Nat’s Sock Dog i made for him years ago with his Happy Whale

Simon’s buried food dish-- what’s blue? all those milk rings he plays with!

Some of Nat’s Silkscreen posters

And when i got home a birthday present from Dixie (in addition to the one i ordered!)

Posted by Jennifer on 01/29 at 12:32 PM ♥ Comments (2)

I need a favor

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Does your local Target have these socks?
If you are able to send me a pair you will get a free Valentine’s pouch and other prizes. Please!! (my email is jenniferATpiddleloopDOTcom)
I promise I’ll make it worth your effort!
*** edited to add:
they should be in the clearance section and under 3$! Also i’ve checked about 4 targets with no luck this is why i am asking for a favor!

Posted by Jennifer on 01/27 at 10:20 PM ♥ Comments (14)

More things

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I managed to catch what was going around my sister’s house this week so sorry for the lack of posting. Thanks for all your suggestions on what you think the bunnies are doing. I’m glad to see almost none of you agree with nat. hee hee hee. They are *so* not dancing.

ANYWAYS...some great people out here in blog land took time to make me something awesome. Behold this BEAUTIFUL handmade card that showed up in my mailbox this week! From lisa over at bunnylog. She used beautiful yarns and it was so pretty..even the envelope! thank you so much for taking the time to make me this beautiful card lisa.  You should check out her blog, she takes really beautiful pictures and has a cute dog named skippy!

and Amy from Amyville totally rocks. She already knows that, but well she just plain does rock.
She took the time to send me some little birthday gifts. She even sent my sister a little necklace. (Wendy says thanks!) She said the beads in the necklaces and the gum even came from Hawaii where she recently went on vacation. She is so thoughtful. But included in her package were:


sanrio trinkets, oragami papers, a sock monkey kit!!!, and a japanese crafting book on beading. so very sweet of you amy.
here’s the necklace..i’m not sure how yummy sushi AND cupcakes are together? but i will assume they are delightful cause they look delightful together here!

I’ve been antsy this week even tho i have been sick. I have been knitting up some Fetching gloves for some people. And i’ve been a sewing fiend. I sewed another purse with my modifications on the handles. Yes people, lengthen the handles by an inch (1/2 in) and this will ease the sewing the lining woes BIG TIME. I call this purse strawberry shortcake cause the pink and light blue well just scream it.


and i sewed up a swingbag while the state of the union was on cause frankly i’d rather be sewing. This little number went to a particular birthday girl later int he week as a gift (sans the beautiful loom flower katy gave me)

I’ve got a little swap going on with Suzy over at Purlygates So stay tuned and you will see sometime soon what i sent to her for our january birthday swap. I hope she likes it all.
Ok i must get packing to leave for the city! Have a good weekend y’all. Oh and one more thing. Stevie left me a note this morning that she is hosting a color week next week. SO please try to play along if you feel so inclined. I will do my best to try to play along.

Posted by Jennifer on 01/26 at 12:51 PM ♥ Comments (6)

pictures

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ok so check out the new to me awesome sugar bowl, creamer, and fancy pants spoon. Courtsey of Nathaniel..my talented art director who shot the photos.




They are red plastic and tres chic. And now my tea is more fun to drink with them around. Plus they make me think of nat’s family and how awesome they are.

ok. we’ve got a major update going down in the store tomorrow. see all of these i need to add and photograph for tomorrow? here’s stack one and stack two.




Plus we have THREE different kinds of valentine themed fabrics from Moda. The insides have white with red or white with pink hearts inside. these turned out super cute and i find it hard not to take one of each for myself.

You can see we’ve been busy these first few weeks of january.

now for an important poll. I need for y’all to look at this poster Nat hung up this past weekend and tell me just what do you think those bunnies that face each other...what do you think they are doing.
Nat thinks they are dancing.
I think many things:
A. They want to arm wrestle
B. They want to fight all Shaolin kung fu style
C. they want to play a hand clapping sing-song game with each other
ok what do you think?


tomorrow perhaps i’ll share my sewing purses extravaganza. I finished two more purses tonight. I have mixed feelings about one, but it hink it would make a great knitting project tote.

Posted by Jennifer on 01/22 at 10:53 PM ♥ Comments (12)

Stuff and things and a mememememememe

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I’d like to thank each and everyone of you who left me a happy birthday message. That was so incredibly nice of y’all! I tried really hard to make sure i emailed all of you back, but i think i missed some of you. I do thank you, email on my birthday made me feel special! Especially since we were getting pounded with lake effect snow.

I’ve got nothing as far as pictures. I need to work on those for you tomorrow. I got the BEST gift from nat’s mom (the snoopy wrapped box!) I’ll show you this week, if i can get Nat to take a picture of it. (it’s at his apt) I drink alot of tea, most of y’all know this about me. Nat’s mom and i drink alot of tea when i am there. She has a fabulous sugar bowl and sugar spoon. I tell her how cool it is everytime i visit Philly. She sent it to me with the matching creamer and my very own silver fancy sugar spoon. It may have been from Nat’s great aunt grace’s house, he says she had a red kitchen. All i can say is i always think it is so special when people will share something old, that has been in their family for a long time. See I had three sets of grandparents ( my dad was adopted) and yet we somehow ended up with very very VERY little to keep in the family and to pass on down. Now you know why i think it is very special when Erin will pass something of Aunt Ida’s to me, and i feel the same when Nat’s family does it. It makes me feel very special.

Ok secondly....GO BEARS! oh yes. the monster’s of the midway will be playing the colts two weeks from today. We came to my parents house to watch both games tonight. My dad has the WALL-O-TEEVEE. He has one of those 60 inch high def lcd tv’s. It’s teevee for blind people. But it’s great to watch a game on. We watched Lovey lead the bear’s to victory and watched tom brady cry in his helmet when the colts came back to win against new england.

And third. i was tagged by Raechel of tinkerblue ( i fear i spelled her name wrong) for the 6 weird things meme. I thnk i did it before but i’ll do it again cause i’m pretty weird.  So i share with you more weird things about me.

1. I know y’all know about my irrational fears. This is another one of them. One that scares the daylights out of me. I will not ever, and i do mean EVER ride a bus with one of those accordian extendo thingies on it. I SWEAR it will turn and the rest of it will not follow one day, i know it will happen.

2. I cannot open anything, ever. Bag of M & M’s i tried to open last week 3/4ths of the bag went flinging out. Can of soda forget it. Cd wrapped in cellophane..can’t do it.

3. I too and i believe Erin said this, cannot screw a lid back on right on the first try either. I always cross the threads on it too and it’s always crooked or messed up.

4. I cannot ever sleep in a room with any sort of blinking light. The blinking light will drive me crazy. I will complain about it until you cover it up or make it stop blinking. NO AMOUNT OF TELLING ME IF YOU ARE SLEEPING YOUR EYES ARE CLOSED AND YOU CAN’T SEE IT WILL MAKE ME STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

5. I hoard magazines. I have an entire stack of sassy magazines. I also have the first 25 (and loads more) numbered Readymades. I have bust dating back to the mid 90’s. I also have punk planets dating back to 1995. It’s quite embarassing.

6. the most important weird thing about me. I do not ever want to be touched on/in my bellybutton. If you try to touch me there i will fight you. You will probably die. This action makes me feel like i have to vomit. This also makes it extremely difficult for me to fish lint out of my bellybutton. And again...irrational fear i know. but i swear your bellybutton can come undone and my guts will come flying out like those cans of snakes you open. And guys...raechel sent me an email describing how her bellybutton OPENED UP and there was a GAPING HOLE there. I wanted to vomit for like 20 min after i read that email. I was also horrified after reading that. Please no bellybutton coming undone stories. or else i’ll have to fight you.

Posted by Jennifer on 01/21 at 10:37 PM ♥ Comments (7)

Birthday

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Today is the day i am 22 for the 12th time. YES!
so let them eat cake! (thank you again ms. amy for her gift last year of cake!)

Nat is just so BRILLIANT (guiness commercials) and awesome. He always remembers i love lucha libres and tea

and books and cartoons

and he got me a jump drive to transport files from Pc to Mac easier.

And while watching the Bears beat Seattle sunday i started to whip this new fangled amy butler Uptown handbag up.

Now can any of you who have made this bag tell me just how in tarnation i am supposed to sew that lining to the exterior EASILY? those handles do not make it easy, altho i wonder if you lengthen the handles a smidge if it would work better? Anyways, even with help from super-sewing-mom TM i still got some wonkyness just where one of the handles meet. *meh* It’s pretty. I used a cardboard like interfacing for the bottom only since it was the price of gold per ounce. And just our heavy duty interfacing on the sides.

Posted by Jennifer on 01/16 at 02:10 AM ♥ Comments (29)

Pictures Galore

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My sister and I want to thank everyone who went and voted for us. We appreciate the fact that you took 10 minutes out of your busy life to figure out that voting process! We thank you and we hope we win. So don’t forget to vote, we’ve got the rest of the month to try to win!

I finally got my xmas present from mom and dad, it didn’t arrive til this weekend. I no longer sew on a machine from the 1960’s. It’s all weird to me and modern like and quiet and most importantly it has a handle. So i can take it to chicago on weekends i need/want to sew.

I also have a FINISHED KNITTED OBJECT *DUN DUN dunnnnn* to share. the purple cashmereino scarf for a close friend. (ends not finished yet)
done in seed stitch on size 10.5’s. It’s 4 skeins of dark purple and just a smidge of 1 skein of light purple for some fun stripes

I got a b-day present to myself this week again from Meg of twisted. I ordered this Neapolitan coloway from her and I want the Flux colorway, but have to wait until I get paid. (ah the life of a freelancer!) But she sent along a small skein of flux so i can check it out! how awesome of her!

Also here’s that Snoopy paper I mentioned a post back. I can open it tomorrow on my birthday!

Posted by Jennifer on 01/16 at 01:39 AM ♥ Comments (4)

Holy cannoli

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mmmm cannoli. My sister and I know that our little shop isn’t the most popular thing in the world. We do know that we have exqusite quality and i try really hard to have excellent customer service. But we just got nominated for something. Wow. pretty cool...only problem is this something takes VOTES. Yes my friends. Apparently you have to vote for us...if we have enough people vote for us, we would get a nice feature for the month. Now how cool is that? So please go here and vote for us...we are used to not being popular...but it would be cool to win something like a feature! neato!

Posted by Jennifer on 01/11 at 01:18 PM ♥ Comments (8)

UPS and Degrassi

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I ordered some fabric and a new amy butler pattern to do some personal sewing at some point this month or next. When i saw the brown truck pull up i thought wow that repotdepot is FAST. I just opened the box thinking it was my fabric. I immediatley knew i was WRONG when i saw packing peanuts and thought...ut oh. So upon closer inspection on the front label i see nat’s mom has sent me a package. It is a box wrapped in really awesome snoopy paper, showing him through the 60’s to present. My favorite snoopy is a tie between the 50’s and 60’s versions.

ANYWAYS, I remembered oh right I have a birthday on January 16th. I probably shouldn’t open it. So it is sitting on the table. We’ll see how long that lasts with the soon to be 4 year old running around. He can become obsessed with packages. It was quite fun to open a package even tho i thought it was something else. Y’all can feel free to send packages,no really. Even if it’s a box of paper clips i swear it will be the coolest thing ever.

I have to thank Meg for posting this, because I swear i spent 25 min reading the ENTIRE thing. Please feel free to school yourself on Degrassi. Also I am an addict of Degrassi The Next Generation, and last friday the N started the newest of the broken up season’s. And it is a doozy, with Craig and Manny snorting up cocaine. My my. I am glad my bra post has gotten a collective hurrah out of my women peers. I knew i wasn’t the ONLY one out there. 

Posted by Jennifer on 01/10 at 04:20 PM ♥ Comments (4)

Frustration (more)

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Can i get a collective *sigh* from my women peers. I have been trying to Bra shop for the past 3 weeks. Yes. Now you understand my pain. As women we HATE bra shopping probably as much as shopping for jeans. We buy 5 or 6 bras and wear those til they are on their last leg. Even then we try to still wear them. Apparently all of my favorite bra’s (or the ones that still fit) have died like lemmings all in the past month. And OF COURSE the place where i originally bought them does not sell this kind anymore. So when you want to pay about 10-15$ per bra and get about 7 new ones, you can feel my pain. And of course i’m not one of those people who like to pad them, so i don’t like 98% of the bra’s out there. I have managed to find a good deal at Sears (which by the way has racks and racks and racks as far as the eye can see of bras-who knew?) and i’ve lucked out at target. I am so happy i am done bra shopping now and i can just wear these til they look like they will disintegrate off my body. *sigh*

Posted by Jennifer on 01/08 at 10:46 PM ♥ Comments (12)

Can you tell where we live?

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We made one of these for our Dad, who got an Ipod Nano for xmas. He needed something to put it in to keep it from getting dirty and scratched. Hence these were born.




So i suppose you can tell we live outside of Chicago, and have been bears fans all our lives too? Anyways if you know someone who is a bears fan or needs something to house their ipod nano’s in please direct them our way. We can help for only 6 bucks. How awesome is that?

Posted by Jennifer on 01/07 at 07:06 PM ♥ Comments (6)

Last Thing

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Ok here’s what i wanted to show you. It’s pretty cool. In september, during Renegade craft fair, Nat loved paintings by Johanna Wright She sort of “inspired” him to get his paintings out there. She has really great work check her out, she also has affordable artwork. Anyways in the December/Jan issue of Venus Magazine there is a little interview with her. She was asked to recommend other affordable art. And low and behold she mentions NAT! check it out. How cool is that? I think it’s very cool.

Ok so to add some filler I was practicing my photo taking skillz tonight with some more awesome things i received today....

First I saw Kristen, who was sneaky and led us all to believe she wasn’t still in town! Her mom made these super pretty stitch markers. They sparkle.

I also ordered these for fun. I told the shop owner the color choice was too hard because they are both so cool. And she was so inclined to send BOTH sets.  Please go check out her etsy shop and support handmade folks. People are hard-working crafters out there!! Thank you Miss Purl!

And January is the month containing my Birthday. I am obsessed wth garnets. I picked this up for 30% off in Philly. yay!

p.s. I am glad to know there are many Degrassi and Degrassi TNG fans out there. I keep telling Nat i am not alone and he refuses to believe me.
p.p.s. I’m also glad some of you LOVE the bacon band-aids as much as i do. mmmm bacon. Did i mention i have an OINKING PIG LIGHT?

Posted by Jennifer on 01/05 at 12:36 AM ♥ Comments (6)

More

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The stuff I wanted to show you today is some stuff I nabbed off ebay. I bought this sock yarn off esty back after thanksgiving and i recently purchased another ball from her. Her name is Meg and her shop is here. She also has a blog here.

here’s a shot of the two skeins.

her yarn is so soft and the colors are vibrant. She is very affordable compared to others and I highly reccommend her. I’ve even convicned her to send me cards (i’ve been sending out with project pouch orders) and she sent me new ones with little skeinlettes on them!

Meg is top notch in customer service and affordable for high quality. Please check out her blog and her shop.

I also picked up some of these for fun. They came from this link.

I also have ONE more thing to show you. I’ll shoot it later and show you tonight. 

Posted by Jennifer on 01/04 at 12:11 PM ♥ Comments (1)

Holiday Good Times (or really big annoying picture post)

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Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you all had a nice warm totally awesome holiday. My sister and i enjoyed the time away from the sewing machine.  I left for the east coast with Nathaniel to hang with his family for 6 days.
Philly December 23, 2006

There are loads of kitties at the Wilgus’ house. Here’s Mr. Hairpiece snoozing on our bed.

We went to Fabric Row and bought millions of zippers

Hung out in the park because it was nearly 70 degrees and i caught Nat frowning at something in the distance while shooting with his new fancy-pants camera.

We also happened upon this GIANT mirror just on the sidewalk.


Also I don’t believe I took this picture. I think someone snapped it for me. Nat doesn’t SMIRK, he only frowns...in every picture. (look at his fabulous eyebrows, the Belh Brow is a good brow oh-la-la)

Nat’s mom made tons of these for me to eat

And she got some of the coolest gifts (last year’s HK toaster) Hello kitty coffee maker (not pictured HK popcorn popper)


Here’s the chopstic holders and chopsticks i sewed for nat’s mom and sister


Nat’s bro got a Wi and we played it all xmas morning, here’s nat boxing.


Nat’s family does a White Elephant Xmas exchange. I got a knit soap poodle from his Great Aunt Grace’s house, named Pierre (who is in need of some meding) and a japanese crafting book with knitting AND sewing...thank you SANTA. (you totally rock by the way)

I got a lot of gift cards from his family, thanks guys. My family got me a sewing machine (on order) and an external harddrive.
Nat got me this stuff: yes i watch Degrassi JR High, I am also nutzo-out-the-buttzo for Degrassi The Next Generation too. mmmm bacon band-aids, and because i am always the piggy some cram cream piggys. Oh and the boy bought me sock yarn, he is such a good catch.

and now for the yarn...i always buy yarn in philly because it is tax free. Yes you heard that right folks. TAX FREE YARN. I forgot to post the yarn i bought in Sept. So here it is MANOS RIO DE LA PLATA and some trekking


and this trips yarn:
MANOS RIO DE LA PLATA and trekking..i buy the same yarn just different colors.

ok i think that’s enough pictures for now. I have two more things to show you tomorrow. WOO WOO!

Posted by Jennifer on 01/03 at 10:52 PM ♥ Comments (9)

We miss the Masters

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Before I go off posting about the holidays and such...I wanted to take a minute out to let y’all know that some very important people in the world of old old old school blues passed away last year, mostly in the last months of the year.  We had the opportunity to see ALL THREE of these men play the MASTERS SET this past June at the the Blues Festival in Grant Park. I am so happy Nathaniel turned me on to all these guys and drug me down there. Because now three of them are no longer with us.

First, Henry Townsend passed away Sept 24, 2006.


and here is nat with him after the show


this man also had FABULOUS SHOES. I am so not kidding. They were orange and alligator and just freakin’ amazing.

Next we say goodbye to Robert Lockwood Jr. He passed away on Nov. 22 2006. He had a fabulous blue guitar.
robert jr lockwood (too bad there’s a chair blocking his really pretty blue guitar)


and after their set we were wandering around, we found them signing autographs in a tent. Robert Lockwood Jr, Robert Townshend, and Honeyboy Edwards.

and last but not least on Dec 13th 2006 “Homesick” James Williamson passed away. Nat and I loved Homesick James’ set because he was so funny about being old and stuff.
Homesick james with his apprentice


close up

The only one left from the Masters Set is David “Honeyboy” Edwards. He is my favorite. He is also 92, so catch him if you can when he plays the Hideout with Devil in a Woodpile or if he’s hiding somewhere at the Blues Festival this year!

I am sure the blues world misses these great masters...i can certainly say Nat and I miss them as well. 

Posted by Jennifer on 01/03 at 11:19 AM ♥ Comments (0)