Zippered Pencil Pouch

I had been scratching my head trying to figure out what to get Sophie for her birthday. She unknowingly helped me out by asking me about making a pencil pouch for her. Well, of course I would! I had trouble locating a gray taupe fabric for her, so I had to settle with gray. For fun, I lined the inside with a light purple and off-white floral fabric.

Saturday morning, Sophie texted me a picture of the pouch in action! Happy Birthday!!!

Photo courtesy of Sophie Rah

San Jose Sharks Home Opener

I'm going to take a much needed break from blogging about my projects because: 1) I have been anti-crafting for the past week... tired, and 2) I have a life outside of crafting =)

This is definitely not a secret, but I am an avid San Jose Sharks fan. Having resided in the Bay Area for 26 of the 27 years of my life, it makes sense that I eventually became addicted to hockey. It also helps that my brother was into hockey.

The 2010-2011 NHL season began two weeks ago, and I'd been excitedly waiting for the Sharks to come home. They began their season overseas in Stockholm, Sweden playing the Columbus Blue Jackets in back to back games. This weekend, my babies finally played their home opener, and I went with the usual group of Jon, Chris, Ting, and me. Of course, I was disappointed that they didn't win (we don't need to go into how they were obviously NOT into the game during the third period). Regardless, I'm just glad that hockey is back!

Photos courtesy of Jonathan Lee

Here's a better picture of the group from two seasons ago. Left to right, Chris, me, Ting, and Jon.

Since I feel like every post needs to somehow tie back to crafting, I'll leave you with this: I am giving knitting another chance and making myself a skinny scarf with the leftover yarn from the last scarf I tried to knit. We'll see how it turns out.

Quilted Potholders (Project 8)

Quilting can be rather theraputic... I think because it's repetitive. I was working on these potholders during the San Jose Sharks and Cal Bears games this weekend. Because the potholder project seemed fairly straightforward, I ended up making two. One follows the directions exactly, and the other has my own addition of a border.

The quilting doesn't show up very well in the pictures, but I promise it's there.

Tea anyone?

Ironing Board Cover (Project 6)

This project was a total bust. I was getting pretty excited to learn how to make an ironing board cover for my almost-10-year-old ironing board from college. However, to cut the fabric into the correct shape, I needed to take apart the original cover and use it as a stencil. My ironing board is one of those inexpensive ones that has the cover stapled down. So.... instead of doing it the proper way, I used the board as a stencil which was the suggested alternative. This method made my fabric too large. Even after sewing the elastic on (and I thought I did a good job by the way), the cover was still too big.

Lucky for me, there is such thing as ironing board clips and steam irons.

Nessie T-Shirt Pillow

I can't seem to let go of my old t-shirts. Rather than donate them (or throw them away) like any normal person would, I keep making them into pillows. My latest victim was my red Nessie t-shirt that I puchased 6+ years ago in Scotland.

Hey, compared to my last t-shirt pillow project, I'd say I've come a long way. I can sew straight now!