There is still snow on the ground (and in the forecast) but it is officially spring and trash picking season has begun! woohoo! thrifty may be good, but free is better. I picked up this beauty from the curb in a frozen rain the other night. And I might have spent all my good trash karma on it (trash picking is my thoroughly unglamorous hobby). I mean seriously, who throws good danish chairs away?

I’m thinking about recovering it with oil cloth, because my children always seem to be covered in peanut butter. All the cool kids are coming out with oil cloth lines these days too. Naomi Ito has a beautiful one, of course, but it might be too matchy matchy with my pillows (which I was going to link to, but I guess I never posted about them-oh well). I know Anna Maria Horner had some little folks oil cloth a while back. Any other good laminated fabric you know of? Not too girly, not too theme-y. Something just right.

This chair has had a blanket casually draped over it–hiding that big ol’ rip–for quite a while now.  It was getting pretty annoying, so I finally formulated a plan to fix it. I saw this fantasticly awesome patch job on flickr a long time ago and have been wanting to do something like it ever since.  You might remember the weird S&M vinyl sewing action here a few weeks ago, well it became a loooong strip of black vinyl hexagons (not paper pieced, I’m not that insane, you can sort of half ass hexagons on your sewing machine–see all those wrinkles? yeah, half ass).

and then using an obscene amount of glue I patched the hole. And it worked!

This chair was a trash pick by someone else and then a gift (to me!) when they moved out of town. It feels good to breath new life into it, for a few more years at least.

And for all of you who have so kindly emailed asking: no, no baby yet. I’ve been slowly loosing my mind the last few weeks and now I’ve just given up. I will be pregnant forever. Granted I’m not due until Monday, but all the signs are there and besides haven’t I been pregnant long enough? shesh.  Oh well, bring on the spicy food and sappy movies!

I bought this froggy chair from a friend of mine a while back. It’s actually hard to find chairs for kids that are in between high chairs and regular seats, well cheap ones at least. We’ve been getting by with dictionaries and just plain old kneeling, but often my daughters legs  fall asleep and then she’ll lie on the ground flailing while we finished dinner. Not really pleasant for anyone. So the chair. I guess I didn’t really mention that I was going to paint it, because everyone in my family was shocked and no one approved. For the few weeks it was at the table, it seems everyone fell in love with this god awful, garish froggy chair.  Well too bad. I just can’t stand that 80’s craft fair, dappled paint, googly eyed animal shit. And I love me some high gloss spray paint. Of course it’s still called the froggy chair. And I need to find another because the kids fight over it at every meal. I guess I better go hit up some old school craft fairs.

Oh and for all of you who subscribe to my blog via email, I’m sorry about that huge email you got with all the past posts in it. We upgraded WordPress this weekend and I guess that was the side effect. It shouldn’t happen again (and if it does, please tell me).

After a big sewing jag, I plant myself on the couch. And try to avoid thinking about all the things I told myself I would do after all the sewing was over. Unfortunately not doing things gives you more time to dream up new things and remember even more things you said you’d do. So while I haven’t been here I’ve been furiously writing to do lists. Most of them involve pretty boring spring cleaning stuff like, clean out the spice rack. woo hoo! The glamorous life of me! But I dug out my old sewing to do list and added some new stuff to it (and crossed things off!). I realized last weekend, that had it not been for this blog I don’t think I would have made nearly as much stuff as I have this past year. I have my own little cheer squad here. Who wouldn’t want that? So thank you, thank you to everyone for your comments. They have pushed me to learn more and make more and think more creatively about what I am doing. I’m coming up on my 100th post and the 1000th comment, both are ridiculous and exciting, so there will be a giveaway soon. Until then, I thought if I actually posted my to do list, I would be motivated to do some of it. Feel free to share some or all of your “to make” lists in the comments.

The chair doesn’t have anything to do with this post. It’s just a bomb chair I got for $5 at the dig and save (how come no one told me they had furniture?).

to make

plush airplane or maybe helicopter

patchwork dolls with patchwork faces

animal dolls with mustaches and clothes and patterned all over (one down!)

modern felt book

dress for me, and a shirt and if those work then some pants

pillowcase pants for my kids

hats for everyone

hem all the curtains in the whole damn house

make all new throw pillows because I can’t stand looking at the ones we have any more

mend the enormous pile of clothes to mend

quilts, plural

clean up the hole my studio has become (aids in the making of things)

more sewing books

a nicer, cleaner website

*edited to add*

pajama pants from amy butler’s in stitches

three blind mice

the dish and the spoon

recover chairs, plural

stamped placemats

cover tin cans with linen (damn you, cotton friend)

another house mobile

robes for the kids from vintage towels

today is blue in JCHandmade’s color week.

Be sure to check out skona life’s week of grey and curious bird’s lovely week of pictures too.