Before and After

First of all, thank you guys for your nice words about the sweater. It's really nice wool. I was so jazzed by the success that I started contemplating a sweater for the boy on Friday. I found it on froogle at Roxy Yarn on sale for $7/hank on Friday. They had other interesting sale yarn, including Noro Big Kureyon and Noro Silk Garden. I haven't bought anything from them before, so I can't vouch for anything other than the price.

As far as the quilt goes, I think I'm going to stick with my original plan for the square layout. Going back to the photograph, I really liked it again. I'm having a nephew! Friday I picked up some solid light blue for the border. It was tricky - the blues that I thought were going to be good (kind of an aqua), really fought with the red. And you know what was a cheap thrill? I brought one of the blocks in to Joann's and got props from the cutting table lady (I'm afraid I might be a regular there) for the color choices.

Saturday I sewed up 5 tote bags and rearranged LaLa's room. Sunday we went to a friend's house in Tampa - to help them paint the outside. They're getting ready to sell it and move back to Orlando. So if you know anyone who wants an affordable and cute house in Tampa, let me know, and I'll direct you to the right person. [mrsngo .at. hotmail .dot. com] And that's where the story of before and after begins.

I have a good before and after story - seeing hand made gifts in action is always a cheap thrill. Sunday I saw this:

and upon closer inspection, saw this: That would be worn spots. [I swear I didn't look in the medicine cabinet or do any real nosing around.] These hooded towels are made out of one regular bath towel, half a hand towel for the hood, and a strip of coordinating fabric on the brim. One of DH's old architecture school buddies wife made one for LaLa when she was a new baby, and it still works for her at 3 1/2. I "reverse engineered" it and made them for gifts for a few people since. Fortunately, it looks like the tricky sewing parts (I bought thicker towels than I really needed to, probably. It is hard to resist a fluffy towel.) is holding up, so that's good. {BTW: if anyone is interested I can write up a tutorial. This is a really good shower gift. My sister loves hers too.}

I also saw this:
You may recall it from here. It looks loved and like the ends have held up (I'm glad I square knotted them - they did come unwoven.)

When we got home from Tampa, we got a message from the Cub Master. The banner that I sewed in 2004 didn't have the right day of the week on it for School Night (the night where they recruit new scouts from the monkey's old elementary school). When I first made it, it looked like this: When we got it from the Cub Master last night, it said "Join Cub Scouts Wednesday." We had to change it to this: It really needs a bath after it's tenure on the fence this week, and I'm not sure how many more times we can sew on new letters. The needle holes in the yellow fabric are starting to be kind of big. The letters are cut out with pinking shears and just sewn on to the yellow with zig zag stitch. DH made the pattern for the letters in Autocad. Once I cut out the letters, I had him place them on the background field. LaLa and I drove by it this morning and saw it hanging from the school's fence. It looked sharp.