Shocker!!!

First it was a mouse, that somehow got lost in my house and I've yet to find it.

Now.....it's an already dead chipmunk...that she batted around the living room for a bit before I was able to get it away from her.

Look at Ganesh, she doesn't even look ashamed. *tsk,tsk*

Isaac

I love it when I get a couple of amazing pictures of my kids. Isaac is especially hard because he refuses to look into the lens of the camera. He'd rather look down or off to the side.

Be still my heart, I can imagine him at 15 standing just like this.

How perfect is this face?????

This picture was the most fun for me to take. We both crawled into the tunnel on opposite ends. Handsome!!!!!

The tunnel was full of holes, and I love how one of the holes framed him perfectly on the other side.

Such a stud for 7 years old. :)

Ripped T-shirt Tutorial

As promised, here’s the super short, very quick tutorial on one of the ways to rip up a short to make it a little more grunge, trendy looking.
Decide where you want your rips to be. If you’ve got a long sleeve you can do this on the sleeves, or the back or front of a shirt. Mackenzie’s shirt was a little big so we decided to do it on the sides to make the shirt fit better.
Once you’ve decided lay your shirt out flat.

Now take a pair of scissors and cut your way down the shirt. You don’t have to measure or be exact. Try and keep how far you cut into the shirt the same though.  I went in about 1 1/2’’ and my cuts were about 1’’ apart.

(If you do decide to do this on the sides of your shirt then start your cuts underneath the arm pit seam. If you cut into this seam then you’ll have a problem with the sleeves)
This part is a little hard to explain but it’s easy, I promise.
Pick up the first loop you cut and hold in one hand (left side of picture), and hold the second loop in the other hand (right side of the picture).

You’re going to push the 2nd loop (now on left side of picture) thru the 1st loop (now on right side of picture).

Let go of the 1st loop but keep holding the 2nd loop. Now pick up the 3rd loop and feed it thru the 2nd loop.

Continue doing this until you’ve used up all your loops. Remember, the loop you push thru the previous loop is the one you hold and use for your next loop.
Now that you’re finished looping your shirt, the bottom should look like this. One long loop.

Cut this loop in half and use each end to tie a knot into the loop above. This holds everything in place and stops it from unraveling.

Then cut off the tails, or leave them on if you like the look.
Now try on your shirt.

The knot looking thing in the middle of the loops is where I cut the loops out of the seam of the shirt. If you use this method on sleeves or the front and back of the shirt the knot thing in the middle will not be there. It’ll be more like a string.

I love how it almost looks like it’s braided when you look at it from the front.

~Jess

Walk MS!!!

For those of you that don’t already know my mom has MS. Doctors suspect she’s had it since her early 20’s but she’s only official been diagnosed for 4 years. She’s doing ok, had some new lesions on her MRI 2 months ago and is now on the last resort effort to try and slow this disease down.
My sister is the one that got all of us on board the Walk MS train the past 2 years. This year we even came up with a team name and logo. (Boy Toy was kind enough to draw it up for us)

How stinking cool is this logo? It stands for Kicking MS’ Butt!!! I LOVE it!!!
Since our team colors were blue and one of the MS colors is orange we kinda had a mixture of different colored logo’s. Depending on the hue of blue the shirt happened to be.

All this was well and good but Mackenzie being Mackenzie wanted to trash up her shirt a bit, (as I like to call it). That post will come later. For now how about some pictures for our rainy day at the MS Walk in Bristol, VA.
I hate this picture is blurry, but it’s a really good picture of my mom and dad together that I had to post it!!!

The entire KMSB team right before the walk! No you’re not seeing double, I’m a twin remember??

Showing off the coolest logo ever!!! My sister had the brilliant idea for this photo. (Did any of you notice that a rain drop landed on my camera lens at a most perfect place to highlight the logo on Boy Toy’s shirt? on the right side of the picture!)

I was so glad Mackenzie’s best friend got to go along with us. Katie is a great addition to any team. (It’s only icing on the cake that she’s family too)

My mom was clever enough to give Isaac and Evan Grace new walkie talkies before the walk kicked off so they spent ALL DAY LONG on them.

While on the walk we had to stop by the rocks and take a picture of all of us just like we did last year. And just like last year I was the one snapping the photo so I’m not in it. I’m sneaky like that.

And just because this is a great photo of Evan Grace and her best friend, Pawpaw, I have to end this post with this picture.

Everybody say awwwwwwwww!

~Jess

Best Purse Ever!!

I bought this purse a year ago at some small store in the mall. I adore it! I switch back and forth between this purse and whatever ‘new’ purse I’ve sewn up. It never fails though, no matter how happy I am with a new purse, or one I’ve sewn I always go back to this one.

I love that it goes over the head and one shoulder. I love that it sits on my hip and is out of the way. I love that I can easily reach into it for my cell phone, wallet or a pen without having to take it off my arm and have it in front of me. Really, it’s kinda weird how much I love this bag!
But it was starting to come apart at the top of the strap and I know I could have fixed it, but I wanted to see if I could make a purse just like it but in a fabric that was more ‘me’.
So I, sadly, one night, took out my seam ripper and started taking apart the best purse in the world. I did it carefully so I could piece it back together if my attempts didn’t pan out.
I’m happy to report that after countless hours and many, many stupid oversights I’ve mastered how to make this purse and even come up with a pattern to share with all of you.

Start with your fabric folded, right sides together. (If you’re iffy about cutting into your fabric go ahead and grab some pattern paper or newspaper and draw it out there first, no one will ever know!)
Now, starting at the bottom of the fold measure up 47’’. Make a mark with a fabric pencil or even a stick pin. Measure over towards that mark 1 1/2’’.
Move back down to the bottom of your fabric. Again, starting at the fold, measure over (towards the right side) 7 1/2’’. Make another mark.
Now measure up from that mark 14’’ and 7 1/2’’ across. This becomes the actually purse part of the purse!
Go back up to the top, where you made a mark 1 1/2’’  over from the fold. Starting at this mark, measure DOWN 23’’ and make another mark. This becomes your over-the-should strap.
Now to the tricky curve part. You want to start your curve on the last mark you made for the strap and you want it to end at the last mark you made at the top of the actually bag part of the purse. Make sense? Look at the picture, the red arrows are for clarification. It’s much harder writing out how to make a pattern than I ever thought! Curve in as much or as little as you like as long as your starting and stopping points start and end where they are suppose to.
Now you’re ready to cut your fabric.
With the pattern above you’ll need to cut:
2 pieces of outer fabric
2 pieces of inner fabric.
I wanted more strength in my straps then what my original purse had so I cut out two strips of interfacing that measure 1’’ by 20’’. It’s optional.

Pay no attention to my inner fabric. Turns out I didn’t buy enough of the pretty blue fabric to make the straps so I went with a piece together look for the inside.  On to assembly. It’s much easier than reading my cutting out instructions above.  Really!
Start by applying the interfacing to the middle part of the outer fabric straps.
Next: Turn in ALL the edges (except for the 14’’ short sides of the bag part, leave those alone) of both pieces of outer fabric and inner fabric about 1/4’’ and press with a hot iron.

With right sides together, place the outer fabric on top of the inner fabric and pin in place. Sew the 14’’ short sides of the bag together. Turn right side out. Do the same to the lining fabric you want for the inside of the purse.

You should have the outer fabric facing up, right side up. If you look inside the bag you should see the right side of the inner fabric. Now you have two seams and normally you would leave these seams to the sides of the purse. But with this Best Purse Ever you’re going to move the seams to the middle of the bag, like so. (For the outer fabric and lining fabric too. Slip the lining fabric inside the outer fabric, wrong sides together.


Still with me? Good. Halfway there.
Remember all that ironing we did for all the outer edges? Place wrong sides together of the outer fabric and the inner fabric. Pin in place carefully then sew together, CAREFULLY! Do NOT sew the two tops of the straps though, leave it open OR the very bottom of the bag.

This is a picture of the inside of the bag up towards the strap on one side. Now for the bottom hem of the bag. Fold the outer fabric up out of the way for a second. Working with the lining fabric fold both edges a little over the right side of the fabric. It’s hard to see in this picture, but you can see the white edge on the bottom right of the picture where I folded this up. Press in place.   
Now move the outer fabric back down in place and fold this under, with the lining fabric caught in e of the folds of the outer fabric. See how the blue/white fabric is tucked inside the fold of the top outer fabric?

Pin the folded fabric sandwich in place and sew a seam across to hold in place. You might want to sew over this twice since the bulk of your purse contents will be held inside by this seam.
Now for the top of the straps that we left open. Fold the rough edges inside each strap, then lay one strap over the other strap just enough to sew a seam down over the overlap.

Now using your outer fabric, cut a rectangle about 4’’ by 1 1/2’’. Turn in all the edges, press and sew in place.


Fold this rectangle around the top seam you just sewed into the strap.

Now sew in place, you can sew this into the strap it’s self or just sew the rectangle closed, either way. I didn’t want it sewn into place because I didn’t want a stitch line to be seen on the top of the strap. But it’s your choice.

Now go out and enjoy the Best Purse Ever and send me a link or post a comment if you make one yourself so I can see how great it turned out.


~Jess
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