A Lovely Mother's Day Gift

I had to share this photo of the bowl set I got recently for a mother's day gift fro Cerise! I love these old kitchen pottery bowls. Cerise is starting to collect Bauer Pottery herself so she is always on the prowl at antique store and thrift store to find some little gems for her collection. I can't wait to display these in my new cabinet! (more on that later!)
Theresa, Ommama

Salivating over Another Sewing Machine

Here is a great site if you love Singer Featherweights as we do. April 1930's is a site and shopped dedicated to Singer 221 and 221K models. They also have a great newsletter and wonderful information. Their current newsletter features a 100-year old brochure from Singer "Evolution of the Singer Needle" explaining how needles are made.
And, they have the coolest Singer 222 model. These have a thin arm so that you can sew in the tiniest places. I will have to sell a lot more on Etsy before I get one of these baby's. I am putting it on my Birthday, Christmas and all other holiday list!
Theresa, Ommama

New Singer! Am I collecting?

A mother's day treat was to hang out at a local antique mall with Cerise. I wanted to find a small table with a drawer to fit in the hallway. Tape measure in hand, we set out to find the perfect little item. We did not find a table; instead we found a portable Singer 221-1 in wonderful condition. I am not sure yet, but I think it is a 1952. It has all it's parts including the instruction manual and just a little bit of scratches on the front. It is very dry and will need to be oiled. The machine says made in Great Britain and the motor says made in Canada. I will be doing some research to find out more.

It's not like I really need another machine, but it is so rare to find one in pristine condition I couldn't pass it up. I am not sure at which point one is considered collecting. So far I have two of these Singer Featherweights and Cerise has one. I am very excited to give my new old gal a spin and see how she sews! Thanks for the great Mother's Day, Cerise!
Theresa, Ommama

Knitted Foodies for Passover

Happy Erev Pesach!

I've really been into knitting monsters lately and now I spend a lot of time obsessively browsing Ravelry for toy knitting patterns. Of course, knitted cupcakes and pastries are always appetizing and little mice of all sorts are very cute. Some fun Passover food patterns for the seder plate that are out there as well so I thought to share a pattern set for Passover Eve. (I even found a knitting pattern set for the 10 plagues of Exodus! I really love the origami froggy and little locust but the Egyptian kid is a bit iffy.) So many fun knitted noshes are out there it's hard to pick just a few to share. I've found that I can always find someone to give my newest monsters to but I never could think of what I would do with little knitted foodies. These would definitely be fun play knits for young children, and I have a few younger-aged relatives who might enjoy playing with my food. So watch out monsters, there might be some knitted food fights in with the youngin's in the future!

Happy Food Fights!

Cerise : )

Liquidation Sale

The only thing better than getting those great fabric store coupons in the mail is getting a liquidation notice. Apparently the new Joann's store is getting stocked all anew. So the old Joann's is completely liquidating. Good news, savings store wide. Bad news, no selection and the prices aren't as great as they first appear. That didn't stop me from buying a lot of stuff. I couldn't get bobbins or needles for my machine. They were gone before liquidating. And there were very few patterns, though I looked for hours.

I did get oodles of fabric, most of it 50% off. I also came home with 10 spools of thread, a vase (no, I really didn't need it) and some funny little boxes. I will now have to sell a lot of yoga bags before I can go to the new store and spend more money on fabric!
Theresa, Ommama

Bigger Better Fabric Store

While I love specialty and independent fabric stores, for staples Jo-ann's is the go-to place. The store in Eureka, California was so small and always out of products. Then I moved to Corvallis, Oregon and the store was even smaller! They have incredibly decrepit carpet and shelves and so little room. But the staff is always very nice there and mostly I get what I need.

I am very excited now that they are moving to a bigger, new store. I have great expectations (more cotton strap and cord colors please!) of a wonderful new store. I only wish that they would carry more items, especially more fabrics, made in the USA. But alas, there is very little cotton grown in the US any more (all the cotton fields have been taken over by corn) and very few mills. I looked for hours one day at fabrics and only found one denim that was made in the US. I do look forward to that grand opening at Jo-ann's in May!
Theresa, Ommama

Kitty Sweater Toys!

I made a few cute kitty toys awhile back but didn't have a kitty to test them on. In the past, I would have tried it out on Katina, Cerise's cat, but since Dexter, her dog, has a habit of swallowing toys, I can't give her anything that isn't bigger than she is. So when Kelly made a special order through my Etsy site for a cushion that her cats had torn up, I included the cat toy in with her order.

The toy is made of an old wool sweater cut up and sewn into a little sweater shape. It is filled with catnip and cut pieces of wool. It has now been thoroughly tested and approved by Alistair (pictured) and Emma. Look for these kitty toys available soon. Thanks for the testing, Kelly!
Theresa, Ommama

I recently got a special request through Etsy. A customer saw my meditation cushions and my mini-cushions and wondered if I could make her an even smaller cushion, a mini-zafu of sorts, for her singing bowl.
Kelly's cats liked her singing bowl cushion so much that they tore it up. So I went about making a very tiny zafu that is stuffed with buckwheat to hold a singing bowl. And it worked quite nicely! Kelly sent me a photo of it with her singing bowl. I included a toy for Kelly's cats. More on that later! Happy sitting!
Theresa, Ommama

Frustrations in Knitting

Knitting is relaxing. Knitting is relaxing. Knitting is relaxing. Wait. Did I just knit two together or did I skip that? ARRGGH. Okay, I admit that I do not practice much and unlike Cerise, I mostly knit on Tuesdays at the wine bar. So the last few nights I have sat myself down and knitted a few rows each evening. No music, no wine, no chit chat, just me and the yarn. Going slow, no distractions, one, two three, [I outta call my mom tomorrow] five, wait. ARRRGH.

Really, knitting is much better zen practice than sitting on a cushion. If you can clear your mind of all thought and just get into the rhythm, it's easy, right? Just like sitting on a cushion, it's all practice and patience.
Theresa, Ommama

Crafty Food and Table

As our dreary February rolled into a dreary March we looked forward to having some friends over to dinner in our new house. We are lucky to have a lot of daffodils in our area and the first to poke their little heads out are the tiny ones. They even survived the snow storm so I made them the center piece of my table. I borrowed a cute yellow vase from Cerise and got some bright yellow place mats. I served mango skewers (pictured) and curried vegetables. Though the curry was a little too hot, all in all it was a pretty table and a bright spot at the end of winter. And today the sun is shining! We got in a long walk and now off to sew!
Theresa, Ommama