Mothers and Olives

Well, since my last post about how much I look like my mother, I have accumulated a few more photos as proof.

This is my Mom, my Grandma and my Aunt Sharon

I look exactly like my Mom and my cousin Laura looks exactly like my Aunt Sharon!  What do you guys think?

On a different note:  I visited Andrew's friend's mom tonight.  We usually get together once a week.  I learned tonight that even though I have been here for almost a year and have gone on many visits in that time, I am still surprised by some of the things that happen on those visits.  This is my surprise from tonight:

That's right, a jinormous jar of olives!  I don't know how I end up bringing things like this home with me, but I do know that Andrew and I will be eating olives everyday for the next month :)

Infinity Scarf

This past week I have been working on some product samples for the co-op here that I lead a sewing training for during Ramadan.  There is a company in the States that is interested in buying large quantities of their sewing line, but they needed to send them some samples.  So, this week I have been busy making some samples for them.  I have found it rather challenging to make cute things out of old clothes.  The guy in charge of the co-op, really likes for the products to still look like clothes, which I am not a huge fan of.  But somehow I made due and I am pretty pleased with the results.  This is not everything, but just a couple of things that I liked.

A headband for a little girl.  Ruffles made from old T-shirts

An owl made from old cashmere sweaters

With all this sewing that I wasn't too big a fan of, I needed to make something I thought was cute.  I have seen a lot online about infinity scarves.  It's hard to find cute fabric here, and it's definitely hard to find long pieces of cute fabric.  So, I decided a patchwork infinity scarf made from pieces of fabric I already had from the States would  be cute.  Finished it up yesterday and I think it turned out pretty cute.

And, here's a bonus picture that needed to be posted because I think I look exactly like my mother in this picture.

Kinda freaky huh?  Like mother like daughter...

Next week, (this Friday) Andrew and I are heading to Kenya!  I'm pretty excited about going, it's going to be a lot cooler there, so my new scarf will be great :)  Also we'll have some good pictures to show when we get back.  We're heading to Kenya on a retreat and then on our way back we're stopping off in another country where we hope to move to next year.  We're going to scout the place out, so keep us in your "thoughts" over the next couple of weeks and keep checking back for new pictures and updates on how things went :)

Craft Time!

Since my sewing class, I have been feeling very craftsy (I'm not sure the right adjective to use, it's not crafty is it...).  I have also newly discovered a great website, Pinterest.  A friend from college told me about it, and I have barely been able to pull myself away from it since.  It's got so many great ideas of how to do things and helps you keep up with all of your craft ideas.  It is especially great since I am living overseas and if I want anything cute, I've got to make it myself.

Enough with all the prelude, here's some of the stuff I've been making lately.

Sorry not the best lighting.  Here are two pillows that I made for our bedroom.  The bigger one was inspired from here.  I really love the ruffles and I think it looks like something you could easily buy in a store somewhere.  The smaller pillow was inspired from here.  The blue fabric I used was extra that I had from our curtains, so the pillow really ties in the whole room.  Not quite as professional looking because you can see some of the hot glue that I used on the flowers, but I still love it! 

I have been on a bit of pillow kick lately because they are just so cute, really make a place homey and yours and most importantly because they are quick to sew so you get immediate results.  I have thoughts for more pillows to come, but I really need to figure out where in town they sell stuffing for pillows.

I finished a project today that I have been excited about for a week or so.  I have been wanting to make a wreath for our door, but, since no one here has ever even heard of a wreath, it's been a bit of a struggle to get the supplies needed.  It has been and adventure, and we've been in stores and in parts of town that we've never been before so that has been a good thing as well :)

Since I can't just run to Hobby Lobby and buy a wreath foam, I had to find another route to go.  Thankfully I found this idea online.  So today Andrew and his local friend headed off to a hardware store to buy some kind of plumbing foam. I cut it to the length I wanted and duck taped the ends together to make a circle.  Worked out pretty good!  But I was just so excited that our small town had this particular plumbing foam.

The inspiration for my wreath came from here.  When I saw it, I fell absolutely in love!  People here don't have wreathes and everyone in my building will probably think I'm the crazy white lady now, but oh well.  I love it and it makes it feel more like home to me :)  There are fabric rosettes on the bottom of my wreath.  Because the plumbing foam is not quite as strong as a Hobby Lobby wreath foam, it was sagging quite a bit. To help with the sagging, I tied a ribbon around the bottom of the circle and the top.  Since the ribbon is behind my bow, it is not so visible.  Either way, it is better than a sagging wreath.

So, here it is!  I love it!

Sorry the last one is on it's side.  Also, there are no door wreath hangers here, so I had to improvise.  I put a nail on the top inside of the door, and ran a ribbon up over the door and tied it to the nail.  I think it works pretty nicely.

So, what do you guys think?  I have the prettiest door in the whole building? :)

Here are just some bonus pictures of Andrew and I:

Test!

Today was my last day teaching my sewing class.  I have really enjoyed my time with the ladies, and I will miss it dearly, but I have plans to still go by and sew with them once a week.  Yesterday, I gave the ladies a "Final Exam."  I brought in two things that I made at home and they had to choose one and make it without my help.  I brought in a pieced pillow, fairly simple and straightforward, but we hadn't made pillows yet, so it was new.  I put a button on the back as a closure and varied my stitches on the top stitches of the pieced front.  The second item I brought in was a small purse messenger bag style.  We have already made messenger bags and totes, so they knew how to make a bag, but we had never made one this small and I appliquéd a flower on the front, using the stitch we learned when making bracelets.

Two of the ladies chose to go the easy route and make the pillow.  They pieced it together nicely, but failed to put a button enclosure on the back and kept the same zig zag stitch for all the top stitching.  The pillows turned out nicely and looked good, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't take advantage of an easy assignment and really go all the way with it.  But they sewed it and it looked good.

One girl chose to make the purse and I was so proud of her.  She chose to make it out of jeans and even appliquéd a flower on the front.  She is very good at following instructions and recreating something exactly, but hopefully once she becomes comfortable with her sewing, she will venture out and change things up and make them her own.  She was disappointed with her appliquéd flower, but I thought it was very cute and one of a kind.

Because she wasn't as pleased as she wanted to be, she made another one today.  Pretty much the same concept, but the flower turned out better.

Since my students were so good this month, learned so much and became great seamstresses, I thought I would give them a little treat today.  Since it's Ramadan, I couldn't bring in any actual treats like sweets, since that would just be torture because they couldn't eat them until sunset, so I opted to make them something.  I got the tutorial from here, I think these clutch bags are so cute.  I hope they like them, I think they at least liked the gesture.

Well, it's been fun teaching, and it has definitely got my creative juices going.  I have a lot of little projects that I want to make, so hopefully I'll follow through with them :)  One that I've already finished is a checker board for my friend Jamie and I to play on while our husbands are busy playing Chess.

Courtesy of Quilting Arts Digital Magazines

Pieced Messenger Bag

For the past two days, the ladies have been working on a pieced messenger bag.  They spent most of yesterday piecing together the fabrics for the bag and today they mostly spent putting the bag together.  I think it turned out amazing!  I am so proud of them.  They do not need too much instruction anymore, but since this was a new bag, they needed a little help here and there, but they picked up the concept quickly.

After they finished their bag, we sat around a little and talked about all that we have made so far, what is good about them and what we need to watch out for next time we're making something like that.  It was good.  While we were discussing all the things we have done and weather they were difficult or easy, the ladies asked if they were being tested, so I took the opportunity to inform them that I am actually going to give them a test on Saturday (the next day we meet).  We have two more days to meet, Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday I am going to bring in something new that they have not made yet and they'll have to make it without my help (at least I'm not going to tell them exactly how to make it).  They will have two days to complete it, but maybe they will get it finished in just one day and our last day will be a fun day to make our favorite thing or something.

So, I'm going to make something this weekend to bring in for their test.  Something fairly easy that they should be able to recreate on their own.  I still have no clue what I am going to make.  Any suggestions?

Wristlets and Bracelets

Today we finished up our wristlets we started on Wednesday.  They turned out nicely although a couple of the ladies had their liner in upside down so the pockets opened to the bottom.  They had to take it out and redo it, but hopefully it was a learning experience.

After we finished up the wristlets, I gave them the option of going ahead and starting on another wristlet (because I think they need to make another one to reinforce the new skills they learned), or make bracelets and make more wristlets tomorrow.  They opted to make the bracelets.  I thought these cloth fabric bracelets were so cute, but unfortunately their since of design and color coordination is not as great as could be desired.  I was excited to make bracelets because it is completely whatever the sewer wants it to be.  As wide or as narrow, whatever design you prefer.  So, of course, they cut out the size of their bracelet exactly the same size as the one I brought to show them.  One of the ladies freaked out and put as many pieces of fabric as possible on one bracelet, another lady just had one long strip of fabric, folded in half with interfacing inside as her bracelet.  My third girl, did a good job piecing together her fabric, and didn't use too many different kinds, but her color selection was horrible.  Oh well, at least they learned how to satin stitch and put in a button hole (a feat in and of itself; they have no concept of a practice button hole before you go stitching on your final product).  It was good for them to learn, and hopefully one day they will improve their design and color selection skills.

Patchwork Tote

When I came in today and told the ladies we were going to make patchwork totes, they were not excited about the idea.  When I told them that they could work together and just make one tote, they brightened up quite a bit.  By the end of the today's lesson, they were talking about bigger, messenger bags that they could make patchwork.  Today was the first day we worked with interfacing.  They also thought the interfacing made the bags much better, which I agree.  To quilt the patchwork onto the interfacing, we used a zig zag stitch.  They were excited to learn how to zig zag stitch, but they were completely scared of it.  They thought it was the most amazing, most difficult thing they have ever seen.  I think they were surprised to find it is really quite easy.  As they were working on the tote today, my heart just filled with pride at how far they have come in sewing.  They still need my help with problem solving, but they are beginning to figure out the smaller problems by themselves and need less and less assistance throughout the process.  While their patchwork is still not perfect, their bag today turned out so great and I would use it in a heartbeat :)