Another Hiatus

I know, my presence here has been sporadic. Here's what's been going on...

I have a new friend. Her name is Helen.

Is it strange to name a sewing machine? For some reason I had her named before I even had her in my car when leaving Joann's.

I just got her yesterday and prior to that I had spent most of my down time researching machines and visiting sewing shops. I finally decided on Helen (a Husqvarna Emerald 116) because she seemed like a good little machine for a newbie. She's not as fancy as many of the machines out there, but she seems pretty durable and she's nice and quiet...I think we're going to get along famously!

For my first project, I sewed a pint sized headband for Little Bit following these instructions. I'm not showing a picture yet because it was my "practice run." But I promise I'll show you a final version soon!

Another new addition to our family is this little guy:

He came free with Daddy-O's new MacBook and was my prize for letting him buy it. Of course my response to this was, "What am I going to do with that?"

Hah!

There's a ton of stuff I can do with it! I added our photos from Little Bit's birthday party to show my mom. I can keep it with me throughout the day and check my Google Reader and Email without having to leave the kiddos and go to my computer. And, I can download podcasts!

Yes, I said podcasts. Another thing I raised my eyebrow at when I first heard about them. But here I am, listening to CraftSanity, Grammar Girl, Material Mama, and Broadway Bullet.

Podcasts are wonderful to listening to while working on a project. In fact, I wish I'd had the Touch earlier so that I could listen to my podcasts while making new hair clips for the girls. Well, I say the girls, but in reality Bitty Baby is the only one who wears them without immediately pulling them out.

Aside from the aforementioned activities, projects with the little ones have been few and far between. Due to an unexpected chain of events, Daddy-O has been home all week and will be around for a couple more. With him being home, we tend to fill our days with either running errands or simply enjoying family time together.

I did manage to squeeze in a mixed media collage today with Little Bit and her cousins, but I ended up joining in rather than taking pictures! I'll see if I can paint you a picture with words: fabric scraps, yarn, glue, old children's books, buttons, and glitter. Lots of glitter.

I'll probably spend the next few nights getting better acquainted with Helen, but I can't wait to come back and show you what I made. Hopefully I'll end up with something blogworthy!