Category: Toby

Tuesday Project Roundup: Just Use Your Imagination Anyway

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After rescheduling the last project roundup because I didn’t want people to use their imagination about how cute this dress looks when being worn, I give you:A closet shot.

A dark and slightly blurry closet shot that doesn’t show the cute detail of the fabric or the nice dark brown buttons. It was a busy week.

I think this might be the Last Dress of the Season. I have fabric for one more, but my sewing mojo is gone and I’m not sure the weather will continue to be dress weather until I can get it finished. On to flannel shirts and more knitting, I guess.

In other seasonal news, this is what it looks like before I make the bed in the morning, when it’s not cold enough to run the heat in the whole apartment:

Mr. Isbell and I have dubbed the quartz space heater tower “Minas Heatas,” because we’re Lord of the Rings geeks like that. Toby doesn’t call it anything but I think he loves it even more than me.

Monday Report

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1. The tomatoes have finally decided to ripen:

2. Toby is back to normal, watching birds and wanting to play.
(Here’s the view right outside that window–attack of the tomatoes!)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Morbid Curiousity Edition

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So…Friday is my 10-year high school reunion. I’m going, because the curious part of me that “has hobbies and sees what happens” knows that if I don’t attend and see how bad it really is, I’m always going to wonder. (Also, I thought, “What if someone in a book I write needs to go to a high school reunion and I don’t know the exact feelings of displacement? I’d better go.”)

Of course I made a dress for it (pictures next week). But I also decided to make a clutch, which gives you something to do with your hands when you’re standing around talking at an alcohol-less event.

Obviously it still needs a lining, but it’s turning out well.

Most importantly, it’s nice and roomy, as Toby shows…

…because it needs to hold my flask. To quote the best high school reunion movie ever,
“Who needs hard alcohol?”
“I do!!”

Like Christmas Morning

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I was going to put these up Friday, but then Karma the alpaca had her baby (named Liza!) and I thought that would just be too much cute. So here’s your Monday pictures of Toby, enjoying his new cat house Thursday night.


I understand now why parents can go completely overboard with buying their kids stuff–look how happy he is!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Where’s My AARP Discount? Edition

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Projects are still continuing here at Chez Crafty; they’re just going a little more slowly now that I want to be outside, have to control the snail plague in my garden (more on that tomorrow), and need to learn how to ride a bike again (yeah).

I’m working on a denim dress that should be finished soon, but I’m much more excited about the next project in line: finding a use for some truly awesome vintage fabric my grandmother in Nebraska gave me.

Here’s the fabric:
(Approximate time from laying down of fabric to arrival of cat: 2.2 seconds)

And here’s what I’m considering making with it:
It’s a robe/housedress from what looks like the very early 70’s, to put on in the morning and putter around the house in. I could even make a matching headscarf! (Hey, I already wear muumuus; I might as well embrace my inner 80-year-old.)

My only reservation is that a robe wouldn’t get as much public wear time as a dress, and that’s a shame because the fabric is SO fabulous. So I’m still considering.

Cute Kitten Picture Monday: Wait, That’s My Kitten!

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When I adopted Toby, I found him through CAWS. I was really impressed with their follow-through during the process of looking, and I even got an email about two weeks after he’d been home making sure we were all happy. Over the weekend, I got another email that his foster mom had wanted me to have, which had his baby pictures in it. Baby Toby!

Friday Unrelated Information

Karen

1. I’ll miss a post Monday, since I will be on a farm. With not a lot of internet. On the prairie. Toby and Mr. Isbell will have to be bachelors together.

2. Remember the cat veranda I was debating about getting? I got it. My dad (Toby’s “grandpa”) installed it in an ingenious fashion last night. The verdict? Best. Purchase. Ever. He’s in it right now getting the morning sun and here he was right after the installation:

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Know What I’m Wearing To County Fairs And Derbies This Season

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I’m wearing gingham, like generations of farm women behind me!
My gingham has a mandarin collar and a 70’s feel (I modified the duck dress pattern), which hopefully keeps it from feeling too literally farm-like.

I’m extra pleased by how I got the checks to match on the front: They match horizontally across the collar and across the front inset, and (mostly) vertically from the inset into the body. That’s a lot of 3/8 inch checks to keep track of while cutting out.
Toby, however, was underwhelmed by it last night:

(He’s on the ironing board here. Yes, I give my cat plastic bags to play with and let him sit on the ironing board while I’m ironing. It’s a good thing he’s not a human baby.)

Planning For Spring While It Snows

Karen

I could dig up another unhappy quote about the weather, but let’s just assume I’m unhappy with it and move on to something more hopeful: Seeds.

Last year I had a patio garden and it did pretty well, so this year I’m getting more ambitious and will actually plant things in the ground. (In the blighted area where the landlord cut down all the trees last spring, actually.)

I have tomatoes and basil going as starts, and I bought seeds for the rest of the produce yesterday. So now I’m really impatient for nice weather.

(And because I have to take a picture of Toby every time I get out the camera, here he is. His new favorite toy? A plastic bag. I have some reservations giving my “baby” a plastic bag as a toy, but he’s supervised. And very smart, as you can see.)