The pink chair

Alex and I have been on an Ikea bender lately. Our latest trip was for curtains to cover the double French doors that lead from our bedroom to the large screened-in back porch, which has quickly become our favorite place in the house.

We don’t have it set up the way we want yet, but we’re still out there whenever possible. We love that our indoor cats can enjoy the outdoors. When it’s not too hot, usually in the evenings, we just open the French doors and let them wander in and out as they please. They are truly happy kitties.

While we were at Ikea, we decided to check the “as-is” section, and I found this hot pink chair for $3.

I’d been eyeing it up as a desk chair for my new craft studio anyway, so when I found it in the as-is section with just a few minor smudgey scratches on it from being the display model, I grabbed it. Seriously, three dollars? Yes please!

My studio is still a complete mess, but I can already tell that the chair is going to look awesome sitting in front of my sewing machine. I can’t wait to get in there and organize everything and start sewing again.

Oh, and today’s lesson? Always — ALWAYS — check the as-is section at Ikea.

Shimmer

Nola had a moment with a lizard today.

It’s all the way over to the right, perched on the edge of the deck. She’s eyeing it up, but she’s too fat and slow to ever catch it.

I finished a new market tote, which I’ve posted to The Boutique.

I usually work with bold, contrasting colors, and I wanted to try something more monochromatic and subtle (at least on the outside). 

I stacked three appliqued circles and finished each one off with a single stitch of shimmery gold thread.

I decided not to go subtle on the inside, mostly because I love how well red, black and white work together.

Check it out here.

Pica

I have no idea if Nola really has pica (a medical disorder characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive), but I like to say she does, because it explains her constant desire to gnaw on everything — plastic bags, paper, my finger. She’s a chewer, that one.

I recently found out she likes chewing on twigs. Here she is going in for a nice big bite.

She bites off a little piece, chews on it for a minute, and then spits it out. So very….strange.

Have any of you heard of kitty pica? What weird items do your cats chew on?

Separation

I need some advice, fellow crafty people!

Alex and I recently moved our bedroom furniture around. We have a rather large bedroom (which we are extremely thankful for, since overall, our apartment is very small). So we were able to completely shift everything and create two separate spaces — a bedroom area, and a sewing/craft area.

The bed is now under the window (which the kitties love!). We placed one of our dressers at the foot of our bed, facing out, to create a visual separation between the two spaces, thus making our bedroom area more of a cozy “nook.” We’d like to hang something above the dresser — from the ceiling — to separate the spaces even more.

So…any ideas? The only thing we’ve come up with so far is a vintage window, but we’re looking for some other options.

The criteria for this “something” are as follows: 

• It must be attractive on both sides
• We must be able to hang it from the ceiling
• It will be hung over the dresser in the middle of the room, so it can’t be more than, say, three feet long by four feet wide (give or take)
• The cheaper the better

I know how creative you all are, so I’d love some ideas!

Neglect

I took Nola to the vet today. Turns out, she’s really, really fat. 

And mean. I know she looks all cute and cuddly, but she turns into a spiteful, evil little creature when put in situations she doesn’t like. Such as going to the vet. When I told the lady who checked us in that Nola can be “not very nice,” she wrote “BE CAREFUL” at the top of Nola’s paperwork and then promptly highlighted it in yellow. They weren’t taking any chances.

So Nola is fat and mean. Yep, that’s our girl!  (I swear, she’s got a sweet, loving, goofy, affectionate side. The vet just never gets to see it.)

I’ve been neglecting my blog and my crafts. Neither is intentional. I just think I got a little burned out on sewing, and now that I don’t have to sew for a show or for Christmas, I’m just not. And since this is, for the most part, a craft blog, not doing any crafts equals not having much to blog about.

I think I miss the pressure of having to get a project done by a certain time. I have several things I want to do, including sewing a set of coasters with my soon-to-be new last initial (S) on them, and sewing myself a market tote. But since there’s no urgent deadline, it’s simply not happening.

I updated The Boutique with two sets of notecards.

This one:

And this one:

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!