Storage for the well organized child

Lots more sewing going on here lately.

Stackable fabric baskets. A whole set of them, in bright colors, not as educational as the blocks with the periodic table she has, but cheerful and maybe it'll help her learn about colors. She, of course, is the cute little granddaughter who has just started putting things inside of other things.
The pattern for the baskets can be found here.

And then, just for some light relief, I tried these: 

Cute, right? Almost cuter than a bug? Three inches tall and cleanly finished on the inside. I learn something new every time I try an older project again.

A whole lotta sewing going on

For many years, I have been using a paper lunch bag as a thread catcher on my sewing kitchen table. Practical, but not exactly pretty. So, when I came across these on a blog last week, I googled until I found a tutorial for pretty thread catchers. And got to work, digging through my scrap basket and using up my whole stash (several yards) of fusible fleece. One week later, and I am the proud owner of two thread catchers made from the original tutorial . Cute and small, but I wanted something bigger. So, out came the pencil and paper and I resized.

These are the ones I have made so far. The original sized ones are in the foreground.

One of the small ones.

With his slightly bigger friend.

And his really big friends.

The one on the left in this picture is actually made from the measurements of the original paper bag. I used fusible interfacing and remembered really quick why I don't like it. The fabric just doesn't behave as well after the interfacing is applied. Thankfully, none of the wrinkles show up in this picture, but they are there.
The big bags will all go to my little granddaughter. She already has several drawstring bags for storing her blocks, these can easily hold a few more.

This morning

This is what I saw first thing this morning when I let the dog out. The usual morning fog with the sun already out.

This was next, a decent crop of artichokes. Not my favorite thing to prepare, lots of work for very little food, but they do taste good and so I will clean and cook them this year (and not just give them all away).

And this was an hour later, after my morning exercise. Nice, right? The hills are visible again. No matter how often I see this, I never get tired of the view.