Happy Halloween...

Statistics Style! (Thanks to kthenaj for the awesome appreciation photo!)

My husband and I carved pumpkins with family last weekend. He made powercat (go Wildcats!) and I made a normal curve.

Beware of the Evil Plushies

To spice things up in my shop, I've been working on a series of "evil" plushies. So far, there is the Evil Weibull...

and, from today, the Evil Poisson.

Also in the works is an Evil Cauchy. I just have to sew him shut and have a little photo shoot with him. The faces on these distinguished gents are machine embroidered, instead of hand embroidered like on my other plushies. It goes a lot faster, but I think it really changes the look of them.

Anyone have any suggestions for another distribution? Or a suggestion on what makes a face look evil?

My Crafty Room

In order to make crafts, you have to have a place to do it. Before I lived in the house I'm currently in, my place to make crafts was the same as my place to do homework, my place to eat dinner, my place to cook, my place to play games, and basically do anything. The apartment we lived in was small, and it worked for us for 7 years. But now we have a house and I have an entire room of my own that I can craft in.

This means no more putting away all of my sewing stuff so that I can paint something or eat dinner. It's nice! And I figure I'd give you a little tour. It does look like a mess. But it's a well organized one (to me).

Welcome to my craft room! My husband helped me hang some peg board for organizing and storing different things. It's been SO handy.

Here is my sewing table. Its a good sturdy table so it doesn't vibrate when I sew. I've sewn on wobbly ones before, and it's really annoying. You can also see my idea board to the right and my home-made thread rack on the left wall.

Here is my super messy corner. But it's actually quite organized for me. I've got boxes of boxes for shipping and polyfil for stuffing. And a quaint little spot for my daughter to sit with me while I craft. She can't walk in the walker yet, so she just sits there, chewing on her toys, throwing them off the little table, and then staring at herself in the mirror. I enjoy it almost as much as she does. :)

Next is my shelf. I made this shelf about 2 years ago when I first moved to Tulsa. Each shelf had a purpose when I made it, but as it gets used I've rearranged many things. I also have 2 dressforms (fancy!). The short purple one is old. It's from my husbands grandma. I was so happy/thrilled/thankful when they passed it down to me from one of her daughters. It's a really good one. You can adjust basically every measurement you'd want to! The taller blue dress form is one I bought myself last year when I was making my sister's wedding dress. The purple one doesn't get large enough for my sister, so I bought a second one. Now my room just looks fancy. :)

Here is my extra storage, the closet. Almost all of the tubs are filled with fabric. I've got old patterns in one and some of my finished products in another.

And my ironing station. It's comical. I have 11 year old cutting/ironing mat placed on top of a box of my old high school papers. It works though. I am not usually making big things, so this little 12x18 area suits my needs.

And there you have it. My craft room!

Crinkle Toy for a Nerdy Baby

My daughter enjoys crinkle toys, as I'm sure many babies do. So what would make sense for me to do? Well, make her one of course!

It was quickly decided that I'd make it shaped like a normal distribution. We also decided to use terry cloth for the back and flannel for the front. But how are we going to make it "crinkle"? I first thought of Sun Chip bags. Boy can those babies crinkle!! Jeepers! But being "compostable" I was afraid it wouldn't hold up to drool and washing. So we had to think of something else. I eventually decided to use a thick plastic from a pretzel bag. I know, weird to use trash. But so far it's worked great! It's been chewed on and washed multiple times. I air dry it, and it seems to be holding up really well!

The best part is, she likes it. :)