Hopscotch Designs

lists, lists, lists… we’ve all got ‘em!

Some, like Jenn’s, include showering, eating, reading, sleeping…. she loves to be able to check things off.  Who doesn’t?  Haven’t we all done something, say…. gone to the grocery store, come home, unpacked the car, put everything away and then gone straight to our calendar and written down “groceries” and immediately crossed it off.  Oh the satisfaction of the cross-off or check mark or whatever your system is.  Right now my list is all about three things:  Christmas, redecorating after our half-done remodel, and Fall 2009.  Fall 2009!  Ack!  That’s the one that freaks me out so much that I just push it to the bottom of the list and hope that this time like everytime Jenn and I will pull it out…. we do love to procrastinate!  So that leaves Christmas and redecorating - two of my favorite things! (Disneyland is the third… oh and my family… blah, blah, blah)

Today was the first day I really got to Christmas shop.  It was pouring rain, the sales were great and we had a yummy lunch with mojitos.  I find that much of my Christmas shopping these days happens at estate sales and flea markets throughout the year but my husband doesn’t appreciate ‘used’ gifts and ‘dead people’s stuff’ so it’s off to the mall for some last minute consumerism.  What does one buy their hubby?  Sweaters?  Tools?  Books?  It’s all so boring.  Boys!!!

Last thing on my list, the re-arrange/re-decorate.  I love to move and I love to switch things up - make the living room the bedroom and back again.  So, right now it’s moving both girls into their own rooms, moving my office/sewing room into a new room, and moving the guest room into my old office.  The girls rooms were relatively painless and a lot of fun.  Found a great horse lamp and horseshoe mirror at an antique shop for my young equestrian and some vintage puppy planters and figurines for her big sister.  The guest room barely got a bed in it and my cousin is in town so that’s on hold until she’s gone and I can find the time.  Ahhhhh, the sewing room.  The best room in the house!?  Well, not so much now.  Suffice it to say you can look forward to a lot more scrap bags in our fabric section.  I have high hopes though and will post some pix when and if it’s ever done.

…. back to work.

  So, I’m having one of those days…usually when I say that, it’s not a good thing, but today I’m tickled pink to report that it’s actually the opposite. 

  Here’s my to do list to prove it:

1. Finish putting up Christmas decorations–Check.
2. Mail off Christmas presents–Check.
3. Start French Market Soup for dinner–Check.
4. Have a cup of hot tea–not really on the list, but I’m doing it so…Check.
5. Watch it pour down rain outside and be happy not to be out in it–again, not really on the list…wouldn’t you be a little worried about me if it were?!…Check.
6. Stare adoringly at the new fabrics that just arrived–Check.
7. Write a blog about aforementioned fabulous fabrics–Check, Check!

  Yep, I’m thrilled to announce that the first of the Fall 09 fabric contenders have arrived and here’s a little sneak peek:

Now the colors are a bit off (my camera and I don’t always get along…sad, but true), but you get the basic gist…they are so very pretty and I so very love them!!  I hope you all like them too…more is on its way and then it will be time to sew, sew, sew.  I can’t wait to turn those new, beautiful bolts of fabric into the coats, dresses and skirts that I see so clearly in my head–my fellow fabricaholics may agree that the most wonderful thing about an untouched bolt of fabric is the promise of what’s to come.  Oh, happiness is…!

So…let me start by saying that these busy times have not been kind to my sewing studio.  I’m not a naturally organized person (just ask Michele), but I manage to fake it well enough and hold my own when life is moving along at a reasonable pace…now, throw in a few holidays, vacations and mountains of work and the very unfortunate result is a very, very, very messy sewing studio.  This should say it all–Larry, my typically unfazed father-in-law, came looking for me the other day and in a fit of convulsive laughter and good-natured mocking, threatened to go off and find a camera…it was that bad and a picture of the whole room would just have been too embarrassing for words, but I wouldn’t want to disappoint, so more on that in a minute…

First, I have to confess that not only am I not naturally organized, but I also hate throwing stuff away (total packrat–again, just ask Michele…), so you know what you get when you mix hoarding with disorganization?

This:

8 giant bags of Hopscotch scrap fabric all over my floor!!!  (looking at it more closely now, I’m not sure how Larry did find me…)

The good news is that my sewing studio floor (and happily, the rest of it, too!) is now clean as a whistle, thanks to two busy days and one late night…the even better news is that all of that fabric scrap on the floor now looks like this:

In the spirit of “renew, reuse, recycle”, we now have for $5 each, 20 bags, each bursting with about 2 pounds of fabulous scrap fabric for any of you who have scrappy projects in the works or scrappy plans waiting in the wings.  All you have to do is click here to check out our scrap bags and put on your crafty thinking caps…we can’t wait to hear what you come up with!

P.S. If anyone is interested in chenille scraps, we have a lot of that from backing blankets that could also use a happy home…so if you are interested, just drop us a line and we’ll figure something out!