Automatic thread-cutting is the bomb, y'all

Contrary to the accountant part of my brain that tends to guide my spreadsheet-loving ways and general first impressions ("oh, you must be good at math!" = sigh...), I love making things.  And being crafty and creative and spending too much money at Jo-Ann.  And in a stroke of his own creative genius, Craig lovingly braved a scary place called Sewing World a few months ago (all by himself!  I'm beyond proud) and got me a kick-ass new sewing machine (can a sewing machine be kick-ass?  I think so...) for my birthday. 

hello, my love

I was in a state of shock at first and really scared to use it because it's all computery and LCDed where my trusty old machine was very...not...but I finally sat down with it and read the manual page by page and made it do things and IT'S AMAZING.  I didn't know things like automatic thread-cutting could be a part of my life, and now I'm not sure how I lived quite so long without it.  Dramatic much?  Who, me?  Never!  I'm also glad we have a giant dining room table adjacent to my crafty space command center so I can explode onto it with excessive amounts of stuff in my crafty adventures.

I had a baby shower to go to last weekend and used that as a convenient excuse to go on a "tiny things are adorable!!" bender for learning the sewing machine.  It was also a great excuse to do dorky things like make my own bias tape with this really cool little doodad.  I told Craig it was my version of a power tool.  He was not really impressed.  Anyway, see adorable tiny things below:

tiny things are adorable, prepster edition - square cookie cutters also make really excellent templates for appliqué

tiny things are adorable, owl + teeny onesie dress edition

I may have become slightly obsessed with tiny owls.  Aren't they just adorable??  

who wouldn't want a tiny adorable stuffed owl?  it was even soft and cuddly with its snuggle fleece body.  oh, owl, I love you.

However, my temporary obsession may have also turned Craig against tiny owls.

Erin:  Craig, look at this tiny owl!  Isn't it just super-cute?
Craig:  Uh-huh.
Twenty minutes later...
Erin:  Omgggg, how freaking cute is THIS tiny owl?  I just love him!
Craig:  Uh-huh.
Really not too much later...
Erin (possibly for the fourteenth time):  Craig, look at this tiny owl!!  Isn't it adorable?!?
Craig:  Please don't show me any more owls.

So then I just started showing the owls to Zach and Harry for approval, which was going pretty well until Zach decided he might like to maim and destroy the tiny stuffed owl, which was absolutely not part of my plan.  Fortunately, no animals, real or fabric-made, were harmed in the making of the tiny owls.

A couple of our friends from DC also recently welcomed a sweet little boy into the world, so I toned down the level of owlsy cuteness and switched from pink & green to blue & yellow for some teensy little boy craftiness, too.

And then to make Zach feel better for denying him the pleasure of destroying a stuffed thing, I made a little label for his new bed.  It now says "zach" in really cute letters instead of saying "KONG" in ugly letters.  He loves it.  And I love automatic thread-cutting (even more than I love tiny owls...I think).  Thanks, honey.  On to curtains!