A little beore and after!

Thanks to everybody who linked up Friday's tutorial--I appreciate it.  It's always a thrill to land places like One Pretty Thing and CraftGossip!   I've gotten several questions about the ruffler foot.  You don't need a ruffler to make ruffles-- setting your tension on the highest number, adjusting your stitch length and width to the longest/widest settings and pulling on the bobbin thread will draw the fabric up into a ruffle.  It won't be knife-pleated, like the ones in my pictures, but it will be ruffly.  You can make knife-pleats by hand-- it's time-consuming and math-y.  Here's a nice, comprehensive tutorial.  Swearing while sewing is optional, but highly recommended :-)

One more note-- if you're including ruffles across straight seams, like the pants legs, it works just fine to cut strips straight across the fabric.  However, if you want to go around curves, like on a collar or scalloped hem, you'll need to cut the fabric on the bias, and follow the steps for making the ruffles.  Bias-cut fabric curves around edges without sticking out at funny angles, if you've never used it before.  I use a lot of hand-made bias to finish things-- a little time consuming to make, but so useful and pretty!

And here's a little before and after that's been in my "in progress" pile for a long, long time. 

I was so excited to score a wooden grocery stand for the boys while out thrifting a few weeks ago.  While not "real" wood, it's at least a distant relative of wood, with no plastic included.  And for the bargin-basement price of $10, I couldn't pass it up. 

Cute concept-- ugly execution.  So I broke out the chalkboard paint (for which I have an unquestionable affinity) and a little high-gloss white (low-VOC this time-- no spray paint when I can help it!).  Using some scrap canvas I had in the stash, I turned this into this:

I'm delighted with how it turned out.  We have a little playroom off the kitchen, and we're slowly turning it into a "minature" of our house-- complete with kitchen, post office and grocery.

The veggies are from Melissa and Doug. 

I'd love to make some felt foods to go with it, as well.  I've been searching the internet for some (free) patterns, but they are hard to come by.  If you have any good links, please pass them along!