Creativity

I've spent the last few days getting some sewing done. My stack of projects included 2 dresses for myself, a dress for my daughter, and bathing suits for my daughter and myself. Since I'm the one with the most need of clothes, I started with my dresses. This first one was a pattern that I had done before and I liked the way it fit. I hate to buy my fabric online since I'm never positive of what I'll be getting; but this time turned out okay. I thought I might have a problem when I realized that I needed 12 buttons. I haven't found any stores here that carry sewing supplies, and buttons are hard to find online, but then I remembered my "bag-o-buttons". You see, a couple of years ago the store in Okinawa decided to stop selling the majority of their sewing supplies. They still had many buttons and other notions in their stock, so they had a huge sale. All of the buttons were 75% off. My husband gave me his approval and I quickly gathered quite a large pile of buttons into the shopping cart. I didn't have any projects in mind for these buttons, but since I make a lot of our family's clothing, I figured that I couldn't go wrong. I now have a large bag full of buttons of all sizes, shapes, and colors. And it just so happened that I had 12, matching, black buttons...perfect. (My daughter made me a new face for these pictures :)

The story of the buttons reminds me of another deal that I found at this same store. One year, around January, I was looking for several skeins of embroidery floss for some cross-stitch projects. There was a sign out that said the floss was 75% off. I asked an employee if this was right, and she told me that they didn't want to count all of it in their upcoming inventory; hence the sale. I was more than willing to help them out! A skein of floss was only 27 cents to begin with, so 75% off meant I would only pay about 7 cents each. I ended up buying about $30 worth of floss -- you do the math! Let's just say, the people behind me in line were not happy ;) I went back the next day to get some more, and found that the sale was already canceled. I guess the management wasn't too happy about losing so much money. Well, at least I got to take advantage of it, and I have enough floss now to last me a couple of decades!
Okay, on with the present....
The next dress I made was also from a tried and true pattern. But this time I used the material that I had purchased in the Old City. I didn't realize it when I bought it, but this material was so slippery! It was some kind of man-made fiber, so it also unraveled pretty badly. I had a tough time with this one and felt like throwing it in the garbage a few times! But, after a day of working on it, I finished this one as well.
After my husband took this picture, he made me laugh by letting me know that I blinked! ;)
Of course, I am far from done sewing. I will post pictures of the rest of my projects when they're finished. Of course, I'm not sure if I'll be wearing the bathing suit; we'll see what it looks like. It is supposed to be very modest, but I'll make that judgment call after I've tried it on.

I have not been the only one in the house in a creative mood. My daughter surprised me with her ingenuity yesterday. She was using a stuffed puppy dog as a baby doll, and wanted a stroller for it. Since she didn't have a stroller, she decided to make one. This is what she came up with.
This puppy dog has a cushy seat inside an old ice cream container, complete with it's own pillow. The container is resting in an upside-down Frisbee, and a toy bus is strapped to the bottom by a rubber band. I thought this was really cute, and I was very proud that she came up with this on her own. And not having her whine and beg for me to buy her a stroller was a nice bonus too. ;)