The many faces of Carl

My 50th birthday just past by me last week in kind of a blur in some ways. I was so stressed out to be 30 but being 50 feels great. I guess maybe because I think that 20 years later, I have something to show for it! At 30 I was just pregnant all the time and chasing my babies. I feel beautiful at 50 in a way I did not feel 20 years ago. More comfortable in my own skin.

One of my best accomplishments is my four children. Each time I look at them, even now as adults, I feel so much love for them that I can hardly contain it. I am so proud of each of them. They always got along well and often even did plays all together in the same cast. This is the four of them in 2000 for a play "Twelve Dancing Princesses"

They are each unique in their own way and very much their own individual people. The babies I adored and kissed to death are all grown up into such great adults.

My son Carl ( my oldest and picture above with his two younger sisters) is so sweet to me and such a tender man. He is brilliant at so many things: artistic, musical, speaks several languages, well read,talented actor and a fantastic older brother. On my birthday he did a concert for me and played his guitar to me in the living room. I did allow the rest of the family to listen. But Carl was singing for me. It was all I could do not to cry.

Sometimes I joined in a sang with him softly. When he was a baby, he told me I did not sing very well and it "hurt his ears". He was completely right and now that he is grown and has perfect pitch, I know why it hurt his tiny ears and laugh about it.

Carl and his brother Lane made me a nice birthday dinner. They have never looked too much alike even as children but right now they both have the same haircut so I had to snap this photo. Lane makes the most sarcastic expressions. But Carl was my first baby, the one that stole my heart and made me melt. I made more mistakes on him than I can count. I was so nervous as a new mom that I would screw things up and be the kind of parent that I had growing up. I boiled everything in site, followed him every place, never put him down for longer than it took to use the restroom and kissed him a billion times at least in the first month.

Carl has many moods and faces as well as being able to use all kinds of crazy accents. He has always been quite a character.

Carl at about 10 minutes old

Carl was our Christmas gift.

Carl being super cool and laid back as a toddler.

His first play at Manzanita Elementary School in Seaside, California. Age 8.

Graduation from Monterey High School in 2004 with Buck at his side.

On Stage in 2003 for Ariel Theatrial in Salinas, California.

Hanging out with Cole and his band members.

Carl might be playing the guitar on stage one evening, his saxaphone another or dressing up for a Cosplay Event as Char from the Gundam Series or hanging out with friends the next and each time he is always having a great time.

His recent hair cut was more painful for me than it was for him. He has grown his hair out to donate twice now. He just has such gorgeous hair.

Life can be full of regrets if we let it. I try not to have too many. My big one is probably not becoming a Pediatrician when I had some great scholarship offers. But girs in Utah just did not do that in the 80's. However, I have no regrets about having my children except that I would have liked even more!!

Being a mom is the best job ever and I am please that Carl is my son. He made my birthday really special for me this year. I won't ever forget it. Probably a good reason why I named him Carl "Bruce Springsteen" Salbacka! All that rock and roll rubbed off on him! I love you Carl!

New company for PDF Patterns

I just found a new company on Etsy for PDF Patterns, SewingWithMe1 and they have really cute patterns. The company is from Canada. This is the first pattern that I bought:

They also have a website called ithinksew.com and I found some free pattern downloads on it. I was pretty excited because one included was a child's apron pattern. My little girls on the Saturday class had decided to do aprons next so we are trying out their free pattern.

My lovely little ladies are been very Eco Friendly and green so they are using their daddy's old shirts for the aprons. It was quite funny to watch them cut up the old shirts and work on laying out patterns at the last class.

These girls are sharp and quick learners but cutting up their father's shirts just seemed a bit naughty and both giggled so much that I had to join in.

We will review how the pattern works out but I was pretty excited to pass on this site to everyone.

We are the Featured Sellers today in our favorite Etsy Team!!

We are so excited about many changes in our Etsy shops. First we changed our name from the main shop, Sew4Thought to Jewels4Thought because we are mostly selling jewelry. Our sewn items will be in the children's shop, Sew4Munchkins on Etsy and a new shop, yet to be named.

I just got a pile of scrap socks from Little Bunny tutus and started creating some fun Valentines Arm Warmers.

Along with a striped turtle neck from Goodwill, I was ready to get sewing on the arm warmers. Since each pair has multiple colors and patterns, you can use pretty small scraps. Most of what she sends me are just the feet she cut off to make her baby leg warmers. I was lucky and just paid her for the postage.

I cut off pieces between 4 to 6" long. I use either two or three depending on the length. Audrey likes them to be about 15" and most adults buying on etsy prefer the longer length but with younger tweens or people who just want fingerless gloves, shorter is fine.

The super stretchy striped turtleneck worked out perfectly. I cut a piece that was six inches long by 6 inches wide. I folded it and serged it up so it matched up with the socks scrap and it is easy to serge the two pieces together into one long tube. Some ribbing added to the top keeps it secure as well as at the bottom by the thumb hole.

The results are selling well on Etsy and so much fun.
Audrey and Lauren did a modeling session for me with their long pretty arms.

New Students, more fun for me♥

We are on our third week of lessons with two darling tween girls and having so much fun. I really look forward to seeing them each week. We started on paper at the first lesson and they both went zipping along. We jumped right into the tote bags and got finished half way the first week. I was so proud.

Now to make me laugh a bit, this past Saturday being also my 50th Birthday, everyone was running late. One girls machine was missing the foot and add to that my son's both being at home and baby Hayden arriving halfway through for birthday lunch and we had kind of a circus going on in the front room. Than one of the mommy's hung out and it made both girls a bit silly and they were making mistakes they never make from the past few weeks. She is the most laid back mom too. I loved that she was hanging out and chatting with my daughter about High School classes,etc...


Meanwhile, we had some interesting errors on the tote bags. Both girls learned about a seam ripper at this lesson.

The importance of ironing your projects is always one of my first lessons. The girls loved choosing a trim for their bags. It was interesting to me that both girls picked blue fabrics. None of my current female students like pink! Not that I am complaining one bit since I love blue myself.

I just adore how sweet their tiny hands look as they work on the sewing machines. Both these young ladies are very talented already.

We finally got done and I am so glad because I don't want them to lose their enthusiasm for sewing and crafting. I had feared the arts would be lost to this next generation as so few sew anymore.

Our next project is going to be Up-Cycled Aprons and this week the girls will be combing Thrift stores or mom's close for something that they can use in the next lesson.

Blog Give Aways!

We have just finished being featured in several blogs with give aways so its time to start doing our own. With the new year, we have so many new projects in the works.
Beanies or Tuques as they are called in Canada have been popular with chilly weather.
Audrey and I made up a few with some sock scraps and a t-shirt. Here is our result.

The socks were actually baby tights that we had cut off to make my new neice some leg warmers and so we made a long tube out of them to put around the band of the hat. Great up-cycling project.

We measured Audrey's head, 21 inches around and cut a rectangle out of the shirt bottom that was 11.25" across and 10" tall x two for the hat's body. Simply sewing up the sides, leaving a small opening at the top for the pom pom.

For the pom pom we shredded some sock scraps up and gathered up the center of the hat around the scraps so they kind of poufed out of the hat.

The band is the sections of the tights all sewn together into a 21" band which we easily stretched and serged around the bottom of the hat. It took about 20 minutes to make our first one.

Carl was forced to model for another try but this hat was given to my nephew Parker to keep and take home to Utah with him.

We hope to make some of these for the shop eventually and see if anyone else likes our Repurposed shirts and socks in a new form. The arm warmers are still selling okay in our shop and we have given some away for gifts to teachers and friends.

These were made from socks on clearance right now at Target for $1.50. Not exactly up-cycling since they were purchased but it is a re-purposing of the socks so it fits our blog.

What have you been re-making lately? Please post a few ideas. In the meantime, anyone who comments this month will be entered into a drawing to win a free pair of arm warmers from our shop Sew4Munchkins at Etsy.

Thanks for reading...Tracey

Way to long!!

No excuses...it has been way to long since anything was added to this blog.
We have been sewing away and being as Green as possible over the past few months.
Our most exiting news is that there is now a Goodwill store here in our town of Marina, California, and we can get there by walking in just 10 minutes!!!
We ♥ Goodwill!

Our first shop on Etsy, Sew4fun114 went through a transformation in October to Sew4Thought and in November, we added a second shop focused on Teens, Tweens and Children called Sew4Munchkins.

Over the Holiday Season, our best seller by far was our Eco Arm Warmers made from up-cycled socks. Audrey had a group of her friends model for us including a couple of awesome boys!

Audrey really can ham it up for the camera at times and this photo shoot was no exception.

We got the sock scraps and leftovers from our stash and from another etsy seller, Littlebunnytutus. She sent us some really fun colors and patterns.

Thank you to Lauren, Jessie, Samantha and everyone else at Marina High School for posing for the pictures. You are all AWESOME!

We really enjoyed coming up with fun and crazy color combinations with the different socks. We sold over 100 pairs on Etsy. It was wonderful and helped us get some nice christmas gifts for the family.

Next we had a great visit from my baby brother Ryan and his children, Ariana and Parker. Ariana loved the arm warmers too and took three pairs home to Utah. She helped Audrey model a few new styles for our shop before leaving for Disneyland.

Now I am working on making some arm warmers or fingerless gloves from some old sweaters that we bought at the new Goodwill. The first problem I have had is that they are really thick to serge so when I get this resolved, I will put up some photos and a DIY guide of sorts.

Hope everyone had a Happy Holiday season.