Of Getting Domestic

This past week my adorable niece, McKenzie, celebrated her first birthday.  In honor of such an occasion, I dusted off my sewing machine (ok, maybe it wasn't as dusty as I thought, I just remembered I made super-hero capes for Emmett and his cousin for Christmas, also), headed to the blog I had pinned to Pinterest many months ago and got to work on a project I meant to start much earlier than this.  And I probably should have because it took a little longer than I imagined - but that's mainly because sewing in a straight line (a straight-non-diagonal line) requires me to let the needle go a little slower than I'd like to admit.

But after a couple of days and a few extra hours, the bean bags were done!  Here's the final result:

I was kind of excited and maybe a little proud.  There were a lot of firsts for this project: ribbons, appliqué, bean bags!

And then, since I had the machine out anyway, I decided it was finally time for another project I'd been meaning to get to.  These lawn chairs were the first furniture we bought when we became home-owners.  We ate our frozen pizza in them the first night in our new house, before we moved any of our other furniture in, right there in our living room, with the fireplace going (because it was our first fireplace!).  Unfortunately, when the dogs met them, they went downhill fast.  And then some prego lady sat in them and the seats split right down the middle (yes, both of them, at separate times).  So, this was the sad condition of our lawn chairs:

I had actually planned to create new covers from the day the first one split - or I guess, really, before that, when the one above was left without a back when it was chewed to pieces before they were stored in the shed.  Either way, it was clearly a long time coming.  So, again, since the machine was coming out of hiding anyway, and I was really missing being able to sit in the backyard while the kids played, I pulled out the fabric I had bought last year to re-cover a garage sale find that just never happened.  I inspected the pieces left from the original chairs and was able to re-create the design for this final masterpiece:

Ain't she perty?

Here's a before and after - quite the difference!

The final pair - now Philip and I can enjoy a nice sunset conversation on our very own patio.  It's been a long time since that's happened!

I'll admit, all this domesticatin' has really gotten me in the mood and now we've gone stark crazy re-making everything.  Ok, not everything.  But we're in the process of painting some garage sale furniture I scored a couple of weeks ago and there's no telling where the remodeling craze will hit next!

1,000 Gifts:
437. Fresh paint giving new life.
438. Sitting on the patio.
439. Grass blowing in the breeze.
440. A fierce storm (when I'm cozy inside)
441. A husband praying peace over his nervous wife.