Cupcakes and Sewing Crises

In order to finish last weekend's purse, I had to hand-sew the 2nd purse fabric to the inside of the 1st fabric and I was not happy about it!  My sewing machine was having major issues with the amount of fabric that I was trying to put through there and was doing all kinds of things to get out of doing the job (breaking the thread, eating the fabric, etc.)  Many thanks to Jenny, who came over to craft with me on Sunday and ended up helping fix my machine, which ended up to be not that complicated - I had just installed the needle backward a while ago.  Hmmm, I guess it's time to read the instructions.  We did take the top off and cleaned all the dust out of the inner cavities.  Years worth of dust - no wonder my sewing machine was not behaving!  

Armed with a newly fixed machine, I was able to sew a storage bin with Jenny, and later a little bag to go along with my beach bag.  This one is for storing a wet bathing suit, or other things that need to be kept separate.  I used some flannel-y Little Mermaid fabric for the outside and the inside was made of fused-together plastic shopping bags.  As always, it wasn't as perfect as I had imagined in my head, but hopefully it will get the job done, and look cute doing so.  

Sunday afternoon was, of course, the Superbowl, which fell on Ruthie's birthday this year.  In honor of her birthday, and the fact that everyone loves cupcakes, Nate and I hosted a Cupcake Bowl and 5 different people brought cupcakes.  Too bad we were all pretty full from the awesome pizzas that Nate had made from his dad's pizza dough recipe.  (Side note: when Nate called home to get the recipe, he said "Hi Mom, is Dad home?  I want his pizza dough recipe," and she said "oh, I thought you were calling to wish me a happy birthday!"  That Nate, what a good son!)

We had probably 6 times as many cupcakes as people, and we were all so full that hardly anyone wanted to take leftovers home.  Does anyone want to come over and help me eat cupcakes? Here are mine; mocha cupcakes with coffee buttercream frosting: