How excited was I to get my new books from Amazon?? (even though my "free" two-day shipping ended up being five days...) VERY.
I love my two new books. The first one is a steal at only $10: Sew What! Skirts, by Francesca DenHartog. 
The best thing about this book, aside from the fact that there are 16 different patterns (inspirations), is that she explains how to measure yourself so that you can--get ready--make your OWN patterns. Hence my last post. Yes, I know it's skirts and not a top, but hey, at least it's a start. Her choice of fabrics is really nice and the instructions are very simple and to-the-point. Me like.
The next book is Simple Sewing, by Lotta Jansdotter. Her style and patterns remind me a lot of the patterns in my little Japanese patchwork book (Machine Made Patchworks). It comes with patterns and some cute, simple ideas for stuff for the home and some cute little bags, etc. I think my first project from this book will be the little summer hat. However, this requires me to get some canvasy type material, and thus, it would break my sew-only-from-the-stash rule for the next few months... We'll see how it goes. 
In other news, The Babs has an injury. Scary little incident yesterday resulted in a trip to the emergency vet in Charleston. The diagnosis was a poor little wounded knee. So pitiful he would barely walk to the door when I came home from work yesterday. Of course, my thoughts were, "okay, he has some kind of deadly intestinal disease and he's bleeding internally... Or maybe he broke his leg... Or his back.... Or maybe its...." You get the picture. He's fine now. The anti-inflamatory meds are working like a charm.
Not much else for now. Sigh. Guess I'll go do some sewing for now.