Sewing

My sewing machine is broken. I haven't taken it anywhere because I keep thinking that if I just sit down with it long enough, I can fix it myself. That was about 10 sit-down-with-its ago. In the mean time, I'm playing with my new camera and have been doing more digital scrapbooking.

Caroline

Cheque-mate

Do you ever have disappointments in life? Little, small ones. Not the big ones. The ones where you roll your eyes and get on with life very quickly? I guess disappointment is too strong a word. I don’t want to be a heavy today. I know most of you don't really care about my two cents on how I feel about my minor disappointments, but you're still reading, so...anyway.

Just little things, like you thought the washing machine would get the ketchup stain out of your 2 year old’s shirt and it didn’t. Or you thought that this would be the month that you’d finally be able to zip your skinny jeans and the button doesn’t quite meet the hole. Or you wake up smiling, just knowing Clean-Up Fairy made a visit overnight and you open your eyes to find she skipped your house that evening.

I feel this way about the finished product from my wallet. I made so many wrong choices and wrong stitches. I used too heavy an interfacing. It was pretty much white cardboard. I didn’t totally love the fabric combination. I think if I’d used a walking foot, it wouldn’t be so puckered and pulled in places. But, I am looking forward to my next attempt. I think it will go much more smoothly. You can bet your bottom dollar.

However, I am pleased with my first attempt at putting in a zipper! And I didn’t even get the zipper foot out. I have no pictures because I finished it at, like, 11 last night and it was so awful that I didn’t want to bare it for all to see. The seams look terrible, there’s fabric showing that should be tucked neatly inside stitching, there are pieces and parts that are catawampus, it’s just a mess. I haven’t even taken a wet cloth to my markings, yet. Here’s the fabric I used, though. You can dream about what it should look like…

Money, Money, Money

I haven't even looked at the sewing machine in weeks. I have, however, finished smocking all the white on Caroline's Easter dress. I have a few flowers left to go, hemming, then she's done. I'll post pictures of it with her in it. I'm sort of pleased with the result. It's pretty uneven in sections, but it'll do. It's gone much smoother than I anticipated, so I'm hoping that I can start smocking more. They make great baby gifts, too.

In the mean time, I have purchased four new patterns. McCall's was having their 99 cents sale at Hancocks a while back. After a sweet little chat with an 80-year-old lady about how clothing today has gotten completely out of control and how she has been searching and searching for a skirt pattern that would hit mid-calf and how she guessed she could just lengthen the one pattern that she actually liked, I left the store with a kids' jumper/overall set, a four-purse set, and a baby set (bib, car seat cover, splat mat, etc). Then, the other day, I found what I've been looking for for a while. A wallet pattern. I've always wanted my wallets to match my purses, so now I can just tack on an extra 1/2 yard to whatever I'm buying and I can be totally cool and hip. In a handmade sort of way. I think once I can make them presentable, they'll make great little stocking stuffers. They take very little materials, and so far, has been easy to put together. I even put a zipper in it! Gasp!

Click on the picture for an inside peek.

Joel Dewberry!

Joel Dewberry is coming out with new fabrics in May. Here are some of the ones I'm really looking forward to getting...

Whew.

I've found that my crafting (or puttering, which seems to better describe what I do) comes in spurts. I can't get enough for about a week or so. I mean, the sewing machine is flying, glue and paper everywhere. Then, for about the same amount of time, I can't even think about making anything.

I'm cooling off from the two-week high, so I thought I'd update on what I've been up to. Also, I need to pour my crafting (er, puttering) energy into smocking Caroline's Easter dress. I actually have a deadline with that! One thing that I try to do, particularly when it's a project that I've done before and know the routine of, I pray for whomever I'm making it for while I'm putting it together. Caro's going to be getting a lot of prayers over that dress!

Oh, and please excuse my shoddy photography in the next few posts.

Jennifer Mixon--Do Not Read Further

I found a tutorial online for making these little blocks. Sew in some ribbon at the seams and a bell in the batting and it makes a sweet little baby gift. This is another baby gift you can make in under 30 minutes.