The uniforms are done! I spent the rest of Friday mending and hemming. There is nothing like the feeling of accomplishment you get when your mending pile starts to shrink. Now if my ironing pile would do the same!

Sew Long for Now!

Have you ever had one of those days? One where everything you try to do just goes from bad to worse? Last week was not a good week so I set my mind that this week I was going to accomplish some things. It was looking like it was not to be. I am embroidering these Taekwonda uniforms. I just have to put the name and city on the backs. It is a flat place they go, doesn't sound too hard. Well,...they are made out of this very very heavy canvas material. You can't hoop it. I tried hooping cut away stabilizer and then using spray adhesive to hold the material in place on the hoop. Nope. The material is so heavy that it drags to the sides and will not hold down. I tried pinning the material to the stabilizer to hold it steady. That just caused the stabilizer to get pulled out of the hoop by the weight. I was so upset last night because I had tried on three different ones these methods and each messed up so I had three different uniforms that needed to have the embroidery ripped out. Finally, I drove over to my favorite sewing shop and talked to them. Hoop it all stabilizer-duh-why didn't I think of that. I didn't hoop the stabilizer and cut out the section with a pin like you usually do. I pulled all the protective covering off and stuck it to the bottom of the hoop. Then I pushed the material down bonding it with the stabilizer. It worked. Now to finish ripping out the booboos I made and redo those uniforms.

Sew Long for Now!

Last week I felt bad all week. I wasn't sick, just very very tired. The only sewing I got done was making five napkins for us. Our old ones are getting in bad shape and so I am using what cotton scraps I find to make us new ones. Great way to use up those scraps of fabric.

Sew Long for Now!

Good evening! Berta the first picture is for you. This is the sweater I wore the skirt with. I wore a white button up shirt. My sil gave me a gift card for Christmas and I found this sweater on mark down after New Year. I chose the burnt orange because I did a little reading a few years ago on colors trying to improve my wardrobe. I need a lot more help, but I did come to the conclusion that I am a fall or sunset. I used to wear a lot of blacks and blues and they didn't do me any favors. My peach complexion, brown with red (and grey) highlighted hair, and brown eyes makes me look better in these earthy tones.
I finished one of the most unusual requests I have had in a while tonight. This is the golf bag I sewed up. The pocket you see pulled away at the seam on the side that is top on the picture. By the time I recieved it the nylon was in shreds. Yesterday I put an ample amount of fray check on it and let it dry over night. I could not take the bag apart due to the way it was constructed. I could not put the seam back because of the shredding. What I did was to fold under the sealed edges and hand sew them making the pocket about an inch smaller on one side and then tapering it back into the seam on the bottom. I sewed a running stitch down the torn part. Next I ran a running stitch back up that, but opposite of the first line of stitching so that all gaps were sealed. Last I took small whip stitches along the side to be sure that nothing would fall out. The bag belongs to one of my son's teenage friends and he is going back to college tomorrow. His mother didn't want him to spend the money on a new bag, but she didn't want him to duct tape and look shabby either. I think it turned out nice and I don't think he will be embarrased to be seen on the golf course with it.
Last here is a picture of our cat who is a big baby...well...being a big baby! After my busy day sewing yesterday I went in to find him laying like this on our bed! He is so funny!

Sew Long for Now!

Here is a picture of the new skirt I made. I couldn't get a good picture of what makes this different, but there are four darts on the front that are 14 inches long each. I enjoyed wearing this skirt to our monthly ASG meeting last night. I did decide that the next one I make will have more material around and deeper darts. Of course that means re-figuring the darts. I think the next one will be black. I can never have too many black skirts for some reason. I attached the waistband my own way, but with the ability to remove it. We did not go over the way to attach the waistband at our neighborhood meeting, we will do that next month. It felt so nice to be able to sew for myself this week. Lessons with the children went well. I have been very blessed this week. Today I have spent the day sewing for others. I had two bags to embroidery, two shirts to mend, three pair of pants to hem, and one golf bag to mend. I have everything except the golf bag and one pair of pants done. The golf bag has to wait until tomorrow because it is made of nylon and the part that has tore is shredding. I coated the edge with no fray and will let it dry over night before I attempt to hand sew the seam back. I have to hand sew it, it will not fit on the machine! The one pair of pants is a pair of nylon athletic pants. I have to remove the zippers out of both legs before I can cut them to length and hem. I will not be replacing the zippers, but sewing the legs shut. It has been a good productive day!

Sew Long for Now!

I finally found time today to sew. I made a cup glove and found an embroidery to put on my new bag. I also found some print material in my stash that I want to line the bag with. It is inching it's way along.

Sew Long for Now!

Our mail today held a copy of this quarters newsletters from our homeschool group. I didn't have time to read them before, so I took them to violin lessons to read while Captain Kitty worked. Our group has a newsletter published by the youth. Captain Kitty is on the staff. This issue was about recipes and favorite memories from the kitchen, especially culinary disasters. I read the newsletter to see what CK had written. A poem on the last page especially caught my attention. I could not find a name as to who had written it. It seemed appropriate to the content of the issue and I thought they found it in a book to go along with the newsletter. I thought to myself that CK would really like the poem and I wanted to mention it to her to be sure she read it. On the way home I began to talk about this poem. She starting laughting at me. The poem that I thought they copied from a "professional" book of poetry was written by my daughter. She was a little miffed they didn't put her name on it. I told her I wanted to put it on my blog for others to enjoy.

Snowed In

On a cold winter's morning,

When you've nothing else to do,

The clouds have snowed you in,

And no one can get through.

You should turn on your oven,

Or gather round the fire,

You should bake, cook, or sing,

To raise your spirits higher.

By Captain Kitty age 12

On the sewing front: I went to one of the neighborhood meetings of our ASG last night. It is called the designer club. We are working on making the perfect skirt pattern. Below you will see a shot of my muslin. I can't wait to sew this skirt up. I only wear skirts. Sometimes I will wear a dress or jumper, but I am most comfortable in skirts. The way you make this and the darts really make a difference in the fit and look. I think when I finish one it will be much more tailored looking and make me look thinner. It is also way easy to do!

Sew Long for Now!

Some suede laying on my work table awaiting ideas and inspiration for a new bag. Hmmm. Should it have embroidery? Should it have some material with a print included? What should be the shape? How many pockets? Should it have a stiff interfacing, or a thin one?

Sew Long for Now!

I look around at friends blogs and see the reflections and meditations for the past year and the new year. 2007 was not my best year. Neither was 2006. Here is 2008 and it finally dawns on me that man's time frames don't matter. As another Christmas season ends and the hectic pace of life doing seamstress work for others slows down I chose not to be upset that I hadn't done all the little things I wanted to with my children. I decided that what does it matter if we bake Christmas cookies in January. My children had ask to make gingerbread houses and I never got around to even getting the supplies. I found kits marked down this past weekend and told them that they got to make New Year's houses. They thoroughly enjoyed spending New Years Eve afternoon building their masterpieces. On New Year's Day they began to eat them as we watched the Rose Parade hoping to catch a glimpse of their older brother who was playing in the VMI Regimental Band. We have plans for January that include baking those cookies and making snowflakes to hang around the house. Life goes on. How I chose to view it is my choice.

I started out the New Year by cleaning the sewing room. Oh, how much easier it is to be creative in a clean place.

Sew Long for Now!