Summer Sewing Goals

I was catching up on reading favorite blogs yesterday and came across a post by Jeni over at In Color Order on her summer sewing goals.  Her post made me consider what I hope to get done this summer.  Once my Super Secret Project is done that is.  So I made a list.  Here are the things that I want to accomplish in the next few months.  I admit that the list is quite, shall we say, adventurous?, hopeful?, ambitious?, extreme?  All of the above!  It's quite the list but hey, a girl's got to dream, right?

Here it is in no particular order:

1. Finish Renae's quilt (only a year late!)

2. Summer shorts for everyone.

3. Quilt for my bed

4. Summer top(s) for me

5. Cathedral Window Wall hanging

6. Other wall hanging

7. Inspired wall hanging

8. Christmas bags x's 3

9. Finish Caitlyn's quilt (only 10 years late)

10. Kitchen curtains

11. School outfit for Chickadee

12. This space left blank intentionally for projects that I may have forgotten that I want to do.  

 13. Like the shower curtain using Heather Ross' Mendicino fabric I've been saving

Here's the fabric I have picked out for one of the wall hangings.  Isn't it wonderful?  I love how happy the fabrics look together.  It just looks so summery!  I love fabric.  And color.  And colorful fabric even more. 

Here's to summer sewing,
A

Progress Notes

I made it home!   Florida was wonderful, minus the tropical storm.  It was good sitting with my grandmother, catching up and just sitting.  I didn't get much done while there, but on the way I did manage to finally turn the heels on my first pair of Christmas socks.  I'm not going to be done with the socks by the end of the month (tomorrow!) like I wanted but I'm mostly okay with that.  The heels were a secret mind trick that took me a little while to figure out.  The problem was that the gusset decreases were in an odd place and for the first heel my brain just would not let me decrease where the pattern said to.  It was awful.  Once I frogged the gusset back to the heel flap and started over, this time trusting the pattern, it went much better.  That made the second sock go significantly faster.  Like three days faster.  

Now that I'm home I've set the socks aside to finish up my secret project.  Please forgive the cloudy pictures, it's hard to get good light in a tropical depression. 

I should have all but the quilting done by this Friday.  I'm actually hoping to get it done tonight.  The bottle of wine in the fridge might say different though. Happy sipping sewing!

Pelican Bags

Phew, my weekend flew by so quick I landed in the middle of the week!  I spent Sunday with our Brownie troop making pelican bags for the Outer Banks Wildlife Shelter.  Of course it took me until last night to finish them all up.  We ended up with 66 bags to donate.  The wildlife shelter uses the bags to collect and transport wild birds (such as pelicans) that have been injured.  The girls made the bags as part of their community service project.  

 

 

Pelican Bag

Tiger "helping"

 

Which means of course, that I did not get to work on the Super Secret project until this morning.  Time is ticking away people!  I'm getting a little bit nervous about the deadline.  Just a little.  I'm sure it'll be ready in time.  I really don't have that much more to do.  However, we are going to Florida this weekend for a quick visit and I am not taking my sewing machine.  I'm going to be very busy when we get home next week. (What's new?) 

I did get all the pieces done.  It's just the putting them together that's left.  That's not that much work. Right.  I'm going to keep telling myself that until next week, mmmkay?  I love this picture from today.  Next time, I'll have more to show you.  

Boobyhips

I bet you're wondering exactly what the heck boobyhips are, huh?  Let me explain.  Recently I discovered that my hips and thighs were, how should I say this?  Spreading?  That seems appropriate.  Spreading.  Just enough that I don't really fit into my pants comfortably anymore.  It's strange because I'd lost all the baby weight from having Gus. I'm not feasting on chocolate and ice cream everyday.  Although, that does sound pretty good.

It took awhile but I finally figured out what was going on.  I stopped breastfeeding. About a month ago I weaned the little guy.  Gus would still like to nurse everyday and I didn't mind generally, but he only wanted to nurse to go to sleep.  That in itself wasn't a problem for me.  It was the fact that when he fell asleep he would clamp his little chompers down.  OUCH!!! Every. Time. I couldn't take it anymore.  So, no more nursies at our house. 

Of course those nice boobies I had while nursing had to go somewhere after their job was done.  My theory is that they just slid right down to my hips.  My thighs got jealous that my boobs and hips were so close and decided that they would be best friends now too.  Yep, that's what happened.  There was nothing I could do about it.  So now I have boobyhips.  Or hip-boobs.  Sure, I could work out a little more.  Start running.  Take Aaron up on his offer to watch the kids while I go to the gym.  But why ruin such obviously good friendships?  Besides that, it would cut into my already meager sewing time and it gives me an excuse to buy some new pants. 

 

Now, I'm off to (literally) run to the gym to learn how to work out and sew at the same time.  It could work, right? Can't you just imagine me running in place while sewing?  Squats while basting a quilt together?  Hmm, I may be on to something here. . . . I'll let you know how it works out for me. 

The Viking beat up my White. . .

I've had my new sewing machine for a few months now and while I had a bit of trouble adjusting to the computerized machine, I realized last night that it actually is better than my old mechanical machine.  What brought about this amazing epiphany?  I sewed on my old White.  I was feeling a little guilty for neglecting my old friend these past couple of months.  I couldn't believe how loud and clanky it is.  Did it really always sew that way?  How did I survive all these years?  The presser foot lever I thought that I would miss so much, well, not so much.  I kept forgetting to put it down!  See, the new Viking lowers the foot automatically when you start sewing.  I thought that I didn't really like that particular feature.  Boy was I wrong!  I do like that I have more control with the mechanical machine but the niceties of the the Viking make up for that pretty handily.  So today I took down the White and set the Viking up again.  It'll probably be awhile before I'm tempted to take out the old machine again.  Poor girl.  

I can't feel too bad though 'cause look what I got done. . .

So speedy!!

 

Only a few more squares to go and I can put the Super Secret project together!  I'm hoping to finalize everything this weekend and have it to it's forever home by the end of next week.  Keep your fingers crossed that Gus takes his nap every day! 

This is my favorite block so far.  I just love the way this project is coming together!!

Tomorrow or Yesterday?

It seems that the post I promised "tomorrow" passed by about a week ago.  Oops!  No, I didn't get kidnapped by the fabric police.  Although, that sounds pretty tempting. . .  No, instead I got to go on our first Girl Scout camping trip.  Of course, we had the biggest thunderstorm of the year on Saturday.  Our solution was to load up all ten girls and go to our fearless leader's house.  A few of the girls were really disappointed but we cheered them up by roasting marshmallows in the fireplace.  I don't know about the girls, but it sure cheered me up!  The girls all seemed to have a good time and we're looking forward to doing it again soon.  Without the thunder and lightening next time!

Chickadee and I came home Sunday afternoon just in time to grab Gus and wave good-bye to Aaron as he left for the airport.  So, with the catching up from our camping trip and no Aaron at home, plus teacher appreciation week at school, well, the blog ended up at the bottom of the list. 

Now that I'm here, I'll tell you what you've all dyeing dieing to know, what Aaron gave me for my birthday last week!  He  actually got me what I asked for this year.  I can't wait to try it out.  He got me a Learn to Dye kit from Burgh Baby Gear.  I think he even found it on Hyena cart.  Way to go Aaron!!

It's not the exact kit I was hoping for, but it will be a good practice set!  I really wanted to try out the Greener Shades dye kit.  It's more environmentally friendly and if I like dyeing as much as I think I will then I'll invest in that one later on.  But I was impressed that Aaron remembered that I mentioned a dye kit at all and I'm very thankful for the one he chose. 

I'm off to clean the bathrooms.  How glamorous am I? 

A Finish

I finally finished this little gift for one of Gus' friends, a sweet little girl who just loves pink and purple.  Little R. just turned 3 years old about 3 weeks ago.  I know, I know, I'm a bad friend.  This present should not have taken so long.  I could have worked on it more but I had a few other priorities.  You know, like feeding my family, scrubbing toilets and pulling weeds and let's not forget the Super Secret Uncooperative Project. 

 

 The little diapers were really fun to make and pretty easy. Much easier than I expected anyway.  It almost makes me want to sew some soft, luxurious, minkee diapers for Gus.  Almost.  Maybe for his birthday I'll sew him one or two.  Although, I'm hoping that by his next birthday we won't be needing diapers anymore.  Please, no one tell me that I'm living in a fantasy world.  I want to hold on to the hope that I can potty train Gus before he's two.

 The pillowcase dress will hopefully fit her brand new American Girl doll.  The pattern was well written and best of all, free.  I found it at Liberty Jane Patterns. My little Chickadee says that she's next on the list for some doll dresses.  She approved this one with two thumbs up!  I think that she'll have a great project to work on this summer. . .

Tomorrow I'll have to show you what I got for my birthday this week.  I'm very excited!