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Posts Tagged ‘sewing’

Adventures in Sewing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 20, 2012| 8 Comments »

Susan Bischoff and I went shopping a LONG time ago and bought everything I needed to make a skirt and blouse for my first (in a long time) sewing project. I got around to cutting out the material a few weeks ago. Today, since I’m on vacation, I’ve had a whole day to work on my sewing. How is it going? Well…maybe not too bad. I have the under skirt finished. But the lace overlay is giving me pause. I had to cut six inches off the skirt because I’m short and the skirt was much longer than I wanted. Now, I have a problem because I can’t cut off the lace (haven’t cut the material for this yet) since it has a scalloped edge. So that means I’ll have to cut off the top of the skirt instead of the bottom. Maybe this won’t be too much of a problem since the skirt is fairly straight. I guess it will be gathered just a little more. I decided to make the overlay separate from the underskirt so I can maybe mix and match later, sometimes wearing the skirt without the lace.

On to the blouse, which is what I’m just beginning to work on now. This pattern is supposed to be “very easy”, but I say nay, nay. Only because I had no idea how to use bias tape. However, thank goodness for YouTube! The way the pattern showed using the tape was confusing, but the video showed exactly how it’s done, plus an even quicker way to do it. (This is double fold bias.)

Okay, I know I’m boring the non-sewers to death. In fact, those people probably have already stopped reading. LOL. Anyway, I was just wondering. Have any of you ever used YouTube to figure out how to do something? If so, was it helpful?

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Sunday Update 8/12/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 12, 2012| 25 Comments »

It’s 58 degrees outside. 58! We haven’t seen a temp that low in months. I think the high is supposed to be around 87. I’ll take any temp under 90! 🙂

Word count was pretty good this week. Mon-2092, Thurs-1057, Fri-890, Sat-1678. I’m getting close to the end of my WIP. Just a few more chapters. (My chapters are short.) I think I’ve figured out the riddles, thanks to Anya Kelleye and her father. The next chapter I write should involve the riddles unless I think of something else I want to insert. And I think Anya and I have agreed on a cover for it. I’m so picky, I don’t see how she puts up with me. I ended up ditching a picture she had already bought for the cover. It just didn’t work for me. Seriously, when you find a great cover artist who you can work with, you’ve found a treasure, trust me.

I finally finished final proofing on Vampires’ Curse, so as soon as I make the changes, I’ll be ready to format for print. Then I can tell Anya how many pages it is so she can finish the cover.

I got the material cut out for a blouse and the bottom layer of my skirt.

I’ve been a busy bee. I didn’t mention all the boring housework and laundry. Plus the day job. Wait…I guess I did just mention it. LOL

How was YOUR week?

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I Want to Be Crafty Again

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 9, 2012| 14 Comments »

That title could conjure up all kinds of ideas, couldn’t it. LOL

I used to co-own a business with my best friend. She wove beautiful baskets, and I made eggshell ornaments. Later, I added beaded jewelry to the mix. We used to always participate in a craft show here in my town. She would travel from Indiana to here for the show each year. When she died in May of 2011, it took most of the wind out of my sails. I did one more show, with help from my dear friend (and cover artist) Anya Kelleye. I had all of my friend’s baskets, and we were trying to sell as many of them as we could. It was sort of a bittersweet time…I missed her terribly, but doing the show was a tribute to her memory. And it helped having Anya there. After that, though, I lost all desire to craft anything. That’s slowly changing. I’m trying to get into sewing. I want to start making jewelry again. I’m not so sure about the eggshell ornaments. That’s still hard for me because that’s what we started out with, and I’m not sure I could decorate an eggshell without tears. Plus, it’s much more time consuming than jewelry making, and I don’t have a lot of time. The desire to MAKE something is coming back. I just need to fit it in with all the other things I have to do. I just need to get organized! I’m planning a big giveaway when I release my current WIP, and there will be jewelry involved. And swag. And a book…. 🙂

Do any of you do crafts besides your writing? What do you do?

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Sunday Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2012| 18 Comments »

I didn’t get quite as many words in last week. Life happened, but it’s okay. I still got a fairly decent word count. Mon-719, Thurs-745, Sat-1733.

I was going to cut out patterns and possibly material yesterday. However, I couldn’t find my good scissors. They weren’t in my old cross stitching stuff, which is where I thought they were. They weren’t in my jewelry making stuff. I don’t know WHERE they are. And you can’t cut material with crappy scissors. So I guess I’ll be buying new ones.

I saw a GREAT movie on Netflix, recommended by Susan Bischoff. It was Fire with Fire about two teenagers in love. That’s all I’m going to say about it. Go watch it. (Don’t get it mixed up with a more recent movie with the same name.)

What have the rest of you been doing?

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Sunday Update 7/29/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2012| 14 Comments »

I’m a little late with my check in today. I usually try to do it before church and then take care of my sponsor duties in the afternoon, but I just ran out of time this morning. I always make a good breakfast on Sunday mornings, and I got way behind. LOL

My goal is to write about an hour (or until my hands give out) five days a week. I was plagued by the dreaded headache on Friday, even going home from work early, and Saturday I still had the headache plus I had to help my mom with her computer that decided not to boot up properly. Grrrrr. Anyway, on the three days I did write, my word counts were good. Mon-1875, Tues-1281, Thurs-1532. I timed myself on Thursday to see how long it was actually taking me to write. I wrote during my lunch hour, and I had to eat, so I knew I wouldn’t have a whole hour to write. I always read the last chapter I wrote the time before first so I can get my head back into the story, and that took five minutes. So, basically, I wrote over 1500 words in about 40 minutes. I thought I could only write about a thousand words an hour, but it had seemed lately I had written more. Apparently, I’m getting faster. Who knows if that will continue, but I’ll take it for now. 🙂

I’m trying to get back into sewing. I was lucky to spend time with the lovely Susan Bischoff last Saturday, and she was able to help me pick out patterns and material. My plans were to write and sew (or at least cut out the pattern!) Saturday, but with my oldest son and his wife coming into town for lunch, then my mom’s computer problems, AND my headache I didn’t get to do either. I want this skirt and blouse, darn it! My biggest goal for this week is to BE MORE EFFICIENT AND GET STUFF DONE.

How is everyone else doing? Any snags last week?

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Irish Scones and Sewing Machines

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 19, 2012| 17 Comments »

Boy, I’m getting good at titles with dual topics lately. LOL Once again, these two topics are totally unrelated.

I purchased Hogan’s Irish Scone Mix and a jar of Hogan’s Lemon Curd from igourment.com. I love scones…at least the ones I’m used to. I’ve had scones from an English tea room and from Panera, among other places. They’ve always been kind of dense, almost reminding me of the consistency of shortbread or something similar. So I made my scones last night. They’re biscuits. Not exactly like my homemade biscuits I eat with gravy, but very, very biscuit-like. I was disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, they were very good, they just weren’t what I was expecting. So my question is this (Claire Farrell, you have to chime in)…are Irish scones different from English scones? Or are the English scones I’ve been getting here in the US not really scones at all? Does anyone know?

Okay, I said, when I was talking about getting my kitty playhouse from Amazon, that I would tell what else I got from Amazon. It was a sewing machine. I’ve had this sudden burning desire to SEW SOMETHING. And it’s been years since I’ve done any sewing. My old sewing machine is somewhere in the attic. I don’t know where. This new one is computerized, so you can change stitches without changing a disc. Now I’m panicking because I’m afraid I CAN’T DO IT! My machine has some bells and whistles my old one didn’t have, and until I learn how to use them, it looks like it makes things harder instead of easier. Did I just waste my money on a whim? Or will I really be able to do this? Tune in later for further updates. 🙂

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