Life Moves....

Well, I have no new sewing to report. My gymnastic suits remain on my desk next to my sewing machine unsewn. We were out of town last weekend for Memorial day weekend, we went boating on the Colorado river at Palo Verde, CA. It was great. We had about 30 people with 6 boats. It was the maiden voyage for our new boat and I am happy with everything about it! Yeah! The week before the trip was spent planning, buying, and packing for the trip. We camped so that is always a lot more planning, buying and packing. The weekend before that I thought I would have some time to sew, but my sister needed some emergency help embroidering some Rodeo Queen sashes.....that took 5 hours, then we went out to eat with my in-laws. And there was a birthday party and a graduation party thrown in there. I have been busier than I like to be! So, I have decided to kick up my weight loss a notch and I joined the jillian michaels website. I read her book Master your Metabolism and it made so much sense to me that I decided it was time to work a little harder at removing the weight! I just started at this (day 2), so I don't have much to report yet. I am just glad that I am motivated to do something! If you have weight to lose, go get that book and read it! I got mine at Target, so it is easy to find! I don't want to go on and on about it, but it made me want to make a change. I definitely want to get some swimsuits going (for my daughters and me) after I finish up the gymnastic suits. My goal is to have the suits done before gymnastics this coming Monday. It is good to have goals...... Later!

Gynmastics Time Again!

I have growing girls! Actually I need to make new gymnastic suits mostly because the last ones were 3/4 sleeves and with the weather getting warmer I thought it would be nice to have sleeveless ones. I am using my trusted Jalie 2792. This time I am making view C which is the light blue and white one in the picture.

I traced out the pattern pieces for both girls and then dug into my stash. I have a lot of fabric that is suitable for this pattern, so I finally decided on a blue, red and white hybiscus hawaiian flower pattern for the body with a white stretch velour that has silver sparkly dots on it for the front and back yoke. I cut out the fabric yesterday while the kids played with the neighbors kids (my moment of peace during the day). I am not sure when I am going to have time to sew it up though. Gymnastics is on Mondays, so I hope to get them done by then. Hope. The days are looking pretty busy for awhile. The house needs some cleaning too. The washing machine is agitating away. There is a lot to do and really not enough time to play on the sewing machine.

So....I have completely been out of control with my fabric buying. I don't even make it out to the fabric stores! I do it all from the comfort of my computer, late at night, early in the morning, a few minutes here and few minutes there. OUT OF CONTROL! I blame the evil fabric queen at the yahoo group fabrics & notions. That is where I get 90% of my fabric. The other 10% (my swimsuit and gymnastic suit material) comes from ebay. I have 4 big boxes/crates of material in my closet with a huge stack on the side. I must have at least 100 yards....maybe 200? I hope it isn't that much! I keep saying I am not going to buy anymore because I really do have enough for a couple years of projects. She just keeps getting stuff that I think I must have because I will never have the chance again to get it. Do you think I could resist the remainder of the year???? I can't think of anything that I really need. Like I said, I could sew for a year and still have stash. Self control is my weakness. Do all sewists have this weakness????

Shirt with a view

Here is the finished shirt! I decided that I didn't want the sleeves or length any shorter so I did a rolled hem with the serger instead of hemming it like I originally planned. I wish my darn arms weren't so darn fat! I am sure you have seen this fabric before! It was pretty popular on PR last year. I actually decided not to make something right away because of how popular the fabric was! I mean when you sew, you really don't want everyone to have the same thing as you, right?? Anyhow, I am very happy with how it turned out. I will get photos of the back side later.....this was a timed photo and I had the (expensive) camera precariously sitting on the top of a chair to get this shot! I had my daughter take one...but it turned out to be just bust and up. Later, when my dh is home I can get him to take some pics!

working on jalie 2788

This is a cute top pattern. If you haven't made it, you should. I have made it one other time, and I always get compliments on the shirt. So....I have decided to make it once again. I am 3/4 of the way through it right now. I hope to have it done later today and get some photos of both of the shirts. Here is the pattern:

I have made it with the short sleeves, but not poofed like they show in the picture. The sleeve is gathered at the top, but I am just going to hem it. In the first version, I just did a rolled edge on the sleeve with the serger. This is a pattern that I sew completely on my serger/coverstitch machine. It is very quick and easy, maybe 2 hours worth of work. This time, I decided not to seam up the back and just cut it on the fold. I am not sure what the seam adds? I didn't put in the flounce in either version.

To change the subject....I had a really nice mother's day. My dd's had each made me a card. My younger one had also made me a bookmark. My older dd had made a handprint with a poem. My dh had them make stepping stones with their handprints and the year (I get this every year...it is the one thing I ask for!), I got 2 dozen long stem red roses, and bottle of nina ricci "love in paris" perfume, and breakfast made for me! What more could I want? Nothing. We all had a nice day together! I sent my mom and dh's mom chocolates for mother's day. We gave them a call and wished them happy mother's day. It was indeed a nice day.

It's in the Bag!

The bbq that is! Well, the bag is done....the bbq is sitting up on a shelf waiting to be put in the bag by dh....my statue would require a ladder to get it and I am just not feeling up to it right now! Maybe later I will struggle it down off the shelf and into the bag for a photo session. When I pulled out the strapping that I had purchased online, I saw that it was too short!!! So, this morning after I dropped my older dd at school, I took my younger dd to our upholstery store to get some more strapping. Thankfully they had acceptable colors in the width I wanted! Decent price too, so I bought lots extra. I am one of those people that likes to have everything on hand for when I feel a fancy to do a project. I detest having to get supplies just to start a project. I have a hundred cones of serger thread (at least 4 cones of each color in 25 colors), probably 60 spools of sewing thread, at least a hundred spools of embroidery thread, a hundred needles in all differing specialties, zippers galore, buttons galore, elastic galore, I am getting tired and forgetting the purpose of my rant.....anyhow, I am adding more to my stash of something I may or may not use in the forseeable future. Time to get the finishing touches on dinner....more later!

What's next .... a vinyl bag ala dh!

Okay, I guess it is time once again to sew for my dearest dh! This time he wants a bag to hold the portable bbq so he can put it in the new boat with out getting the boat dirty. I bought some vinyl that matches the vinyl in the boat and a looong separating zipper, and some strapping for handles. I measured up the bbq (38" x 10"x 18") and drafted up a pattern for it. I cut out the vinyl and hope to start that project tomorrow! (Maybe late tonight). Dh has been on a work trip for 1 1/2 weeks and is coming home on Saturday, so he will be pleasantly surprised! The boat's maiden voyage is memorial weekend, so my time to get this done is running out!

What do I want to be working on? I just received my Jalie stretch jeans pattern! I really would like to try this out....my denim isn't stretch so I will need to pay attention to sizing. I would love

to be able to make my youngest dd some jeans that actually fit around her waist and are the right length. She is so tiny, many pants (a size smaller even) won't stay up!

I am excited to try this pattern after making my last pair of jeans. I had some problems with the denim fraying at the seam (even with the edges serged and the seams topstitched) on the last pair and had to do some surgery on them. They came through fine, thankfully. This time though, I am going to do the seams like rtw pants where the edges are wrapped....probably why rtw pants are made that way!

Two Outfits and 1 shirt!

I have two hams! Well, I think that they liked their outfits. The t-shirt material seems to have a lot of "loose-ness" to it. So much, that I think I probably should have made a size smaller in my littlest dd's and maybe even my shirt. My older dd's shirt seems to fit the best. I liked the pattern of the littler one's skirt better than the older dd's skirt. I think next time I will adapt the pattern to look more like the younger dd's skirt. They loved the cupcake applique. I used the skirt material for the bottom of the cupcake and a pink sherpa for the top of the cupcake. My shirt is View D of the jalie 2805 pattern. I like it....but I don't love it. I needed a new white t-shirt and I like that it isn't totally plain, but I am not in love with the style. The way it hangs seems to make me look larger.....it could be the material though. It is super soft though and I am sure I will get lots of wear out it.

Here is a closer shot of the applique....can you tell her front two teeth are about to fall out?

Cutting done!

Well, off to the next project! I wanted to make a couple of new outfits for my dd's. I picked out one of my new fabrics from the evil fabric queen (EFQ). It is a sweater knit....see picture. I am going to use this for the skirts and I am going to make t-shirts with a cupcake applique on them tying in the same fabric into the bottom of the cupcake. I cut the sweater knit out using patterns that have been in my stash for awhile. For my older dd I am using Simplicity 4104 (I made this before a couple of months ago) and for my younger dd I am using Butterick 3674. They are similar, the flounce of the bottom is constructed a little differently though. The simplicity one is curved half circles sewn together, while th Butterick is 3 long rectangular pieces sewn together and gathered (this will give me a chance to use the gathering foot on my serger!). Then for the t-shirts, I am using my old tnt Jalie 2805 with a round neck. I received some bamboo interlock from the EFQ in my lastest shipment. It is the absolute softest t-shirt material that I have ever felt!!! Nothing else even compares...not even my t-shirt from l.l. bean that is 90% cotton and 10% cashmere. So, I have the bamboo in white, black, brown, and a natural color that is prepared for dying (PFD). I cut the kids t-shirts out of the white and will do the applique of the cupcake on the front. While cutting their t-shirts out I decided that I could really use a white short sleeve t-shirt, so I cut out Jalie2805 for me too. For mine, I decided to go with view D, which is the one with the buttons. I haven't tried that version yet, so I am excited to see how it will turn out!

Five items cut and waiting to be sewn, a house that needs vacuuming, beds that need sheets put back on them, kids that need played with and read to......I think the sewing is going to have to wait! First the kids, then the vacuuming, then the beds. Later, when the kids are playing with their friends, maybe I will get to sneak in a little sewing. Otherwise, it is after they go to bed tonight!