I Got It!!

Happy Sunday!! I had a weekend in my hometown celebrating my moms birthday. Upon arrival home, I got to crack open this little box of awesomeness.

You knew it happened... But did you know it was purple? And that it came with a lot of crap I didn't recognize?!

Four feet, four bobbins, two spool holders, five needles, a button putter onner (technical term, obviously), spool caps (and some felt spool washer looking things), a seam ripper (all too familiar with that!), a brush to clean it with (apparently it comes with chores), a button holer (I'm surprised myself to learn that is the technical term - that's my kind of English), a dust cover and a screw driver to get the plate off. Singer could have saved money on their design because a quarter works just as well. Anyway - it's a lot of stuff. Not to mention this machine takes up a lot more space. My desk never looked so small. 

So, a project did not happen today as I familiarized myself with all the new buttons and moving parts. Beside that fact, I'm one of those people that have to read the user manual and watch the instructional video before I do anything. I got to reading all of it today, and will get through the video tomorrow. 

Until that time, I'm going to occupy myself by watching my nails. My sister and I took my mom to the salon and they got pedicures while I decided to try my hand (get it?!) at a gel manicure. I chose orange. And brown. How did I do that?! It changes with my moods (or temperature if you don't give in to your inner teenager). I think it tells my mood pretty accurately actually. Here's an example - can you tell my mood here?

Honestly though - this cracks me up. 

Enjoy the weekend friends, and expect something fun next Sunday once I know how to use my new machine. 

Ready for Spring Shorts

Happy Sunday all! I took to my craft room and attacked my stacks of fabric again. Not sure what got into me, but I got it into my head to make some shorts. It was probably while I was staring out my window, looking at my three inches of snow. I just want spring to come. I'm done with winter. Thanks, Mother Nature, it's been fun, but please haul out any day now.

The only problem with my whole idea was that I have no idea how to make shorts. After a few quick google searches and youtube video watching, I decided to just get on with it.

I grabbed a pair of shorts from my drawer - a pair of Old Navy shorts that I was quite partial to this summer. I folded the shorts in half and also folded the fabric in half. I put the straight edge of the shorts on the folded part of the fabric and traced around it.

Then I did that same thing a second time to end up with two pieces of fabric in the same shape. Then I put one piece on top of the other, right sides together. Keep in mind, although I left room for seam allowances, I did not measure (true to form, I suppose). Should I repeat this process, I would certainly measure and make a deaper curve.

Next, I sewed the two curved sides together. Only the curved sides. This is important. Believe me... I learned that.

Next, I hemmed the bottom so the legs would be properly hemmed. I wasn't going to do this (lazy), but the edges kept rolling anyway, so the thread in the hem weighed it down just enough to stop rolling

Once the hem was sewn, I folded the entire shorts from the middle  to put the two side seams together. I know that comes out confusing so maybe these pictures would help.

Find middle:

Put the seams together. See what's happening here?

The next step is to sew up the crotch. You should see it form at the bottom so you'll know exactly where to sew. This was my second mistake - the crotch was rather flat, when it should hae been a distinctive V. Although I knew this, I didn't want to cut into it and totally ruin it, so I let it be. Next time, I'm cutting that crotch into a V. (P.S. Read in the wrong context, this post may become PG-13, My late apologies.)

Next, I worked on the waist. For this, I needed an old friend... non roll elastic.

I sewed the elastic onto the inside of the shorts (keep the shorts inside out and sew the elastic around the band). I then folded down the elastic to completely cover the elastic in fabric, and sewed it down again. Once finished..

And voila. Girl's got herself a pair of shorts. They are certainly not perfect - the crotch area, for most of the reasons listed above, turned out not quite right. It had a bit more fabric bunching than a girl needs, but they are certainly comfortable. I've got myself a new pair of pj shorts. The fact that I made them out of a fancy beach-towel material also played to the fact that they would never see public. Next shorts I make will be an attempt at beach shorts, but maybe I'll wait for better weather to go about doing that. For right now, I'm back in my sweatpants and sweatshirt, cuddled under a blanket and sitting in front of a space heater. 

In other news....

I bought myself a sewing machine.

Yes, it was the one that I was eyeing and I ended up getting it for a pretty great deal. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and opinions on the subject - especially all of the super helpful e-mails. In the end, I made the decision on the reputation of the Singer brand and, most importantly, my budget. The fact that I had gift cards to Joann's certainly played a good role as well. 

Enjoy your Sunday, friends. I hope it is as relaxed as mine has been. Hopefully next week will be a nice shiny new project on a nice shiny new machine. 

Bye Bye LBD

Happy Sunday all! Things are starting to look up - it's actually above 0* and I have had a great Friday at work (just Friday... the rest sucked). I spent a congratulatory Saturday wine touring at some of the best wineries... it was a fantastic weekend.

So this weeks project was pretty fun to do. I even got Sophie involved. Here's what I started with.

Pretty gorgeous, right? This had little black dress potential, but felt more like a jacked up mermaid dress. Something had to happen here and frankly, I was sick of dresses. So, I pulled out Sophie and decided to make myself a shirt of a different kind. I literally had no idea what I was doing - so I just winged it.

I knew I wanted to keep the little skirt at the bottom, but was unsure where I wanted to put it. Once it was on Sophie, I decided to bring the skirt up to an empire waist. No one hates an empire waist. I turned the dress up and took an inappropriate picture of Sophie. This is all for you guys.

I pinnned the seam from the skirt to the area where I wanted my new waist to be.  Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures other than the above one of the process so... get out your imaginations.

I sewed a new seam where the pins are in the above picture and then cut off all the excess below the pins. Then I turned eerything right side out and had myself a peplum style empire waisted shirt. The skirt made the peplum super puffy, so I brought the sides of the lower part of the shirt in about 4 inches on each side so it wasn't quite so "bubbly" around my middle. I have 4 gym sessions a week that call to the fact that I don't want anything extraneous hanging out around my middle.

In the end, I didn't hate the result. I wasn't in love with it, but I adore the fact that I did it correctly that it didn't look like a dress that was half sewed upside down..... because it was.

I've decided to bring back a trend that I started at the end of last year but didn't quite continue because my weekends were hectic: slow cooker meals. I decided to bring it back to my homestead this weekend. I bought a packet of slow cooker sauce at Target. For those interested, they were having a special for $1.50 each and, when buying 10 you got a free $5 gift card (essentially making them $1 each). I only picked up one because I had no idea how they would taste. It was pretty easy to throw together. It was literally the packet of slow cooker sauce and a 2-pound pork shoulder.

VERDICT: It had good taste, but was super salty. Although it was super easy to put together and pretty inexpensive for the amount of meat it produced, I probably would not repurchase because of the salt.

Hope ya'll enjoyed this week's post. As alway, feel free to leave comments or click on the "Contact Me" page to sned me a message.

Little Bit of Blogger Help

So I've had my eye on something lately... and it's not the TV for the big bad Superbowl today. Although that is on in my vicinity as well, so, I guess I have my eye on two things.

I figure the people that typically search for or read this blog are sewists. (Again - not sewers. Never sewers.) So, I figure who's better at giving me some good opinions? You guys :)

So here's my problem. I love my sewing machine. It was a Christmas gift from my sister and has brought me through a whole 16 months of blogging. However, I'm soon realizing that although it's super easy to use... it doesn't do much. It has two types of stitches, zig zag and straight, and I have the option to make them long or short. I've found myself doing a lot by hand (blind stitches, for example). So I've dabbled. I've stalked Joann and her fabrics. I've met website after website of sales and teased plenty of my sewing machine salesladies with my questions and disappointed them when I didn't purchase. I think I've narrowed it down to one.

It's pretty, it's purple, and the picture is a link to Joann's website so I don't get sued. Oh yeah... and it's currently on sale for more than half off.

 

So, I haven't pulled the trigger yet, because it's not often that I go out and spend more than $100 on something that I have at home and isn't broken. I don't really "upgrade" unless I don't like the original or have broken it completely. So I need some motivation... or other options.

 

That's where ya'll come in... I need your advice! Thanks in advance, friends.

 



To Buy or Not To Buy
	Yes - just buy it
	Wait for Christmas
	Don't get greedy, yours is fine
	No! Not this one!
	I will e-mail you a better one!
pollcode.com free polls