Things I Don't Need

I heart notions. Big time.  Not ideas, although those are nifty too.  The little gadgetry that comes with crafts.  I own knitting notions that I've never used.  I have 112 million needle toppers, but I only ever used one pair at a time (as I only work on one project at a time).  I have oodles of stitch holders, but I don't knit anything where I need to use them.  I just adore sifting through all those little thingees when I'm looking for something else. I love them so much I want to own them for crafts I don't even do.  I don't scrapbook--but I want to own all those swell little punches and stamps and stick-on embellishments just because.  I don't know if it's an official disease, but I know I have it.

So...yeah, of course this applies to sewing.  I have tube turners, chalk liners, pincushions (note the plural) full of pins with different heads, bodkins, point pressers, and stuff I don't even know right now because I can't think of it all.  I just lurve it.  So why would I need more?  Because some day I might need it.   

 This needle and pin sharpening pad could save me some money on needles (the ones that I don't break because I forgot to switch my needle position after I attached a different presser foot.  Oops).

This yardstick compass would have come in handy recently when I was making circular cushions for my grandma's porch.  My method of "string tied to a pen" was a bit choppy.

 This gypsy gripper is great for stabilizing your ruler on your fabric to remove the cringe factor of "please don't let my hand slip; please don't let my hand slip."  Plus it reminds me of a little girl's plastic play telephone.

These pin magnets are super useful.  Or I assume so.  I don't ever drop pins when I'm sewing where they get stuck in the rug and then I have to either find it with my foot or watch it ricochet across the room when the vacuum hits it.

This "sixth finger stiletto" helps keep your fingers away from your steaming iron, or helps keep something fiddly in place as it heads towards your needle.

 Sewing themed button-headed pins.  As though pins aren't sewing themed enough.

True story:  I went to Joann's last week for a few things (I was very well behaved, I promise).  They had a cute little package of pins there for only $1.50--thirty pearlized heart-head pins in various colors.  I figured if nothing else they'd look cute in one of my pincushions.  I honestly thought they'd be seriously flimsy.  Wrong!  They're super awesome and I swear to you they made my sewing more enjoyable tonight (don't ask me why or how--I'm probably just weird).  I was seriously wanting to take the drive to go buy more of them.  But if there is one notion I don't need it's more pins.  I may just need this pin cushion, however:

And then I'd need more pins for it.  Such a vicious cycle.

My birthday is in May, and Christmas is, of course, in December.  Just sayin'.  If you want you can pretend they're sooner.

Notions pictured here can all be found at Nancy's Notions, except the teapot cushion, which I found here.

Homecoming

One of my Facebook friends posted this video to her page.  I promptly stole it, added it to mine, and tracked it down on YouTube so I could get the code and share it with you here.  No matter where you live, what your political views are, etc. you can't help but be touched by the sheer, unbridled love and joy in this video.  Grab some tissues and enjoy.

And if you were having a good makeup day...I apologize.

Oh, the places you'll go!

"You're going places, baby" award from Meream

The rules are simple.  Recipients simply have to state where they think they'll be in ten years.

Tougher than it sounds.....If you asked me this ten years ago I would have imagined I'd be in a completely different place than I currently am.  Not necessarily happier, or better.  Just different.  OK then, ten years.  My vision for 2020 (hehe--vision. 20/20. geddit?)...

1.  I'll have a family situation at that point--the whole hubs and kids thing going on.  The hubs will of course be my soul mate (he'd better be if I'm waiting this long).  Ideally, I'll be fortunate enough to be able to stay home with the tots....if'n we don't have tots, then I could just sew and craft all day.  He'll be cool with that I think...

2.  I'll have a business at that point, beyond my dinky little online shop.  Something real, like with jangly bells and a "Yes, we're open!" sign.  I don't know what I'd sell yet.  Either funky gifty stuff, sewing goods, or books.  Or all 3.  Yes, it will be 3 storefronts next to each other with different wares in each, and a secret passage system so I can work all 3 at once.

3.  I'll be twenty pounds lighter (I've been working on that for a few years and think I'm heavier than when I started).

4. I'll have a hundred blog followers.  At the rate I gain followers this seems like an adequate goal, bwahahaha.

5. I'll still have my sense of humor.

6. I'll have more inky scars.  Probably no more than 3 ever, but definitely 2.

And who do I think?

Lisa at u-handbag--who is already so well on her way she's out of sight.  Her site gets millions of visitors yearly, she has a book coming out soon, and she may be one of the sweetest people ever.  I want to follow her around in a  non-stalkerish way and absorb some of her awesome.

Adrianna and Susan at Crafterhours--they started blogging when I did but check out their blog, which has grown exponentially compared to mine, with tutorials and nifty ideas galore.

 Kandi from Kandipandi's Pad --she's a fairly new blogger who is always putting together the cutest fabric combinations, and makes some pretty nifty beaded items too.  I want to raid her Cath Kidston stash.

That's all I've got for now.  I know these things are kind of goofy, but they're fun.  They force us to reveal a bit about ourselves that we otherwise might keep hidden, and connect us to others.  That might be my favorite thing about blogging.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging for this brief announcement...

I won!!  Not the lottery (didn't buy a ticket), not an Academy Award (because I'm not in movies), not at the game I played with my nephew last night (because I just don't have good game-winning luck).  I won a blog giveaway for which I had my fingers crossed.  I had to submit a picture to the Flickr pool at Sew Christine, who had a giveaway for this:

It contains 100 sewing projects, ranging in difficulty, and contributed by bloggers from all over (Christine has a tutorial for a wallet in this one).  I wasn't able to get my mitts on the 2010 version, but Meream contributed her tutorial for a yoga mat bag to that one (which I followed as one of my first solo projects. The instructions are available on her blog).  When I grabbed the pic from Amazon there was a negative review that said "Each of these projects goes across a few days--you don't get a project each day."  I chuckled and thought "Well, duh! What planet do you live on where there are 100 days in a year?"  I googled and decided she must live on Mercury, or thereabouts (88 earth days in a year).  Teehee.  Sometimes I get bored....

Many times when I need a break from my regular bag-making or the more difficult projects people ask me for, I look for something small and adorable to make to amuse my brain and use up my fabric stash.  I'm pretty excited to receive this calendar, as it seems perfect for such a purpose.  I don't know if I'll be able to make it until 2011 to peek...I may have the projects done by then...or not.  At my rate sometimes I could very well live on Jupiter (12 earth years, baby).  Ask my co-workers--some think I live there already.

I've got a blog award to write up, as well as pics from my own personal sewing challenge (ordeal? nail-biter?  fill the swear jar project?  OK, I'll stick with challenge).  Stay tuned!

My Biggest Commitment Since Using Level 2 Hair Color (28 shampoos, yo!)

Soooooo.....remember when I was all "Dude, tattoos are permanent!" and said I'd never be able to decide what I wanted and blah-de-blah-de-blah?  Apparently, I'm a liar.  Because I've got one now.  As a matter of fact the bandage just came off, that's how fresh it is.  As it turns out I had been tossing the idea around while, unbeknownst to me, my sister Rachel was doing the same thing.  We decided to go together and get pretty scars scratched into our skin.  My sister Alicia designed Rachel's tattoo (which I don't have a picture of right now but it's wicked), while I found a few things on the internet for the artist to sketch out.  Now please excuse the photo because it's kind of hard to take a picture of your own throbbing ankle, but here it is:

Isn't that a sweet bee?  Geddit? Bwahahahaha...

The only thing I was really adamant about was that it had to be a sweet happy bee, a bee that loves it's whimsical little life of rolling around in flowers all day.  It could, under no circumstance, be an angry bee with a stinger.  I am in love with this bee.  The colors of the flowers are so much more vibrant in real life. Alicia told me, when all was done, "It's so you!" and I think I agree with her.

Have a great Fri-dee!!!

Third time's a charm

I've had a few discouraging days of sewing.  Not discouraging in the sense that I think "I HATE THIS!  I'M NEVER SEWING AGAIN!!!" but the kind of discouraging that makes you think "WHAT is going ON here?"  I had my epic geometry fail on Sunday, even though my shirring was quite nice.  Last night I tried to remake a shirt that I was informed by several people made me look chesty, pregnant, or postpartum and breast-feeding.  The shirring on the shirt was just under the chest--I removed all of it and decided to redo it several inches down, similar to another shirt I have that I love and does NOT make me look awful.  So I did the whole shirring thing, and...another fail.  First, the unshirred shirt was huge, so I trimmed it (too much).  By the time I shirred it, it was just...bad.  Plus the seam down the center of the front, as well as the horizontal seam across the chest, were making things worse.  So this shirt will no longer be in my life.  When I informed my sister Alicia of this she got this secretly pleased look on her face that she would no longer have to see this shirt (which she hated in all of its forms).  The shirt was very inexpensive, so no great loss, but I did like the print.  This? Is why I don't sew clothing that isn't pajama pants or skirts.

So what was my success? Surprisingly, clothing.  My build is such that my hips are a healthy size--my main ordeal when buying bottoms is that I need something that will come over my hips but not gap all around my waist or be huge in the legs.  I had bought a few pairs of capris last year that I loved.  This year, I don't love them so much.  They're a little longer than I like and a little wide in the leg--I dunno why I didn't feel this way last year. But this year I took my mighty Gingher shears to a few of the seams and have 3 pairs of capris that I am more likely to wear tomorrow than I was today.  The main triumph is that I did it all without cursing.  I think the hems are all good, but we'll find out if I was precise enough when I put them on.  With my luck I'll miraculously have made them longer on one side and the other side will be Daisy Dukes.

And since I think a post should have a photo, here are some flowers for you.

They remind me of raspberry Creme Savers.

Hopefully I"ll have some successful crafting to share soon.  Emphasis on the successful.  Hopefully.

A for Effort

Dear Mr. Gilbert:
I apologize for asking you in a sarcastic manner, 18 years ago, what I would ever use geometry for in real life.   I told you if I ever needed to fence in an abnormally shaped section of my yard that I would expect the guy I hired to build the fence to know such things.  I was adamant about the "fact" that circles and triangles would not be so prevalent in my life that I'd need to understand those crazy measurements you tried to teach us.  It became abundantly clear to me this evening that you were right, that we could not know where or when but one day we would need to know such things.
Sincerely,
Bethany, who is mad at herself right now


I. Feel. So. Dumb.  The technique of shirring is abundant in the sewing world right now--it's on a ton of the blogs I read, the fabric stores have samples of shirred garments on display, and so on.  I don't sew clothes well, so I thought I would make a shirred lampshade for my room.  It would slip right over my current lampshade, and if it worked well I could make a few for when my mood changed.  I measured my old lampshade oh so carefully.  It seemed terribly logical to me that the shape should be a trapezoid, and that it would magically fit a circular object.  I measured several times. I had crazy amounts of fun shirring.  And when I put the lampshade on--it was like that moment in 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation' when Clark realizes he forgot to bring the axe to the Christmas tree farm, right down to the 'boing' noise I heard in my head.

Here are a few of the comments I received:

     ~ "Where's the 'flare'?"
     ~ "Oh. What happened? Why is that part pointy?"
     ~ "What made you think a trapezoid would fit around a cone?"
     ~ "It's like that time you tried to knit me a messenger bag and you thought the pattern was wrong instead of you being wrong."
     ~ "That's really funny! I love your effort, even if the result was bad."
     ~ "Can't you see it's supposed to be more circular?" and of course...
     ~ "Hahahahahahahahahaha!"


I am out of the fabric (which I LOVED), and the piece I had started with would have been perfectly sized for this project (done properly).  I spent an entire evening shirring row after row--but this was ridiculously satisfying.  And it was all visually so interesting to see (especially after I took the iron to it).  I didn't want to part with my failure.  So I resewed the side seam so it was cylindrical, and I think I'll use it around a vase to cover the stems (especially if they're fake flowers) or just to cheer it up a bit.  So lesson begrudgingly learned for next time.

 See? Cute! It's one of those fake patchwork fabrics, and the colors were just so bright and cheery.

 I'm going to go take the edge off of my sourish mood with some reading.  Or online fabric shopping so I can have another go at this with something I love equally.