Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Cutest Little Girl Holiday Dresses

This is one of the best parts about having little girls in the family--
getting to  buy frilly dresses.  Blingy sequins are sewn into the center of each flower.  It's so cute I hung it on the Christmas tree.  This one is for sixteen-month-old Arabella.  Big sister Angelica is getting this one--
Look at that black tulle crinoline at the bottom!  It's a "twirly dress" that Angelica is gonna love.

Must get back to the sewing room.  I'm working on four aprons, changing the pattern as I go along, changing my mind about the embroidery designs, and just generally making life difficult for myself.  Hopefully, I'm get to post about them soon!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Towels for Brian

My lovely husband Brian has been in Pittsburgh this week, and I missed him, of course.  That got me to thinking about making him something.  He's always saying that I make things for everyone but us which is not true at all.  It may seem that way, though, because most of my sewing for us is house things. 
No, they are not for the kitchen.  They're for Brian so that he doesn't have to go find something at the most inconvenient of times. Enough said.  Yes, Sandra, that is what these are for.  Now the question is, do I need a new category for these on Pinterest or can I just put them under sewing?

In the interest of keeping this about sewing, and just in case anyone is still here rather than off to remove my blog from their list, here are a couple of pics showing just why you really need to wash these towels before embroidering. 
 See how much the white one has "waffled" from washing above and shrunk in size below?  I love the after, so I'm happy.  They are from Target, $2.99. 


Friday, November 14, 2014

A much more manageable rice heating pad

Okay!  I now realized that smaller is better with rice pads.  This one is for the neck and doesn't weigh enough to compact the spinal column like the last one, so it can get tied on.  I am wearing it at the moment just because I can.  Also it's providing me with some heat since winter has finally descended on New York's capital district area with a sprinkling of snow and cold this morning.


The sewing went well.  Unfortunately, I could not find my funnel and ended up doing this:

which resulted in scenes like this:


and this:


Something tells me I will be finding grains of rice in my sewing room for some time to come. 

This was made with two 9x13" pieces of fabric for the base.  When I finished, I thought I had over-stuffed it because it was rigid, not forming to the neck.  However, just bending and playing with it a bit made it softer so that it bent to the neck nicely.  I don't know whether the flannel stretched out or the rice just needed to settle more.  Either way, it turned out perfectly for me.   

    New Towel Emboidery Design

    I've been searching high and low for nice towels to embroider, both kitchen and bath.  Some I purchased on Amazon that turned out to be much more utilitarian and dull when they arrived than they appeared in the online photos. I was going to just keep them myself til I found this design from Embroidery Library.
    There is another one that say's "I'll Dry."  The design fits perfectly with the rather rustic looking towels.  It gave me the idea of creating sets of these towels with some denim aprons and potholder items for my kids for Christmas.  I'm going to try to take most of the denim from my hoard of old jeans I've saved from the kids to make them more personal.

    In order to accomplish this, I am going to have to stop doing housework from now until Christmas.  I know.  It's a lot to give up, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice for my children.  Who knew I'd still be able to use the kids for an excuse for not doing housework even after they were grown and gone!

    The Pinterest Shoulder Rice Heating Pad Saga

    The dictionary defines saga as a long tale of heroic achievement, so I think it works for this little sewing adventure.  I consider this a success despite my family's reactions.  My sister's recent, "Hey, remember those rice bags we made a long time ago?" reminded me of the over-the-shoulder rice heating pad pin I had stuck on my sewing board while wasting hours of time on Pinterest.  You can see the post here. The real original poster's blog with a tutorial is gone, but this blogger has pics that I thought would be enough.

    Does anything ever work out as planned in the sewing room?  There were two issues with this and I refuse to take responsibility for the first one.  The original design goes out to the edge of the shoulders which I did as well.  Once my pattern was cut, I hung it on my dress stand only to find that there were "wings" that stuck out where the shoulders curve.  How's the heated rice gonna do its job there?  This required some darts which miraculously worked out.  I am NOT good at this kind of sewing improvisation!
    The second problem is entirely my fault.  I thought why not make it longer in the back for when I get carried away with the weight training and need some heat across the upper back?  The answer is BECAUSE IT WILL WEIGH ALMOST 7 LBS.!  This is where the fun began.  After my Keegan tried it on and seemed to crumble under the weight, I thought maybe some ties to hold it on might help with the weight.
    Here is that silly version in the photo below.  No, it does not work.  You don't make the weight any better by tying it on to the body, nor should you be walking around with this thing if you have some achy (is that spelled right?) issues.  Carrying that weight may well exacerbate the aches and pains. 
    I took the ties off.

    This is not a total failure, however.  On the plus side:
    •  if you are sitting or lying down, it's great. In fact, you can even lie on your stomach and the freakin' weight presses down in a rather comforting way nicely pushing the heat down.  
    • sitting back in a chair, it's wonderful.  
    • I was trying to see how long it would hold the heat, but lost track after a half hour.  Were I in school today, I would definitely have been diagnosed with ADHD.  I will just say that it held the heat for a long, long time with the caveat that it took FIVE minutes to heat in the microwave. 
    • it induces gales of giggling from the moment people pick it up.  No one expects a heating pad to have this kind of heft.  
    Remember, though, that you can do it as the original designer intended with a much shorter back which would reduce the weight to something more practical thereby making it Pinterest success!
     

    Monday, October 27, 2014

    Not getting much sewing done, but we've been moseying along here!


    This is the sole extent of my creative endeavors lately.  Still don't regret covering the door to the basement with chalkboard paint. When I have a need to play with artsy stuff, the door gets a workout.  What better to play with than chalk--it's so forgiving and temporary.  I may not be artistically talented, but I don't let that stop me.

    I've been doing too much pinning, not enough sewing, lots of hiking and biking on the Zim Smith Trail--
    where you can find a ton of rocks for cairn building, and biking at the Saratoga Battlefield where you can often see deer like this little beast.
     We also FINALLY, almost a year later, went up north to my parents' hometown, Long Lake, New York to scatter my  mother's ashes.  Some were scattered into the lake near the town center.  Ama always did like to know what was going on in town.
    Some were scattered at Buttermilk Falls just up the road.  It flows into Long Lake and was a favorite place of my mother's.
    If you are near Long Lake you really should go to the falls.  This next photo doesn't do the buttery yellow and white water justice, but it's close enough.
    It was raining and cold which would have please my highly superstitious mother who said that it was good luck to be buried in the rain and married in sunshine. I have no idea how good luck applies to the dead, and I'm sure those of us shivering in the rain were not feeling lucky.  Then again, we did have a great lunch at the Adirondack Hotel across from the town beach.  Finding any restaurant is a challenge up north.  I guess finding a good one was where our luck came into play.

    My daughter Keegan, sister Robin, husband Brian, and me.  It was in the 60s the day before in Clifton Park.  I knew enough to dress for the north country's version of fall, about 30 degrees colder than our area, unlike some other people whose names I will not mention.
    Must include a photo with Robin's husband Jim who also came along for the adventure.
    That would be the guy taking videos with his phone.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a picture of someone who is not taking a picture nowadays?  Almost every photo I have is of someone taking a picture-sometimes taking a photo of me taking a photo of them!  Never really noticed how much this happens until this trip.
     Rest in peace, Ama. 
    Anne Cecilia LeBlanc Young Bressette 1963!





    Wednesday, October 15, 2014

    Is it possible to keep a sewing room neat?

    I mean when you actually USE it?  Here is my room in August.
    I could even keep the door open without worrying that someone would see it!
     

     
    So neat!
     
    A place for everything and everything in its place.
     I swore it would stay this way.  Photo from this lovely October morning:
    I really wanted to make this photo as small as possible, but I'm hoping that publicly shaming myself will encourage me to get it cleaned up.
    I only made a few baby things!  In the process, I had to tear through every piece of fabric I owned to decide which ones to use.  Then I discovered a ton of fabric that had snuck into the stash without being washed.  I long ago promised myself that I would wash all fabric as it came into the house so that it would be ready when I needed it.  I have no idea how all that unwashed fabric got on my shelves.  I'm blaming Brian.  The mess I will have to take responsibility for mess.
     
    Hints on keep sewing rooms neat would be appreciated.  Maybe I can get Pam of Threading My Way to set up a Link Party for this!  If you have not visited Pam's site--that would just be crazy cuz if you sew you HAVE to have found her site, but if not check it out.  Never-ending link parties in all kinds of sewing categories that I often turn to for inspiration.