A little belated, but Merry Christmas, my friends!
Santa was oh-so-good to me this year and brought me a Brother 1034D serger!
Serger love + Winnie photobomb
There have been a number of situations in the past year or so where I’ve thought, “I wish I had a serger” while working on one project or another. I even included “use a serger” on my list of 100 No Pressure Projects. Now I have no excuse not to cross that goal off my list! Continue reading
I am so thrilled it’s Friday! TGIF!
Have I ever mentioned that I am the biggest Full House fan on the planet? Well, I am, and I can never say “TGIF” without thinking of one of these classic intros.
Come on America, hug your TV set!
Anyway, I’m so thrilled it’s Friday that I want to share the happiness by sharing some fun stuff that’s made me happy lately… aka, Friday Favorites! Continue reading
Meet Winnie.
Winnie likes to “help” me sew…
I love Winnie more than any other little pup in the universe. She’s lived with us for just over three years and she could not be more perfect. Despite her precocious ways.
While she’s grown out of many of her “sneak attack” tendencies, she still has an affinity for baskets of (dirty) laundry. For years, I’ve used one of those pop-up baskets, but one of Winnie’s favorite hobbies is tipping it over and running amok with its contents.
Whenever I come across licensed character fabric in the remnant bin, I feel compelled to buy it. Licensed fabric is expensive, and remnants are a great opportunity to get the fabric for 50-75% off, depending on the sale. So that’s exactly what happened a few days ago when I came across some Star Wars fabric in the bin. I’m not really a Star Wars fan, but I have plenty of friends who are. And my association with Disney in recent years has made me familiar enough with the franchise that I knew I could put it to good use.
When I got home and added the purchase to the ABYSS I call my fabric bin, I felt guilty for being such a fabric hoarder. I definitely buy more fabric than I use. I’ve been pretty good about avoiding fabric purchases for some time now, but like I said, I have this thing about licensed fabric. So I decided I needed to immediately start using up some fabric for something — anything. Starting with Star Wars.
The Star Wars print, which was supposed to look like a bunch of comic book covers, had a rectangular shape on it that looked almost exactly the size of the zipper pouches I like to make. So I had to try it.
Did you know I’m obsessed with hobbies? Sewing aside, I’ve also participated endurance events, earned an advanced SCBUA certification and spent countless hours fiddling with my beloved DSLR camera.
I’ll try almost anything – trampoline workout classes, indoor skydiving, surfing lessons or those trendy “let’s all paint an elaborate picture together while we drink wine” classes.
I recently wrote about my roommate Katie – aka “Krafty Katie” – and her love of counted cross-stitch crafts. Well, never having tried cross-stitch myself, I could only watch her stitchin’ along for so long before I had to give it a whirl myself.
In searching for a pattern, I fell in love with Clouds Factory – a site with “parody” patterns that portray squishy little versions of beloved characters from TV shows and movies. After much debate, I decided I wanted to make a Snow White themed biscornu – an eight sided pincushion. (Side note: According to the oh-so-trusty Wikipedia, the word biscornu is french for skewed, quirky or irregular. Look at that, my blog is educational!)
My Instagram followers were privy to viewing the progress of my little pincushion… which took place over the course of two weekends and many episodes of The Mindy Project.
Friends, I consider myself pretty darn safety conscious. I am constantly thinking about safety when I’m at work, so I naturally practice safe behaviors at home too. I’m even in the habit of telling people, “be safe” when we’re saying our goodbyes and going our separate ways.
Warning: Sewing Hazard Ahead
So, the fact that I chose to open a box using my rotary cutter was a pretty stupid decision. I was in a rush and the rotary cutter was right there. The rotary cutter slipped and I sliced my hand – I’ll spare you the photos. But just know that the end result was not good. Luckily, it wasn’t bad enough to seek professional medical attention… especially since this happened around 11:45 p.m. (maybe this is a lesson about how I shouldn’t attempt to be productive so close to bedtime).
Yesterday I bought most of the supplies that I’ll need for my upcoming sewing class at JoAnn’s – Sewing 301: Misses Dress. It was hard to decide on a color, but I finally decided on a fuchsia stretch knit. I’ve only had one experience with stretch knit in the past, and it was INCREDIBLY disastrous – so it will be interesting to see how this turns out with the help of a professional. Right now, I avoid stretch knits like the plague, so I’m a little scared, but I know I’ll be incredibly excited and proud if the end result is even a partial success. Crossing my fingers!
Fabric, interfacing, invisible zipper and supply list! Still need to pick up thread and the actual pattern for class.
On a side note, I noticed that the classes in July and August will be making a different dress than the one I’ll be making in my June class. The dress that is being offered in July and August is not my style at all. I’m so grateful I took the plunge and signed up a few weeks back!
July/August dress
What’s next? Pre-wash my fabric, purchase the rest of my supplies and then just wait. The “Countdown to Something Wearable” continues!
I hope everyone is having a magical weekend. I know I am!
At some point in my sewing-blog adventures, I came across the ZipIt Etsy shop and had two realizations:
After my jewelry roll success, I decided it was time to splurge and purchase an array of zippers to keep at my fingertips. That way I won’t have to run to the store every single time I need a zipper, which will likely save me money in the long run. This is a familiar scenario: I need one zipper. I come home hours later with about three hundred unnecessary sewing accessories… and one zipper.
I normally pay around $1.99/zipper at the fabric store. But for $31.00 total, which included shipping costs, I ordered 100 zippers in a variety of colors and sizes, which made each zipper only 31 cents each. AND… I ordered these beauties on May 9 and received them on May 11. Wow. WOW!
First project on the list? A zipper pouch to hold all of these zippers!
Funny story! After giving myself that elaborate “keep moving forward” pep talk, I closed my laptop, started working on a project and promptly broke the sewing machine needle for the very first time! It was a stupid mistake that I’d read about thousands of times in the manual, yet it still happened. I’ll never forget to remove the zipper foot again!
So… now what?
1) Watch that “Keep Moving Forward” clip for the zillionth time.
2) Pull out the manual and learn how to change the needle.
3) Keep. Moving. Forward. 🙂
Sew Lindsay, Sew! 