The Siren Song of the Sewing Machine

My summer goals are coming along - in the case of the weight loss, well, and surprisingly fast! The sewing will hopefully swing into gear with the arrival of the two books I ordered.

I've only been on the "diet" for a little over a week now. My husband is exercising and losing weight with me, which is nice - he prods me to work out, and I prod him if either of us are dragging our feet, which has only happened once for each of us. I'm actually already seeing a difference - my jeans are no longer tight, my tummy is actually shrinking, my legs are getting less flabby and more muscle-y, and getting my wedding ring off no longer requires soap & water or the jaws of life! I swam for last night's workout (I've mainly been doing the treadmill) and I didn't feel bad about how I looked in my swimsuit! I could definitely look more svelte, but I wasn't feeling embarrassed to be seen!

The progress with the weight loss makes me even more excited to get my sewing books. As I mentioned last week, I ordered "Weekend Sewing" by Heather Ross, and "Sew What! Skirts" by Francesca DenHartog. They arrived yesterday. "Sew What! Skirts" seems like an excellent book from the read-through last night, and I am planning on making one of them this Friday. I'm still looking through "Weekend Sewing" so I'm not sure yet how useful it will be... but it's a beautiful looking book.

I can't wait for Friday - the machine and the fabric are calling me!

On the using my own shopping bag front, there's been a couple of times where I didn't have my bag with me, but I did use it today in fact.

Saturday in the Sewing Room

Hubby surprised me with flowers last night:




He has also ordered me a new lens for my Nikon. I can't wait to get it - it's supposed to be good for macro photography.

I renewed some Blythe items in my Etsy shop, and got one of the new hats listed.

The day was otherwise spend refolding all the fabric in my stash so that I could get a better idea of what I have and get some ideas of what to add to the prize box for the Blythe Runway Challenge.


This picture doesn't show all of it really, there are more stacks behind and to the left :) I need to decide how to store it - by color, by theme, or some other way. I'm leaning towards by theme - fruit, Halloween, Christmas, flowers, geometrics, etc.

Before I started on the stash, I machine quilted my doll quilt - I just did straight lines following the squares - I set up a practice piece to try doing free motion quilting on, but my sewing machine was not cooperating. I didn't take a picture yet, because I'm still trying to decide if I want to add some diagonal lines to the quilting. Or add buttons to the centers of each square.

A little bird told me...

I found a link yesterday to the pattern for this little birdie on the Sew Mama Sew forum:


His pattern is available on Spool Sewing's blog. He was very easy to make, I think I might put together a few more soon, maybe make a mobile like the one they show on their site. I like the "feet" stitched to the branches, that's so cute!

I finished embellishing the last of the series of crocheted Blythe helmets I've been making lately:



I'm going to call the yellow ones "Honey Butter" and the brown ones either Mocha Latte or Chocolate Mocha. Not sure yet. Next I just have to make sure I get good, clear pictures of them all, package them up nicely, and post them on Etsy along with a few other items that are waiting to be placed up there.

Sew Mama Sew also posted a purse tutorial that I'm wanting to try. I need to start cutting out my Blythe Runway Challenge outfit though! And the one for my local swap... and there was something else too... crud! I need more weekend! :D

I started a doll quilt today

I got the pieces cut out this afternoon:



Yes, those are my freakish toes at the bottom. :)

I'm following a tutorial/sew along at the site Sew Mama Sew. It seems pretty easy so far. I've done a small bit of quilting in my life - made a log cabin square and machine quilted it in middle school - I still have it, and use it as a hot pad. My mother was in a quilting circle when I was in middle and high school, so I've done a bit of hand quilting on other people's quilts. This is my first solo quilting project.

I cut the squares all from fabric left from other projects, except for the fairy and the women - I cut into fresh fat quarters for those :)

I should really be working on the Blythe Runway Challenge, but hey, procrastination is fun ;) And I've been wanting to do a small quilting project for awhile.