Designer Bead Embroirdery by Kenneth King

Kenneth King has written a wonderful book describing in great detail how to add beading and sequins to your clothing. The book has MANY templates and VERY clear instructions. This book is a great book to have on hand for reference.

A book review

"The Dressmaker" is a novel written by Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck about a man who falls in love with a woman engaged. The plot takes place in today's time, Paris and the story follows Claude from his first meeting with Valentine until the time he is fighting her husband and way beyond. Claude Raynaud is a wedding gown designer and lives outside of Paris in a town called Senlis. He has an estranged wife who returns one day. He becomes famous. The book goes on forever about a whole bunch of nothing. It would been nice if Oberbeck could have given more explanation on how Claude would stalk and watch Valentine - or anything more interesting than this time waster!

Hmph.

It isn't another snow day - although it should be! We're expecting an ice/snow storm by noon. So we'll see if we have to leave early or not today.

Hoppo Bumpo's blog is hosting a seam-along for a few weeks. This week is the french seam. The damn french seam. The faux french seam I can deal with. The real thing is misunderstood.

Although I have never actually tried the french seam, it is majorly confusing to me. It must be so overwhelming that I've never dared to try. Tonight I plan to try! I will sit down with a fresh seam and try to figure how the french seams steps work.

Next week Hoppo is working is going to do the hong kong seam finish - which I plan to practice too!

I also need to finish my purse and curtains...

Snow Day

This is the first snow day I've had at my current employment...of course this is the worst winter we've had since I've started working there. Anyhow I took advantage by not going back to sleep, making breakfast, going to the store (4WD baby!), cleaning, completing homework, and doing research on inspiration to conceptualization in fashion design. I found a great article while searching on Google. Type in "architectural inspiration fashion design" and you may get this.

I decided to check out a project I started early last year, which was a yellow and navy over the shoulder handbag. I don't know why I went from cutting right into sewing the lining with the fabric since the lining was an inch off on the bottom and right edge. What WAS I THINKING?!?

So I started on this faux croc, which is in the same pattern as the yellow and navy suede:















So you can see in the above that I am using vinyl with binder clips trapping a strip to cover the raw edges. It is a test garment, of course, the sewing is a bit off. But I did (without knowing) center the "crocodile" back on the pattern. I love the look of this purse - it's so ... sexy. I had to take out the stitches because the vinyl is hard to match in the curves of the armholes. So I'm not finished yet, but I am SO close.

I still need to complete the other pair of curtains for the bedroom and iron both sets.

Now I'm doing research on armors and more articles on using inspiration for fashion designing. I would like to purchase this book from Amazon. It would be really helpful in understanding the steps that go into fashion inspiration.

My Weekend

Surprise! Surprise! I had a productive weekend!

I began by completing all my homework.

Then I moved on to making brownie cupcakes with oreos in the middle and on top. And they were heart-shaped!

I think it was Friday, no Thursday night, that I made meatballs and had those over at B's Granny's, matched perfectly with her spaghetti! YUM! YUM!

Anyhow, B and I woke on Sunday to a productive afternoon. Yes, we do wake up at one in the afternoon. We cleaned, I organized, I sewed. Yes, I got one set of panels completed for my bedroom curtains. I also began completing my tan embroirdered full circle skirt (click here). I inserted the zipper and completed the back seam. I do need to finish the seam to protect it from raveling and add the waistband and do the one inch hem.

I'll be posting photos this evening!

Go me!

Michelle Obama

I'm sorry to every stylista out there that loves the First Lady's style but the dress she wore during the inauguration was hideous. I hated the color and I wasn't sure about the style of the coat with an overlay of lace. Also, the high neck with a large diamond necklace lying over it was just too much. I just did NOT like it.

The color was just hideous - that is one color that no woman should wear!

Another day - after another...

There must be a strange moon out for the past couple of days because I have NOT been myself. Feelings of loneliness have been setting into my bones and making my temperment erratic. Just ask my boyfriend - he can tell you! LOL!

So I have come to the conclusion that I need to make some softies. And I plan to do this for a number of reasons:

1. Practice at handsewing
2. Practice at sewing - anything!
3. Gifts for Easter 09
4. Freedom from boredom
5. Because they are so damn cute!

I have been super lazy and no I haven't organized anything. I'm still behind on everything in Literature.

It is amazing that one of the things I am best at (reading and writing) is the class I do the worst at. I just need to try harder.

So which softie am I to make first? I was thinking an elephant or maybe a a donkey - then there is this super cute pattern for a Scottie dog...oh how I adore little Scotties. Only in pictures and play things, I don't actually like small dogs. Which is why I have a pit bull terrier named Socrates.

No I didn't happen to get to that...

Okay. I am completely a laze ass. Lethargy is not an excuse (so I'm told). I have a billion pages to read for English Literature. No I haven't done it yet.

I have a billion things to organize and put away in my sewing room. Along with the many projects that are not getting accomplished.

I did bake some muffins for dessert. For dinner I broiled parmesan tilapia with a lovely salad...okay the tilapia was great but my salad was last second and ugh-ish.

It is time to download some upbeat music and try to block out the world and begin on my projects. It is just soooo overwhelming!

I think I need to eat another wildberry muffin.

Yum!

I NEED TO:

Organize sewing room
Make pumpernickel bread
Organize and make recipe booklet
Organize books, make binders for copies
Take out old wooden bed from sewing room
Put away all clothing throughout the house
Do laundry

There is always so much to accomplish and never the energy to do it.

Today is Tuesday but feels like Monday

Tuesday...three days until Friday - 4 until Saturday and six until Monday starts all over again.

Ready for a change of pace, change of venue. When, you ask? I haven't a single clue. Yet soon.

I'm behind on my homework and hungry for my lunch.

I want to sew and be creative. Yet I ***** so much I'm careless and lethargic. Restless. And my muscles hurt from me working out on my "exercise" pole...hehe. A pole is great to get your muscles toned! And the shoes are ultra fierce! Seriously.

I have been spending too much money lately. So much that I ended up paying nearly 500 bucks in bank fees!!! I don't know what my problem is, maybe because I'm restless, but I always get the urge to spend, spend spend. Even though I don't have the cash. Needless to say, I am still above negative, but for how long? It is time for B to take over my debit and credit cards and allot me some cash for lunch and gas.

My personal pact: NO MORE SPENDING!!! GET MOTIVATED TO SEW, BAKE AND DO HOMEWORK!!!

Another...

Just because I like to laugh.

When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Mozart was buried.
Terrified, the drunk ran and got the town magistrate to come and listen to it.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Mozart's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."
He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling."
So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..."
Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Mozart decomposing."

HAHAHAHA

Google's Joke of the Day:

An elderly lady phoned her telephone company to report that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called - and that on the few occasions when it did ring, her pet dog always moaned right before the phone rang. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile elderly lady.
He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned loudly and the telephone began to ring.
Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:
1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire via a steel chain and collar. 2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose.3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the phone number was called.4. After a couple of such jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate on himself and the ground.5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring.
Which demonstrates that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning.

Today I'm Thinking...

It is a cold day. A day where the sun is barely shining through the clouds and the sky is filled with snow and the temperature is below 10 degrees. Seriously below 10 degrees - I am moving to Florida!

I need to be doing other things right now but sewing and cooking are the two things in mind. I am so happy to have a new Pewter Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer Pro 600. It is so gorgeous and makes mixing a snap. Where things took 10-15-20 minutes to mix and knead this mixer does in minutes - sometimes seconds. I wish I had a few eggs left over last night after mixing pizza dough and baking cakes, so that I could practicing the whipping techniques outlined in the instruction manual.

Speaking of instruction manuals! I have FINALLY found my sewing machine instuctuion manual! I have been searching for the damn thing for nearly a month now! I seriously had forgotten all of the wonderful things that the manchine can do without even changing a foot! I would really love to buy the Kenmore Presser Feet Guidebook but I can not see paying $30.00 for the information when I can figure it out through trial and error.

Last night I made some wonderful meatballs with an awful light spaghetti sauce. I am just going to have to get Granny's recipe to figure out how to make THE BEST of the best spaghetti sauces. I made Brian another cake - for a man who doesn't like sweets he sure is eating up the cakes I've been baking! (Must be a good thing.)

I think I will make a lis tof sewing things I need to get accomplished before I even think about starting a new project. I have a pile of clothes to mend, curtains to sew, a skirt to complete, a purse that needs bias binding strips, a headband for a friend, clothes to alter, and Lord knows what else I may have started and side aside due to frustration!

So I'll start with the mending projects first and finish the curtains. Once I do this I may be motivated enough to make the microsuede bias binding strips. Then I can complete the black skirt with tan embroirdery in it. I would like to make some pot holders and other things for my kitchen. Although Brian is about to begin the renovation on our kitchen so anything cooking related may be put on hold - hopefully no longer than a few weeks!

Must get motivated!!! (At least I finish all of my class work before anything else!)

Jemima J

I have been doing a lot of reading lately. The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard and Seamstress and now I am completing an oldie but a goody by Jane Green entitled Jemima J. This is a story of a woman journalist working in a lower end newspaper in England that weighs a couple of hundred pounds (and then some). She has an infatuation with a fellow reporter and is best friends with another reporter. The story follows Jemima while she loses her weight and becomes a buxom blond. It's an uplifting story with a tragic plot and is written so well that this is my sixth time reading it since its release in 1999. My book is dog eared with yellow pages but that does not change the story and how she overcomes her fears to find true love.

The other two books I mentioned above, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard and Seamstress, are newer released books that I picked up at the library a few weeks ago. They both deal with young women who are expert seamstresses and follow their dreams to do just that for a living. Both books have plots that are in the 1920s, one set in Brazil and the other in Hollywood. They are books that make you want to get up and go sew!

Of course that isn't to say I haven't been sewing - because I have. It is just that the jersey black/cream polka dot dress I dreamed of a few weeks ago is NOT going according to plan! I believe I used the wrong size zigzag stitch and also the wrong needle and also the wrong...

you get my point! I am much too embarrassed to show pictures of the work -much less take a photo of the mistakes. I still am not able to find my sewing machine instruction manual to figure how to use the double needle or even the ball point jersey needle! So this weekend has called for a house cleaning and organizing which I did begin...only to make an even more ginormous mess!

You see, I like to be organized to the point where every knick-knack has a place to go. It is just that there is so many knick-knacks and thingamajigs with whatchamacallits that there will never be enough room. I did get all of my books on their shelves but still have a million copies of patterns and projects that need to be organized!

So now I am being lazy and about to start making bias tape for a microsuede purse I have been aching to finish for months (upon months)!

On to more cleaning...or sewing...