A weekend of Pirate Sewing!

Well the costume was much easier than I was worrying about. Of course it still took all weekend but that's because my fiance and I pulled the tv and dvd player into the sewing room and watched The Office and Firefly on dvd while I sewed. I'd say total it took maybe 12 hours (less than sleeping beauty!). I did not make the jacket (i didn't buy fabric for it) and I think it's fine without. I also did not add the buttons to the vest yet, I may do velcro and just add buttons for show but I have to go buy some suitable buttons still!

Here are some pics!! The costume as a whole:

A better picture of the blouse and knickers. I love the blouse it came out adorable!

And the boots - boy these were a pain to sew. They are pleather and that stuff does not go through the machine well (it catches). It was impossible to just sew regular, finally I got the bright idea to use the extra pieces of pattern paper and sew through that, allowing it to feed easier. Then after completing the first boot and half way through the second I realized I could use my walking foot! Oops. That worked much better and there was no paper ripping to do .. haha -- well I learned!


So that's what my weekend consisted of! Now I'm getting some work done, I wish I had done more work this weekend but I had such a fun weekend instead, all well - that's life!

Now back to work - maybe another hour before bed!

Work and Life.

Well work yesterday was a very bad day. I had a bug and I made no progress at all - I just found and fixed the bug this morning - a serious 24 hours of wasted time later! Yikes and I was already a little behind schedule! But it's working now so hopefully today will be a good day ... fingers crossed.

Let's see ... life .. well I've been RUNNING! 3 miles of running and walking a day (Sun, Mon and Tues) so far! It's great. Tonight I go to my uncle's but i'm hoping to run Thur, Fri and on the weekend!

Monday night I went to Joann's and bought a Pirate costume pattern and most of the needed fabric. What is this you may ask???? Well I've been asked by my cousins for halloween costumes/birthday presents again this year. So the oldest is a pirate and the middle is a singer. The singer is easy, I have some fun fabric for the skirt and i just need some matching top fabric.

The pirate on the other hand... yikes... 70 dollars later (pattern/fabric/accessories) and I'm looking towards an entire weekend of sewing and probably won't get the jacket done (there are boots, pants, shirt, vest and jacket). She may get the jacket after her birthday just before halloween! There are a lot of new things in this costume that i've never done before (elastic, buttons, cuffs etc). It will be interesting and a real learning experience (not a bad thing!)

So hopefully there will be pirate costume pictures come monday! In the meantime that is what I'm devoting any free time to in the evenings so I won't have any other progress pictures.

I mailed out the NRR to Leslie yesterday, thank you for all the wonderful comments on it, I really enjoyed stitching it and each one of these RRs will be so memorable to me because of my love for each house (So far i've stitched very favorite houses I've always wanted to stitch!). I really hope Karen likes what I stitched for her! And soon I'll be getting Bine's and picking out a new house to temporarily stay in :)

Well my code is almost done building so it's back to work!

Karen's RR - Finished late last night :)

I (like Leslie) stitched a variation of Daisy Lane Cottage, although I pretty much stitched all of Daisy Lane and then just added some animals in the yard for fun!
Here is all of the houses that have been stitched to date. I apologize for the picture quality is was late last night and it was very hard to get good lighting. The flash just washes things out :(
I stitched up a turkey family, a bee hive (Carol added some bee's so I thought that would tie it together) and then some robins. This was a real pleasure to stitch and I've always wanted to stitch this chart as well!

This weekend was great. Saturday I cleaned the house then we settled in for some tv/movie watching and I stitched! Sunday I finished reading my book and then after a 3 mile run on the treadmill we went out to lunch and then continued the tv/stitching marathon where I was able to finish the house!

Now for a week of work work work and then next weekend probably some sewing of costumes?? :)

Wow, thanks for all the wonderful comments! When I started blogging a few years ago I never imagined anyone would actually read my blog, I sincerely journal for my own well being but it's so touching that others follow along and even comment! I'm very grateful!

Well the new treadmill arrived yesterday! I'm not sure if I shared this story but our treadmill (almost 2 years old) cracked - the metal frame cracked! It's under extended warranty so we called and they have to replace it (can't repair it). So they gave us credit towards a new machine. Well we looked and looked and finally decided to upgrade! For a few hundred dollars we got a treadmill with a 7" screen! So we bought a $30 dvd player last night and now we can watch DVDs right on the treadmill. This means we don't have to have a treadmill in our livingroom!

This of course doesn't help the current situation since the old treadmill is still in the livingroom (unusable at this point). We're thinking of trying to weld it back together so we have 2 working treadmills. Some day we'll have an actual house and will make a home gym in a basement or back room and we can run side by side.

Anyhow so it was a long night of putting the treadmill together, after which I crashed (long day fighting migraines really wears a girl out!) No stitching :( But I'm really really looking forward to this weekend - we have NO plans and I plan to do a lot of stitching! I hope to finish Karen's NRR and do some embroidery as well! I can't wait! - Man i wish it was friday ;)

As promised here's a progress picture! I finished the actual house on Karen's RR last night and I'm going to be working on the greenery now! I'm doing Daisy Lane cottage with modifications (I notice Leslie is doing the same on Carol's right now - great minds think alike! :) )

And the skirt in it's finished state. I did manage to finish it friday night but I could not wear it saturday as I'd hoped, i have nothing to wear that goes with it! So I bought some patterns of tops I like, but I did not have time to get coordinating fabric as yet. I will do this soon!
The weekend was a good one - Saturday I bought my wedding dress! It was definitely more expensive than I had hoped but I'm very happy with it and I know I made the right decision. So if i can save money by doing alterations myself with a friend I think it will work out.

Plus with the dress done I've now settled on colors for the bridesmaids! We're going with a light honeydue green and lilac accents! So now i'm on the hunt for fabric to make the flower girl dresses (5 of them!).

Sunday and today i've been plagued by migraines but i seem to be doing better now and our new treadmill arrived so it's back to running daily and getting in shape! I hope to post a little more regularly as well. I'm going through my pictures, uploading, ordering prints and planning my scrapbook as well as I've really lagged behind (a year and half behind!) and I don't do that much scrapbooking, just a page per event!

I can't believe I forgot to post this sooner...

So monday night my sister called me and... she's engaged!! YAY! I'm so glad, because now we can plan our weddings together and everything, it's great! Well that put me in a great mood so I went into my sewing room (to kill some energy) and decided to sew a skirt. I have yet to actually finish making something for myself (still) but I have a number of skirt patterns and fabric I like so I picked an easy one.
This is unfinished:
I didn't realize it was a MISS pattern instead of regular so I'm a size 10 instead of 4-6 so I was very doubtful through this whole process, until i talked to my sewing friend who said - oh check, it's probably a MISS's - it is! So it's not finished, I didn't have a zipper lying around so I had to stop when I got to that part, I also think I want to add a lining so I'll pick that up when I get a zipper (tonight?) and then I'll still have to hem.

It's a somewhat thick woolish black/red fabric. The weave is very loose (hence the lining) but it's comfy and a little stretchy and will go great with a black top. When it's really finished I'll post a better picture of it. The above was taken in my hallway mirror at night.

Hmm... the rest of the week was mostly work. Tues I worked till 8:30, Wed I went to my aunt's/uncle's and last night I worked until 7 and then crashed on the couch.

Today however i'm working from home, i'm motivated and really hope to get a lot done and then spend the evening sewing (finishing the skirt) so i can wear it tomorrow? I may need a top to go with it!

Tomorrow I go dress shopping with my mom and sister (we're both trying on dresses!!) and i'm hoping to actually buy mine! Then I can be done with one thing! There's so much left to do and I've been putting it off because I want to do the planning with my sister so I didn't want to "get to far ahead" :) Anyway it should be a really fun weekend!

A great weekend!

And a picture of Leanne's Quilt block 7 finished!


This weekend was really great, I worked late friday night but our tv shows (Psych and House) are on really late so I didn't miss them. Saturday we essentially did nothing, which included going for a run, a quick run to Marshall's (birthday gifts) and then some good old stitching!

I started Karen's Neighborhood RR, I'm starting from Daisy Lane Cottage and have quite a few ideas of other things to add. I have half the fence done and a decent start on the house! This was while watching Pride and Prejudice (favorite all time movie and 5 hours long). Well that lasted well into the night (2am) so it was a nice long day!

Today was a family day, we slept in (I need my 8 hours) and then we went to lunch with the cousins (the middle one just turned 6 yesterday). So it was a fun day out.

And to end it all I came home and re-orged my sewing room to fit the new treadmill coming this week! It's quite large so I really had to be creative but if it's the same size as our current one I think I made room! And I still have an office corner, a sewing corner and now all the scrapbooking stuff is in the closet. I'm very very happy after 2 hours of organizing!

Now I'm logging in to work to get a jump start on tomorrow. I'm really motivated at work right now and need to keep it up. Plus I'd like to leave at a more reasonable time in the evenings this week and squeeze in some stitching on the round robin!

Camping Weekend!

A little touch of Knox, that's what we like at least once a year. My family (parents, sister and her boyfriend, my fiance and I) - my brother could not make it this year... went camping at my parents' property last weekend. Wild flowers were in bloom...
Lots of lively colors in the fields and woods:
These spruce trees were planted by us as children 15 years ago - this is just one field that we lined with 3 rows of spruce, we also lined a second field...
Our bedrooms for the weekend (my sister and I have matching tents and love to do the setup and take down ourselves as tents have come a long way since we started camping!).
Our kitchen area too has come a long way, with a foldup canopy (as opposed to just tarps we have to tie up), and an actual foldup kitchen and table - both new this year - we used to just rely on the picnic tables my dad made! Setup was very easy this year!
The puppy (she's 8) got to do a lot of swimming and tuckered herself out!
This is where we all set pretty much 50% of the time :)And the beaver house (there were actually 2) that is newly built on our old swimming pond. They moved over from the "beaver pond" a few years back and have done some major demolition of the beautiful birches :( My sister's boyfriend got some pictures of the beavers out and working, I'll post those once she gets them online.

All in all we had a fantastic weekend, the weather was better than we could even have hoped for! Lots of good food and much more time to relax than usual. Now that we have two ATV's to help bring the camping stuff from the cars back to the campsite (about a mile in) and to help gather firewood, things go quickly. My dad also bought a brush hog that can be pulled by one of the ATV's so he didn't even have to bring up a tractor to mow!

Oh it was fun - but I honestly didn't touch my stitching! I read quite a bit and we played cards. You're hands are never really clean while camping (no running water and all) so stitching wasn't really desirable. I did however finish the embroidery on Leanne's Block 7 last night! Now onto block 8 after I finish the next Neighborhood RR block!

September Goals:

1) Finish Leanne's block 7
2) Finish Neighborhood RR block and mail
3) Finish Leanne's block 8
4) Finish piecing Leanne's block 9

Keeping it simple this month, obligation stitching does that to me :)