THAT Hoodie

I'm going to post the last few projects I've been working on in order over a few days so one post does not end up too picture heavy. I seem to be picture stingy lately and am attempting to fix that. Comments and Emails are much appreciated!

Here's the hoodie. This is the one that my machines went down on. The one I think looks like it belongs in a circus show. I love the stripes and the colors, I planned poorly. This would have looked much better had I placed the stripes going horizontal instead of vertical. I'm not very happy with the sleeves at the cuffs as I would like an actual cuff, like on a sweatshirt, and this does not have it. I made a boo boo on the hood but was able to adjust slightly for it. I can see the mistake and if you look hard enough at the close up of the hood and zipper, you may be able to see it too. My matching is atrocious. This is a flaw in my sewing habits that I must fix and soon.

So Im a Neurotic Personality....

Not to mention I have erratic behavior tendencies. I like to refer to it as spontaneity. Both of these traits show in my sewing. I start out with a few pre-planned projects and get sidetracked along the way. When I have the time, I will go back to back with projects and get as many done as I can. Then, I will go long periods with sewing nothing at all, my poor, beloved machine (which has been worked mercilessly lately) collecting dust while I'm on some other kick/trend. The hoodie which was half finished when both my machines were wounded in action is now complete. I'm not very happy with it at all (will post pics very soon) will be used as a house jacket. The reason for this will become evident when the pictures are posted and I give more details on the project. Almost as soon as I completed the hoodie (the same day actually) I began cutting a jacket pattern for my daughter. Thursday morning I set out to cut the pattern from the fabrics and mark it. Well, I got a little obsessed and ended up completing it by Thursday evening. This jacket makes me very happy for a few reasons. It was not a difficult pattern, it went together quickly, even though I ran out of the blue fleece I was originally going to make the whole jacket from I managed to dig up a remnant from my stash that completed it while making it look wonderful at the same time and, last but not least (the biggest reason in my book) my daughter LOVES it. She put it on and ran outside to show it to all of her friends. Plans were made to wear it today but I had to use a little elbow grease to get the markings out from the buttonholes. Initial wearing was postponed until this afternoon when the wash/dry cycle was complete. It is still on its initial run, running around the house. I'll have to wrestle her out of it to get her to bed. Well, the story does not end there. I was still feeling inspired Thursday night after completing the jacket so I went back to my pattern and fabric stash. Current project is a tunic for Alexis made from end of bolt plaid shirting fabric. The tunic sits on my ironing board half finished when I look at the Ottobre magazine and I find a zip jacket I want to make for Russell. Out comes the tracing fabric and the insert from the magazine. My kitchen table is now covered with tracing fabric, pattern pages and a pen. Apparently I don't know when to quit. The upside to it is that I have all weekend to work on the two and hopefully finish at least one. Pictures will be coming before Monday so check back to see them! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend :)

Happy Veteran's Day

A huge thanks to all the vets out there! Your service is much a appreciated.

One Down, One to Go

My sewing machine is home and working. I left it with them for an hour and it was fixed when I returned. The timing is off on the serger. They're really backed up with orders right now so, it's gonna take about a week to get it back. The good news is, it is still under warranty so, nothing out of pocket to get it fixed. I love my sewing maching repair shop. If anyone is familiar with Erie, I frequent Yaple's on 26th street. Wonderful people, very knowledgeable, and great service. They have a lifetime customer here. At least at this point I can finish my hoodie. I need to take the machine in at the end of the month for a service. I'm gonna go through sewing withdrawls. Oh well, I guess it's all in a days work for the seamstresses among us.

P.S. I never did find the pedal for Lexi's machine. I feel a fit of spring cleaning coming on.

Confessions of a Pattern Hoarder and a Gaming Junkie? What gives?

I hoard patterns, shamelessly. My basement has one whole corner devoted to nothing but holding my beautiful patterns from floor to ceiling. I have them dating from the mid-1930's to the present. I admit, with no guilt whatsoever, that I will continue to hoard them, even against my boyfriends better judgement. I have a theory (for my hoarding obsession anyway) that I will stop when I find, "that pattern", the elusive "one". A pattern to end all patterns, one that will speak to me in a way no other pattern has, it will rush to my rescue and cause me to cease my uncontrollable urges to stockpile these little beauties.

In an alternate reality maybe. Who am I kidding? I've been bitten by the vintage pattern bug. It is like malaria, lasting for days on end in a feverish state, needing that fix from your next score, only to end in a lethargic state from the intensive stalking...I mean searching for your next victim. Maybe not that extreme but you get the idea, I can't help myself. Even if one day they did come up with a cure for obsessions, I don't think I would take it. To take it would be to take my passion and that's something I'm not giving up anytime soon (over my dead body actually).

Just like my pattern obsession I have been bitten by the computer gaming bug. A game that I discovered a few months back called Second Life has my attention also, I'm hooked. Lately you can find me running around disguised as a ring-tailed lemur in female form, I can even fly and change my hair color to boot. It's a game that even though I want to drop it like a hot potato sometimes, I cannot. I have a small plot of land I have been decorating lately. There's a house, a few trees and it's surrounded by water. In the next few weeks, I'm even gonna put a sewing machine there too. What a kick, this machine will probably work better than my real life machines at this point.

By the way, I take both of them in tomorrow to fix their boo boo's. Let's hope this turns out prettier than what I'm expecting.

No Such Luck

After spending all day in the basement looking for the pedal....I couldn't find it. It was the sewing weekend from Hell. Hopefully this weekend will be better. I'm determined to make it that way.

An Epiphany

I'm a genius, not really. An idea did strike in my sleep though. I'm going to use my daughter's sewing machine to finish my hoodie! See, I told you I was a genius....o.k., o.k., so I'm not, I'll live. Just keep your fingers crossed that I'm not cursed and I don't make her machine go the way of mine right now. All I have left to finish on the hoodie are the sleeves, zipper and hem so, not much. Now, lets see if I can get the boyfriend to help me haul the machine and table out of the basement ;)