The DIY Dish

I love craft blogs, I could seriously get lost in them for hours!!  Recently I was introduced to The DIY Dish and they have some great informative videos.  This week they are giving away a Janome Serger AND a Janome Embroidery machine!  Everyone should go over and check it out!

After you're done browsing there, hop on over to You Can Make This for some great pattern ideas!  I really love this site and find it hard not to blow all of my money there.  I am thinking of using some of my new birthday money to buy fabric to make this purse:

 

Now I just have to find the time!!!

Bye Bye 20's

I spent the last day in my 20's sewing, what's new!  I have a ton of orders to get caught up on, and my mom gave me a day without E so I could get some work done.  The morning didn't start out so well as I spent 2 hours trying to spell out a word on my hoop-- much harder than it sounds!  After I finally got that complete I took a much needed break and then back to the grind.  It felt good to get some work done and not have to stress so much. 

After I finished sewing it was off to the fabric store to pick up my fabulous new gizmo- a serger!

This will make all of my raw edges much more professional looking and hopefully speed up some of my sewing when I am working on skirts and pants and such.  Now to just find the time to learn how to use it!

Here is a preview of what I worked on today. I love these ribbon shirts.  They're simple but such a cute staple to a little girl's wardrobe!

And here is my first complete outfit!  I made this for E's little friend Isabelle's 2nd bday:

I have been eying that owl fabric for awhile now and am excited to have the chance to use it!

Lacking Profound-ness

I haven't had anything profound to post lately, not that anything I ever post is "profound".  I've been working on sewing projects, and trying to find a good balance between family time and sewing time.  With E at home, I only have nap time and bed time to really sew, with the occasional day where I have a some time while she plays or watches a movie.  I am constantly making myself feel guilty for sewing instead of playing with her, but I have to remind myself that she gets plenty of play time and interaction with Mommy and friends so a few hours of playing on her own is good for her.  
Most of my projects take almost an hour from start to finish so that lets me accomplish maybe 3-4 things on a good day, not nearly as much as I would like to be doing.  Luckily for me, Elise was feeling a little under the weather this week so I took it as an opportunity to get caught up on some sewing projects that I have been wanting to try out.  Thank goodness for our new Showtime channel and old school movies!  Elise was introduced to The Land Before Time (the original!) and The Care Bears (Care Bear stare!!!!!!!!!!!!) and I whipped up 3 skirts and 3 pairs of ruffle pants! 

I really am enjoying sewing and it's a good departure from the embroidery.  For those of you who don't know, the embroidery machine is all computerized, so there isn't a lot of "work" involved while it's going.  You do have to set it all up, load the files, spell out the name one letter at a time (really boring!) set up the item to be embroidered, and then stay put in front of the machine while it stitches out so that it doesn't mess up, so it can be tedious.  Sewing goes a lot faster and there are more steps involved but has you up and down and moving around a lot more which I like.  So I am glad to have that balance between embroidering and sewing.