Christmas is over!

And what a special Christmas it was!  We haven't had our whole family here for many, many years, but the girls and their families were all under one roof on Christmas Eve through Christmas morning and it was wonderful  The granddaughters are such fun ages for Santa.  They had such fun opening gifts, singing their carols and the Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus.  My usual going overboard with gifts didn't happen this year as I was mobilely challenged, but it didn't matter much.  They had plenty to open and enjoyed playing with what they got.

I'm almost caught up on the laundry.  I think I have one more bed to wash and fold a bunch of towels.  Miss V (age 7) has stayed behind for a week of Grandma & Grandpa Camp, so we're still moving at a leisurely pace.  We're into hand embroidery (see the picture on the left with her first hand stitching with a sharp needle, and yes, she stuck herself), cooking and using the sewing machine for the first time this week.  Hopefully she will have a few neat things to show Mom and Dad when she goes home next week.

I love this part of the year!

Recovering With No Sewing

Surgery was week before last for the knee.  It went well and now I'm in the "recovery" period where I have gone from a wheel chair or two crutches to one crutch to now using a cane when I am up, but I still am not up more than 4-6 hours a day including meals and all the other everyday stuff you have to do.  I see the surgeon on Wednesday and hopefully will be allowed to drive a bit again.  I haven't seen the grands in over a month and of course that makes me a bit grumpy!

One bright side to being made to keep your leg up, though, is time on the computer to do all kinds of things. I'm all caught up on work paperwork and I've watched webinars, investigated online sites I've never taken time to visit, and read many, many books.  I also have been playing with new software for my Pfaff Creative Sensation machine, and I am having a ball.  And all of this can be done with my computer in my lap or on a breakfast tray with my leg straight out in front of me.

To me, digitizing designs is like painting pictures with thread.  I don't use a lot of outlining in what I do generally, and I want my work to look like it has texture and dimension.  The tools have come a long way since I started over a decade ago, and it still relaxes and challenges me when I work on the complex kinds of pictures I want to create.  I have several software packages and for many years, taught both the Brother PE Design and the Bernina artista products in stores around the state.  It's always fun to begin to play with a new product or a new version to see what's been added and to see how far I can push it.

This product is called TruEmbroidery and was designed to work with a Mac.  It's native to the Mac so runs on Mac OS.  That means it does things in a Mac-like way, which for many things is different than my PC Windows machine. The picture above is the first sew out of a design I want to put on a burp rag for my soon-to-be-born grandson.  The artwork comes from an iron on transfer book I've had for years with Cherished Teddie designs.  I don't sell designs, and intend them only for my personal use.  I want to make that clear so the copyright police don't try to get me.  I manually digitized the whole thing, which means I defined all the different areas and told the software what color, what type of stitch, the angle I wanted it sewn out at and a myriad of other things as I worked on the design.

The TruEmbroidery software has many types of stitches you can use to create designs, and the patchwork quilt was my way to explore some of the pattern fill stitches.  I think there are 276 of them included, so there is a lot to explore.  I have always loved bears, so the making sure the stitching was just the way I wanted it was important.

I've tweaked a bit of it now that it has been sewn once, and when I get somewhere to pick up the right flannel burp rags, I'll get it sewn out for our soon-to-be-here family member.  For now, though, it is back to the software to see what else I can design!

And the moral of the story is. . .

Don't slip in the bathtub!  Why, you ask?  Because a knee injury can keep you from doing what keeps you sane--in my case, from sewing.  I have so many things I want to complete before the holidays, but here I sit in bed resting my knee, icing it twice a day, and conducting classes through Google+ Hangout and Moodle instead of doing what saves my sanity.  Tomorrow I see the orthopedist, though, and hope that's the first step to getting back to my machines!

Creating the Future

I have been an educator for over 40 years.  I've taught all levels of public school and taught in three states.  Now I teach people how to teach, and it's a very rewarding career.  Tomorrow I try something new--I'm going to work with four college age young women who want to sew.  Two of them have machines that haven't even been out of the boxes.  Talk about a challenge!

It's been a time of gathering lots of information, cutting squares for them to make a holiday patterned trivot, and hoping that all of their machines work!  I'm actually loaning my trusty Bernina 1230 to one of the ladies.  I still love the way she sews after all of these years.  My kids got lots of clothes made on it and its the machine I sewed my dissertation jacket on--the made-from-scratch denim jacket that has a ton of applique in a great scene all around it, and it took me a couple of years sewing  moments here and there when I was working on my doctorate.  That was 24 years ago, and it's a little tattered and torn now, but I LOVE that jacket.  It's actually one of the things I'm taking to show what you can do.

If you have any ideas for great sites for beginners, I'd love for you to leave a comment!

Much Needed Sewing Retreat

I had the most wonderful weekend!  I actually got to sew for three entire days.  I love being productive.  Oftentimes when I sew like this I'm working on one big project, but this time I actually worked on many different things.  I put rolled hems on six napkins and cut out six more to finish at home, free motion quilted six placemats and a matching square for the center of the table, cut out two sets of doll clothes and sewed them up except for buttons and buttonholes, cut out a long sleeved top for myself and sewed it up, cut out a top for daughter #2, wound bobbins for the quilting of my Christmas quilt my friend put on her frame and she quilted for me with her fantastic system and mostly had a lot of fun with my two sewing friends!

Digitizing Machine Embroidery Designs

While I'm usually sewing, not using the embroidery features of my machines, every once in awhile the "need" to paint something with thread raises its beautiful head.  Sometimes (like today) it's because I have gifts I want to get ready, but other times taking a drawing and turning it into stitches just fits my mood to create.  I've actually combined them today, because I digitized both the designs on the burp rags seen in this post.

I love using the Gerber flannel burp rags that I can find at Target or WalMart.  They are a great weight, are absorbent, and I can find them in pinks, blues, yellows and prints for boy, girl, or "we don't know yet" babies.  I've been making these for several years to give as gifts, and some of my daughter's friends who are expecting their second babies are asking for them again.  I like to wait till the baby is here so I can add the name, which makes it a special gift.

I did some commercial digitizing several years ago, and this lamb was one of the designs I digitized from a client's artwork, and she then sold sets to quilt stores.  Unfortunately she's gone out of business.  The teddies I do are an act of love because the detail found in the drawings takes a lot of time to work up, but the results are exquisite.  I have always loved teddy bears, and the out-of-print Cherished Teddies book has given me hours of digitizing pleasure. 

Pneumonia, in the Summer?

I thought it was strange when Miss E was diagnosed with pneumonia about three weeks ago, but I can tell you first hand that she definitely had it and shared it with Grandma.  ARGH!!!  Not the way I wanted to spend the last part of my vacation before gearing up to teach another year, for sure.  The bright side is that it is responding well to a broad spectrum antibiotic, for which I am forever grateful!  The down side is that I'll be starting behind the curve as I haven't done near enough on two fronts--cleaning and sewing.

Miss V's dress did get finished, and she's here modeling it for us.  Her Grandpa said the picture makes her look so old--wonder what that makes him and me?  :)  Anyway, she loves it and wanted to wear it home with her matching shorts underneath, so that's a good sign.  I'd like to make her 3 or 4 pairs of Capris to wear to school this fall since it is so hard to get pants to fit her.  Not sure if I'll have the time or not, but we can try.

I still need to finish the curtains for her sisters' room, so maybe that's what I will do next, or maybe not.  I still have pants and tops to sew for them and they like clothes more than curtains.

Think it's time to sit in the easy chair and read for a bit, eat some dinner and then get some more rest.

Summer Sewing -- Marking Fold Lines the Easy Way

I love summer, but it just goes by too quickly!  I've worked on several projects and have many of them "still in progress."  Sometimes I really hate that phrase, but sewing is both a "what I'm in the mood for" and "what needs to be done immediately" sort of thing around here.  The curtains for one granddaughter's room are finished, and the ones for the twins' room are about half done.  The girls have each gotten tops and shorts and Capris, or at least they will when they are sewn. Isn't cutting it out half the battle?  I did finish dresses for the twins and worked on two different quilts.

I'm currently finishing a cute dress from Kwik Sew 3906 for Miss V for school.  The matching shorts are done, and the dress only needs buttons, buttonholes and hemmed.  It's been several years since I've made a little girl's dress with ties in the back--and finishing the ties so they were pointed was probably the biggest challenge!  Remembering to clip across the point before folding twice to sew was something that wasn't in the directions, but I pulled out of the recesses of my mind from long, long ago.

I've been using a technique lately for marking fold lines on things like ties and straps and hems that has really made a difference.  I change my stitch length to 6 and then baste the fold line markings.  Using the built in walking foot on my Pfaff, the fabric doesn't gather at all, so I can then press right along the stitching, then remove the basting and when it comes time to do the folding it's all marked and looks great.  This is so much easier than trying to measure it in the round!  The shoulder straps and the ties were much easier using this technique.  It's particularly useful for hems on shorts, Capris, and pants as well as waistband elastic. It works on doll clothing, too. I'm so glad I figured it out.