Summer Sewing Begins!

I love this time of year.  The weather is getting warmer and the summer stretches ahead.  It's been a rough year with the knee surgery and recovery and getting both pneumonia and strep on opposite ends of the school year.  I am SO READY for summer!

Since we're enjoying a long weekend, it was time to do some cleaning off & out in the sewing room.  I have a bag of goodies ready for donating and a cutting table I can actually use again.  In fact, I got it a bit messy yesterday again when I cut out and sewed up a onesie for my three and a half month old grandson.  I think Mr. O will love the softness of the outfit, and for hot weather it's perfect.  It's probably a little big now, but he'll probably grow out of it before the summer is over.

The pattern is a McCall's and I got the great baby boy print when I was recently in Wichita at the Needle Nook. I love that store!

I've also finished a set of placemats for my Mom (had to bind them) and did a little mending.  Trying to decide what to do next--maybe some more shorts for Miss V.  Next time I see the granddaughters I have to get the measurements for the twins as the ones I have are too old and I really want to do some more sewing for them.  They start kindergarten this year, so I see some really cute dresses in their future!

Sewing Again Celebration!

This knee thing has gone on way longer than I anticipated, but I can now do two things that knee recovery made impossible for a few months--wear blue jeans and sew!  I am super excited.  I love to be comfortable (the jeans) and I love to sew.

Today I cut out a pair of shorts from the pattern I made in Wild Ginger's Child's Play software last week when Miss V was here for Grandma Camp.  I not only cut them out, but finished them in less than 1.5 hours.  Yeah!  I need to cut out a few doll clothes pieces next and get them made up, too, since the finished clothes will be part of the Easter stuff for them this year.

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!