The best-laid plans...

I was originally planning to sew yesterday evening. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of crafty time, since I had a flute choir concert today and that meant rehearsals for the last 3 days in a row. But I figured I'd get done practice early enough that I could get some time in. But then I'd forgotten, until a gentle reminder from my mom, that I still needed to make her jewelry to go with the brocade dress for the wedding. So I did that instead.

So here it is. Glass pearls with silver spacer beads and Swarovksi crystal spacers/chandeliers.

Earrings closeup....

And a slightly better view of the crystal bits.

 Slightly.

And then while I had the jewelry stuff out anyway, I went ahead and did another quickie and far more brainless project while I was catching up on episodes of Merlin that I missed....

Stitch counters for knitting! They're made from aluminum chainmaille rings, crackled-looking plastic beads that I just couldn't come up with a decent jewelry design for, square-shaped seed beads and wire.

You can somewhat see the coils at the bottom better in this one....anyway, I ended up making a whole bunch of them--two bakers' dozen. I gave half to my mom (since I'd goofed around with making some other ones back in the winter, and she liked them so much she'd kept them all), and kept the other half for myself.  (I'm storing them in one of the little drawstring bags I'd made for the abandoned Etsy shop, so at least sewing those weren't a complete waste of time.)

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay...

I can't help it. I see plaid, I get that Monty Python song stuck in my head. But I think my shirt looks way better than his. And since the fabric was called "Ayden", I'm going to go with that for the sidebar, because I'd much rather go with the boys' name than my "lumberjack shirt". (Besides, I like the way they spelled it.) So here's my extremely laid-back pattern review for Burda #110 of the May 2009 issue.

It's not perfect. If I was going to do it again, I think I'd have done some things differently. Like I think I'd make the back a bit wider, because it's a little snug across the shoulders despite my having let the back pleat out quite a bit for the same reason. And I'd take it in a bit more at the waist....I may still do that if I'm feeling up to it, actually. Depends on how self-conscious I end up feeling about it. I'd definitely make the buttonholes a little bigger, because some of the buttons are reaaaaaally hard to button, but I was having some issues with that anyway (more on that later). And I ended up taking something like 6" off the hem, because when I did the test version, I knew that with the plaid, it was going to hit in a really awful spot on my hips. I think maybe I took a little too much off. Maybe.

But I do think I did well with other things. I took a little of the fullness out of the sleeves, and they're perfectly non-gathered just like I wanted--and I added the right length, too! And I still like the way the pleats turned out! I like the double-buttoned cuffs even though I don't think the pattern called for that. (I have to admit that once I got to the buttonholes yesterday afternoon, I kind of ignored the magazine's instructions altogether and just stuck them where they'd look good. And no collar button that I'm never, ever going to use!) I think I did a pretty good job of matching up the stripes, too, at least to the extent that I could given the pattern. I'm still proud of myself for picking this fabric, because it's not in my color comfort zone at all-- no blue, green, black or brown anywhere, and I still like it.

I do like the pattern overall, and I think with a couple of tweaks to fix those fitting issues, I'd use it again.

So that issue I'm having with buttonholes... I think I may have broken the buttonhole foot on my machine. :-( I have this bad habit of setting it on the edge of the table--earlier this year or late last year I found a travel toiletry case at Goodwill and I've been using that as my "sewing box", which has worked really well, and had been keeping it in there. Which worked much better. Except that apparently I forgot to do that one time recently, and it got knocked onto the floor and into two pieces. It's back together now, but it doesn't quite slide around as well as it should, and still comes apart sometimes. I'm also not entirely convinced that because of that, it doesn't affect the length the buttonholes actually end up being in relation to each other--my machine has the ability to make one buttonhole and then go on auto to remember the length, but if the foot's not starting in the right place, I think it may be shortening a few of them. I'm not sure if I'll be able to replace it either, since I have an older model machine. :-( Guess I'll have to start checking eBay.

I also did a minor refashion recently, which I finished up on Friday night. I got this tank top awhile back because I liked the color and the length and overall shape of it. What I did not like was this embellishment. I was ok with the sequins, but those clusters of fake pearls were just nasty. Especially since I'm not a pearl fan anyway--too grandmotherly for my taste. So I took those off, as well as the sequins since they were coming off anyway. I wanted to take the lace off too, but I took a couple of stitches out and found that it was leaving visible holes in the fabric, so it had to stay. It was too plain with just the lace, so I ended up sewing beads on there.

Much better. (Except for the photo coloring.)

A couple of updates on previously mentioned things:
#1: I've decided for certain that I will be doing Self-Stitched September. My pledge is to wear at least one handmade or reconstructed article of clothing and/or accessory each day for the month. (Good thing I have my jewelry stash.)

#2: You remember that jeans muslin? The one that was just refusing to work? The class instructor did get it in the mail. (And is actually using it as an example in the jeans-fitting class she's teaching at a fashion school there, eep! I guess it's a good example of what not to do....or how many fitting issues one girl can have...) The nice thing is that she's going to make a pattern from the muslin (hopefully after fixing the crotch issues) and send that back to me. So that saves me a step, and then I don't have to worry about remembering the ridiculous amount of changes I ended up making. So maybe, just maybe, there is hope that someday I will be able to make a pair of jeans that really fit! (And don't fall apart after 3 wearings. Yes, I'm still a little bitter about that one.)

Next on the agenda: a new bag for fall. I broke down and bought a purse last fall because I didn't have time to sew one, and ended up hating it. At least, hating the straps, which had a tendency to constantly fall off my shoulder when I had to wear a coat. Especially this one, which is quite bulky due to all of the layers...stuff like that makes me wish I could wear wool.  (Also, for a pricey leather bag, which thankfully was on sale, it was kind of poorly constructed-- I had a tear in it before 2 months had passed!) So this year I'm going back to my funky printed cotton bag. And using up some stash to boot! Hoping to cut that out tonight, since I have reduced teaching and will be home earlier than usual. Ah, end of summer/beginning of marching band season.

beading it old school!

I recently went through my entire stash of jewelry--partially to untangle the huge mess of necklaces in preparation for actually getting some organization going with those, partially to see if I could find the missing half of the pair of lapis lazuli earrings that I bought while I was in Chile. (I have a habit of buying jewelry as souvenirs. Yes, I did find the missing earring, thankfully.) While I was at it, I pulled out all of the jewelry that I really didn't care if I kept or that had broken, separating it out into what I'm going to fix and what I'm going to cannibalize for parts. Most of the latter were things I made back in high school, so I thought it would be fun to do a little retrospective on some of my personal vintage crafts.

I used to do a lot more stuff with seed beads, though I prefer the chunkier ones now. But the black and white broken daisy chain necklace has a pretty funny story behind it. In my high school, there was this rule that you had to stay until the very end of the period for finals, no matter how early you finished. So knowing that my civics final was going to be ridiculously easy and I'd have lots of free time, I came prepared with this necklace that I was working on. (Figured I could still talk to friends and do that, as opposed to reading a book.) Apparently some of my classmates were fascinated by that...there was this one boy (the one that pretty much every girl in my class had a crush on at one time or other, because he was one of the better-looking and friendlier guys in the class) who asked me to show him how to do it, and then proceeded to make one of the daisies himself! Much to my amusement.

The black and red cat necklace was intended to be worn at Homecoming during my junior year, but didn't work at all with the mandarin neckline of my Chinese-style dress. So I just wore the matching earrings instead.
And then these were some of the earrings I wore a lot, along with my go-to brown necklace back then. It's hard to see, but the third earring from the left was a recycle job--one of my friends came to school one day and handed me a whole bag of jewelry that she didn't want anymore, saying she knew I'd be able to come up with something crafty to do with it. I'd probably still wear that one if I had the other earring, actually, but that one got lost. Same with the black and silver ones next to it, but the larger black beads were plastic and the finish is chipping off from use now.

So I guess compared to my more recent jewelry, it's easy to see how I've improved!

Recent happenings...

1. The big news: As of today, the quilt/bedspread top is done! I know these pics probably aren't the best due to lack of natural light and such, and I still need to press the seams and trim the excess off the top and bottom borders, but I couldn't wait.

2. As of Sunday, the future baby bibs are all screenprinted, though still awaiting heat-setting and other necessary things to turn them into actual bibs. Like, you know, cutting and sewing. In the process, I learned several things...
-Yes, Mod Podge/nylon screens can successfully be used a second time after washing. (Whew!)
-If you're going to use them for more than one print in a sitting, it's probably a good idea to check the side that will be touching the fabric for accidental ink blots before making that second print. (Oops.)
-It's also a good idea to keep a small paintbrush handy to fill in any screening gaps.
-Screenprint ink works decently with rubber stamps, too. (I had the idea to try that for the lettered ones, since I did NOT want to make screenprints for all those little letter spaces!) However, it doesn't coat very solidly, so that paintbrush will be needed again.

3. Once again, I'm rethinking my position on trying to make some handicrafts to sell. With different motives this time--ever since this earthquake happened in Haiti, I've been thinking it might be nice if I could do something like that on a nonprofit sort of basis. Like donate the profits to people who really need it. My church has gotten pretty involved in the last couple of weeks with an organization called Double Harvest that's down there, due to some family connections. They're hoping it'll be a long-term involvement, since the earthquake is going to cause long-term issues in Haiti. And they're also hoping to get involved in building some overseas orphanages in places that really need it, stuff like that. I think I'd feel more excited about the prospect of making something to sell if it was for helping with things like that--I can't necessarily help with construction of buildings or give medical aid or anything like that, but it's a way to donate my time and resources. (Plus I figure since the most likely thing I'd be able to do something with is jewelry, I could reap the benefit of using up the leftovers of my old projects and therefore do some much-needed stash reduction!) Definitely something to think about...

Someday my posts will have pictures again, I swear.

Just not yet, as I'm still not sure what's going on with my computer. It now has a new hard drive, but still crashes at least once a day. We suspect there may be virus trouble, in which case I still don't want to load pictures on this thing and then risk losing them when I inevitably have to wipe the hard drive and start from scratch with reloading Windows and all.

In any case, I've been keeping busy with non-computer-related craft stuff. On Tuesday, I finished up my print top for the mini-wardrobe, and will write up a pattern review for it once I can take pictures again. Spent a good bit of the last couple of days figuring out the pattern for the bedspread quilt I'm going to make for when I switch to the other bedroom, with a great deal of help from my quilter mom. Went to Joann's today to get the materials for that while they were on sale, and also got the paint for my furniture. I also cut out the stencil tonight for the Alabama Stitch-inspired skirt, and am hoping to get the prepwork for that started tomorrow afternoon--if the last remnants of the brown bamboo knit hat I've already made two tops out of are large enough to handle the applique, I'll need to get beads to match (while I have a ton of beads, seed/bugle beads aren't so much in there), and I have an AC Moore gift card that I've been hoarding so I can get them for free, hurrah!

So that's it for the moment, other than I'm getting rid of the Freecycle fabric tomorrow (hopefully-- she was supposed to pick up today but had transportation issues). Managed to get two trash bags full for her. So now I just need to mark them as gone in my fabric sample book, and then rejoice in stash reduction!

Organization woes

I have this kind of like-hate relationship with organization. Admittedly, I'm nowhere close to being a neat freak. (I'm not even sure that gene even exists in my family!) And I tend to be the person who doesn't clean up after a project-- either I run out of time, or I'm just ready to go on to something else and don't bother. So things tend to get really, really messy (as you can see here). And I have this weird thing going where I like things to be organized because then I can find stuff, but at the same time I hate it because the predominant creative side of my brain thinks it's kind of anal.

Anyway, the point of this story is that I pretty much spent all day yesterday doing just that-- organizing. My parents are rather cool about letting me keep my craft supplies in their storage space, since there's no way I can fit any of that stuff in my room. But it was kind of out of control, as you can see, and since I'm trying to get things together in preparation for a scrapbook binge and need to know what supplies I have to work with, figured this would be a good time to sort it out.

This is the after shot. Yeah, it took pretty much literally all day for me to pull everything off the shelves, sort it out, and put it back. Other than a few hours in the afternoon when I was out of the house. And I'm going to have to do some organizing within the organizing-- like all of my jewelry stuff is pretty much either in that plain wood crate or the greenish plastic bin with no rhyme or reason to it. But overall, it's much better.
Had a little fun with the labelmaker, as you can see (thus the feeling of anal-ness), so that should help with being able to find my stuff...and if I can keep up with it, hopefully that'll mean more time for crafting and less time digging around for it!

Also, seriously... I really should not buy any more scrapbook paper for the next three years, at least. (Unless I really run out of a color of cardstock. Like completely out of black.) And I'm probably set for albums until I'm 35. And page protectors for awhile. My mom and one of my good friends both ended up passing a bunch of supplies on to me, because both of them tried it and decided it wasn't for them, so I've seriously got something like 7 unused albums down there.

But I guess that's a good thing, because I found a bunch of stuff down there that needs to go into them, too. Like the half-finished album from my Chile trip, which was almost exactly 2 years ago. (I stopped working on it because I wasn't happy with how it was turning out and took a hiatus... good thing I wrote the journaling first thing!) And another envelope of half-finished scrapbook, this one being one I started making during my senior year of college to celebrate all the things that made my life what it is, like my friends and family and locations that were important to me and stuff. (I was coming off of a bad relationship and worse breakup, and it was kind of a therapy thing. But I didn't actually finish assembling it because I got caught up in stuff like preparing for my senior recital, and then grad school hit, and...yeah.) And even a bunch of stuff from high school that I meant to put into an album, like the school photos my friends and I would exchange every year where we'd write messages to each other on the back, some of the more creative projects (illustrated German children's book, anyone?), stuff like that which I ended up keeping but didn't make it into the scrapbook I had at the time that encompassed all of high school. (It was just starting to get popular, and one of my crafty aunts gave me a kit for Christmas when I was a freshman or something. I'm glad I had it then because then I had a way to keep track of the fun stuff I did with my friends, but it was one of the ones where it was basically just sheets of this heavy tan paper in an odd-sized album, and I would just glue pieces of 8.5x11" paper onto it and then layer my photos and stuff on top of that with no page protectors or anything. I didn't even have the slightest clue about 12x12" albums and page protectors until I started reading some of the scrapbook magazines at AC Moore once!) And then there's a bunch of photos I took when I was a kid, and an album full of pictures from a missions trip my church took to Jamaica when I was in junior high that should probably go into something better than that photo-rotting magnetic album thing...

But, yeah. Suffice to say, I will not run out of stuff to try and catch up on any time soon. Guess I'd better get off of here so I can start making a dent in that. Should I say this is a bad thing about organization, too? Ignorance might have been bliss!

Joy to the world....

....my pantsuit is DONE!!

Ok, ok, so it doesn't quite fit the rhythm of the song. I don't care. It's DONE! I finished it this afternoon, after spending many, many hours doing the hems yesterday (main reason it took so long was that I kept getting sidetracked by other stuff, like making pea soup, or browsing the internet, or doing a little cleaning that I had to do, etc.) But here it is!



And here's a closeup of the buttons-- I found these, and couldn't resist putting the curves in opposing directions.










And this blurry picture is to show that I am having no issues at all with gap-itis in the back of the pants-- this NEVER happens for me! So I was quite excited about that.










I didn't just do the pantsuit yesterday. I also finished Cassie's Christmas present (which I'm not posting a pic of yet, because she's been known to lurk on here.) And I made the aforementioned pea soup. And last night, I made this necklace.
It was supposed to be for my mom's stocking stuffer stash. But after finishing this around 11:45 last night and trying it on, I got a little paranoid that it was a bit too chunky (read: cave-girlish) for my mom's taste. So I ended up showing it to her today--and it just happened to perfectly match what she was wearing! So I guess she can consider this her advent present or something. Or a second 3-days-late birthday present.


And then I made her this necklace this afternoon--not a surprise, she wanted to get something red to wear for Christmas and ended up getting a red shirt and black sweater. I had to go to Joann's anyway to get some ribbon for a reconstruction I want to do soon, and so we picked these beads out and I made this. I think those pentagon-shaped beads are pretty fun.

So I am incredibly excited to be done with that pantsuit, seeing as how I've been working exclusively on that (at least as far as sewing goes) for the last month or so!! So I have a couple quick sewing projects I'm hoping to get done in the next week or two-- a present for Tracey, a present for my brother's girlfriend, a Christmasy recon, and a secret project that I'm not going to talk about yet-- let's just say it's not a present, but I think it'll be more fun to post about as a surprise.

Christmastime is here....

...and with it comes Christmas crafting!

From Friday night:
-Poinsettia ornaments made following the flower pinwheel pattern at Hello My Name is Heather. I shrunk the pattern to about 3" and skipped the stick.

-Snowflake ornaments--the two on the left were chipboard snowflakes I found in the scrapbook section, then painted and glittered up. And the beaded one was from a kit that we've had around here for ages. I might make some more, but it took awhile!



And then I've made four necklaces in the last three nights-- I'm in charge of my mom's stocking every year, and it's become traditional for me to make her a couple of necklaces. This year, she requested that I take her bead stash and go nuts. So more will be forthcoming, but this is what I have for her so far:

1. Monday's necklace, from a wooden pendant with a woodburned design, and wood and tiger-eye jasper beads.
2. One of Sunday's necklaces, from a shell pendant, cats-eyes beads, and silver spacer beads.
3. Sunday's other necklace, which was actually just a restringing job due to a broken clasp. I'm pretty sure I originally made this one for her, back when I was in grad school and on a trip to New Hampshire for a music competition (Mom came with me, and I brought beads to make jewelry in the hotel room. Which was nice downtime, since I was sick with a nasty cold the entire couple of days I was there!)
4. Last night's necklace-- silly to give a Christmas necklace in a Christmas stocking that she won't be opening until Christmas Eve, I know. But the snowman pendant was so cute that I couldn't resist!

No necklace tonight, most likely, seeing as how it's after 10 and I still need to get a shower and such. Didn't do it sooner because I was sewing. The good news is, the jacket is at the point where all I have left to do is attach the lining to the jacket, do the hems, and sew on the buttons and buttonholes. And then I am DONE!! I might even be able to finish by the end of the week! I'm sooooo excited to move on to other projects--maybe it's because it's something I had to do, but I just have not been able to get excited about this pantsuit, despite the challenge.

Treasure Jar!!

I've spent much of the last two days in thrift stores, it seems. Went to all four of the stores in my area--3 Goodwills and a Salvation Army. The goal being to look for stuff I could possibly use for Christmas gift jewelry. The first Goodwill (last night's) and the Salvation Army were rather disappointing (though I did find some reconstructable clothes and a good shirt to wear as-is at the Goodwill). But I did have some luck at the other two. For one, I found these different jewelry pieces-- mostly purchased for reconstruction purposes, but I like the purple and silver earrings as is. And I like the black necklace too, but I have a lot of black jewelry so that might get reconstructed too.

But THIS was what really got me excited. Not a jar, really-- a vase filled with old jewelry stuff and all covered in packing tape. The whole jar, for $10. So I figured I'd take my chances-- my inner pirate was coming out, I think. Hoping for buried treasure. Arrrrrrr. (This picture was taken before I opened it, btw.)

And this is what was inside!

I liked these earrings as is. Aren't the cherry studs just too cute?

I wish this was stretchy-- it would make the perfect armband for my Cleopatra costume, if I need to make one for New Year's!


These swirly earring bits were fun too- a bit plain as is, but might be a good base for some vintage-style jewelry. If I can find something for a necklace to go with.

I like that blue-green pin thing. Which has no back. So if I can find a way to put holes in it, I'm so using it for a necklace. (And look at the green acorns! I'm trying to decide whether I love or hate them.)

Bunch of random beaded things that will likely get deconstructed....






In the category of what the heck?

There was some crap in there. Earrings made from 80s craft plastic (I remember playing with it when I was a kid), pins made from stiffened cloth, Mardi Gras beads, and 3 little plastic toys. But overall, I think I found more treasures than trash. Now to just figure out what to make with all this booty!

a few small things

The last two days have seen a few quick projects. #1 on the list, this magnet. I spent most of yesterday when I was home cleaning my room (it needed it badly!) and so didn't have time to do any serious crafting. I did, however, find this squirrel sticker that was given to me by one of my friends. (Several of us have a long-running joke involving squirrels and the mafia. You sort of had to be there, I guess. At least at our college.) I also found a magnet that I had been given by my bank. So I ended up layering the sticker on top of the bank magnet and trimming off the excess sticker/magnet (the original sticker was an oval) to make a magnet that was much more fun.










Then tonight I made these two sets of clip-on earrings for my friend S. She doesn't have pierced ears, so I got some clips to make her bridesmaid earrings for J's wedding. Since I had a few pairs left, she requested that I make her a few more earrings--she recently got engaged herself, and wanted some new earrings for her trip to meet her in-laws (her fiance and his family live all the way over in Australia!) It would have been three pairs, but I discovered in the process of making them that one of the tigereye beads I was going to make the third pair from wasn't drilled through all the way! So I guess I'll be making the third pair when she comes over on Sunday and picks out more beads.

I also cut out the test version of my Eva jacket on Monday, and I've been working a bit on basting it together. Doing a kind of last-minute hangout with C and T this weekend, and I know there's going to be at least two movies involved, so I'm bringing that to work on as well. (Hand-basting it so I don't mark up the corduroy, just in case I need to make fitting adjustments--the whole point of using this instead of muslin, besides fabric weight considerations, was to not chop up a bunch of fabric only to throw it away!)

The other advantage to the hand-basting: Eva has a funky dart, as you can see here. So this is helping me figure it out.


And this is what it's supposed to look like.

Just a few quick thoughts on Project Runway, since I finally watched it.

Blayne & Leanne's outfit: Boring. Looks like something you'd see on any teen-oriented CW show set in southern CA.

Kelli and Daniel's outfit: I actually thought, while the jacket was on, it wasn't bad. At least, the jacket portion of it. Wasn't a big fan of the wrinkly-looking skirt. I actually would have rather have seen Blayne go than Kelli, to be honest.

Jerell and Stella: The outfit that I kind of wish had won. I liked the silhouette and the mix of textures a lot. And they seemed to be the one team that wasn't laden with drama.

Korto and Joe: Huge improvement by the time it got to the runway. Another result I ended up liking.

Keith and Kenley: I like the skirt, at least in concept. I'm really not into the high-waisted thing... having the waistline end right under the chest just really makes me think of one of my childhood favorite TV shows, Family Matters, and the Steve Urkel look. But the layers were pretty cool. But I still wish that Jerell and Stella had won.

Terri and Suede: Very wearable outfit. But that's what I've come to expect from Terri.

Friday Favorites, Episode 9

It's funny how what I find each week tends to have an overriding theme. This week, what caught my eye was less project-oriented and more thought-provoking articles.

I did find one nice tutorial from The Sewing Divas, about how to draft a banded surplice neckline. And Crafting A Green World had a great post about sources for recycled beads--which is great, because the last time we got a catalog from Fire Mountain Gems (one of my mom's and my favorite bead sources), I found myself wondering about the environmental impact of their products. Still doesn't help me with stuff like their gorgeous semiprecious gem beads, but it's a start.

The last non-article link (thanks to Mom2Fur) is for DigiScrapDepot.com, which is a nice site because it lets you download embellishments and stuff for free. I haven't really tried digital scrapbooking at all, other than a really simplistic one I've been working on in Photoshop since I got that last summer (a very simple project journal with photos of my finished projects, basic details like pattern used/finishing date/alterations made, and once I print it out, fabric samples). For one thing, I really like having actual paper and textures and such to manipulate. That, and the printer my family has prints pictures very badly, and I have little motivation to make pages that are going to be covered in bad printer lines. (Once I finish the project journal ones, which is going to take awhile because I think I need to scan the printed photos I took before I got my digital camera--I've tried two times to get it to work as a very simple traditional scrapbook, and it just doesn't--I think I'm just going to take it to Kinko's.) But anyway, the whole point of this ramble is I think it has stuff I can use anyway, like if I want to make some very simple digital embellishments to print out and use on my pages (done that before) or print my own transparencies or something.

Anyway, on to the articles. Three of them this week.
1. Assorted Notions had some really good advice for people planning a sewn wardrobe. Several of the bloggers I follow participate in SWAP challenges (stands for Sewing With A Plan--basically a challenge to make a wardrobe of several pieces that are entirely mix-and-match). It's something I'm unsure if I'd ever participate in myself, mainly because I love patterned fabric and don't think I could pull off six or eight pieces that tied to just one, and wouldn't want that many solid colors. Or neutrals. Who knows-- I never thought I'd do something like Wardrobe Refashion either, and now that I've had about four months off, I want to do it again. And I can see how it would come in handy for stuff like, say, if I was going on my dream European vacation and needed a stylish wardrobe that I could mix-and-match and tote around in my luggage. That would certainly incite me to do something like this. But I digress. If I was going to do this wardrobe thing, I would certainly be turning to this post to start.

2. Sew, Mama, Sew! had an interesting article on figuring out your learning style and how that relates to working with sewing patterns. Based on what she said, I think I fall somewhere between being a print-oriented and visual-spatial learner-- don't fit neatly into either category, because I can often pick things up by reading them, and I'm a big note-taker, but I often find pictures to be helpful as well. Especially if it's more technical things. Probably why I was far better at geometry than I was at algebra, because I could draw pictures. (Actually, now that I think about it, falling in-between makes sense. After all, I'm a musician, and reading music is basically reading a pictorial language.)

3. I found some inspiring thoughts on fabric stashes at Rostitchery that's making me want to use up some of this fabric I've been hoarding. I need to do that anyway, but I really like her philosophy on why smaller stashes may be better.

And now I just found out that I don't have to go to the garden center today-- it's pouring down rain and really gross, so they're not expecting to have hardly any customers. Which is kind of nice for me, because I got scheduled to work for eight hours tomorrow since I told them I could work Mother's Day weekend. So I'm going to get some practicing done, and then maybe toy with some scrapbooking stuff. I've been kind of feeling the need to get my hands on some paper again lately. I do have some sewing to do--cut out the apron that I'm going to be making for a friend's wedding gift, as well as some largeish leftover pieces that I need to quilt with the heat-resistant batting to make matching oven mitts. But that's more of a have-to-do project, and if I'm going to have unexpected time off, I want some fun first.