Do the (blog) hop!

I'm sure many of you have seen the blog hop that's been going around about our writing processes lately, and Alessa nominated me! If you don't know her, she lives in Germany, makes wonderful, colorful dresses, and started a new job as a doctor this year (congrats!) So it's an honor to be nominated by her. And here's my answers.

Early days blog photography, when Donna 1.0 was my main model.

Why do I write? I started this blog waaaay back in 2007, mostly just as a way to keep track of my own projects, make notes of changes that I'd make when re-using patterns in a place where I couldn't misplace them, etc. Somewhere on the way, people actually started reading it and (gasp!) commenting. And suddenly, I was actually part of a sewing community. Since I live in what is basically a desert for garment sewing, and the only people I know who sew regularly are my mom and grandmother (who are both more into quilting), this is a pretty big deal! When the "sewintists map" went live, I kept checking and checking, but I've never seen another pin in Delaware. I guess it's a good thing I'm only a day trip away from Philadelphia/Baltimore/DC, right? So my blog is still mostly just for my own personal documentation, but also as one method of keeping conversations going with other sewcialists.

A recent outtake with both dogs trying to get in the action!

What am I working on? Blog-wise: you probably wouldn't know it, but I am attempting to work on improving my blog photos. My current challenges here are that I don't have anywhere good to take photos outside on a regular basis, since I live in a middle-unit townhouse that has a lovely view of one of my state's busiest highways from the backyard, and I'm still trying to convince my long-suffering husband to not be scared of my camera. Also, photobombing Golden retrievers. :-)

I'm also working on writing more concisely, because I have a tendency to ramble!

Sewing-wise: I've got two projects going on right now! One is my winter coat, which I'll probably write more about soon. This one pretty much demands in-progress posts. The other is a patchwork skirt commissioned by my sister-in-law. It's a good thing she's patient, because I started this one before my wedding dress and it still isn't done! But since this is the perfect project for Scraptember, I'm trying very hard to finish it this month. We'll see if I make it, since I'm leaving for vacation on Friday!

How does it differ from others of its genre? I don't think my blog is all that unique, tbh. I don't design patterns, I'm not an expert at fitting or pattern hacking, and I'm not trying to come up with anything to sell at this point in my life. Since I've already turned one hobby into a job, via my music teaching and occasional performance, I'd like to keep my crafty life as something that's just for fun! I guess what does make me a little different is that I don't just sew--that's why I named this blog what I did. I've been teaching myself to knit, I make jewelry when the mood strikes, I've been making scrapbooks since I was in high school, and sometimes I do other "crafty" stuff. And I need to remember sometimes that just because something isn't sewing-related, doesn't mean it's not creative or unworthy of a mention.

Or not-so-secret costumes, though only the Whovians would get this.

Also, some people like "secret pajamas" clothes.... I like making secret costumes! (AKA things inspired by geeky things I love, which can still be worn in my everyday life.)

How does my writing process work? Most often, I start with the words. I've always found it easier to consolidate my thoughts in writing, rather than verbally. Also, sometimes I pre-write my posts at my retail job, when I'm close to finishing a project and don't have anything else to do. (Shh!) After that, I take the photos/pester Doug into taking them for me, edit my text as needed to match them, and post! Lately, that's also been followed by tweeting about the new post, since sewing completely sucked me into the Twittersphere. 

I'm supposed to tag two other people, so I'm nominating Katie from Kadiddlehopper and Helena at By Eitchy. In case you don't know them, Katie makes fabulous clothes for both her and her highly photogenic daughter, and has the most stylish Barbies around. She's seriously tempting me to get out my old Samantha doll and make some outfits for her with my scraps! Helena lives in Sweden, is working through a really fascinating project she calls "Sew For A Change" where she's also working on greening up her lifestyle, and has also been in pretty much the same boat of re-examining her wardrobe plans and ideals through the Wardrobe Architect project. I also find it interesting when she talks about Swedish culture, since it sounds like it's soooo different in a lot of ways from what I'm used to here in America.

Bookworm award! (Oh yeah, and Friday Favorites, Episode 30...)

First order of business: Christine at and sew it begins... graciously bestowed a Bookworm Award on me.


The rules of this award are:
-pass this on to 5 friends

-Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.
Write out the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that...

Closest book to me is Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (started it just before Halloween, figured it was appropriate for the season, but this is proving to be a shockingly slow read for me!! Normally I'd have been done a book of this size by now! Anyway...

" 'For what!' Lestat grimaced, so that his face looked like a skull. 'Taking me out of school!' He threw up his hands and let out a terrible roar of desperation. 'Damn him! Kill him!' he said."

On that cheery note... :-P
Since the book thing never gets old, even if you've done it before, I'm nominating Mom2Fur @ Sorta Frugal, Sharon @ Adventures From the Sewing Studio, Gwen @ After The Dress..., Christina @ Stina's Stuff, and Antoinette @ clevergirl.org. Have fun!

And now, onto Friday Favorites! This week, it's pretty much a case of Christmas or not.

Non-holiday favorites: Another tutorial list at Whip Up-- picked this one because it had more clothes! And Dollar Store Crafts had a tutorial for a coin purse made from an old cassette tape-- I like this better than the wallets!

Holiday favorites: Confessions of a Craft Addict had the cutest little trees! Sew, Mama, Sew! has been doing a series of gift ideas for various people, such as this post on gifts for bookworms. They also have a woodland ornament tutorial that looks like fun. Over at The Long Thread, there's...bowling for elves? Well, they call it "skittles", but it's basically bowling. Back over to Whip Up, there's a tutorial for a pocket advent calendar (using gum), and a gift card box (which will come in handy for the gift card white elephant my friends and I are having!

Ok, that wraps it up for today. As for the pantsuit, so far, on track. Though I haven't started cutting yet, since I'm waiting for the tires on my car to get done!!

I've been tagged! (And a few minor setbacks)

Christina tagged me, so here goes... seven random things about myself.

1. I don't have an absolute favorite color. I used to say it was blue. But now I like green pretty much equally. And no particular shade of either-- I just really like blues and greens. And browns too, at least in my clothing choices.

2. I'm addicted to finding new music. It doesn't matter how many cds I have loaded onto my iPod-- I'm still constantly searching for new bands or cds to check out! So my subscription to eMusic is definitely a good thing for me-- 40 new tracks every month! (Incidentally, I wish that Blogger had the LiveJournal feature of being able to post what music you're listening to as you write...)

3. I hate Valentine's Day so much that, during my senior year of college, a couple of my friends and I invented our own holiday to take its place. We called it Single Women's Empowerment Day. And then exetended it to a month and shortened it to SWEM. The holiday kind of died last year, when J (one of the original 3 partners in crime) was engaged. I miss that.

4. I have literally scarred myself by crafting-- when I was 15, I sliced a huge chunk off of my fingertip with scissors while making paper beads. What really upset me about it was that my dad had planned to take me to a parking lot to get in some driving practice, but since I was bleeding all over the place, he took my then-13-year-old brother instead! I still have a circle missing from my fingerprint, as I found out a few weeks ago when getting fingerprinted for my band teaching job.

5. It's very hard for me to just sit and watch TV. I either have to be crafting or on the computer at the same time. Sometimes both.

6. I have never been able to develop a taste for coffee. Even when I worked at a coffeeshop. People give me drinks with coffee in them, and all I can taste is the coffee. I can't even distinguish different flavors of it. But I can with tea. Weird.

7. Despite the fact that I play flute for a quasi-living, I have no control over what notes come out when I whistle.

Let's see...tagging seven people (Man, I hate this part... if I linked to you and you already did it, let's just say you're ahead of the game, ok?):

1. Lydia at Lydia's Cozy Corner


2. Gwen at After the dress...


3. Oonabaloona


4. Antoinette at clevergirl.org


5. Mom2fur at Sorta Frugal


6. Caity at caityquilter


7. Sharon at Adventures from the Sewing Studio



Here are the rules:-Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.-Share seven facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.-Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.-Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Anywhoo...

I'm not entirely certain I'm going to be able to finish my bag in time for the BurdaStyle contest. I've run into a bit of a snag on trying to sew the strap on, in the form of "my machine will only take about 3 stitches in the entire thing because it doesn't like multiple layers of leather". I'm hoping that since it at least made needle holes, I'll be able to hand-stitch it on without inducing multiple stab wounds to my hands! And, you know, that the stitches will actually hold. Secondly, I did end up losing a lot of time on Saturday in pumpkin carving.

But I was happy with how that turned out, and it was crafty, so it's all good.

And then I lost pretty much all of Sunday, between blueifying S's wedding dress (we spent a couple episodes of Firefly on it and only got 4 flowers beaded... *sigh*) and this project that my church Bible study group is doing-- basically an Extreme Home Makeover of a girl's room (with the dad's permission, while they're on vacation)--she's the neighbor of one of the women in the group, the mom died of cancer last year, and the dad's pretty overwhelmed with trying to support his family and play the role of both parents. So she's basically a pre-teen with what was a toddler room, so we're trying to make it a little more age-appropriate on the cheap. I said I'd sew some pillows, and so I basically spent a couple hours on Sunday night starting that, had no time for anything crafty on Monday because of work, and then spent pretty much from 8 last night till 12:30 this morning trying to finish them. And didn't. I still have to hand-sew the open edges closed. But I'd like to think that the results will be worth it.

And then tomorrow is later work and cleaning, T and C are coming over on Friday night, Saturday I'm going to the Renaisance Faire, and Sunday is the deadline. Maybe if I can work on it Sunday...

Guess I'd better get on that hand-sewing. And tagging.

my so-called logic

Titled thus because, the way my brain works, these three things connect.

Item #1: I found out after the last post that I was tagged by Goodworks1 for a second meme. Here's the instructions:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Turn to page 123

3. Find the fifth sentence

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

The closest book, sitting in my purse behind me on the bed, is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis (currently rereading The Chronicles of Narnia for obvious reasons.)

Starting from sentence 5, plus 3 sentences:

"Hang it!" said Caspian. "The whole thing is moving this way."

"And moving a great deal quicker than we can sail, Sire," said Drinian. "It'll be up with us in a minute."

Oh, the drama! I'm going to misbehave now, and not tag, because I had so much trouble coming up with people for the last one and I know from Bloglines that this one's been floating around for awhile. So if you want to do it, feel free to steal.

Item #2, connected to the first by involving a book of some sort: as promised, a few pics from J's scrapbook that C and I gifted her with this past weekend. (She loved it.)

The idea for this one came from my friend T, who was up here during that crafty weekend when C and I put most of it together. (She crocheted while we scrapbooked.) She saw the tie-dyed paper and thought it would be neat to do writing in a spiral--which I loved, because I used to do stuff like that all the time when doodling in notebooks and such. So this page is entirely one-liner movie quotes from a few of our 3-way mutual favorites, like The Emperor's New Groove, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings, the first Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.

We've spent many a get-together munching on Dove chocolate and laughing at the wrapper messages. So C had the idea to include some of the wrapper messages-- what we ended up doing was gluing them down, and then writing our own short additions/commentary in a circle around the wrapper pieces, ranging from serious to silly to snarky.

Yes, we included pictures! Lots and lots of pictures, actually. I just included this page for my palm tree doodle, in the bottom left-hand corner. ;-)

This completely random page has a story behind it... one time, J and I decided to surprise C for her 25th birthday with a Series of Unfortunate Events-themed day (her birthday coincided with the release of one of the books), only we did a Series of Fortunate Events. So we had this letter written in the style of the back of the books, along with clues written in the style of the definitions scattered throughout. C still had them, so we were going to include a copy here. But then we forgot that I'd stuck them further down the sorted stack with this paper, thought we'd lost them, and printed out a new copy to include with pictures of that day. So then we had this random piece of paper that we didn't want to take out, because it would throw off the paper pairings for the rest of the scrapbook, so we took a cue from Monty Python and did an entire page themed around llamas, with llama quotes from The Emperor's New Groove, the lyrics to the Llama Song, a transcript of the llama credits from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and of course, a picture of a llama.

I wish I could take credit for this page, but it was all C. I really like the way she angled the pics on this one. (Plus you can see a bit of my fabric scrapbook cover on this one.)

Item #3, connected to the previous item by the fact that it also has to do with J's wedding. I had a bit of a laugh today at the expense of my bridesmaid's dress. I took it out and tried it on to make sure I don't need to hem it shorter or anything, and noticed a disclaimer on the tag, which was obviously meant for people who don't sew and therefore don't know anything about fabric. It says....

The irregularities and variations in the color and texture of this fabric are characteristic of the fabric adding to its natural beauty, and is in no way to be considered as defective.

Grammatical errors aside (I would have put a comma between "fabric" and "adding"), what really killed me was the "natural beauty". The dress is made of 100% polyester.

I've been tagged!

Been tagged for a meme by Eilleen at Consumption Rebellion. Not sure if I'll be able to come up with 6 people to tag, but here goes...


The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.


a) What was I doing 10 years ago? I was finishing up my junior year of high school, and trying to figure out what I would do for a summer job (I ended up working at Dairy Queen). So that means next year is going to bring my class's 10-year reunion.... how scary is that?!

b) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today:
1. Go to church (going to the later service today)
2. Go to the baptism/birthday party for the son of two of my friends
3. Go hang out with J and C-- last time it'll be just the three of us before J's wedding
4. Give J the scrapbook
5. If I still have time, deal with the massive pile of laundry in my room that needs to be put away!

c) Snacks I enjoy: Anything chocolate, s'mores, buttermilk ranch hard pretzels, trail mix, dehydrated fruit, cheese & crackers, cheese & apples & crackers, fresh fruit when I remember to eat it!


d) Things I would do if I were a billionaire: I'd have to get the practical stuff out of the way-- pay off the rest of my car, and then buy myself a small house (enough space that I can have my craft room and my teaching studio, but I'm only one person, I don't need a huge space. And I'd still furnish it from the thrift store and other DIY methods!) I'd also take a few of those trips I've always wanted to take-- Hawaii, the European tour, and New Zealand (Australia too, if I could swing that.) I'm not really a luxury vacation person (last year's road trip was totally done on the cheap, as was the Florida trip a few of us girls did a couple summers ago, and I think it makes for a much more memorable vacation! So I'd still do it that way--unless they have one of those geeked-out tours where they'd take me around everywhere in NZ where they filmed LotR. I would totally do that.) I'd also want to donate a chunk of it-- maybe to something like the Blood:Water Mission, or "adopting" a sponsored child. But I wouldn't quit my music career, or sewing my own clothes!


e) Places I have lived: Just Delaware. I know, I'm boring. ;-)

And who am I tagging?
Hmm.... Lydia at Lydia's Cozy Corner, Mom2Fur, Oonaballoona.... um, that's all I can come up with for now. So feel free to do this if you want to. :)

Survey time!

Borrowed from rostitchery.

1: what are your three favorite fabrics?
a. Cotton, because it's really easy to work with, and makes very comfortable clothes.
b. Anything with a silky or velvety texture--not always easy to work with, but I love the way it feels against my skin. (That's my inner fantasy heroine/Ren Faire lover coming out, I suppose....)
c. Bamboo. I've only made one thing with it, but I love it. I wish it was more readily available.

2. what are your three least favorite fabrics?
a. Gore-tex. You can't pin it, you can't mark things or you put holes in it, if you mess up you have to toss it because you get too many holes in it. I never want to make rain gear again.
b. Sheer fabrics. Mainly due to hemming them and how hard it is to get a nice-looking seam. But I like to wear them, so I'll keep sewing with them anyway, plus it might be better now that I have a serger!
c. Wool. Because it makes me break out in hives.

3: what is the most unusual fabric you've ever sewn?
Hmm... Probably a sheet of craft foam. I used it to make leather-looking armor for some Lord of the Rings-inspired plushies.(See Faramir and Eomer.) Of course, I hand-sewed that.

4: what is the most unusual thing you've made out of regular fabric?
Tough call there. I guess I'd have to say either the baldric and boot tops that I made out of vinyl for my pirate costume, or this one vest I made in high school. It was a vintage 70s pattern that I made with snakeskin-printed vinyl. (And now that I think about it, this is kind of a depressing question-- I thought I was a little more outside-the-box with my crafting!)

5: if you could sew with just one fabric for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I guess I'd have to say cotton-- it's versatile, it comes in a bunch of different weights, you can get it almost sheer as batiste and velvety as cotton velvet/velveteen. All I'd be missing is my silky stuff.

6: what is the most special piece of fabric you've ever bought and used?
When it came time to do my final solo recital for grad school, I decided I was going to make my dress (because sewing was stress relief from my classes.) One of the pieces I had originally planned to do was called Medieval Suite by Katherine Hoover-- I ended up not playing it (almost every piece I originally picked got switched out with something else!), but my original idea for my dress was based on that. I got a piece of forest green brocade off of an eBay fabric store that was woven with a Celtic cross-type motif, and used that for the bodice of my dress--a corset-style front with some lacing detail, and then a full skirt. Fortunately, my dress still ended up fitting the theme, because what I switched Medieval Suite out with was a piece that was supposed to depict an area in Scotland (written by my school's composition prof for flute and piano-- she's an immigrant from Scotland, with the accent to boot!)

7: where do you get most of your fabrics?
Joanns', simply because it's pretty much the only game in town when it comes to apparel fabric. (There's other stores for home dec and quilting, but that doesn't usually help me much.) I do also buy things online on occasion, or buy clothes at Goodwill or other thrift stores specifically for the purpose of tearing them apart and using them for fabric (see the last finished project!)

8: what are the last three fabrics you used?
Cotton, for the last three projects. (The thrifted shirting for the blouse, quilter's cotton for the nursing cover, and flannel for those pillows.) To branch out to other fabrics, I also used a polyester satin-type fabric and a polyester microfiber for the Azalea tunic.

9: if you could buy any fabric you wish, what would you buy and what would you do with it?
In my dream world, I would get some real silk-- either dupioni or shantung, since I really like the texture on them. Since this is my dream world, one of my long-time dreams was to sew my own wedding dress. I don't think that's going to be happening, though, since the last time I had anything resembling a date, the general population at large was still into boy bands and I was still waiting for Return of the King to hit theaters.

10: what advice do you have for seamstresses about buying fabric?
Don't limit yourself to the back of the pattern envelope--just because it's not listed doesn't mean it won't work. Don't be afraid to trust your instincts on what you want to use. If it doesn't feel right under your hand, it won't feel right on your body/as a quilt/whatever you're planning on using it for. If you're unsure how to work with it, there's resources all over the internet. And don't be afraid to mess up. There will always be more fabric.