Tuesday, April 19, 2011

New! Machine Embroidery Bobbin Thread

Over in Embroidery Supply on Etsy, I have added some bobbin thread!

Here's the description:

YLI Lingerie & Bobbin Thread is very strong with little stretch. It is excellent for machine embroidery, machine beadwork and lingerie construction.

1200 Yards per spool
100% Nylon
100 Weight
Available in black or white

Click HERE to go to the listings.

I have personally used this type of bobbin thread and it is wonderful. It eliminates tension issues and is a dream to work with. For those of you with a Brother embroidery machine who are having issues finding that 90 weight bobbin thread that came with your machine, this is your replacement! I'm very happy to be able to offer this thread.

NOTE: White bobbin thread is on backorder. I will add it to the shop as soon as it arrives on my doorstep!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

241 Tote by Noodlehead

I made this bag this past Friday and finished it on Saturday. I would have finished it on Friday had I not screwed up my interior zipper and said TO HECK WITH IT. Sometimes you just have to stop and come back to a project. The strange thing is that I always mess up the things that I have done a million times. You know, the things I should not screw up.

Anyway, the pattern is the 241 Tote by Noodlehead and overall it was pretty easy. There are two options with this bag: One calls for the side pockets and one has two zippered sections on the outside of the bag. I wanted to do both, actually. I think doing both is certainly feasible but I wasn't sure how the corduroy fabric would behave with the zippers. Since those would have been on the outside and I didn't have much extra of that fabric, I decided to forego the exterior zippers and just go with the pockets.

The only issue I had with the pattern is sewing the side panels to the main panel. The instructions say to use tons of pins and I found that to be cumbersome so I just lined up the panels as I went. They didn't line up exactly but I don't think I can tell now that the bag is finished. I'm sure I will get better at this the next time I make this bag.

Yep, there will be a next time! I can't say this for a lot of patterns. I love this bag. It's the perfect size and I love the exterior pockets! I carried it Saturday and today and it's a great bag.

Have you sewn this bag yet? I'd love to hear your comments/issues.



2011 04 16 241 Tote Noodlehead-1

2011 04 16 241 Tote Noodlehead-2

Laptop Sleeves, Coming Soon!

Back in February, I posted photos of the laptop sleeve that I made to match my Cosmo Bag.

Here are some photos of the sleeve I made for my friend Tessa (She is a fabulous photographer. If you are in or near Atlanta, she is your girl!) for her birthday this year:


2011 02 10 Laptop Sleeves-5

2011 02 10 Laptop Sleeves-4

2011 02 10 Laptop Sleeves-6

I didn't like the way mine sort of stuck out, so I changed the closure from a magnetic snap to velcro to streamline it a bit.


The sleeves that will be in the shop will have an exterior pocket to hold file folders, cords, mouse pads, etc.. I am working on getting samples sewn up and photographed this week. They are available for any size laptop (including Netbooks/iPads/Kindles/Nooks/etc.) They should be in the shop by the end of April!

SHOP UPDATE: 70% of the items in my shop are now ready to ship. My goal is to move more toward everything being ready to go, and I have made more progress than I anticipated! I still have plenty in my clearance section as well. The widget below is a little slide show of my clearance section:



Saturday, April 9, 2011

Bad Week, Part 3

Continued from Part 2.

I finally got the pot holders & coasters listed! I am quite proud of these because I incorporated two new skills.

The first skill is combining two prints. I am mainly a print + solid kind of a girl, but I know that people like coordinating prints. Doing this regularly is one of my goals for this year. The second skill is binding. I am now 120% confident in my binding skills!

The pot holders measure 7.75" x 7.75" and are $21.50 for a set of two. The coasters are 4" x 4" and are $18.50 for a set of four. Both have InsulBright on the inside for heat resistance. Click on any of the photos to go to the listings on Etsy.


Pot Holders

The obvious choice to coordinate with this fabric was a yellow floral, but I went outside the box and chose this sweet aqua gingham. I love these!

Pot Holders
Pot Holder in Pop Floral & Coordinating Dots


CoastersCoasters

Pretty Coasters!


Pot HoldersCoasters

Bad Week, Part 2

Continued from Part 1.

Thursday afternoon, I spent photographing the pot holders & coasters. Then I moved back up to my sewing room to edit. Kendall was upstairs with me playing on his computer and nosing around in my business. After a while, I heard something that sounded like wind. I immediately dismissed it and turned my music way up to drown out the noise. I am such an idiot.

This went on for about 20 minutes until I needed to go downstairs to do something. There was water rushing down the wall of my house. RUSHING. WATER. I realize at this point that I have no clue as to where the water shutoff is in my house and my husband is out of town in meetings all day. I call him over and over and over and over, no answer. Water is still rushing. Kendall finally chimes in that he thinks "it is in the garage." He showed me where he thought it was, helped me move stuff out of the way and helped me with the ladder. All with a busted, swollen face. Turns out, the kid knew the location of the valve. So between the time I heard the noise and the time I got the water off, it had probably been 30 minutes.

Luckily, my dad had just gotten off work and came over and capped off the leaky line but not before punching a large, medium and small hole in my ceiling. When he stuck the hammer in the first spot in the ceiling, more water and sheetrock came gushing out. It gushed for about 20 minutes. That's how much water was still in my ceiling.

We have water at our house with the exception of one toilet. I think we can manage with that for a few days while we contact plumbers and pipe replacement people to get bids on replacing all of our pipes. We have polybutylene piping, which was shown to be defective in a class-action suit. Unfortunately, we are not eligible to get any money from that because our PB pipes didn't have issues within some time frame.

Meanwhile, I burned my hand on the heating element of our toaster oven and somehow injured my other hand. And our lawnmower is broken so we have the Amazon rainforest in our front yard.

Anyway, here are some photos of my mess:
Busted Pipe

Busted Pipe

Busted Pipe

Part 3 will be the post about my pot holders & coasters. Yep, I finished them.

Bad Week, Part 1

We took this week off from homeschool because A) it's spring break week in our county so I thought Kendall would want to hang out with friends B) and I wanted to add a line of pot holders and coasters to my Etsy shop. Kendall chose to go to a baseball camp Monday-Wednesday so I took the opportunity to sew like a mad woman. I spent half of Monday sewing. I had some residual things to do from last week first.

Tuesday, I sewed like crazy and went to the grocery store. Wednesday morning I was so excited because I had made great progress and I was thinking that I could have the pot holders & coasters finished, photographed and listed by Wednesday night. As I was driving to pick up Kendall, I got a phone call. It was another mom at baseball camp telling me that Kendall was hit in the mouth with a baseball and that teeth were loose. Nooooooooo, not loose teeth! You see, he just got his braces off a couple of months ago. Also, my little brother was injured in the teeth when he was about 8 and is still having dental work done at age 25. I could just see my money being flushed down the toilet.

When I got to the park, he clearly needed stitches. I rushed him off to the ER, where he received 5 stitches on the big cut inside his mouth. On the way to the ER, I had the presence of mind to call his orthodontist who said to take care of the cut first. He then said to try to put his retainer in and that it would put the teeth back. Riiiight. As soon as we left the ER, I knew that the retainer thing couldn't happen so I called him back. He said to come in and he would see if he could move it back with some more braces. Again, money flushing down the toilet.

The orthodontist waited for us even though his office was closed. When we got there, the office staff was gone. He put braces back on and was hopeful that the teeth would make a full recovery. He recommended seeing the regular dentist for xrays to check for fractures/root/nerve damage. At the end of that, I asked him if they would just send me a bill since the office girls were gone. He told me that he was not going to charge me for the braces. WHAT?!?! I couldn't believe it. How generous and kind. I want to do something for him but I don't know what. Suggestions? The next day we saw the regular dentist and there is no root or nerve damage, thank God.

I did not take photographs of the injury. It was gross.

Part 2 of my bad week is coming shortly!