Swap plan and sewing room update

Okay, so last post, I shared the horrible mess my sewing area was.  And it's not any better yet.  It's kind of a long story.

A few days ago I noticed a "puppy accident" on my bookcases that hold my fabric and books that I built with my Dad a few months ago.

The bookcases my Dad and I built - See no feet

I say "puppy accident" because the perpetrator is neither a puppy nor was it truly an accident.  We had an electric fence put in a few months ago when we found the combined work of Ollie and Ellie trying to get the neighbor dogs.

Ollie riped chunks of the fence board while Ellie dug a hole.  Needless to say, Oliver didn't react well to the electric fence and we had to turn it off so he would go outside again.  When the weather turned nice again, I found a new fence board chewed away and at least two new holes.  So the fence is back on and Ollie again thinks outside is scary/dangerous and refuses to use his doggy door.  We're basically re-house training by convincing him he can safely go outside, just not every where.  Ellie, the puppy, has not had any problems with the new fence.

Anyway, so the bookcases I built didn't have feet because I couldn't decide on what feet to use.  With the spotted "puppy accident," it was clear feet were necessary to protect the lower shelf.  I decided on them and bought a new drill for me to use at home (our old drill lives at my husband's business).  I started to put the feet on and with the nicer weather and the fact that I'm on vacation this week, I decided I should paint them as well.

Bookcase with feet.

Ellie inspecting my work.

I took the book shelves back to my parents because Dad has all the tools and free paint.  They are currently there with two coats of primer drying, which means my sewing area is actually more of a mess than normal because everything on the bookcases is now on my cutting table.  I can work around it, but the total chaos is like a mental creative block for me.

The mess from behind.

The mess from in front.

In other news, I think I've decided on what to make for my swap partner.  It's been a challenge because I'm new and I don't know anyone.  Fortunately, she has a blog so I've been stalking to trying to figure out what to make.  Her style is a lot more colorful that my taste (most are!) so I was struggling to come up with something that would fit her taste.  While browsing the internet tonight it came to me, make a color wheel wall hanging.  I actually might make two, one for me.  A color wheel will be colorful and useful so I think it's a good choice.

The color wheel template.

I'm to try and replicate this color wheel and turn it into a wall hanging.  I think I'm going to keep the brown and black wedges.  They look like a bow tie.  Now the hard part, matching all those colors.  I may have a fabric addition (see the mess?), but I'm really picky about colors.  Some of these colors are likely not in my stash.  I guess I'll have to go fabric shopping...


Update:  I forgot to add on big thing I accomplished on my vacation.  I finally printed some of our wedding photos.  It only took two years, no joke.  When I originally tried to print them, Walgreens refused unless I had in writing proof that the photographer relinquished the rights.  She did, but I didn't have it on me and I was mad.  So this time I uploaded them to Walgreens online and they were printed with no issue.  I also made a wedding photo book in iPhoto.  It turned out pretty well.  Now, I need to dust off the picture frames I bought two years ago that ended up in the back storage room because I didn't have photos for them, and put photos in them.  Then I get to pester my husband until he hangs them (or I'll just do it).

Basement Decorating (Guest Bedroom/Bathroom)

Last summer, we finished our basement.  I love the way it turned out.  As part of the finish, we added a guest bedroom and a full bathroom.  While upstairs is minimally decorated, I'd like to get these to spaces at least barely decorated.

Here's the bedroom.  You can see other than the objects necessary to make a guest bedroom, there are no decorations.

Bed - Please ignore the fact that it's not really on a frame.

Window, bookcase, table/desk.  

I do have plans for the window curtains.  I bought some gray linen and plan to do some white sashinko at the bottom one day.

Not sure if that table is going to stay in this room yet.  Anyway, as you can see, this room is pathetically bare.  I've want to make a quilt and pillows and add pretty art work.  To start, I'm working on a shower curtain to go in the quest bathroom.  I'm using the patchwork shower curtain pattern from Stitch in Color featured in Stitch, Summer 2012.  Here it is on my design wall.  

Patchwork Shower Curtain Strips

I picked gray, yellow, silver/white, and turquoise for the colors.  I have a neutral linen to for the rest. Hope to start sewing it tomorrow.  I'm a bit nervous as my piecing isn't super accurate yet and I had trouble cutting it.  As you can see below, a shower curtain is definitely needed.

Guest Bathroom

But before I can begin sewing, I need to tackle this:  This is what happens when I start a project right before a big maintenance outage at work.  Total chaos.  I am weird and I have to have everything neat and tidy before I can work.  I swear all I do is organize my space.  I try to be good about putting things away each time so I don't have a huge mess to take care of when I want to work, but it doesn't always work out that way.  I'm still working on figuring out storage solutions.  When it's neat and tidy again, I'll take another photo.  I also need to decorate it!  (Noticing a theme?)

On a side note, here's some embroidery that I started back in February.  I worked on it steadily before I became too tired after work and haven't gotten back to it yet.  I printed off shots of a music video (it's Cold Hand Warm Hearts by Brandon Benson) and traced them with my light box, which is awesome.  I tried to start this using the iPad screen, but even through fabric, the touch screen got in the way.  I'll explain it when it's done.

Hope to post soon with progress!

St. Louis MQG and More

Yesterday, I joined my local modern quilt guild, and signed up for my first swap.  As part of the swap, we were encouraged to provide flickr/pinterest/blog information that might help our person figure out what to make for the swap.  Unfortunately, I didn't really have much to write down.  I don't really blog, use flickr, and I barely use pinterest.  So in the hopes of being a good guild member, I am going to try and start posting stuff here again.

About the blog name, I don't really take photos (I don't have a good photo of me since my wedding two years ago), but the photos I usually take are about my dogs.  I have a 4 year old yorkie named Oliver, who is somewhat angry.

Oliver 

He enjoys barking, tearing up toys in frustration when he can't get what he wants (particularly the mail man), and napping.  We recently adopted a little sister for him, Ellie, who turned out to be bigger than he is.

Ellie

Ellie - See she really is happy!

Ellie is a very happy dog.  She enjoys chewing bones, stealing Oliver's bones, eating dog food, and watching TV.

Ellie watching TV.  She really likes to watch dogs, animals and commercials.

Enough about the dogs.  I am taking this week off from work.  The husband and I have recently started looking for a new house.  There isn't anything wrong with ours, but my husband would like a wooded lot and I want to have kids (and change school districts).  But the possibility makes me start thinking about all the things that need to be done to get the house ready to go on the market.  The list is pretty typical - clean out the basement, garage, various closets.  Replace the carpet in my husband's old office, touch up paint eventually, etc.

But our house has one big glaring thing missing.

After three years, it's still not decorated....

Like picture frames without pictures not decorated...

Like wedding photos still not printed (our two year anniversary is tomorrow).

So while I'd like to cross a few things off the list, I'm still on vacation.  But I think it's time to at least get the house to a minimal state of decorated.  For the swap, we were asked to provide a room to make something for.  I picked my guest bedroom in the basement.  I am working on a shower curtain for the guest bathroom that I hope to finish while on vacation.  Pictures to follow after diner (and when I find my actual camera again).  It's as plain as can be.  

Nap time?

It's cold here. Not like negative degrees cold, but still pretty cold. I live in the part of the Midwest where the weather is pretty bipolar. Saturday it was in the 50's now it's in the 20-30's. Sure we've experienced worse swings, but my body aches, I've had a headache for about a week. I just want to nap.

So even though I planned today to be the day I sew and work on my knits class finally on craftsy. My fabric is even pre-washed and I'm on lesson three. Right now the house is picked up, the dogs are bathed, the laundry done and I've got two very toasty and even good smelling puppies curled up on either side of me napping. I think I'm going to give in and join them - at least for a bit.

Sewing Room & My New Toy

I was pretty upset when my Babylock broke, again.  Turns out the belt had fallen off and the shop didn't charge me to fix it, but in my impatience and need to sew, I looked at Bernina's.  I was thinking about getting a mid-line model, but the shop had an offer that was hard to pass up on the new 780.  Here it is!

The deal was for the Bernina 780 with the sewing table with lift and matching cabinet.  When I started looking for a different machine, I really started thinking about getting a better sewing desk.  I really wanted to finish my design, but since we don't have power tools at my house, it just wasn't happening.

Here's the sewing table.

I'm really enjoy having the machine level with the sewing table.  Just starting to play with the 780.  I've been having issues piecing, but I really think it's the project I've been working on.  I just took the quilt off the wall prior to these photos.  It's lighthouse by sweetwater and it has strips of biased pieced strips.  I made a serious beginner error with it and I'm just really frustrated.  Right now it's in a pile waiting for the seam ripper before I make another attempt with it.

Anyway, here is my sewing area in my basement.  Love it.  In the day, it's night and light and peaceful.  Please excuse the poor iPhone photos.  I need to find my digital camera and charger.

 The cutting table is a kitchen cabinet from IKEA that I got on Craigslist.  It works very well.  I buy mostly fat quarters (I don't do enough sewing for yardage).  I keep them in plastic containers on the shelves along with plastic containers for scraps.  I also have wire shelving that has baskets of fabric.  I'm trying to get my husband to cut a board to go on top for ironing so I don't have to drag out the full size ironing board all the time.

Since the quilt isn't working out right now, I've cut out the pieces to make an Abby Bag by V & Co.  Pretty excited about it.  It should give me a chance to really try out the 780 and hopefully not have issues due to unstarched/stabilized bias edges.

Off to bed, work in the morning and then birthday weekend!

Oh, Ellie's gotten pretty big, about 25 lbs.  Here's Oliver & Ellie at the vet.  They were both so good and tired from a day of doggie daycare.

Thanksgiving, Dog Collars and More

I passed my PoTS test and started taking Claritin and Zantac.  Since then, I've started feel back to my normal dysfunctional self.  It's good to be making progress.  I see my cardiologist and allergist tomorrow so I hope they will agree with what I've found and help me to continue getting better.

Dog Collars:

I had mentioned earlier this month I wanted to make my dogs new dog collars.  Of course, I put it off for a variety of reasons, but decided I had to have them made for Thanksgiving.  The night before I started the project, but I was too worn out to complete it.  Surprisingly, I woke up on the morning of ready to complete them.  I am not a morning person ever unless my PoTS/MCS is in check.  So it was definitely something to be thankful for.

Unfortunately,  my sewing machine died just as I was finishing Ollie's colar.  As I was sewing the colars, I could tell my machine was not really up to the task.   I have a Babylock Quilters Choice and it is supposed to be capable of it.  It got stuck on a particularly thick area and acted like the needle broke.  It didn't, but when I went to start sewing it make a motor spinning sound, but nothing else moved/made noise.  Not good.  Really hoping the safety device isn't resetting because it's broken or there's a giant thread tangle I can't get to or something easily fixable.  If not, then I guess I'm getting a new machine.

Here are the collars:

My husband used his company's laser engraver to engrave the dog's name and our numbers onto the metal buckles.  The buckles turned out well (I blurred out our phone numbers and part of the last name for privacy - that's not really how they look).  I need to re-make Oliver's collar because it's a little too small.  Once I get his collar fixed then I'll put them on both dogs and see how well it all holds up.

New Sewing Machine?

I've never been thrilled with my Babylock.  It was a class room model so I got it used.  I really liked it when I first got it.  But then after a bit of sewing it didn't sew very well.  Then I got busy and put it up for a while.  When I finally got back to it nearly a year later, it had massive tension issues.  I couldn't get the upper tension right at all so it when in for service.  The service tech found the upper tension inside very loose and fixed that.  It can back better, but I always felt like something was off.  Now it's pretty broken.  So I dropped it off at the dealer and then headed to the local Bernina dealer.

The first time I looked at Bernina I was supper excited about the entry level model.  Then I ended up getting a Singer from a big box store.  I took a class at the Babylock dealer and really appreciated the quality of the Quilter's Choice.  So when the dealer had the class room sale, I splurged and got one.  I had looked at the Bernina's as well, but they were so much more expensive and didn't come with all the fun toys the Babylocks come with.  Plus the Bernina dealer doesn't have late hours so about the only time I can go there is on Saturday, which rarely works for me.  But with my sewing machine at the shop, I figured I should stop by the Bernina dealer and see their machines.

Because of the expense, I was looking at the basic machines.  I was thinking about getting a back up machine, hopefully used, to use when the Babylock is out of commission.  But then I saw the 7 series with dual feed and how easily it sews over pretty much any weird combination of fabric I threw at it.  Now I want it.  I think I've got the husband convinced to let me get it after the house is re-financed.  I spent a lot of time on the internet reading reviews about machines with dual feed and decided it's between Babylock or Bernina, but the Crescendo looks weird as does the accessories.

Olivers New Harness

I saw this tutorial for a dog harness at Sew Mama Sew. I am one of those weird people that take their dog to daycare and I'm always looking for ways to improve the car ride. The daycare workers and my husband have a lot of trouble figuring out how to attach the side straps to Oliver's current harness and this new one completely eliminates that step so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I decided to make a matching bow tie out of scraps. It attaches to his collar with Velcro. Since this is for a car seat, I did a lot of re-enforcing. I serged the lining to the top piece, mostly to use my new serger. I'd never sewn curves on a serger before, definitely going to have to work on that skill. I also had a lot of trouble with the binding. I should have cut bias binding and I bet that would have made it easier. I also used some really cheap fabric from Joanns. If you look closely, you can see the mistakes, but it's a dog harness so I don't care. I prefer to make something functional while learning rather than scraps.

Here's the finished product: