It Was Sew Easy

I had to take a break from sewing while the kitchen/dining room project was going on.  That project, though, has created new things to sew.  One of the things that I did as the dominoes were falling from the dining room down the hall was that I cleaned out the spare room in order to make it a real guest room and I moved all sewing/craft type projects into the den.  The den is now a den/project room.  While I was doing THAT, I decided to update things and wanted to make new curtains.  Up until now all of my sewing experiences have been done under the watchful guidance of my sister-in-law Tia.  But the days are busy for all of us and I was getting tired of waiting for her.  So last night I decided to just do it myself.  I had bought a basic sewing book and one of the chapters included how to make simple curtains.  I took a deep breath and started in.  I was nervous that I would make a wrong cut or an uneven stitch.  But in just two hours, I had finished!!!!!!   It was my very own, completely on my own sewing project!!  I'm so pleased.  I really can do it!!!   At one point as I was sitting at the sewing machine, humming along, Tom walked into the room and said "My wife.  Look at her sewing!!"  It made me smile.  And so do the new curtains. 

Countdown - Day 137

My plan was to lose twenty-five pounds.  All of the changes that I am making are changes for a lifetime.  I need to be smarter about my food choices and smarter about my exercising.  I feel that these changes have been positive.  I'm happy with them.  But I have been stalled out.  I haven't been able to get past the seventeen pound mark for some now.  So when a friend suggested that we take the Body Fit Challenge at California Family Fitness, I was jazzed.  It would provide that jump-start that I need.  Today was the first day.  There are five of us in our group.  We have a personal trainer working with us.  We'll be together for eight weeks.  We worked with the exercise ball.  We did lunges.  We did sit-ups and planks.  We worked with weights.  It felt good.  I'm excited that I'll be working out with people, being encouraged and encouraging others.  This is just what I needed. 

Sew, a Needle Pulling Thread

The material that I bought for my new tablecloth was fraying so Tia and I decided that we would not wash it before serging it.  A couple days afterward, I washed the tablecloth.  It shrunk.  It shrunk so much that it didn't fit the table any more.  We went back to the fabric store and found another piece of material that matched the color scheme even better.  I hope little monkey wrenches like this don't always happen when you're working on a sewing project, but I have a feeling they do. 

I love the colors!

 
On Thursday, Tia and I pieced together the table runner and started cutting out the strips of material for the placemats.  Using her serger, we made napkins and a new tablecloth.  If I had my own serger, I'd probably have a napkin of the week!!  I loved how fast and easy it was.  A tablecloth and eight napkins were made in an hour.  Tia did some quilting on the table runner for me and taught me how to hand stitich the sashing that would go around the entire piece.  Hand stitching?  Me?  Um, I've sewn on buttons. And poked my fingers with the needle whenever I did so.  But Tia is a patient teacher.  She showed me how to do the stitch so that the thread was hidden.  We had a trip to Ashland, Oregon coming up on the weekend. I would have 4 1/2 hours up and 4 1/2 hours back to do the stitching.  I was actually excited. I was hoping I would be as good a student as Tia is a teacher.  But the idea that I might go from idea to finished product was almost making me giddy.  I was making something that no one else anywhere would have. 
We left for Ashland on Saturday morning.  I started doing my hand stitching after we had been on the road for an hour.  I was taking it slow and carefully.  I can proudly say that I did not poke myself once.  It wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be.  It was actually relaxing.  Who would have thought?  As we were pulling into Ashland, I was putting in the last stitch.  I had finished!!!!!!  The table runner is beautiful.  More beautiful than I had envisioned.  I love it. 





A closer look



Even closer







The back

You Have to Think to Sew

My fabric. The tablecloth is on the bottom.

My sister-in-law Tia and I now have a standing "sewing date" on Thursdays.  Since learning to sew is best done with a project to work toward, I decided that I wanted new table linens: tablecloth, placemats, napkins and a table runner.  I was looking ahead; all of those things required only straight lines.  We went to the fabric store to chose the fabric.  I knew the color scheme that I wanted.  We started pulling out bolts of cloth and leaning them together to see how they fit.  I felt like I was being creative.  I said "Hmm." and "Well, maybe..."  or "Wait, how about this one!"  We found what we thought we wanted and then I saw a piece of material that was perfect for the tablecloth.  The only problem was that it didn't go with ANY of the other material.  We pulled out more bolts and leaned them together with the new material as a backdrop.  Did creative people always change their minds?  Was I making Tia crazy by adding too many bolts to the mix?  Tia assured me that this was normal and part of the process.  Finally we found the right combination.  It had all the right colors and the right amount of large pattern vs. small pattern.  
Since the material that I choose for the tablecloth was exactly the right size for my table, all that had to be done to it was to serge the edge.  Tia had brought her serger over and off I went.  Nervous, but excited.  Nervous that I was going to be The One Who Broke the Serger.  But excited that this part would be quick and easy.  Instant gratification.  In just a few short minutes I had a tablecloth. 
Next was "creating" the pattern for the placemats.  I had four different fabrics and I knew that I wanted all four to be involved somehow.  We played around with how it would look.  We changed our minds.  I looked on the internet for some placemat ideas.  I finally found one that I liked and we adapted it.  Actually I use "we" but I mean "Tia."  Tia has been sewing for so long, she can quickly convert lengths and measures.  I was left in the dust when the placemat I wanted to copy was 14x20 and I wanted it to be 12x18.  I'm see that I'm going to have to get better at adding 2 1/4 inches to 5 3/8 inches in my head.  Maybe I should get some flashcards for that. 
At the end of our session, I had a tablecloth and knew what the placemats would look like. 

So I Can Sew

My mother was a seamstress.  She made all of my school dresses until I was in junior high.  She sewed clothes for my dolls.  She made pajamas for my brothers and clothes for herself.  Her sewing machine was always set up and had a project sitting on it.  Seeing my mom sew was a fixture of my childhood.  I had no interest in learning to sew.  She would often ask me if I wanted to sew and my answer was always no.  I am pretty confident that that was a disappointment to my mom.  But I wanted to establish a difference between my mom and I and one way for me to do that was to refuse sewing lessions.  I did take a Home Ec. class in the seventh grade.  Sewing was part of the class.  I made a skirt.  It was hideous and I never wore it.  When my husband and I were married, my mother-in-law asked if I would be interested in a sewing machine as a wedding gift.  I told her that I didn't sew and wasn't planning to learn.  She bought us a sewing machine for a wedding present.  I was...curious.  For many years, we used the machine as a door stop to keep the door leading from the house to the garage open when I was doing laundry.  I loaned that machine to an acquaintance and never got it back.  I was not distraught.  When my mother-in-law recently passed away, my father-in-law asked if any of his daughters wanted her sewing machine.  Since they all have their own, they said no.  He asked me if I wanted it.  My sister-in-law said that if I wanted her to, she would teach me to use it.  So at 53 years of age, I am learning to sew.  I hope my mom is watching. 

Countdown - Day 110

I really am taking my time with my weight loss.  I do have the goal of losing 25 pounds; there's no doubt about that.  But the bigger picture is that I am changing the way I eat and the way I think about food.  I know that food is a comfort at times and I am trying to find better ways of dealing with stress.  One way is the work I am doing in my backyard.  The work is both physical and therapeutic.  Food is also a way to combat boredom.  When I start to eat for no apparent reason, i.e. I am really not hungry, I pull out my Kindle and read instead, or I get Willie to play HallBall with me.  I know that there are many foods that I enjoy to eat that are no good for me, like chocolate or ice cream.  I have found that as I eliminate these things from my diet, I crave them less often and when I do decide to indulge, I only need a small amount and I am satisfied.  So why is it taking this long to lose the remaining eight pounds?  I'm not sure.  I know that I'm not stressing over it.  It'll happen.  We did go on our seven-day cruise and I gained three pounds while we were gone.  And I lost those three pounds within a couple of days of returning home.  So I'll keep looking at my diet everyday to see if there are other changes that can be made.  For now, my weight loss is 17 pounds.

Countdown to the Wedding - Day 83

I am not a keeper.  I go through things in my house often and get rid of things that I'm not using anymore.  Other than seasonal items and a few sentimental things, I weed things out pretty often.  I do, however, tend to keep clothes that I hope I can get back into "some day."  It's a good thing I did that because I've been able to pull pants out of the top of my closet that I had been saving.  Some of them don't fit with the style that I want for myself now.  Some of them look great on me again.  I just spent an hour going through my entire closet.  I filled seven big bags with clothes that are too big or don't make me feel good when I put them on.  It was a good purge.  In getting ready for the cruise that we're going on, I now have a good picture of what I have and what I need to buy.  We're going to Alaska, where the high temps these days will be in the upper 60s and low 70s.  I've lost most of my weight since our weather turned to the 90s.  Time to go shopping!!