Destashing!

I am swimming in fabric and I will never sew it all. Please help me!

I have listed about half of what I want to sell so check back. My destash shop is here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/sewinggeekSTASH

Some things I am parting with include... Heather Ross FFA I and II, Lotta Jansdotter, Ginseng Woodgrain in chocolate, stone and mulberry, Echino Quiet Ground scraps, Oililly, and more. I'm finished for today but will be listing more tomorrow.

Dog Tired

***Warning***
Introspective Blog Post

Have you ever noticed how dogs just have THE life? They eat, sleep, poop, walk, bark then start all over again. Sleeping is a big part of their life. I realized recently that I don't even know how to RELAX much less sleep, yes, I do sleep, but I normally COLLAPSE into bed and when I wake up 6 or 8 hours later, I start the day running, until I COLLAPSE into bed at night.

I've thought about how this affects my creative side and realized YOWZA, not good. I work full-time and maintain an old house with lots of pets and a Cuban husband (read: used to having a woman do his cooking, cleaning, etc.). My job is demanding and stressful but it pays the bills and allows me to buy all the FABRIC that I want and need. But is this all worth it?

I'm thinking of re-thinking some of my creative efforts like my Flickr life, my Etsy shops, all the online blogs and groups I participate in. I'm in quilting bees and swaps and I trade fabrics and and and... when do I actually have time to be CREATIVE? This is my dilemma.

I have no solution. I recently saw a popular Etsy shop closed because she had just made enough things. I was so jealous. WAIT, why can't I do that? I DON'T KNOW. I'm kind of afraid that I'll disappear into nothingness if I don't keep my fingers in everything.

Yes, I'm a little bit too introspective this morning. I just thought I would see if anyone else felt the same or had any great ideas or inspiration.

For the Love of Coffee

So um yeah. This was my 14th birthday I think. I'm in the groovy oval glasses, braces and purple shirt. Brothers and sisters and Dad in the back and Mom taking the photo. I really love this photo and the avocado tablecloth and the yellow fondue pot (that was my favorite birthday dinner, that's how I know this photo was was MY birthday) and the oh-so-lovely wallpaper and I would kill to have those dishes now! And love my little sister all excited for some reason. If we took this same photo today, oh I hate to think of it! We're all a little, um, more rotund, some of us are prettier, some of us have a nice thick middle, no braces, everyone has their teeth and Dad, God love him, is no longer shiny-cheeked.

So I'm really not trying to get birthday gifts here (but feel free to send cash!) but since my blog IS my birthday, October Eight, I thought I would remind you that yesterday (ha ha, too late) was indeed my birthday.



I actually had a good day yesterday, even though I had to work all day and my husband had to work late so we didn't really celebrate but I tell you, I just LOVE simple things like making myself a simple but yummy dinner, cracking open a good bottle of wine and vegging in front of a good DVD movie with the pup sitting at my side (only because she wants some of my steak).

That's about how last night went, except... I made the SILLY mistake of opening a really good bottle of wine and wasn't paying attention and drank about 3/4 of the bottle, eek! I fell asleep on the sofa and then woke up when above-referenced pup heard the wind and had to start barking INSIDE the house. I woke up abruptly and thought it must be around 5 AM. Nope, it was 2:30 AM and I was WIDE AWAKE. That's why I confessed to the wine, the sugar in wine tends to give me a sugar buzz about 6 hours later, darn it. So I was tossing and turning and tossing and turning and before my husband hit me for keeping him from sleeping, I got up. Some web surfing for an hour, then back to bed. Usually does the trick.



However, as I was dozing back to sleep at 3:30 AM, I remembered that I was unable to find the metal filter basked for my espresso machine last night and was pretty sure it was in the trash, which I so efficiently carried out to the dumpster the morning before. So instead of floating gently back to sleep, I start to think about how to get into the dumpster in the morning!

I did wake up, to the dog alarm, sigh, and 7:30 this morning and first thing I did was run out to the dumpster. There was my white trash bag and believe it or not, I could see the outline of the filter basket! (BTW, these come from Italy and have to be ordered and God forbid I should not be able to have my morning espresso for the 2 to 3 weeks it would take to get a replacement!)



But the fun was not over. There was hardly anything else in the dumpster so it was on the bottom and I am not very tall. Darn it. I had to go back to my yard, I picked up a rake, some gloves, and set out again to the alley. It was actually not very hard to get the bag out with the rake but I couldn't find the filter basket so ended up having to dump out the trash to find it and then "YIPPPEEEE", oops. I hope I didn't wake the neighbors. That's where the gloves came in handy, sorting through the icky mess and putting it back in the bag. Oh the dog LOVED this part.

So that was my exciting birthday! But it made me happy. Now I'm going to sew and play with my fabric for 3 days because Monday is a holiday, YAY.

Sewing Machine Attachments/Feet

I bought a new geeky sewing book recently and have decided to use some of my sewing machine feet that have been gathering lint in the feet box!


So I found all my feet and identified each one. There were some I didn't even know their name! Anyway, here they are.

First, let me tell you about the ones I use all the time. They are:

1. Zig Zag foot. My Janome didn't come with a straight stitch foot so I use this one for both straight and zig zag stitching. My old Kenmore did have a straight stitch foot, you can see that one on the right.

2. Zipper foot. I have two of these, one from my Janome (the little square one) and one from the old Kenmore, which I kind of like better just since I'm used to it. It has a bigger foot thing that switches back and forth depending on which side of the zipper you're sewing on.

3. Darning Foot. This is what I use for free motion quilt. I recently broke mine and had to order a new one. Below is a photo of the old and the new one. I couldn't figure out what that little piece of metal wire on the top, that broke off, was SO important but it sits on top of the needle mechanism and moves up and down with the machine.

I circled the broken one so you could see what I mean:

4. Walking Foot. I don't use it often but it works really well when I need it! For quilting or sewing things that slip, like minky.

5. Ruffler. This is a pretty cool contraption that looks a little like a medieval torture device. And it does sort of torture my machine. As it moves and pulls in fabric to create and sew a ruffle, it really causes a lot of motion and I have to make sure it's screwed on tight, it has fallen off during stitching.

That's it! I have tried the rolled hem foot and it's very cool, I just haven't had much occasion to use it.

So, my assignment to myself is to find a few projects that will use these feet and I'll report back my findings to you afterwards.