Here I am again! Not gone as long this time.....

Ok. I went to JoAnn's craft and fabric store for a stroll through the fabric and saw this darling pumpkin stack that was priced somewhere around $30. I thought (don't we all!) "gee, I can make that" (LOL) and so home I went, dove into the stash like the cat lookin' for a mouse in the hayfield and came up with a few small pieces of Halloween colored prints and WALLA! I was off to the races....hmmmm,let me see now, how did that look? Ok, senior moment, forgot exactly...go online, look at JoAnn's website, AHAaaaa, there it is; print picture, pin it to the wall above the cutting table and away I go. You've figured out by now that I have no pattern, RIGHT? Right.

He (she?) turned out pretty much BIGGER than the one at the store, my Spider was a really fun, used yarn (fun fur type) and made loopies for her legs, oh, and did you see those little "beady" eyes? HA! A couple of colored seed beads did the trick. I used multicolored thread for the stitching around the pumpkin's eyes, mouth and nose (noses?-well there are three of them!)

Ok, serged around the edges, put 'em all together and Uh-Oh...what about that hat? And the brim is supposed to "stand out"? Oh dear. Got out some really heavy interfacing, drew on it, cut it out, used it for pattern to cut the fabric, ok, yes, its REAL stiff, now for the hat part...oh yeah, and the band. Say WHAT? Ok, hat part should be able to cut it using template from FAT CAT quilt ( it worked) and a wide strip of fabric for the band, now "ease" all together. But wait, I need to embroider something on the band. Chose a little ghost/halloween design; once accomplished, put it all together and here she is! Whew!!

New purses to carry....oh where to go??

Well at last I have actually been busy enough to post a couple of new purses here (yes, it seems that I'm either "in a rut" or "on a roll" but I'll worry about that later. Right now... fun fun fun, sew sew sew, and then where oh where shall I go to carry my new bags? I will need to go somewhere everyday if I keep this up, three new purses in the last 4 days, WOW ! Whew!!

A friend call yesterday and said "what ya doin"? (Texans never pronounce all of the word ya see) and I said "making a purse". "WHAT she replies, like you NEED another purse" (color me grinning) as I said "Its not about NEED"! Nope, if I want another one I'll make another one...now I'm going to have a garage sale in a few weeks (waiting for a cooler temperature; been 100 here and thats TOO hot) so I really need to weed out the closet and make a decision which handbags to part with...hmmmm,....or CAN I? Oh well, I'll worry about that later too.

Here are some pictures of the latest two purses. The "autumn" bag is foundation pieced using a modified dresden plate template and then quilted on my Janome 6600 (using mode 3 stitch 45) with a variaged thread in the needle. I made a wide binding for the top edge and the candy corn looks good enough to take a bite, lol!

The second bag I call the PinkBag is a cotton patchwork printed fabric of lime green, white, pink and a bit of turquoise. I quilted around the patchwork design(s) of the fabric with hot pink thread (using mode 2 stitch 47) and then decided to have a go at doing some embellishing on the pattern using seed beads. Hopefully that shows well enough in the photos to be seen.

Now I guess I'll have to go to Wally World to carry the purses; how many trips to WW can I make?

Just thought I'd elaborate a tiny bit more. The two white drawer units (under the leaf of the Arrow cabinets) are from Ikea.

On top of the plastic storage units (7th pic from the top, I think) there are 4 divided plastic boxes with handles that hold reg thread spools. These open on both sides, lid snaps down tight and they are actually "garages" for the MatchBox cars found them in the toy department at WalMart for $6 and each one holds 48 spools of thread (won't hold mini cones though).

The most difficult thing about setting up this entire room was hauling it all upstairs!! As you can perhaps tell from the window view, this is an upstairs bedroom in my home. The Idea drawer units and the Office Depot bookshelf units were not too bad to assemble but better have some muscle behind that screwdriver (or have a hubby to do it for you), NOT in my case, lol.

Anyway, I'm so happppppppy its DONE!

Now, back to the UFO's....heehee

Call it FINISHED....my sewing room!!

Having bought my home (July '09) and being faced with a 12 X 14 bedroom for a sewing room I had my work cut out for me.....after all, how can you POSSIBLY fit 6 machines (all need to be usable, right?) into such a small space. Not to even mention the stash of an OCD...no, not just fabric. Theres fabric yes, of course but, but, but, (trying to think of some spiffy sounding excuse...failing) theres also the yarn, thread, buttons, beads, tools, oh and did I mention fabric? OM Gosh, tons of it, I mean all of it, oh gee, Im really not defending myself very well AM I?

Now also, being the "Queen of Craigslist" or uh.... Ms. Frugal Google (heehee) AND being a single retired lady living on a VERY "fixed" income... **VBG** I KNEW I had to find the least expensive (uh, CHEAP!) way to do this room.

So I haunted Craigslist, and WALLA! I found the two Arrow Airlift cabinets (I removed the doors; my choice) for one hundred dollars each (grinning again) and then theres the wonderful custom made (desk for 2-I called it) which was also one hundred dollars! The cutting table consists of 4 medium height bookcase units from Office Depot (costing $59.95 per unit) and it had cubicles...hmmm said I....wonderful! Now off to try to find the EXACT size baskets to use in those cubicles for storage (ahemmm...as you can see, they are full of yarns (I thought you'd notice so I am admitting to a stash that big). I found the first 2 baskets at my local discount Ross store and then haunted another dozen or so Ross stores for the rest. I found 1 here and 2 there and several stores had NONE (how DARE them....and me driving all over Houston just to patronize their store(S)!!!
Okay, after about a hundred miles and 4 days of looking, I managed to find all 16 to match (WHEW!) and thats the basket story.
I already had most all of the plastic bins you see, it was a matter of organizing...now my daughter calls me the "Queen of Organization".... some have said that I can get more "stuff" in the smallest space...oh well, so much for them, they don't sew...or felt....or knit...or crochet....or else they're just not OCD!

In the midst of all this, I actually managed to SEW SOMETHING!! Can you BELIEVE IT?
The jacket on Matilda (my dress form, she's a person too you know) is a sweatshirt jacet I played with and finally finished (actually I decorated several sweatshirts but this was the only "jacket" one.

Hope all of you are having fun out there, let me know what you are up to....I have unfortunately been conned into games on Facebook and I can tell you that my crops grow WAY to fast on FarmVille, my apartment is not very well furnished on YoVille and Mafia Wars is killing me (pun intended)... if you play, join me there for some non sewing fun.

Judy

Applique sweatshirt and pants set.....

I just finished playing with a sweat/set by cutting out leaves and using the 6600 blanket stitch (mode 2 # 72, I think it was) to applique the leaves in a falling
pattern ....I also put them on one leg of the pants (not photographed). Then I used stitch mode 2 # 8 to "lettuce" the sleeve edges and the neckline. It was fun.

Happy stitching!

The new sewing room and 2 new Janome babies

I thought I would update the photos and post a word or two now that I have finally gotten settled in to my new (to me) home. WHEW! I thought this unpacking, setting up and organizing the sewing room would NEVER be DONE but alas it is as "done" as its going to get!

Still working (S-L-O-W-L-Y) on the sweatshirt remake jacket... this has got to be the longest remake in history as I have been playing with it for 2 years now, LOL.
I have WAY too many UFO's and this is just one of them.

I WILL CONQUER; I will, I will, I WILL!

More later..... this is my best effort for tonight as I'm just getting over the effects of what I'll call the "creeping crud" otherwise known as a bad cold. Now I have to confess that I've never heard anyone say they had a "good cold" (something to ponder in one's spare time).

More to come......later..... chow for now.