Blog Update

It has been a long time since my last post as I have been BUSY. For the first time in years, I had enough physical energy to really do some significant Christmas sewing. I made my son and daughter in law matching winter scarves using the Funky Snow People from one of my favorite machine embroidery sites, Embroidery Library. These were free designs from last January and I knew as soon as I saw them I wanted to make something with them for my son and his wife. I did the embroidery on fabric and then appliquéd them onto fleece to make the scarves and then used decorative stitches to make snowflakes on them also. Someone had given me some beading supplies and so I used beads to decorate the snowflakes on my daughter-in-law’s scarf. I can see now why people can get ‘addicted’ to beading. It was fast and easy and in my case free. The only cost for these scarves was the fleece (bought as a remnant) and the thread.

As my younger son often uses our computer to check his checking account on line, I had noticed that he carried his check register separate from his checkbook and remembered that covers aren’t given out for free any more, I made him a checkbook cover with his monogram on it. My mother-in-law had mentioned earlier in the summer that she wanted an apron like mine that covered her whole front. I made her a butcher apron and matching potholder. I used a piece of lace insert that I had made earlier when making a top with a V-neckline to put in the V. Not being sure which color would look better, I had made two in different colors. The one I didn’t use I put on the top of her apron for a little bit of a girly look. The lace inserts were also Embroidery Library items although I think I actually paid for them. They were very reasonably priced as are all of their designs.

Knowing there was no way I could top the flashlight I gave hubby last year for Christmas (LOL) I decided that I would make him some throw pillows that would coordinate with the antique chairs he had recovered last year. I had great fun using decorative stitching, appliqué and machine embroidery to make him three pillows. They turned out very nice and he didn’t mind getting something that was really a present for the ‘house’. I also made him 2 pairs of pajama pants trying to use French seams to keep the fraying to a minimum. I discovered that trying to sew fabric with no right or wrong side in a solid color was an immense project for this dyslexic sewer. I didn’t tell him till later that actually the pants had been harder to make than the pillows.

What I did discover while making the pillows that my sewing machine is missing at least 4 of my favorite decorative stitches plus only has a minimal variety within the stitches that are there for when I’m in the ‘fancy sewing’ mode. So, I’ve been trying to find an older used Pfaff with lots of decorative stitches and the ability to create more on your own. I think I would like a Pfaff 1473CD, 1475CD or 7550. But haven’t had much luck with trying to find one to buy within my price range. The one I did buy, the box showed up at the house minus the sewing machine! So while the insurance company and seller battle it out I’ve been looking for another one and haven’t found it yet. If you have one in excellent condition that you would like to sell, please contact me!

Anyhow for me that was a lot of sewing for awhile and I have been very busy with getting our ecrater store up and going so we could leave ebay. Ebay has made so many changes in the last couple of years that it has become more and more seller unfriendly. Today we finally closed our ebay store. We have lots or inventory still to add to our ecrater store—conservatively 8000 more sewing patterns, so if you are looking for a pattern and can’t find it, please ask us if we have it as it could be sitting in a box waiting to be uploaded. Currently our entire New Look and Burda inventory is on line at ecrater and most of our Vogue Patterns. We just got in about 100 vintage Designer Original Vogue patterns that need to be researched and then listed and that should be a fun job. In the meantime, we have lots of McCall’s, Simplicity and Butterick patterns that are waiting to be uploaded.

With this move, I’m anticipating a bit more sewing and writing time as I’m also feeling much better than I have been. All apparently due to a change in the method of administering one of my arthritis medicines. Not completely well, but well enough that I feel like a person most of the time instead of a ball of pain

The Shack

Two days ago my husband came home with a book from the library for me. I didn't remember ever requesting it until hours later as it had taken awhile for my turn for the book to come. As I first held the book in my hands wondering how and why the library had sent it to me, I saw the author's name and as it seemed familiar, I flipped the book over and saw the brief biography for the author. Then I knew why the name sounded familiar! I had gone to college with this man (back in the dark ages).

The Shack is a New York times Bestseller and currently #2 ranking bestseller on Amazon. Of course, if a college mate of mine had managed to write a best seller, I wanted to read it and read it I did. It touched my heart and hope it will also touch yours.

This fictionalized account of a man meeting God is a fascinating story and if read with an open heart will help you understand the type of relationship God wants people to have with Him. I highly reccommend this book, which is why I'm talking about it in my sewing blog as if even one heart is touched by the reading of this book, then the time will be worth it.

Where did the summer go?

Where did the summer go? Suddenly it seems everything is colored orange, pumpkins are all over the place and the trees are changing color. I have been busy trying to make my hubby a pair of pajama pants. Should be an easy enough project right? Hardly when the pants are being made out of a solid color with no discernible right or wrong side and then throw in a dyslexic seamstress trying out a new technique. I never realized how many ways there were to sew something together wrong! Finally, I was done and I had certainly learned a few things--the most important being mark your right and wrong sizes before ever moving the pattern tissue!



Lingerie Secrets is a great book and certainly not the reason for my problems with sewing those pajamas. In fact I recommend it as I learned a lot from it. It has just enough text and photos to guide you along in trying some simple basic techniques. If you are looking for ideas on sewing lingerie, then this is the book for you as it covers camisloes, panties, slips, nighties, and boxers. It even goes so far as to remember the pregnant or nursing mothers with guidelines for them. The disabled with dressing problems even are shown some projects that give them more independence in dressing with a wrap half slip and a button/snap front full slip or nightie. As someone who has trouble getting her arms over her head, I was happy to see these ideas. I got my copy of the book from my local library and have a copy on my Amazon wish list as I do have a birthday and Christmas coming up. This book I would consider one of my personal top 10 general sewing books.

Apron Magic

I’ve never been the type of woman that thrilled to be doing housework. You kniw, the dusting, vacuuming and dishes. I always preferred reading a book or sewing. The one night I couldn’t sleep and at 3 in the morning found myself sewing a pink apron with white eyelet ruffles on the pockets. It was a butcher style apron that covered my whole front in case of splashes.

The first time I put that apron on something strange happened. I became Betty Crocker, June cleaver and the happy homemaker all rolled into one. I found myself cooking up a storm, thinking nutritious thoughts, cleaning and sweeping. I couldn’t stop myself. Every day that apron got more and more splashes and splats and I knew it was time to throw it in the laundry.

Now what? The old me started creeping back. What to do until laundry day? I went up to my sewing room and made another apron. This one had a white background with blue roses print. A pocket with lace and a blue rose embroidered from Janome’s Victorian Rose collection. I put that apron on and the magic returned.

I realize now that if I make a couple more pretty aprons I’m going to have a clean, neat house and lots of savory smells emanating from the kitchen. There’s just something magic about wearing aprons.

4-Hobby Machine Embroidery

I’ve found another interesting machine embroidery site called 4-Hobby. This sites has an eclectic selection of designs including Christmas, snowflakes, butterflies and flowers. It also has a Hebrew alphabet in two sizes, Hamsa designs, and other Judaica embroidery designs including Star of David and Chanukkah designs. I haven’t ever seen this type of collection of Jewish embroidery designs in one spot as it seems Jewish designs are fairly rare. They also have a nice selection of Freebies to so that you may try out their designs. This site would be worth your while to stop on in for a visit and a purchase.

Laura's Sewing Studio

Just found a terrific machine embroidery site, Laura’s Sewing Studio. I haven’t had the chance to check out all her designs, but I’m very impressed with the machine embroidered quilting designs. One is a Broken Star design that when put together looks very much like a Texas Star. The way the embroidery fills have been designed, they resemble fabric. She also has Grandma’s Garden, Double Wedding Ring, New York beauty and many more. If you are a quilter and a machine embroiderer, you have got to check out this site!

This weeks sewing

Little by little I've been working on them and this week I finally got finished with the large curtain panels for our 'sunroom' sitting area upstairs. They are made out of heavy decorator cotton and are lined. It is rather difficult to pin and sew something precisely when it is bigger than your cutting table, but one pair matched and were completely even at the bottom. The other set is off by about a 1/4". I would have agonized about that until I remember the curtains that we bought for our living room downstairs. Some of the pairs are off by over an inch or so at the bottom.

I still have to make the valances and tie-backs. The main curtains are a floral print and the valances are going to use a coordinating plaid/stripe fabric. Thankfully my brain got in gear just in time before I starting cutting that fabric and remembered that I had to cut them so that the repeats matched! Good thing that I remembered because when I was done cutting them, there wasn't an inch of fabric leftover!

I can hardly wait to get the curtains done as I have a stack of patterns that I want to try out and a closet begging for some new clothes!

We are also busy starting up our new store at ecrater. After many years at ebay we have decided that they are not the right place for us. It will take some time but eventually we want all our stock transferred over to ecrater where we be able to do things like have coupons for repeat customers. We love our repeat customers but have not had any way to show it prior to this move. In the meantime, visit us at both our sites for 1000's of New uncut sewing patterns!

Threads Magazine Back Issues

For a limited time only, Threads Magazine has many of it's back issues on sale. Threads is a fantastic magazine for learning how to sew, improving your sewing techniques and becoming a master of your craft. This is a great time to catch up on the issues you may be missing -- they just might have the answer to your latest sewing dilemma.

I have found sick days a perfect time to look through my back issues of magazines and have found even when my brain isn't functioning on all cylinders, that many or the articles and pictures penetrate and I learn something new that I didn't pick up the first time I read the magazine.

Gosia Designs

I just visited Gosia Designs and found that currently they have ALL their designs up for sale on one CD for $49.00. That is for over 2000+ designs! This company is great about regularly sending us notices that new FREE designs have been posted. I have used several of their monograms to embroider towels and they are gorgeous designs that sew out well. You can get their designs in all the standard home sewing machine formats, so this is a huge bargain. Even if you don't want to purchase the CD, sign up for the newsletter so you will know when you can pick up a free design.

I finished the top I have been working on and loved the fit and how it looks. The pattern has lots of optional ways to make the top, so I will probably be making this one again many times. It even has 3/4 length sleeves which I have found necessary even in the summer as my medications and sunshine don't agree with each other. I have to try my best not to expose too much and not to be roasting in my clothes.

I'm back to making curtains for one of our upstairs rooms. It gets most of the sunlight in the summer, so we need something up to help block the sun. I finished the lacey sheers and they make a big difference even without the main lined curtains that will be going up!

Butterick Sewing Pattern 5173

An FYI for anyone that has purchased Butterick Sewing Pattern 5173 in the past little while. Apparently there was a major problem with the pattern itself and it has been recalled. Please visit http://www.butterick.com/ for details of the recall. Our store Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts has never had this particular pattern in stock, so I don't know what the problem is. Just letting you know in case I can help one person keep from making a major mess of their sewing project.

Winter is rough for me. Arthritis loves this time of year but I don't. Even though it is now spring, as I type this snow is falling. I have been doing some sewing in 10-20 minute increments of time and am almost finished with a challis top. Compared to winter type fabrics, just trying the top on for fit felt like I was putting on a silk summer top it felt so cool and light-weight. When I finish this top, it will be the third one I have made since I started trying to follow the spirit of SWAP sewing even though I can't actually participate. I also have made 2 corduroy skirts from fabric that has been mellowing for a long time in my stash. I like the pattern I made them with so will be using it a lot. The best part was getting to make them 2 sizes smaller than the last time I made a skirt. That is always a happy day.

I managed to snag a couple Austalian Stitches magazines off of eBay and they were so much fun to read and look at. They have great articles and usually for more casual clothes which is what I need. I'll be looking for more of them as I can find them.

Planning a New Wardrobe

We are finally settled into our house enough that I can start thinking about other things than cleaning and unpacking boxes, although there is plenty of cleaning and boxes to unpack yet. I’ve been losing weight, my clothes are getting old and baggy and it is time for some new ones. While my sewing machine and supplies were packed away, I'd done lots of reading about wardrobes and wardrobe planning and decided it is time to put that knowledge into practice, with Sewing With A Plan (SWAP) as mentioned in Timmel Fabrics website.


Today I set a goal of what I wanted to accomplish. I need an easy-to-make, comfortable wardrobe of casual clothes. I can't have back zippers, no buttons, no excess stuff that makes wearing or caring for the clothes difficult. My life is complicated enough by arthritis that I don't want to make something that I can't get on or off by myself. According to the SWAP rules, I needed 6 tops, 4 bottoms, and a jacket. With those pieces, if made in coordinating fabrics, I should be able to have many outfits to wear. Well, we are on a budget and so I have to use the fabric in my stash so that will put some limits on the coordinating factor. However, as some stuff in my closet still fits me and I have nothing that works with it, I need to be solving that problem also.

My life is very casual. A big day out is going to church, the grocery store, a doctor appointment (way too many of those) or an occasional dinner out with hubby. When my uncle died about a month ago, though, I realized I didn't have a decent outfit to wear to a funeral and had to wear a heavy black winter skirt on a very hot day. I've had a bad habit of just making something whenever it catches my fancy so poor planning has been a problem when trying to get outfits together for those non-routine things.

I went through my own pattern stash, remarkably small considering how many patterns we have up for sale, but I try to leave some Plus sized patterns for our customers. So many patterns at first glance looked like good prospects, but I managed to narrow them down. Then I made a scan of the technical drawings from the pattern instructions. Here's where my lovely hubby came in handy. I showed him the technical drawings (no distracting model or colors) and discussed them with him. He has better taste than me and also is the one who gets stuck seeing me, so I value his input. After discussing with him the various patterns, I clipped out the different garments I wanted to sew and attached them to my storyboard. I then made notes about yardage and whether or not the garment used knit or woven fabrics.

This has been fun thinking about what I want and planning so that I have a nice variety of outfits. Now the fun part: picking out the fabrics to go with each pattern. To be continued...

Yard Sale Bonanza!

Do you ever dream of the perfect yard sale? It has all those sorts of things you have been looking for. Well I got to go to one last week. The lady, due to health reasons, was selling off many of her machine embroidery magazines, quilting books, and Burda World of Fashion magazines. Well I went a bit crazy and bought two boxfuls. I had a wonderful weekend going through the things I bought. I ended up with quite a few magazines to round out my own personal collection and those that were duplicates, I now have up for auction, so here is your chance to fill in the gaps of your own machine embroidery project collection. I even have some spare Jenny Haskins magazines up for sale. Check out the auctions at my store.

The Burda World of Fashion magazines, I'm still having fun going through and the thought of selling them kind of wrenches at my heart, so I may just keep those in my sewing room. I have heard of these magazines, but had never seen any in person before. Boy am I impressed. It is like looking through a fashion magazine, seeing all these great outfits on models, and knowing with the right attitude you can make everything in the magazine! There are even instructions on knitting the sweaters and fashion accessories that are shown. Each pattern in the magazine comes in at least 5 sizes, with a nice collection of Plus size patterns, men's and children's patterns also. You have to trace off your pattern pieces which seems to be the only difficult thing to do. My question is, does anyone have any handy dandy hints for tracing off the patterns pieces? Comments greatly appreciated.

I even got a large stack of quilting books, but haven't had time to even look through them yet. That will be for another day.

Vintage Butterick Patterns for Sale

Great news! We have new items up for auction on EBay. We have been listing some great vintage Butterick sewing patterns and thought you might be interested in checking them out. We have listed the appropriate measurements on each listing, so you don't have to be scared about what a size 12 in 1950 meant.

By the way, from what I can figure by comparing current standard measurements with those from the 50's and 60's, a size 14 now would have been a size 16 then. Even though the artwork on some of the pattern envelopes looks like the model only has a ten inch waist, the pattern will sew up to the listed measurement.

Factory folded in the listing means that the pattern has never been unfolded or used. The only way they could have been opened would have been by an expert map folder. Remember how when you used to open those old maps and could never again get them right, well pattern tissues are the same way, once they are open, they never can be folded to look the same.

Enjoy the auctions or purchasing vintage patterns straight from our store. We will be listing more vintage patterns as time allows, as vintage patterns take much more time to list due to researching their age and checking thoroughly into their condition.

Shop with us any time! Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts

The Joy of Sewing!

What a fun afternoon I spent in my air-conditioned tree house sewing room! I dug through my box of UFOs (unfinished objects) and found 4 quilt blocks in similar, though not matching colors to make some throw pillows. They will go with some older valances I made years ago that just went up in our entry room. And since I made them, I also have more fabric as I need to make one more valance. Only someone who sews can really understand being able to move into a new house, use older curtains, etc. and still have fabric to coordinate to make more things as the need arises.

I also plan on making a cushion to go over a storage box that will be nice for sitting on to put on shoes and dare I say it? -- Winter boots! It is horribly hot out now, but we have had so little summer, I hate to jinx things and have winter roaring in again.

I missed getting to sew for many months, but spent my time profitably reading many sewing books and magazines, so that now when it is time to sew, I can whip out projects without really having to think them through as I have been filing ideas away in my head for a long time.

Well back to the ironing board and sewing machine for me.

Finally!

After many months delay, we have finally moved as of the 1st of July. I love having all the room in our new house, but still have many boxes to unpack and put away (mostly books). I had to focus in on getting the bathrooms, kitchen and office in working order and then was finally able to start setting up my new sewing room. It is twice the size of my old one with a nice large closet. My cutting table is made from an old square grand piano circa the Civil War with the piano 'guts' taken out. My hubby the piano restorer (this one wasn't good enough to fix), set it up for me with a cut out space that my thread cart slides in and out. My sewing machine looks out over and past a huge walnut tree and into my in-law's back yard and woods. Since I'm on the second floor of the house, it feels like I'm in a treehouse.

Somehow prior to the actual move, I collected several more boxes and bags of fabric and quilting items, some donated and some purchased. Things are stashed neatly on the shelves for now, but some day I really will need to root through all the various boxes and get them organized and pull things that will never be used.

I have started my first sewing project, a simple crinkle cotton skirt. The fabric was $1/yard at Walmart and it survived prewashing, so I have high hopes for it. It is also in line with the SWAP sewing I have been planning to do. It is an olive green color which I normally wouldn't pick, but the green picks up the leaf colors in some of the tops I have. Even though it is a simple project, I of course, got side-lined by an arthritis flare-up brought on by way too much scrubbing of the old house to put it up for sale. And I definetly need some new clothes as I've been dropping over 5 pounds a month for awhile and things are loose!!!

Now that the move is done I'm hoping to start getting our ebay store restocked with a lot more patterns and sewing books. Visit us any time at Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts.

Aquamarine Ambience with Jenny Haskins

On my way to a doctor's appointment today, I picked up Creative Expressions #14. As I was looking through it this evening I was inspired to visit her website. I found the following message, that anyone who has purchased the book Aquamarine Ambience with Jenny Haskins by Simon Haskins would need to know:

"Stop Press: We apologise, it has come to our attention that design aa14, from Aquamarine Ambience is missing from the CD in the following formats; JEF, HUS, VIP and XXX.
Please download this file for the missing design" Click Here to go directly to the site.

I'm still separated from my sewing machine, but there is a project in this latest Creative Expressions that will make a wonderful project for getting reacquainted with my machine called: Jenny's Essence, Jenny Haskins Cheating Crazy Patchwork. It is an 18" little crazy stitch quilt using mostly decorative stitches and Jenny's Brand of stitch building. It would make a great practice piece for anyone who wants to get to know the decorative stitches on their sewing machines. Each stitch is diagrammed so that you can find it or a similar stitch on your sewing machine. Although it does use one machine embroidered design, it could be skipped quit easily with an applique in it's place.

New Free Embroidery Designs

Embroidery Library, has just released their new March Free embroidery designs plus a nice lot of Spring designs that you pay for (but they don't charge much!). Two of these new freebies are perfect for me. One is "So many scraps, so little time" for the quilter in me, and the other is "So many books, so little time" for the reader that I am. They also have a clover applique design with Celtic style embroidery on top. All in all a great bunch of designs and in two different sizes also. Don't forget that Embroidery Library's free designs are only good for that month and then you will have to buy them.

Fitting Book

Among the pile of sewing books that I got the other day, was The Busy Woman’s Fitting Book by Nancy Zieman with Robbie Fanning. I had seen Nancy demonstrate this fitting technique on television years ago, but didn’t have a written copy to refer to. As I have several body areas on my patterns that need altered when sewing, I have been reading up and trying to find a method that would work for me. I like Nancy’s approach that once you have fine-tuned this technique with classic style patterns, you will be able to add the same alterations to all patterns. I’m looking forward to trying out this technique as it doesn’t leave your pattern in multiple pieces and lots of tape attached to it and seems fairly simple and straight forward.

SewingBooks

Yesterday was sunny and an almost balmy 30 degrees. Time to get out of the house and to my delight a local town was having a Friends of the Library (FOL) used book sale. Hubby and I drove to it to see if we could find some good books to resupply our store. Unfortunately when we arrived, we found lots of books, but not many that would be an asset to our store.

We did come home with three boxes of books because I found quite a few books on sewing. Not really valuable books money wise, but valuable to me for reference when I'm sewing. I also found lots of those fun little mystery paperback books that can be read in an evening and provide more entertainment than a TV show. I even found a signed Tess Gerritsen hardcover book that will go into my own collection as she is one of my favorite authors.

My favorite find of all though, was The Complete Book of Sewing Short Cuts by Claire B. Shaeffer. I have one of her other books and was very impressed with it and have read many of her columns in Threads magazine, and so was happy to find another one of her books. The title is a bit of a misnomer as I didn't see many so called short cuts for sewing. What I did see was a sewing book author who thoroughly knows her stuff and presented it in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. The copy I bought is only illustrated by black and white diagrams, but perhaps a later edition may have colored illustrations. This book will definitely be referred to many times to help know the best way to sew an item.

Bought more fabrics today

Just because I don’t have my sewing machine handy, doesn’t mean I can’t plan and purchase stuff for sewing. I’ve really been thinking about the Sewing With A Purpose plan and have started planning some colors, picking out patterns and buying fabric. Of course, with the numbers of patterns I have to choose from in our store, I have to be careful not to try and hoard them all! I live a very casual lifestyle and so don’t need a lot of ‘dress-up’ clothes. Mostly I need clothes for around the house, grocery shopping, occasional nights out with hubby (dinner and a visit to Barnes & Noble) and church.

If a pattern has back zippers or buttons it didn’t even make the first cut. Formals and extremely complicated patterns also got the thumbs down. And while every article on wardrobe planning tells you that you need a tailored jacket, I don’t wear them and am not going to start now. I do like wearing my sweatshirts converted to a lightweight jackets as a cover-up although I only decorate them, I’ve never sewed one from scratch. Perhaps if I have success with the pink knit that I bought yesterday, maybe I will try.

Anyhow, I have narrowed my patterns choices down currently to 5. I want to make at least one dress, 3-4 skirts, maybe one pair of pants, 4-5 easy tops and a better blouse. Very ambitious plan for me. I do remember the summer before I started nursing school and needed something more than the ‘mommy’ rags I had been wearing, I made 11 items in 9 days and was watching 4-5 kids all at the same time so surely if I give myself some time I can get the above plan made.

My great hope is eventually get rid of the worn out, non-fitting, misfit items in my closet and instead have clothes that coordinate with each other at least to the point that each top or bottom has 3-4 matches. Currently I have some tops that only have one bottom that matches them and skirts with minimal tops to match.

At this point I am planning on using black and purple as focal colors with cream, pink, rose, light green as accents. I have some nice things already in the closet that would work already with those colors and my mother gave me a huge bag of fabric with some of those colors as solids also. Today I bought some purple crinkle Charmeuse, a cream cotton fabric, and a light color sheer with purple flowers on it. There is enough of the purple for a top. I was hoping the cream would be enough for at least a tank top but I’m about ¼ yard shy now that I have checked my patterns, but I will see how I can make it work. The light sheer I thought would be nice as a scarf, or accent fabric perhaps as godets in the dress I want to make. Anyways I feel like I am making progress at least in the planning of what I want to do and I think when things melt enough, my sewing machine is coming back home for awhile.