THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR...

...happy December every one!  It is the most wonderful time of the year indeed.  So many birthdays, Christmas, two more weeks of school.  It seems that December is just one big celebration!  Ahhh birthdays!  First up my Mother's birthday (it's on Monday ya'll, December 5th).  It's pitiful but I have to come clean and admit - I am always LATE sending my Mother's birthday gift.  I know, shame on me!  I ALWAYS have the best of intentions but then life happens, time goes so fast, Thanksgiving happens, then bam - it's December 5th already, the serger thread breaks, and I have to mail 1,000 miles away.  Here I am again - LATE!  I wish you knew my Mom, gracious, understanding, peacemaker that she is. One has to be a peacemaker when you have four kids!   Her children arise and call her blessed (Proverbs 31:28).

Conversation earlier this week:
MOM:  You know what I'd like?  I'd like a new Infinity Scarf.  I wore the one you made me to Church last Sunday and received soooo many compliments.

Me:  No problem! Here you go, all sizes and colors, knits and woven (however, ever late).

I was just talking with a friend who just purchased her first serger.  She's afraid of it; I remember that feeling.  She was telling me that her thread had broken, and I tried to walk her through re-threading - over the telephone mind you.  Same night I'm working to get these finished when all of a sudden my Serger thread breaks!  Hasn't broken ALL year long!  WTW!!!

Of course anyone can make an Infinity Scarf.  I can actually make them in my sleep by now.  There are all kinds of video available, but I used instructions from the October/November 2010 Vogue Pattern Magazine.

What types of scarves are you using to embellish your hand crafted designs this season????    

STAYING CALM, AND (CARRYING) MOVING ON...

 "The Reindeer Marketplace Craft Fair"
DATE:  Saturday, December 8th
TIME:  9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
LOCATION:  Houston County Career Academy
                        1313 Cordor Road
                        (Corner of Corder Rd. and Russell Pkwy)
                        Career Academy entrance from Corder
                        Middle Georgia Technical College GED component entrance from Russell

...Happy December every one! Seems like I blinked, and poof - it's here already!  It's been quite a weekend to say the least; but I'm staying calm and moving on!  On top of everything else, I had a little glitch with Picasa's storage limitations as referenced in my last post.  It's still not fully resolved yet, but I did get GOOD answers to my call for help from Lynn and Carolyn re:  picture size and revolving slide shows on my side bar.  In an effort to reset my camera to use less pixels I accidentally deleted my entire memory card.  Oh well...  I'm also sorry to say that I had to remove all slide shows from my side bar, but I guess that has allowed me enough storage space to be able to post pictures here.  Obviously, I definitely need to find out more about how Picasa works in the very near future in order to continue to operate this blog.  I won't go into my other woes here - I'll just say "it could have been worse"... 

Moving on --- you may recall me mentioning that I'll be participating in "The Reindeer Marketplace Craft Fair" at my school next weekend (I'll be so glad when it's over).  I committed last year, but the pressure got to me and I backed out of it.  Being my usual glutton for punishment self, I not only committed again this year, but encouraged two of my friends to participate.  Let me tell you, I've felt like backing out several times this year. I did reach my self imposed quota of scarves:  16 silky print infinity scarves,  12 fur snoods, and 2 big button scarflette neck warmers.  Hope there will be 30 marketplace attendees who feel the need of having fashionable scarves to keep their necks warm and BUY up!  Anyway, thought I'd share photos of the fur scarves I worked on.

What fashionable lady wouldn't want one of these fur beauties to enhance her wardrobe???

If course I'm very eager to get back to my selfish sewing.  Sewing, but not sewing what you really want to sew creates stress in ones life.  Needless to say I've had enough of that for a long while...

OH SHEILA!!!!

Who in blogland has not virtually met Sheila?  Well if you haven't happened upon her blog you should really make it a point to do so - you can find her here.  I've been reading her fabulous blog for a number of years now, and find her to be so multi-talented in that she sews, knits, and crochets just like a pro.  There's another thing about Sheila; she ALWAYS thinks enough of my humble sew-a-longs to join up and submit some of her beautiful designs.

For example, here's a picture of a design she submitted on the recent (and still ongoing) Carnival of Skirts Sew-a-long.

Her skirt made from the most interesting embossed faux leather using her favorite TNT (and also mine) pattern - McCalls 3830

When I saw her completed project weeks ago - of course I had to comment, but also made note that her fabric put me on the hunt for it in my local fabric stores to no avail.  To my surprise I received an envelope from Sheila last Thursday that contained 1 1/2 beautiful yards of this same fabric.

Can you hear me shout YAHOO!!!  So I have to send a shout out and a big THANK YOU to Sheila for her generosity! Needless to say, you will soon see me posting Sheila's skirt twin on my blog - so be on the lookout!

Guess what NEW PROJECT SUNDAY finds me working on?  Not a garment, but rather a bunch of infinity scarves for a craft fair called the Reindeer Market Place to be held at my school on December 8th.  I could KICK myself!  And you know that I've been procrastinating on getting them started.

Making one or two of the scarves for wardrobe enhancement is nothing at all.  Try making 25 or 30 of them.  Can you tell that boredom has slowly set in???  I'd much rather be working on Sheila's skirt twin.

I just noticed that today is November 18th - exactly one month from my birthday.  God willing I'll be at another milestone, and I really need to start planning a special outfit for that day.  Any suggestions???

THREE FRENCH HENS...

THREE FRENCH HENS

 ...couldn't help myself.  That phrase just popped into my spirit when I was standing back looking at the project that I started and completed last night.  Although this symbolism stands for the theological virtues of Faith, Hope & Charity, I think it can also be the title for my project.  I can hear myself asking "where in the world did I put Hope, I want to wear her today"...


Now more about this project:  Vogue Pattern Magazine featured a quick and easy tutorial on making infinity or circle scarves in its Oct/Nov 2010 issue (page 10).  I finally got around to making one back in March and really have enjoyed wearing it.  I kept saying that I was going to make more because it adds just the right pop of color to a monochromatic outfit.  And because it has multiple colors I get to wear it with several things in my wardrobe.
 

My first Infinity Scarf

 Carolyn's recent custom made Christmas gifts encouraged me to get some additional scarves made up.  I was in Hancock's for just a minute on Christmas Eve and took the opportunity of choosing three prints for the project.  Their sheer, chiffoney fabrics were 50% off - of course I couldn't remember how much was needed for a scarf so I just got a yard of each.  Total Cost:  3 yards $11 something.  I jumped right on the project while the motivation was hot.  By the way you only need 2/3 yard of 60" fabric per scarf.

Each scarf can be completed with a serger or machine and a little hand stitching to close the circle in 30/45 minutes tops.
HINT in case your thinking about making this:  Where the tutorial mentions starting and ending the stitching 4 to 6 inches from the ends, decrease to 2 or 3 inches - this makes the amount of hand stitching used to close the opening to a very minimum, or just machine stitch the opening using matching thread.

The Christmas miracle of the whole scenario is - I was able to get not 3 but 6 scarves from 3 yards of fabric having not a scrap left. 
The tutorial suggests cutting the scarf  24", so three of mine were cut at 24" and I used the remaining 12 inches for each additional scarf.  Therefore the scarf can actually be any size you want.

I'm kicking myself now, because if I had thought about doing this earlier - the 3 extra ones could have been used as gifts.  Oh well, another lesson learned.  I'm thinking about putting them back for next Christmas.  A big thanks to Carolyn for the scarf inspiration. 


My next project is forcing myself out of  the sewing room this morning so I can clean the rest of the house...