Calling ALL Local Sewers

Ok ok, I KNOW that my readers consist of maybe 8 people and of those 8, maybe 2 of them likes to sew, but I thought I would give this a shot nonetheless.

My little sewing group is in search of members to join and share their talents/ideas/projects with us. We meet once a month on the 3rd Wednesday mostly within the Seattle-Bellevue region. We're pretty spread out between Everett and Des Moines, so we gravitate towards the middle. We meet, chat, and show off the projects that we worked on. We each take turns in hosting and choosing what the project-of-the-month is. And for the most part, they have been pretty small, which is to say manageable for a person with a full-time job to finish. We've made things like fabric bowls, bags, scarves, pillows, and such. This month we are doing a free-form wall hanging project, which I am very excited to do. All that to say, we are not professionals, so don't be shy.  Its a fun way to learn new techniques and pointers from others.

If there is anybody out there, man or woman, young or old, big or small, who has a passion for all things sewing (or knows someone who does), and would like to join us, please let me know. We would love to have you!

Travel Bags

I embroidered these simple draw-string bags for my mother-in-law who recently took a 3 week trip to France. I figured she could use them for her delicates or dirty boots, or whatever she pleased. I liked them to much, I think I will have to make some up for myself, if I ever decide to travel anywhere that is. The patterns used are the Bon Voyage iron-ons from Sublime Stitching. (I love them!)

Deception Pass

I forgot to mention our little camping trip to Deception Pass State Park a couple of months ago and just came across these pictures.

And is this not the cutest man you've ever seen in your life? "Why is he holding a giant log?" you might ask. I asked myself that same thing. Boys will be boys I guess.

Oh Yeah, and...

...we went skydiving. How have I not mentioned this?

We got 2 gift certificates for tandem skydiving from our good friends Mike and Jenn when we got married. We put it off for a long time, but they expire this year, so we finally made the call. We were jittery the whole drive down to Toledo. Upon arrival, they gave us each a 5 page (front and back) document to read and sign. The first thing we had to initial said "I acknowledge that skydiving is dangerous and I could die. If I die this skydiving company will not be sued." We didn't even bother reading the rest. What else was there, really?Just signed and handed it over.

We had arrived early on a Saturday morning in June. So we had to wait around a couple of hours for the fog to burn off before they were going to take anyone up. Even after I signed the “I might die” paper, I was relatively calm. The staff seemed really nice and professional. I had accepted what I was doing. They walked us through some light training, which basically said to have fun and hold our legs up when we land otherwise we’d slam into the ground face first like a cartoon. And that was fine with me.

Then after the sun came out, the skydive girl came up to us and said, “Alright, who wants to go first?” My hand was in the air before she had even finished her sentence. I always prefer to go first when I’m nervous. Gets it over with quickly. So I suited up, kissed my Hubby goodbye and squeezed into the world’s teeniest plane with my tandem-guy (his name was Scrub), my camera girl (her name was Wendy), an independent jumper, and the pilot (I don’t know their names.)

As we taxied out to take off, I marveled at the fact that I was still relatively calm. Even after we took off and I was looking out the little window, I still felt good…excited even! I checked the altitude… 2,000 feet. All the houses and trees were getting smaller. “What a view,” I said to myself. I checked again…3,500 feet “This little plane isn’t so bad,” I thought. I checked again… 4,500 feet. At that point, the pilot announced that he would open the hatch to let out the independent jumper, in a couple minutes, who had just come along for the ride. I was like, “Uh, ok.” Mind you, I wasn’t strapped to Scrub yet. And he had the parachute. And there were no seatbelts. I was just sitting there.

At 5,000 feet, the pilot reached over and opened the hatch, and it got loud, and it got windy, and the guy jumped out. And it finally hit me. I mean it really sank in. “Ohmygod, I’m about to jump out of a plane. I could die!!!” Then the pilot closed the hatch and we continued to climb. I was out-of-my-mind terrified. I was trembling head-to-foot.

At 7,000 feet, Scrub told me to assume the position so he could harness me in. I obeyed. After he checked that we were good to go, the pilot reached over again, flung open the hatch, and Wendy backed out, and hung off the side so she could get a shot of us. She must really have a pair on her letmetellyou. Scrub and I scooted up, he yelled at me to put my foot out on the ledge…

And let me pause right here folks, because that was probably the hardest thing I have EVER had to do. Scrub was yelling and pointing to the ledge. And I wanted to obey, I did, but this other voice in my head was screaming too, and louder. “Don’t put your foot on that ledge! Because YOU     WILL    DIE!!!” It was quite the internal struggle, I watched in slow motion as my foot finally reached the step, shaking all the way. And just then, Scrub pushed away. And we were off

In all truthfulness, I'm glad I did it. It was a fun experience. After we let go, there was really nothing else for me to do, so I just spread my arms and enjoyed the 45 second freefall and a 5 minute slow coast to the ground from 10,000 feet...and lived.

I counted 6 different mountains from that height. And after the parachute went up, it was completely quiet and very peaceful. Scrub gave me a panoramic view of the area. I really wish I could figure out how to upload the movie we got. It’s quite something. Ah well, at least I have some picts.

When my mother saw this picture of Geoff, she asked if he screamed like a girl, he replied, "No. I screamed like a man."

Sweet Tree Pillow

This is another sewing group project, but I thought I would use it as a warm up for the family tree project I'm working up. And it turned out specatularly well... if I do say so myself.

This whole thing was finished in about 2 hours.

I used a natural colored linen blend fabric for the pillow. The purple tree that you see is actually a pieced-together stamp that I made. Then I used some fabric paint to stamp it on, piece by piece. First the trunk, then main branches, then smaller branches. Next I cut out the leaves out of some leftover scraps and sewed them on with a criss-cross stitch. After that, just sew the pillow pieces together, stuff it, seal it, and Voila! Tree pillow.

Soon, I'm going to make a much bigger version of this to hang on the wall where the leaves will have our ancestor’s names going back 5 generations. Should be pretty bitchin.

Oh, Hello again...

Ah yes. Another wide gap in the posts. And I got a ton of excuses, but who really cares? So here is the first of another string of posts to update ya'll on what I've been up to.

First off, I recently joined a sewing group and here is one of the projects we did. It is a woven fabric bowl and it was really fun to do. Plus I LOVE how it turned out. I will definately make more. Here is the tutorial for anyone who's interested. The tutorial uses a machine to sew it, but I did it by hand. The cording I got was real fat and wouldn't fit in the machine, plus it was something easy to do while watched movies.

On a more personal note, today marks the last day of my vacation. Boo. And I just checked my work email. Which was a poor idea on my part. Anyway, Puppy, Hubby, and I rented a cabin out on Gold Bar on the Snohomish River for a week. We invited our folks to come out as well. They didn't stay the whole time, though. It was awesome vacation spot. It was a 5 acre fenced property so Puppy just ran wild for a solid week. She loved it. We loved it. We went hiking, river-tubing, hot-tubing, shopping, and played wiffle ball. There was also alot of sleeping, lounging, eating, drinking, and laughing. It was super fun. So sad its over.

Bunch of Cuties

Its a little blurry, but OMG sooooo cute. Had to share...