Tornado

Is it me or is life spinning too fast? I have so many good intentions to cut, sew and quilt, then kids, chaos, chores, whatever jump and demand my attention. This week Oklahoma has been crazy busy due to tornado damage on multiple days in multiple towns. This past Monday's tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma and really stopped my world for a moment. I graduated from Moore and have so many friends still living there. My friends are all alive and well but several have lost their homes. It's a relief and heartbreaking.  

The pic at the top is my childhood friend David McKenna. We met in elementary school and graduated from THE Moore High School, before they added 2 'other' Moore's. He lost his house but he has pride, spirit, faith and courage. He also has his Bullmastiff furbaby Roxy. 

Many people lost their lives, including several children at a local school. I cannot imagine the pain of their families. Please keep all the Oklahoman's caught up in this tornado chaos in your thoughts and prayers.  

Bravely sewing where seams come apart

I need to be very honest with you.

I'm cheating. 
And I really enjoyed it! :) 

I did my son's mending and was casting about for the next project. An inexpensive quilt folded at the top of the closet caught my eye. It was store bought for very few dollars to cover a hotel bed on a road trip with dogs. After more use and a few washes, the seams of the quilt blocks were coming unstitched. Some pieces had pulled threads which left impossible holes. I couldn't make it much worse, so I pulled it down to sew it as best I could. 

Then ... I got out of hand .... 

My hand loses sensation and dexterity quickly due to scar tissue, so this was going to be all machine sewing. I used a decorative stitch to go around one piece of a block. The quilt is made of simple rail fence type blocks. The strips aren't all the same width so it may be a different pattern. I'm still learning patterns. 

I lost my mind .... 

and zigzagged around ALL the blocks. Then all the pieces of each block. I had no idea how many seams were coming open! But they are stitched down now. 

Next, I am thinking that rather than making quilt sandwiches to practice my free motion quilting, why not do some practice on this poor quilt? I can't hurt it, LOL. We'll see what happens ... 

This project taught me to be brave.
To have fun. 
And that my lovely Janome sewing machine can hold a king sized quilt all stuffed up in it's throat space.    







   

Happy Mother's Day!!

Trees and Flowers for flies

Spring means renewal around here. AKA work to replace what has died or been destroyed by Oklahoma weather. Our tree seedlings are growing well and waking up. The lavender bushes are very leafy. Even the Ash tree babies are finally budding. 

Flies get to be a nuisance in the heat of the summer. We have a lot of animals, so flies are unavoidable. Fly predators help but it's not enough. This year I am trying Marigold flowers to repel flies by our main entrance. 

I bought inexpensive hanging baskets with coco mats. To prevent them drying out too quickly, I put an old plastic bag in each to try to hold in moisture. I did poke holes to let some water out, so the flower roots wouldn't be standing in water. 

Add dirt. Place Marigold bought from Wally World. Trim off the excess bag. Hang. Voila! Fly repellent that looks good. Let's hope this works :)   

Introducing Ms. Janome

Tada! Here is my new machine! I'm so excited. It was a bit sad to pack up my Babylock Ellure. I simply don't have room for it on my small sewing cabinet. I keep two machines sitting on a cabinet built for one. A sewing machine and a serger. I have to shift them back and forth as I do projects. The secondhand cabinet is not cut to fit either machine in the space that lowers. I have no idea what you call that little platform that drops, LOL.

I had already watched the video, so I sat down to play with Janome and her functions. My daughter wandered in to see what I was doing. So the first thing I did was stitch her name. I used the alphabet stitches included on the machine. Then I switched out feet and stitched my name freehand. I stitched over some other practice stitches on a quilt sandwich. I am out of batting so I was using little sandwiches made from scraps.  

Have I mentioned I am still a beginner free motion quilter? I am! But this Janome machine is making me look good. All the crazy issues I had with my Babylock have been handled by the Janome which is designed with FMQ in mind. I am delighted. I am NOT smooth but in the short time I played, I saw improvement. 

I stitched waves, swirls, lopsided circles, LOL. 

I even tried funny little flowers. No missed stitches. No broken needles. Not even thread nests on the bottom. I could see where I paused but my foot was still on the gas, it made a little bump of thread. Not a problem though.  
  

All in all I had fun. I'm really excited to do more with this machine.  

Then I got serious and had to mend my sons blanket. A woman's work never ends :)  

Welcome home Janome

Woo hoo! I finally bought a serious sewing machine. New! I've always had super cheap machines or used machines. I think they have taught be to be a better stitcher because I have always made do with what I had. My new challenge to learn free motion quilting will now be so much easier with a top quality machine. What did I buy? A super amazing Janome 8900!!

It is so far above my sewing levels that I feel like the poor kid with her nose against the window glass. I'm looking at the rich people with their fancy belongings. Now I have a fancy new toy. I think back to 1985 and sewing my wedding dress on a $100 machine from Sears. I worried the machine would shred the very expensive re-embroidered lace. That lace cost me $125 a yard!! More than the whole machine! I am proud to say that the machine behaved and my dress was beautiful.

I have been saving for a new machine for quite a while. I was expecting to buy used or a lesser Janome model. However when my hubby was making calls to find a Janome 7700 for me to test sew, he found the 8900 and asked the price ... $3000. WHAT?!? This machine retails at $3500. My hubby and I headed out pronto.

The store was over an hour away. There is no dealer close to my home. We met the nice lady on the phone and she showed us the Janome 8900 as well as a 7700 belonging to a friend of hers. Both machines sewed beautifully and had every bell and whistle I could possibly want. I verified the price was $3000 and she said yes, I can call *** to see if that's the best we can do. I said sure.

She walked off to make the call and came back saying she had told us wrong, the machine was $3900.
Argh. I was honest and told her I simply could not pay that price. I drove to the city because she quoted us 3k. I was willing to pay that but not more.
Then the faceless person on the phone told her he could take $3500.
That was retail but I was still unhappy since we were quoted less. I told her thank you but there were other machines out there. We drove the extra distance due to their price quote.
She called the boss back and explained the situation, out of my hearing, LOL. Then she came back bouncing and announced we had a deal at $3k! Yeah!!!

Moral of my too long story ... call around. Know the prices(though I have read 2 retail prices since then of 4k for an 8900). Hold people to their word. Be prepared to walk away. This wasn't my first trip machine shopping. I'm a firm believe that if it is meant to be, it will happen.

Frankenstein Mending

Do you mend garments? I grew up wearing hand-me-downs from my older sister and cousin, so mending and altering was just part of my life. It never really bothered me because I had unique clothes. I loved unique. Nobody was a stickler for strict styles, so I wasn't out of place. Living on a farm tears up clothes, plus we do a lot of shopping at thrift stores, so my daughters have embraced uniqueness too. The boys just suffer through my mending, LOL. 

My youngest daughter has a favorite pair of jeans. They are faded and fit her perfectly. And they had a crisis with the barb wire fence. She kept wearing them and washing them which really frayed the edges. Finally she agreed to let me mend them as it was getting too breezy on her right leg. The kid is slender and chills easy ;) 

I use scrap fabric when mending for the girls, since they don't care if it matches perfectly. It's difficult to pin the fabric to the jean leg, so I slide my 6x24 ruler down the leg. It gives me a hard surface underneath. For this project, I used some flowered flannel left over from my Christmas rice bag presents. It's pretty, feminine and super soft. 

Choosing a thread is usually fun. Match the jeans or the mending fabric? Or something in between? I chose the small spool of blue. It was the happy medium. You can also see my manic pinning, LOL.    

This little slit was on the right side of her knee where the leg was too narrow to rotate on my machine. I pinned the flannel, then stitch forward and back at a slight angle which left a wide zig zag appearance to the mend. It wasn't my first choice of how to mend but it worked.

For the big hole on the thigh, I stitched around the hole twice. Once to attach the flannel to the jeans, then again to secure it all together. I try to leave the frayed edges fluffy as it adds to the country girl appearance. I will trim it shorter if necessary but we really think it looks cutest frayed and with the flowers peeking out. You can use clear tape to make it lay flat out of the way if it bothers you while sewing.

The big T shaped hole I mended in stages. It started on the thigh and ripped down to the narrow knee. The kid has a gift for destruction.

I call this mending 'Frankensteining' because it tends to look ugly and patched together any old way. I take bits and pieces, remix them to make something better. Regardless of appearance, it works. It's imperfect but sturdy. These jeans have already been worn, washed and worn again. My daughter loves her mended jeans because it flaunts her girly side to have flowers peeping out. No matter how much mud and muck covers the rest of her :)