Fabulous Fat-Quarter Bags

101 Fabulous Fat-Quarter Bags by M'Liss Rae Hawley. Book review, I like the simple designs, plus then she shows tons of options. for the same bag style.

Plus I just found out M'Liss Hawley is going to be a teacher at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo, in Minneapolis 5-7 Nov 09. I'm so excited. I have a great friend, going with me. I asked her at the last minute last year and she had a great time. Now to decide which classes to take. Last year I took every machine embroidery software class they offered.

No sewing today, I did Saturday chores. Then a little baking and some odds and ends, before going to a pig roast, hosted by friends from church.

Patterns under control

I have one job left to finish and then I'm foot loose and fancy free. Which means I can work on my own designs. The jobs have all been boring shirts, hoop a shirt, stitch a shirt, hoop another shirt while first shirt stitches, etc etc etc. Anyway, The last box of blank shirts arrive this afternoon so I can finish the last job tomorrow/friday. Three weeks of shirts and more shirts. I did shirts for a new restaurant in town. It took a long time for me to convince the owner it was better to order the shirts with the embroidery on them through me, versus bringing me the shirts to embroider. Minnesota says that an embroidered shirt is a shirt. Clothing is not taxed in Minnesota, but Embroidery Only is a service and is taxed. I got the exact shirt style he wanted from the wholesaler at 35% off what he was going to buy them at, because I bought in bulk.

Look what I did yesterday while shirts stitched, in between hoopings of course. I pulled out all my patterns and got them organized. I even started an Excel file so I can find them. I moved them into their own new home, a nice file cabinet, out of the yucky chip board ones in the laundry room. I sorted them by categories; misses, womens, children, mens and other (purses). Wow did I have a lot of 1970 and 1980's patterns. A bunch out of date, I couldn't find them on the designers website.

















I might have to slim down my collection and either give them away or even sell them on eBay.

Got a piles of magazines in the mail yesterday. I was wandering around the U-Handbag site and noticed that Lisa Lam (don't you love her name) designs great bags and then only posts a picture and a pic of the magazine cover that it's in. I got curious and went digging on the magazine Sewing World's site and found I could order old copies by calling their USA 1-800 number. I flipped though Lisa's list of Bags for Sewing World link and found out which old issues I wanted. They came today. Plus I ordered an subscription, little pricy, but way worth it.

I need to find that pattern for the shirt on the cover of the March 2008 Sewing World. I liked that the magazine lists the pattern on the contents page Simplicty pattern 7791, but it was really Burda 7791 for the leggings and Burda 7793 for the top. Kind of startled me when I googled it, the picture was the same on the pattern cover and the magazine. If someone wants to trade, leave a comment and I'll let you have two from my pile, your pick, tell me which category and I'll send you an email with the list. NOTE: I only want the Burda 7793, blouse top not leggings.

Gotta go get ready for date night with the hubby. Every Wednesday is date night, I look forward to time just the two of us. Even though our kids are college aged, it's nice to not be interrupted when I want to talk to him. I'm keeping him.

Baby wall hanging and bobbin wraps

I stitched out the first block of the baby wall hanging. I ran out of No Show Mesh stablized and I decided to try it anyway. Bad idea. I got puckers. I had to run to the Embroidery shop and get more stablizer, before I killed more cloth and thread. Yes this is really how messy the top of my cutting table is normally.

I have to tell you about something I saw on the back on a sewing catalog, Clothide. While these are really cool bobbin wraps, as they call them (42 wraps for $3.95). I ran to Walmart and got 48 for $2.00 in the hair accessories department.

I have tried all sorts of things to control the loose thread on my embroidery thread. The thread company I like, is now making the spools with retractable bottoms to help control thread. I have tried press and seal, it works for the first time or two, then it looses the stickiness.

So I went from wild thread tails everywhere to nice and neat in seconds. I am storing my hair bands, in old Crystal Light tub containers. I have the containers everywhere in my sewing room. My rotary cutter fits perfect in one and another hold my marking pencils, and my chop sticks.

PDF Files and book in review

I was having troubled loading PDF files, but I think I found the best site for Tips and Tricks on Blogger. I signed up for the site to upload my PDF's at, I'll try and upload a file tomorrow. Today I finished writing the next tutorial for my large tote.

This book is called Rainy Day Applique
by Ursula Michael

ISBN: 978-0-89689-539-3


The book came with a CD-Rom with 100+ designs. I love that. I'm not big quilt person, but this book may make me into a wall hanging person. She has a heart maze motif on page 51, that I love. Her designs are simple and easy to follow. I'm not one to follow someone else's patterns, but I get great ideas from their designs.

Today, I played in my software on making appliques. I opened a picture, and then traced the design with a single stitch, then traced the design with a satin stitch. I was getting better the slower I moved my mouse pen, with the higher stitch count. I did a skull for Halloween treat bags and I did the parts for my Iris placemats. I need to place all the parts together to finish the design and stitch it out.