Current Mood : Bemused and befuddled.
Current Image Book : When I was ready to do the chair photos, I thought a doll in them would be nice - and I don't think I ever posted one of Melody before, and I said I would. So, here's Melody, Ariel and Eric's daughter, from Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea. She's a rather rare doll, made as a TRU movie-tie-in exclusive by JakksPacific. Since the seller had no idea who she was, I got her in a lot of dolls for less than ten bucks. (smile) I retied her waist bow using a large-eye needle ! One day, I'll find her mermaid tail and pink dress, but MIB, she often sells for around $100. So she's content in Skipper and snug-on-Barbie Fashion Fever selections.
Sometimes - and I'm quite sure it comes off here all the time - the world of machine embroidery seems awfully obsessive. If not downright silly. I mean, I have probably nearly 2000 designs and gleefully say right here that I'm spending hours a day looking for more. And when I confess my shame at having more than I'll use in a lifetime, I'm met with, ‘That's all you have ? I admire your restraint !' messages. From the ‘serious' embroiderers. They're not in business or anything - this is just their bag. Amassing more. While there are quite literally thousands of designs out there for free, the ones most of us really like are a bit on the pricey side. Even with sales like the ones I've found, a collection can soon cost in the hundreds of dollars, which doesn't even take into account the search time, or the supplies needed to sew them all.
Still, even I was somewhere between amused and insulted when I was offered the Deduper today. Just in case I've downloaded (and presumably paid for ) the same design six or eight times, the Deduper will go through all my files and delete duplicates, even if they're under different names, or still in a zipped file. What's even more shocking to me - besides the $40. price - is that this isn't a brand-new program. Nope. It's been around a bit, today's message was announcing the upgrade.
The idea that this is a necessary product just lays me out flat. If folks have that many blasted designs, you'd think they'd also have a decent category tree in place, set by and designed by the person who uses it. The religious sewist may have several folders under an ‘Angels' subheading, like ‘lace angels', ‘fill angels', ‘Scripture angels', ‘quilt angels', ‘FSL angels', etc., while I have one folder for ‘Fairies and Wings'. It makes things much easier to find, and you know where you tend to put stuff. But anybody who seriously need a deduper may wanna consider easing up on all those downloads instead ! I pretty much know exactly what I have - and I enjoy looking through all the folders every so often, just to remind me of what I've already got. Having to shell another $40. to get rid of stuff I either paid for or spent time downloading seems so ridiculous to me... but for there to be an upgrade, there probably was/is demand. (sigh)
Anyway... this morning's work was to run to a nearby town to pick up the plate and title for ‘Bonnie', the blue truck we bought that DFIL is using right now. Hopefully, we'll get her back later this month, because his vehicle's going in for service. I wasn't looking forward to it, even though I'd be driving past the junk shop, because I didn't have written directions. Sure, I'd been there, but just once, and Beloved was driving, so I wasn't paying strict attention. I was just hoping I'd find the place.
I did. Got it done and stopped by the junk shop on the way home. Same dolls as last time, nothing I wanted. No new fabric, either - but I did score a package of six nice handkerchiefs. I'll probably embroider some roses and initials on them, pass them along to Uncle and Aunt. They've done so much for us.
Did a bleach laundry load and got the new napkins in there. Those were a bad deal, sort of. The first one looked nice, but the rest had stains and I didn't notice the jacquard Fleur-de-Lis design. Paired with the heavy border, any embroidery on them would just look overdone, and the bleach bath didn't take all the stains out either. So, it looks like I have a nice new set of kitchen towels. Or plain napkins. At least I learned this time, and I carefully examined the handkerchiefs before I bought them. No real stains, but they could use a wash.
Believe this or not - despite the 80-degrees and sunny day we had, I had to put the laundry in the dryer. The 30 to 40 mph winds blew whatever I put up down ! And often across the backyard, which meant I had to wash it again. Even a heavy bedspread flapped over my head on the line. I also got the living room picked back up this afternoon, all I need to do now is vacuum, but right now, I'm wiped out !
