Current Mood: sleepy
Had a busy night after I posted. DFIL brought sandwiches from his restaurant for us, which was so sweet - so we didn't go out. My delicious Herbie (roast beef with provolone) was so tasty, I was feeling a bit energized. I was toying with the stuff on my desk while goofing off online, idly. The Ken shirt/jacket I got with Jebin (a former blue-fez Aladdin) was there, awaiting thread-clipping. It went through the wash twice, but the dye from the bottom blue part remained on the upper yellow, in an interesting sort-of tie-dye mottling that's a neat few dozen shades of green. I rather liked it, so I decided to keep it, and while I was clipping loose threads, noted that part of the right underarm seam was gone. I mean it wasn't ever there. It didn't pull or tear, the stitches didn't come out. The stitches were never there to begin with. And folks wonder why I don't trust Mattel's quality with a $10. doll these days, much less a $200. one...
This is the shirt/jacket all-in-one that came on 1996's ‘Big Brother Ken and Little Brother Tommy'. I once lost every doll-clothes auction lot I bid on to score one of these shirts, now I have three, including this unique one. Much as I love yard sale season, sometimes I fear it, because I get out there and buy everything. At least until my cash is gone. We're in trouble if garage sales suddenly begin accepting credit cards...
Anyway, I soon fixed that, and was bored sitting in front of the computer. I was wondering what to do next when I decided to page through my embroidery designs. While I wasn't much interested in embroidering for some reason, I found the Wall-E design and remembered that twice this week, I've picked up the fabric scrap I stitched it out on. I guess the bloom is off the rose between it and Dearest Son. Can't really blame him, a scrap of fabric, even with a favorite character on it, isn't much of a toy, or really anything. My recent search for Wall-E fabric had turned up $15./yd fleece in a choice of lime green or medium blue background colors, but nothing else. Not at Mal-Wart, Hancock Fabrics, or Hobby Lobby. There was plenty of it online, for $10. a yard. Simple woven cotton, $10./yd. You can get woven brocades for that - and some silks ! Sheesh...
Not that I'm turning up my nose at fleece, but by its nature, any prints made from it are fuzzy and blurred-looking, not what I wanted. Plus, we're heading headlong into summer, so I doubt even the biggest ‘bot fan will want to step out in a fleece t-shirt in our upcoming triple-digit days.
It occurred to me that Dearest really needed some sort of change purse or wallet. He's lost the hand-me-downs from Beloved Hubby and the Dollar Spot Transformers one I got him, but having quarters jingle in his pocket in anticipation of Popcorn Friday at school just meant he soon lost them. Lightbulb ! Was there enough fabric in that Wall-E stitch-out to make a little zippered pouch ?
Yes ! And I had tons of zippers in every color imaginable. At first, I thought to get black, since that was the color of the outgrown-sweatpants cutaway I stitched Wall-E on, but that might be hard for him to see. How about a nice yellow or orange ? It'd be a good contrast, and would ‘go' with the character's colors. A few minutes of digging through the might that is my sewing stash, and I'd assembled all the necessaries. I consoled m'self with the knowledge that, if I totally booted it, I still had lots of leftover sweatpant, and could just sew another ‘bot, easily.
Well, I sort of booted it - I'm waaaay out of practice with zippers - but I did fairly well, and it's usable. I just didn't sew the zipper to the seam allowance straight enough, so I had to do an extra line of stiches on each side, to keep it flat. On the whole, it's not bad, and it's certainly not something everyone in Second Grade will have. I forgot to sew in a ‘Made with Love By' tag, so I glued it in this morning. Wheee ! Something cool for his Easter basket tomorrow ! I made a Wall-et !
And while there are directions for using your embroidery machine to sew in zippers (sigh), I used KJ. That felt good, too. I have no idea why folks want to keep shoehorning basic sewing into all-in-the-hoop embroidery, when it's easier and faster and cheaper (fewer pricey supplies) to just use a regular sewing machine - and regular sewing's something most home embroidery machines do, too. Not everything has to be an embroidery project on an embroidery sewing machine. But I guess ya can't tell some folk that.
Ya gotta admire those sweatpants. We only paid $5. at most for them, at least two but probably three years ago. They got patched when they tore and recombined when they got outgrown and tore in new places - and they're still part of a pair of wearable pants, and now, there's an embroidered change pouch made from the scraps. And there's still more of that fabric. Pretty amazing, when ya think about it.
I stuffed the finished Wall-Et under the printer - it's heavy !- to press it during the night, and hit the ole hay. Slept like a rock until my internal clock basically panicked me awake. It was 20 after 5am ! I'm normally already awake at this hour ! Sometimes my circadian rhythm needs a blasted snooze alarm - and a calendar. It's Saturday, ya idjit ! I soon went back to sleep until 8:30. Much better.
Beloved's not been sleeping well, his arm and shoulder still hurt. So he was up before me, but tucked back in while I made breakfast. Luckily he hadn't fallen asleep before his All-Fried Doubles breakfast - two hash brown planks, two over-easy eggs, and two sausage patties - was ready, so he got breakfast in bed. It's so nice to have a clean kitchen ! Of course, it's not so clean now, but...
Lest you think I'm Miss Unselfish with all this crafting and cooking, I did something for me while eating my All-Fried Doubles plate. Decided to go ahead and get a month's subscription to that one website I so thoroughly researched, and arranged a $5. transfer from Checking to PayPal. Funds should be in April 15th , and I'll probably sign up for it that the same day, and start downloading what I have listed. I figured that, if I was staying in on a darn-near perfect day for yard sales, I could do that instead. And it's probably cheaper !
Oh, and here's something that burnt my biscuits last week - forgot to tell ya about it. In an increasingly annoying effort to seek out new and potentially usable ME designs, I've subscribed to a raft of e-mail newsletters from various embroidery businesses. Most of the time, they're just sales tools - ‘big 2 for 1 sale !' ‘New set - only $25. !' - but sometimes, there's tips and ideas. With April Fool's Day coming, I got one from a dealer warning me of several potentially dangerous computer viruses (virii ?). After reading the six lines in the e-mail, I clicked on the provided link... and the rest of the article was for paying members only ! Guess that sort of information was for paying customers only. Of course, I was able to find it elsewhere, but it seemed as though, if you're not paying us, we don't care about your computer. So I unsubscribed from that one. It was mostly for the paying subscribers anyway.
Anyway. Made Dearest Son's Easter box tonight. Yeah, it's silly, but every year I've gone all-out on the basket, it's been ignored. So this year, I used a pretty box, and cut up colorful school flyers as ‘grass' inside. It then got loaded with his ‘EVE' eggs, containing bubble gum eggs, candy, and wedding bubbles. He loves those when he gets ‘em as rewards from school. Also a good chocolate bunny, a Wall-e book, and the Wall-Et. I even did an EVE egg- poorly, but there it is, in the photo. She has a ‘Daddy and Mommy love you' note inside, and I tucked her in the Wall-et. Hope he likes it all.
And I hope your spring isn't as troubled by bad weather ! We're in for a big storm tonight, I can see lightning. So I'm gonna shut down, just in case.
