Thread tales...

Current Mood : Wiped out !  

 

Started today off well - found six new designs on a machine embroidery website I liked, and snagged ‘em for free. There was about 20 I liked, actually, so I bookmarked it for later. Man, they really know what they're doing when they offer freebies, don't they ?

 

No danger of me buying any, though - with all the vehicle shuffling and weather this month, we're pretty broke right now. S'Ok, there's food in the pantry and enough for Dearest Son's school lunch, so it's not bad at all. I get to return to my volunteer work this week, so I got plenty to do, and half a gas tank to do it with. Not sure if I'm reading or doing craft work with the kids Friday - but if it's crafts, I gotta squeeze a bit out of checking for those badge pieces. Luckily, there's a 40% off coupon to Hobby Lobby this week !

 

Last night, I went through my thread stocks. And I was utterly confused. Most sites say embroidery weight thread is best for Brody. Something even the manual dances around - it doesn't suggest a weight or type, other than ‘embroidery', and even then, it's merely suggested in the ‘learn to use your new machine' pages, and nowhere else, not even in the embroidery section. Well, I used it on Wall-e, and it didn't "fill" nearly as well as regular ole spool thread. Cheap thread may have lumps or burrs in it, but there is such a thing as good quality spool thread. Even I can tell a difference between the four-spool pack at Dollar Tree and the nicer $2. thread in something as small as doll clothes. Ease of use, shine, etc. Mostly judgment calls, really. So, wouldn't it be OK to use spool stuff if it's the right weight ?

 

Well, good luck finding that info out. Most of my wooden spools had the weight on ‘em, when there was a label still intact. And most of it is ‘50'. But modern polyester thread seems to have no weight designation at all. Even when ya go to their websites, it doesn't really say, unless a thread is cotton or specialty, what weight it is. Just says ‘all purpose', which really doesn't tell you much.

 

I gathered the ones I could tell would work on Brody, and boxed the ‘good' spool thread separately. Still not sure what the difference really is. It took me twenty minutes of hunting before I finally found a site that laid it out - smaller number weight = heavier thread. It's often suggested to use a lighter thread in the bobbin than on the top, to pull the stitches under a bit, so the bobbin thread won't show. So a bobbin often has 60wt (light) thread in it, and the top thread is 30 to 40 (heavier). And since most cotton threads are 50wt, they're probably too heavy for embroidery. Too bad even the Coats website won't tell me what size/weight/whatever their general-purpose Dual Duty threads are. I got a ton of that stuff !

 

So, with all that behind me, I think I'll try to use some Dual Duty on the next stitch-out, see if it creates any problems. If it works, I have a wealth of supplies already, and I can get more for about $2. for twice as much thread as what's on a $5. embroidery spool.

 

And here's a funny epilogue. Hancock Fabrics is having a 40% off sale on Coats & Clark thread this week. Entire stock. Excludes embroidery thread. LOL !

 

Case Wall #2 and Wall-E, too.

 

Current Mood : Sleepy-happy

 

Busy day, even if it was just fun little things. I got both Folding Pretty houses together and took the phone / lantern off the Spring Break one and put it on my nice one. Mine had the phone and lantern, but it was missing the handset. I also appropriated the faucet for the bathtub, and the oven rack. Yep, I paid $5. to get a doll phone, a doll faucet, and an oven rack. But I'm happy with my house now - I hated how incomplete the phone looked - so it was worth the five bucks. It's still missing a weather vane, a bird perch, the door wreath (this I don't care about), the grill rack, and the windowsill / lamp assembly, but now that the phone's fixed, I'm happy.

 

Only problem is, I hate to get rid of the donor one. All last year I wanted a Folding Pretty house, and scored one fairly late in the year. Now I have two. I really should let go of the parts donor, but the closest I've gotten is dumping it in Molly's trunk, since there's not much room for it in the Lab. Give me a week, and I'll be ready to donate it. Dunno why I'm being so greedy lately.

 

Used the snowflake stitch-out to make Brody's USB cable bag, and when I couldn't find a good, recent picture of Beloved Hubby and Dearest Son, decided to continue with the narcissistic theme of the Lab and put the ‘crowned D' stitch-out into the newly cleaned sewing machine frame. It actually looks pretty good there !

 

After I cheap-serged the latest few new pieces of fabric - tomorrow's laundry day ! - I decided to make a little sewing kit for the KJ machine. I already had a small box from Dearest's Wall-E figurine set, so I filled it with scissors, a loaded pincushion, the bobbin box, some thread, and the little cat-themed bag I can use for thread and sewing trash. It drapes over the chair next to mine very well, and comes in handy. Fits on top of the fridge, out of the way.

 

After lunch (and later dinner - those Pizza Hut Panormous things are HUGE, we still have leftovers !), I got a bit bored with the computer, and my guys were napping. So I decided to embroider a bit. I'd intended to do at least a Wall-E stitch-out this weekend, so that was on the agenda. Took me a while to find some leftover sweatpants material, though - I used a lot as rags while it was just sitting around. It came out pretty well for being a bootleg and a freebie ! Dearest watched it sew out, near the end, and was entranced, with both the process and the final result. Beloved even came in and watched a bit, asked a few questions. I'm just glad I had the right colors - I used the embroidery thread on this one. It's not as ‘filling' as regular thread, but I'm sure it tastes great (80s beer jokes, from a darn-near alcohol-phobe).

 

Still, the embroidery thread stitched out a lot smoother, with no snarls or pulls, and the sheen is gorgeous. Too bad all I have are yer eight basic colors, white, black, and a medium grey. According to Brody's manual, 40wt. thread is preferred, so I'm gonna go through all my thread - yes, all four boxes ! - and pull any thread labeled ‘40' I find. Then, I'll wait for Hancock Fabric's next big thread or notions sale, and get some fill-in colors. I need at least a light and a dark grey that I know of...

 

I'm thinking tomorrow, while clothes wash and dry, I'll test stitch the Teacher of the Year design, and the bootleg Barbie appliqué design I bought. I'd do it tonight, it's still early, but it took me over an hour to stitch out Wall-E, and cut all the jump threads. Brody is jealous even of the thread, so I can't take my eyes off him, lest he snarl. So my eyes are a bit strained, because I barely even blinked for that hour.

 

Plus, the Wall-E design required nine thread changes, and seven colors. I admit, I've been sticking to one or two color designs, ‘cause I'm lazy. But seeing Dearest's joy and delight, well, I'll just hafta get off my round rump more often, huh ?

Lab work !

 

Current Mood : Tired, but pleased.

 

Current Image Notes : While I didn’t change much on this part of the Great Wall O’ Cases, but there’s a lotta dangly stuff since the last time I posted a photo of it. Two more walls, coming up !

Discovered that I was, once again, avoiding the Lab due to the clutter and guilt about not even taking the dolls I bought over Spring Break out of the tote I took ‘em to Molly in. And Thursday’s lucky find Barbie case made three more since I installed the last ones, taking up limited floor space.

 

Well, that won’t fly. I got too much to do in there to avoid my Lab. Plus, we had an inch of snow when I woke up, and it was still snowing. I wasn’t going much of anywhere today anyway. The option was housecleaning, more online zoning, or having some fun in the Lab.

 

You know what won, and it sure as all heck wasn’t the dishes ! I started simply, looking for the plyers to take off the mini-notebook keychains, so I could get those pieces stored. Before long, I was moving furniture in there, so I could shuffle and redo the Great Wall o’ Cases ™ with the latest acquisitions.

 

What a job that was ! First, I decided to put the narrowest two – the Barbie Goes Travellin’ one and the Little Mermaid suitcase – over the window, which had been blank space. To do that, I had to move the sewing desk and take down the curtains. And get the stepladder, and find nails and cup hooks.

 

Once done, though, they looked natural up there. I was lucky, and they spaced well. Hung the Quick Curl Boutique (aka Shinobu’s Sewing Room) where the Travellin’ one was, and moved the DP calendar – which had been under the Mermaid case - so I could put the 70s double case I won off eBay last month in its place. Then, I took down the 50^th Anniversary tote bag (‘When you look this good, nobody cares if you’re plastic’) and hung up the newest Princess one. The tote went over the doorknob to the Lab.

 

From there, I redid pattern storage since I had so many new ones lying around. Got Aladdin (now Jaedin) dressed, and introduced Jenny to Debbie (my favorite cousin, and the real Jenny’s sister), the brunette Battat I finally liberated from the yard sale tote bag. Also got the Interactive Cinderella out, and she’s very pretty, but needs new batteries if I want to hear her voice. It’s probably just like Isabella’s (Interactive Belle). Her hair’s still in the factory set.

 

All that done, so was the day. The snow had completely melted by the time I was done with the cases, so we went out for chips, but that was the big outing of the day. Fine with me – I got a lot done, and had fun !

Whimsical Friday

 

Current Mood : Still lazy

Current Image Notes : I just thought this was pretty. She looks so much like my friend Greta, from high school.

 

I guess being petty pays off your karma - the few pieces I wanted the last two SiCK embroidery sets for came up, as either freebies or hunt rewards, so quite literally, there's nothing I want there. But I do like the forums. Nice folks, very patient.

 

Was reading one thread, and one writer mentioned that her machine embroidery designs file said she had over 75,000 files ! Wow. Well, mine says I have 3,930 files, so I counted and I have 1,369 actual designs. The rest of the files are .jpgs, stitch guides, directions, and such. This is considered an extremely small collection, and to the group shows nearly unbelievable restraint, but to me, it's huge, and I'll probably never use it all, even if I never download another design.

 

Luckily, though, I'm always looking. I found out that Ambassador, a design viewer freebie program, also creates and prints out a stitch guide. Wow. It shows what colors you need for which parts, and what order the design will ask for them in. I'm hoping to do a stitch out (a trial run) of the Wall-E I snagged last week while Dearest Son is at his grandparents', and add it to his favorite hoodie jacket when he comes home.

 

Stayed home today with Beloved Hubby - we're expecting snow tomorrow, but it's raining right now. Ugh. Good thing I have a new obsession. It's a Korean soap opera called The Last Scandal or My Life's Last Scandal, or some permutation of those two. I'm watching it on Crunchyroll.com, and I can't stop thinking about Sunny, and Jaedin, and her husband, who needs a clue by four delivered via freight train, but it won't knock the jerk outta him anytime soon. I thought I'd watch an episode or two, and it just wouldn't engage me, but I've watched eight hours of it ! I should be grateful there's only sixteen hour-or-so long episodes, or I wouldn't be getting any sleep.

 

Next male doll that crosses my path is gonna be named Jaedin !

How does a duck obtain a ponytail ? I'm seriously curious...

 

Current Mood : Happy with new stuff

Current Image Notes : This is a towel available via DisneyShopping.com - we got a catalog in Dearest Son's Wall-E figurine set today. Ummm, since when does Daisy have a ponytail ? How can she ? Is it made of feathers ? I always thought the back of her head had a, well... a d.a. style !

 

Sorry to pull another vanishing act on ya'll. It got to be time to post today's entry, and there wasn't one, and I lazily went to sleep. Told you guys how lazy and selfish I am !

 

Today was nice, though. I got to hit GoodWill and Dollar Tree, got some goodies. GoodWill had a shell-shaped baking tin, with eight shell impressions. I'm hoping to use it to melt crayons into fun shapes. I'm not sure why I want to do that, but I do - I've been looking at candy molds online for days. 50c.

 

Then, I found a six-inch-tall fireplace, still in the Hobby Lobby packaging. Ordinarily, I'd use it with Playscale dolls, but the mantle makes it look too small for them. However, it looks really cute with the half-sized Disney Dancing Princess dolls ! I'll probably find a good fire image to scale and print out, glue in the back.

 

But the big find - to me, anyway ! - was a Barbie case ! Oh, it wasn't anything rare or really special, but I really like it. The side folds down to form a table and benches, with a mirror insert. I just love it when a case is also a playset. The front has a Barbie princess photo on a cartoon backdrop design. 1989, too. I gladly shelled the $1. for that !

 

Dollar Tree was fun, but they really haven't had much new in a while. Scored some chalk for Dearest Son's board he's beginning to use again, and some shampoo for him. Beloved Hubby's been needing another Ace bandage, so I picked up two, and the corn chips he likes from there. I snagged a set of four mini-notebook keychains with Disney Princess designs - they're about Elphie-sized. I'll take off the keychains later, put them with the rest for the big Christmas project.

 

I also found a small manicure set, complete with another pair of manicure scissors. So I snagged it. What the heck. Can always use another nail clipper around here, and the scissors are always good to have as a backup. I lost the ones I just bought for about a week, under some papers.

 

Ya'll know I'm lazy and selfish, right ? Well, I'm also petty. Here's the latest example. Earlier this month, Dearest's school asked for everyone to send in those General Mills' box tops, soup labels, and Pure Life water bottle labels, so they can send ‘em off and get the rewards. So I finally got off my big ole butt during Spring Break and got the bundle I had ready for donation.

 

That's not quite the petty part. Today, Dearest brought home a slip of paper thanking everyone for sending ‘em in, and the other side noted which teacher's class, by grade, was in the lead for most turned in. Amazingly, it's his class ! So I embraced my petty, and tore through the house, upending boxes and snatching labels off stuff we haven't consumed yet. Because I want his class to...I don't know, it's not like they win anything, I think. If his class was second or third, I'd have gone to bed an hour earlier. But since he was in the lead, I busted butt. And there's another bag full of hopefully enough to put them over the top when the promotion ends with March.

 

Petty, petty Mommy.

 

Or maybe I just have a grudge...

 

Current Mood : Moody

Current Image Notes : When asked 'Pirate or Ninja' once, my answer came without thinking...

It's weird having your own Dumpster. I don't have to worry about having the trash can out on the curb by the right time anymore - and now that I have one, I have zero interest in diving into it ! We spent about an hour this afternoon, loading it with Shop trash for tomorrow's pick-up. It'll probably be about two months before we obliterate the pile completely, but we're already making a dent !

 

You may laugh at me, but when I did groceries yesterday, I bought those spiraly lightbulbs that are so expensive. I'm used to paying 88c for four, not $6. ! But if the claims on the box are halfway accurate, it's a good investment. Kitchen bulb blew today, and we replaced ‘em with the swirly kind, and it's great light. My cooking still ranks, but now I can see it very well !

 

Hauled Brody in for new design downloading. That's one thing - with Brody, I have to keep my desk clean, or clean it off at least once a week !  Ironically, I found a great freebie design download site last night - on the SiCK forums, of all places. I must've scored a dozen great car designs (and left a hundred more), eight dress forms, five sewing machines, three frames, and a bunch of small, neat designs for all of us and some projects I have in mind.

 

And this is what's kinda on my mind. Two of the designs I scored late last night were clearly owned by Disney. I knew it, and d/l'ed ‘em anyhow. I even bought a Betty Boop one for DFIL that was so cheap, it must've been pirated. If I breathed a word about it on the SiCK forums, I'd get a lecture if the denizens were feeling generous, ostracized if they were feeling their oats that morning. I know some of the nice folk there digitize for cash and maybe even a living, and I don't fault them for being in favor of copyright protection. But...

 

When a rights holder will only release designs on a crappy machine that has a reputation for poor performance that doesn't even last a year when similarly priced ones from the same company pound the drums like the Energizer Bunny for at least five times that long - and additional patterns only work on the crap machines and are $60. for twelve designs (six of which are things like seashells and roses) on a proprietary card, well, it's hard to say, Why, sure, I'll jump through all your hoops ! I love you sooo much, I want to stand guard over your properties, too, for free,  and will gladly settle for overpriced junk and deal with frustration and ruined garments to obtain a hint of the Mouse.

 

And the one lecture I read on the forums gave me pause, but didn't stop me. No, I don't need Disney Princess / Cars / imagery designs. I don't need a $500. sewing machine either, if you wanna know the truth about it. All I need is in this house, but if Diz could charge for air, they probably would. I completely understand copyright usage, but there needs to be a more level playing ground if they don't want piracy. Too bad they don't seem to care.

 

I would gladly pay a fair rate for legally obtained designs if they would make them available ! $40. for ten designs - half specific, half generic - I would consider... if they worked on Brody, or any other machine I cared to use. But they don't wanna do that, so if I can get dozens of them from a Soviet site for $2. each, well, I just might. It's not like I'm depriving Diz of the cash - they don't make the product available for me to use, at any price. There's so much confusion over what they do have available, I've yet to see two sites agree if the cards work on non-D-series machines or not.

 

 I'd much rather pay them for a quality product, but they choose to not market one. I can either do it myself, or pay someone else. Diz already makes darn few clothing items in my size, so they're not losing that income. It's not like I can put their characters to wicked purposes - when was the last time you saw thick embroidery on fishnets ? Or a negligee ? And designs aren't easy to change, it'd be simpler to create a new one than alter a commercial version. So that fret is somewhat blunted. Honestly, it's easier to get a tattoo of characters behaving badly, or a poster. Rule 34. 

 

It's like they licensed the D-series machines just so they didn't have to do anything further. And I really doubt many companies would dare go into full-scale production with Diz designs if they were more readily available. There's still laws against paying for one license but giving out copies to the whole plant and strangers on the street.

 

I guess I'm just disappointed that more companies aren't granting licenses. There could be so many great ideas here but it's like everyone's scared. Maybe I just wanna justify paying a small sum for something I wanted that's pirated. And that's something I have to deal with every time I wear or use what I made.

 

I think I can handle it.

Jarred musings...

Current Mood : Still sleepy, which borders on unbelievable

 

Spent on sewing : $1.97, for thread

 

Kind of another bust day. Didn't get much done, but slept quite a bit. Woke up with my eyes streaming and itchy, so I took a half-dose of allergy medicine - which knocked me off my butt and into bed for a good part of the morning. I hate to think what would've happened if I'd downed two capsules !

 

At least I got the groceries shopped. I was surprised to find a small selection of embroidery thread at our Mal-Wart's fabric section, but the color I most wanted (a skin color) wasn't there. Found a similar shade in spool thread - the good stuff ! - and got it instead. I'm sure I'll be at Hancock Fabrics sooner or later, but just in case, I wanted to have the color ready.

 

And, as you can see from today's image, I didn't get any real work on the ‘Teacher of the Year' project. This is simply a print-out of what I did with the font editor yesterday. At least I finally got it to the right size and in proportions that I like. If it stitches out OK, I'll add a few hand-sewn stars to it, for a bit of glitz !

 

Oh, and Michelle - I didn't think up this neat Mason candy jar project. Someone gave a quart-sized one to my Mother decades and centuries ago. It had the prettiest cross-stitch Easter bunny design ! I was so intrigued by it that I begged her to teach me cross-stitch, and that Christmas, I bought a dozen ‘quilt' patterned jelly canning jars, a package of Aida, and some cheap floss and needles. I panicked when the ribbon eyelet lace was sold out a week before school let out for the holidays, but I found some other lace instead. Darn near everyone I knew got a candy jar that year, filled with holiday-foiled Hershey's Kisses. I was lucky Mother already had a few tons of photocopied cross-stitch patterns ! Those little ‘dollar' mini-kits with the plastic frames fit the jars, too. Ask me how I know ! (grin)

 

The ones that year were pretty basic, but as I improved, so did the designs. Most of my school friends got a ‘refill kit' that Spring - jellybeans and new rabbit cross-stitch pieces. Birthdays brought miniature candy bars, fresh lace, and initials. I got quite a bit out of those little jars ! And you always return to the classics...

 

So feel free to use the idea. It sure isn't mine, but it's too good to keep to m'self. I guess I've known about it for so long, I forgot that not everyone may have seen the same thing in the last ten, fifteen years. Actually, at the last pre-holiday craft fair I went to, someone was doing something similar, but instead of a design under the lid, they just pinking-sheared some calico and snugged it over the jar lid, then screwed the collar on over it and tied a ribbon around. It was pretty, but I like mine better !

 

And it occurred to me that I have some IEP papers from Dearest Son's meetings that she's signed. I'm sure I can get her correct initial off those. Just have to get this part done first !

 

He came home saying he had to read for 20 minutes tonight. So he did - a rather poorly-written Disney storybook version of Beauty and the Beast : The Enchanted Christmas. One sentence = a paragraph, and it's laden with words like 'unforgivably' and 'problematic'. Call me an old stick, but I think  even storybooks written to be read to kids should at least be able to be read by kids. 

 

I was also able to tell him that DizStore had updated his Wall-E figurine set's shipping information, and it should be here Thursday. He's so excited ! And the kids loved the 'BnL' button I made for him after he went to bed last night. I'd love to embroider that particular Wall-E fictional logo, too, but I had to settle for download / resize / print. They're doing some sort of theme week - Monday was pajama day, yesterday was 'crazy hat' day. We don't have much loopy headgear (amazing, when you think of how nutz his mother is !), so I made buttons for his fave hat instead. 

 

I'm giving serious thought to trying on a night-cap, m'self...

Meet Jenny !

 

Current Mood : Happy !

Current Image Notes : You may remember the Battat AG-clone I bought from the Boy Scouts' flea market last month. Her hair had been cut and was terribly snarled, so I conditioned, cut and permed it - and then I made her a simple halter top from the leftover denim that was part of an infant skirt. Well, here she is ! This is Jenny.

 

And we're slowly getting back on schedule. With 30 to 40 mph winds rattling the windows in the casings, Beloved was not getting on a ladder this morning, so he's home today. The Dumpster for the Shop was delivered, and it's where you can't get to it unless ya mean it. I've been kinda worried about sudden sofas appearing in there. We've already had to deal with similar, if smaller-scale, happenstance.

 

Scrubbed a layer of dirt off the SuperStar Malibu's face, and now her head matches her neck much better. I'd kinda been wanting the ‘My Favorite Doll' SuperStar, but not obsessively so, and now that "Miassa's" here (what can I say, ya'll - they name themselves !) it's pretty much gone away.

 

In Brody news, today I learned that all of KJ's feet - even the ruffler ! - will work with him, too. Score ! While Brody comes with about ten of his own that I've never owned before, the KJ had a couple of unique ones, too. And it's great that I can switch back and forth. That's a bonus I wasn't expecting. I also learned that the elastic strap on Brody's equipment box (the embroidery platform takes the space where a tray of such items would normally go) is great for securing that screwdriver you forgot to put away, until you have to open the box again. Brother thinks of everything...

 

Except where their videos wandered off to. I've been reading their old newsletters, and while most of the design and image links work, the History of Brother series has vanished. Darn. I kinda wanted to hear about that. Evidently, they really were founded by brothers, with a sewing machine they wanted to name ‘Sister', but that name was already taken.

 

Yesterday I downloaded a free font manipulator, and it's fun, but it only works with their proprietary fonts - they answered me today - and once you've saved a design, there's no going back and editing it. If something's wrong, you get to do it all over again. On the plus side, it'll print out a correct scale version of your design, so you can see if it fits on paper before committing it to thread and fabric.

 

It only saves in a format Brody just barely acknowledges, but as it turns out, when I pulled it up in Pulse's Ambassador, it saved as my preferred format ! Yup, Ambassador can convert the files, too. Wow. I've really lucked out with the ME freebies ! I'm hoping to try a stitch-out tomorrow. If it works, I can cross something's that's been bugging me since Christmas off the ole ‘to do' list.

 

You're gonna laugh, but what I want this to work so much for, is a canning-jar-lid insert for Dearest Son's teacher. She got Teacher of the Year, and I've been meaning to make something personal to commemorate the event, but until I scored Fonts Plus, I didn't know how. And for some reason, I just can't make myself cross-stitch it.

 

When funds are snug, what I've been known to do is pull down one of the new Mason pint jars I keep for gift emergencies, and fill it with candy. I'll cross-stitch a design to fit between the lid and the collar, and sew some eyelet lace and ribbon to go around the outside of the collar. Materials and candy total only about two bucks, and that's with good candy.

 

But now, I have Brody, so I'm hoping to make this lid decoration double-sided, with a ‘Teacher of the Year' stitch-out on one side and either a cute cat - her favorite - or her initial on the other. Initials are easy, but I have some documents listing her first name starting with a ‘Y', others with a ‘J'. I hate to ask which it is, but I'm not sure if there's time and funds right now for the thread and the cat design that I'd really like to work out for her. But that's the beauty of the candy jar lid project - I can always make more and give them to her later !

 

I just gotta get off my round rump, though - or the school year will be over before I can get it done !

Who's got the (new !) button ?

 

Current Mood : Still lazy !

Current Image Notes: Here's the experimental bobbin, experimental bobbin thread, experimental thread stand, experimental knit fabric, experimental stitch-out design star I made yesterday. Now, it's a 2 1/2" button ! These plastic pop-aparts are only about $2. for four, but if you buy a bag of 12 and use Hobby Lobby's frequent 40% off coupons, they're dirt cheap ! And if you get tired of the design, they pop apart again for a new design. They come in several sizes, in the kids' crafts sections. Gonna share this one with the embroidery forum, too. But you get it first !

 

Another kinda goof-off day. Dearest Son saw the end of Spring Break facing him and has been sorta touchy all day. When the hand broke off his Wall-E figure for the second time this week, he had a meltdown. So we looked up replacements. The figure I thought was kinda overpriced at $8.50 at Christmas '08 was beyond ridiculous on eBay at $20. plus $10. shipping - and even more on Amazon Marketplace !

 

I kept seeing a set of figurines - not action figures - up for bids, and they had several characters he loves but never had . Wall-E and Eve, of course, but also MO, a Steward, and some other bots. $30. with free shipping, but not bad for six characters. I saw one with a ‘Disney Store Exclusive' label, and decided to go to the source.

 

Bingo ! At DisneyStore.com, there was a spring sale. 2 character sets for $20., or $12.50 each. $5. shipping. So there's one on the way to Dearest, for less than $20. delivered. He's so excited. And we're happy he's getting something he really wants and I saved us $10.+ in the bargain !

 

Aside from takeout Chinese for dinner, that was the big excitement for the day. If you find yourself over at Forbes.com, there's some 50^th Anniversary Barbie stories and slideshows. Here's an overview, start clickin' here -

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/05/barbie-doll-anniversary-business_barbie_land.html

 

They want Barbie stories - despite having a wealth of one-paragraph sketches from the famous and numerous celebrities - so consider sending yours. You know me, when it's expected that everyone will send a happy pink unicorn rainbow story, I gotta send my clouds-gathering one.

 

Downloaded a free font tool from a machine embroidery site, and it's lots of fun to play with. There's only one problem - I think it, like the Embird one, only works with a proprietary subset of purchasable fonts. The FAQ skitters all around that point, and never really says ‘yes' or ‘no'. So I asked. We'll see if I get an answer later this week. But even if it's that limited, the three fonts it came with are great, and I can do a lot with ‘em with the software.

 

And another weekend ends. Hope yours was fun, too ! 

Another lovely Ariel...

 

Current Mood : Contented

Current Image Notes : Here's Ariel II, in the Belle dress that I bought the Cinderella doll for yesterday. Whew ! Did I drop enough DP names in that sentence to be confusing ?

 

Awoke to the surprising news that I'd won a free embroidery set of my choice from Designs by SiCK, for the tip I'd sent in a couple weeks ago. Since I only had two left on the ‘want' list, I got the one least likely to be on sale anytime soon (it's a winter themed one) and it's already downloaded and stored. I'm still racking up points over there, and having spent about $30. on designs from that site alone, I'm on a ‘no cash money' spending moratorium on machine embroidery designs. The other set I like has a Mother's Day theme, so I'm holding out for it to go on sale, and then I'll use up some of my points stash. Wheee !

 

Speaking of embroidery, I finished writing the Newbie Learning Series, numbers 1 through 7. The first one was barely begun, the second was just an outline. I'll post the lot to Somewhere That's Crafty, once I figure out how I want it. I'm thinking of publishing a paragraph on the lead page, then offering a click-through for the rest. And having the whole thing from a separate ‘Machine Embroidery' heading. Just not sure how to do that yet...

 

 Lucky #7 is based on today's simple experiment, which finally revealed to me why I seem to be the only person on the planet using spool thread in his/her embroidery efforts. Despite the fact that I'd used this spool on two other projects, today, I found two snarls and an odd lump in the thread itself, which broke while stitching and put Brody off the correct tension. It was bad enough I was trying the cone-thread bobbins for the first time and trying stretchy knit fabric for the first time, too. And a new needle.

 

Happily, the small star I stitched still looks good. All the snarling and breaks are on the back, and I remembered to back the needle up when the thread broke, so there's no blank spots. So, in short, embroidery thread is expensive ‘cause it can't have those imperfect bits. KJ would have plowed right through those - and probably has in the past - but Brody's a bit more finely tuned.

 

I'm just glad I've had him unplugged the last few days. Manual sez I'm supposed to unplug him whenever I'm not actively sewing. Road construction down the street has made our power flicker several times yesterday and today, and Wednesday, it was off for three hours. We all took naps while waiting for it to be restored. Ordinarily, I'd blame it on weather, but yesterday was sunny and clear. Today's cloudy, but nowhere near as windy as is usual. So I think someone's hitting a cable somewhere. Wish they'd quit it.

 

Speaking of things forgotten, I also scored a sixth-scale Aladdin during yesterday's yard sale blitz. I see that I didn't add him to the list. I'm not sure which one he is, he has a striped blue and gold fez that I may try to paint black to blend in with his hair. Just not much on fezzes. He's a good lookin' guy, regardless - Jasmine should be pleased. He came to Chez Insanity wearing a "My First Ken" ballet top, no pants, with a vest and Ken jacket/shirt rubber-banded to him. The ballet shirt is too badly laddered and picked in the back to keep, so I'll just find an all-new outfit for him.

 

And, my apologies for taking so long to post. I'd been writing off and on that first week, but before I knew it, it was Dearest Son's Spring Break, and that wreaks havoc with my schedule, every year. Thanks for reading when I come back !