"Surprise Me."

I asked Stacey about what colors and styles she wanted for chemo caps, and she said, "Surprise me." I warned her that was a dangerous statement LOL, and told her she be getting groovalicious fashionista chemo caps. You know, leopard print fleece with leather flowers! (She'll probably get one of those too :) .) But in the meantime, I made two more caps in a different style with ribbon flowers accented with hot-fix crystals.

Tomorrow I'm making a true red one with the band embroidered in a Christmas theme. Embroidery Library is having a good sale so I'll hunt up some nice designs. This is cute, quick, fun sewing and very purposeful. So meaningful when doing it for someone so special!

Recent Sewing Projects

Thank you to the wonderful bloggers who added Stacey to their prayer list. She had her first chemo treatment on Tuesday. I made one chemo turban last night, and finished the second this morning. I sent Stacey links to different sites that had different styles of chemo hats so she could see different kinds. The ones that I made below are from the Charitable sewing projects at http://sewing.org/ . Nothing hard about them, but I found the depth of the tucks in the back of the chemo turban (3/4") may actually be too deep, not giving enough head depth. I told Stacey to let me know if the tucks need to be let out on the red hat. That one has deeper tucks than the blue.

Here are the chemo turbans. The front has a band loop at the CF. I embellished the band on red turban with a black, embroidered flower in my embroidery stash. If she doesn't like it, I'll remove it.


Here is a view of the backs. Notice the tucks in the red hat are deeper than the blue tucks. Well, it might not be that evident from the way the hats are displayed, but the head depth is definitely different.



Hopefully, they will have a new home with Stacey tonight.

Ah...that UFO I posted about a couple of days ago? It's done. BTW, thanks to my blogging friends that wished me healthy vibes :) . Today was my first day back at the gym since Friday and I'm pooped! Still not 100%, and my cardio routine gobbled up most of my energy for the day. (It's why I'm sitting here typing this post in the middle of the day.) But anyway...

I finished the first of three hunting projects for Rich back at the beginning of October, just in time for archery season. It was a hunting "thingamajig". Can't remember what he called it, but he really likes it. So I dawdled with projects two and three, but knew I had to get them done before deer season starts the Monday after Thanksgiving. So as of yesterday, projects two and three are done!

Here is a pic of the pad: The back was reused, along with the velcro straps on the front. But the camo fabric was replaced, velcro straps, reattached to the new front, and restitched to the original back. Here's the front:


Here is the back. It's the original back that was still in decent shape.

The third, and largest, project for Rich was the tree stand cover. He wanted something to take the bite out of the cool, Autumn "breezes" while sitting in the tree stand waiting for the right doe or buck to come along. The tree stand cover took somewhere between 3-4 yards of fabric, and the picture below shows the back of a small portion. The velcro on the top will go around the railing of the tree stand, and the pockets at the bottom are for supplies and/or small rocks or wood pieces to hold down the cover so the fabric flaps aren't flying all over the place when it's windy. It's not one long pocket, but rather a long pocket with vertical stitching channels to create several separate pockets along the bottom edge.

The tricky part to the tree stand cover? Using industrial strength velcro, the kind with the adhesive back not meant for machine sewing. After one hellish struggle on my machine and breaking a needle, I searched the Internet for tips. One great tip turned up: You can stitch the industrial strength adhesive velcro BUT sew slowly and clean the needle with alcohol every 10 stitches. Quite time consuming for all the strips I had to stitch to the fabric, but it worked like a charm with no needle breakage.

So now I'm moving on with trying to do reviews of two blouses, and hopefully making more chemo hats and DD#2's pants. More to come, very soon :)

What's Worse than a UFO?

A UFO that you're working on for someone else! And then getting the inspiration to get it done, then not having enough of a specific notion to finish. Add having to go out and get it and coming down with a flu-like bug when my goal was to finish it by Wednesday.

That white blouse has been done for a couple of weeks and no review. The blue Burda blouse is thisclose to being done, and I have to cut pants for DD#2. Jake is growing by leaps and bounds, I just gave Hayley her second sewing lesson (and probably a flu-like bug as well :( !) That girl is a natural I tell ya. 12 years old with a high degree of motivation and desire. She's like a sponge. That makes teaching sewing so much fun! I want her to join PR so she can display her work, gain confidence, be further inspired, and be one of the fresh sewing faces of tomorrow.

Other stuff at hand? Supposed to have a meeting at school tomorrow...think I'll make it? Don't know. Just don't know. Thanksgiving is coming! Who has time to get sick???

Sorry. No pics. I'm too tired to even take one of my UFO at this point. Stay healthy! Those are my final words for this post.

Prayers for Stacey

If you have a moment, would you please say a prayer for Stacey? She is a good friend of mine and a wonderful person, the kind everybody loves. She's funny, witty, kind, an all-around great person. She's just a year older than me and is in the hospital. She has a 4" malignant tumor that the doctors are hoping to cure and are optimistic about it. If you knew her, you'd love her just like everyone else does.

Tomorrow she will likely begin chemotherapy treatment. I've already looked up chemo hat/cap patterns and said she could have this pretty, long-haired blonde wig I bought several years ago. It can be cut any way she likes it. Maybe she will be in the group that doesn't lose their hair but just in case.

Please say a prayer for her. She has had a very rough past two years and now she just found out about this 3 days ago. She's really special, and her infectious laugh and sense of humor light up any room she's in.

The Feel of Suede

Quick note:

Meredith asked:

"Forgot to ask: does he feel like suede? There is fur there, but I wondered what texture he feels like. Completely adorable, but he's going to have trouble hiding any weight gain from the vet :-)"

Thanks for asking, Meredith :) . Yes, he does feel like suede. Yet softer. Our little kitty is molting so he's actually losing fur in a few spots. He doesn't have much fur to begin with! His full coat will take two years to come in. His father and mother feel like...Minky! Short, soft dense fur. However, I think each Devon's fur is slightly different.

I've forgotten how active little kittens are, and this is an exceptionally active breed. Our schedules have been changed around to accommodate his kittenhood. DD#2 is getting a lesson on "parenting".

Excuse me...must attend to our little boy's needs... :) .

JAKE IS HOME!!!

He's our little baby. Our little boy. DD#2's very much desired kitten. Another source of joy and companionship. *My Sewing Buddy*. Although I'll probably think twice about that comment when one of my patterns end up shredded as his personal toy ;) .


He's active. Quick as a whip. Highly inquisitive. Gives new meaning to "cat-like reflexes". Yet loving. Loves to be held and cuddled. And an added plus? Low allergenic. He's Jake, our Devon Rex. Loved so much by our family.


'Nuff said. Here's our pics of our sweet, little boy:








And after all the fun we have, he gets all tired out! (Yes, an embroidered blanket just for him.)

This One's for Hayley, Part II: The "Granny" Machine

The past few posts I've mentioned the happiness of getting my MIL's 1970's Kenmore 158 series machine in a cabinet, followed by my dismay that the machine was destined for the junk pile because of a gear gone bad. I still wanted the cabinet, and the dealer tech called me back 3 days after declaring the machine dead telling me a Kenmore just came in and was an orphan that would fit perfectly in my machine and worked just fine. It only needed a tuneup.

So, for the $55 tuneup and $20 for the machine, I've added a backup machine which I'm loaning out to Hayley for a while so she can learn how to sew. Today I used it for the tree stand cover I'm making for Rich. The machine is very easy to use, has great stitching, and is a very good basic machine for beginner. Not complicated, no bells and whistles, just good solid stitching on an all-metal machine. It didn't come with any accessories, but I priced the zipper foot at $6. Perhaps a buttonhole foot, but right now I'm just waiting for the manual I ordered off the Internet. The model number for this machine is 158.13170. Wish I had the year but I don't.

I've read how some people name their machines. I've never named my machines, but if I had to, this one would be "Granny". A dependable Granny, no frills, never let-you-down kind of machine. She hides in her cabinet when not in use, and comes out when you want her help and really spreads out with a nice work area. Granny is going to a temporary home tomorrow to help teach a new generation how to sew.

Before Granny goes, here are some pics of her:



Here she is "hiding". I do have plans to eventually paint and maybe stencil the desk. New handle, of course, too. She's been wiped clean with Liquid Gold.

Below, Granny pops out with a flip of the lid. Notice that nice work area to the left!


Here's a better angle of the work surface next to the machine:

A closeup of Granny. Yes, she's 70's olive green. The exterior tells her true age, but internally she's doing might fine. The dings I mentioned before are to the right of the throat plate and covered with a thin, adhesive pad for now. The dealer put that on.


So glad you could stop by and meet her! More later. I'm having issues with the tree stand cover and maybe some bright and helpful bloggers could help me find an appropriate solution to my problem. AND...I've found a seller for Burda issue 5/2009! I look forward to receiving this issue for that special blouse for DD#2.

The capris are almost done. Just have to hem them and finish the waistband. More to come.