Le Serger

I bought this as a treat and investment in my sewing skills.

I like to think I have mad skillz when it comes to sewing, but let's not kid ourselves.  You can ALWAYS get better and fancier.

It's a Viking S200 model and it's nicely compact and basic for a newbie serger like myself.  I was given the good advice to buy different colored spools of thread  so I could better spot any tension issues I might encounter as I started sewing.  I must say it was great advice because it made it much easier to follow my thread as I threaded it for the first time and once I began to practice on scraps it helped me see what threads did what "stitch".

And it looks pretty!

Chris and I looked at a few sergers and I actually found this one at a local Jo-Anns, but bought it thru one of my favorite quilt shops, Sew-A-Lot in Centerville, OH.  We've also bought ALL of our Pfaff sewing machines thru them as well because they typically have a nice selection of used models.

Yay local!

In any case the Viking is brand spanking new.

And it's a beast of a machine....as in it sews wicked fast.  If you've never sewn with a serger before you might be surprised at how speedy they are and watch out for the trimming blade because it will come up fast!  I'm still tinkering around with it and plan to repair a busted pillow cover I've had lying around for a few months as my first real attempt at serging something nicely.

But before I go here is a shot of some of the "innards".

I must say that color coding where the threads need to go is SO helpful.  Hopefully you can see the tiny dots of color on parts of the gears. Also, providing a nice diagram of what goes where is amazing.  This serger actually threads right to left which is nice because you don't need to remember what looper thread to do first.

It's not as scary as I had thought.

Happy sewing!

What I'm Reading: Elantris

I love to read and last year I managed to plow thru about 46 books of a 100 book goal. Though I'll admit several of those were of the Regency Romance genre.

100 books is a bit ambitious so I've scaled back to a slightly more practical goal of 50.

If you're interested you can follow me along over at GoodReads

Currently I'm reading: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy)

It's one of his very first books and so far it's very typical Sanderson material.  I've read a few other books of his and I sincerely enjoy his writing style, world building and magic systems for their cleverness and originality.

I'm curious to see how this book will end since it's a stand alone novel and not a series (though it could've been).

I'm reading this one on my Nexus 7.

Some people may have a strong aversion to tablets/e-readers but as I've run out of space for physical books and don't fancy storing boxes of them in my basement an e-reader is a nice solution for my situation.  Of course if I truly love the book I do usually end up buying a physical copy.

Do any of you have any reading goals this year?

Returns and Revelations 2014

I won't say I'm not glad 2013 is over and done with. Man was it a roller coaster.

Tumus had another spectacular year, but it was a fight to the finish.

Final count for 2013: 122 ornaments

 Fun Fact: Each dog ornament uses, on average, 5 feet of embroidery thread!

This last batch went out December 17th and some of them weren't delivered till Christmas Eve!

So now that it's over and I've had some much needed down time and I was able to just do some fun stuff for once, on my OWN schedule...

it's back to the grind.

Blogging really does take effort, especially when it comes to uploading pictures and getting them from point A to point B and then posted.  But I've got a plan this year and I hope to stick with it!

Apparently since I was so overwhelmed with New Baby duties I didn't bother making a 2013 Resolution list.  I'm going to assume that my only resolution was to make it to the end of the year and get a few nights of SOLID rest somewhere in the next 365 days.

A short and simple resolution and I'm glad to say it did happen in various degrees.

2014 I'm making lists that are both short, but ambitious.

2014 To Make & Do List

- Getting PDF's up for Tumus's shop revamp

- Getting friendly with my new fancy, schmancy serger

- Finish up my Field Greens Quilt

- Complete Fiona's Twister Stocking 

These are my solid, I'm going to get them done if it kills me, to do's for 2014.

Hope you all had a great Holiday break! And for those readers in the US hope you enjoyed the snow, ice and ridiculous deep freeze of the first week of the New Year. Spring is only 2 months away!

A GRREAT Cause

It's sort of bitter sweet that this is my last year doing personalized ornaments, but at least this year I'm 

going out with a GRREAT fanfare.

GRREAT (Golden Retriever Rescue, Education and Training) is pretty, well, great when it comes to rehoming Golden Retrievers.

 I've been commissioned to help their cause by making up a few batches of ornaments for their seasonal

fundraisers.  It's nice to do something like this in my last year.

They provide so much more than just rescue services for dogs in need and sponsor several fundraisers and meet-ups for Golden enthusiasts.  They are truly a well organized group who love what they do.

30 pieces of handcut felt and 15 embroidered slogans later the GRREAT order is getting packed up.

Gives new meaning to getting the warm fuzzies.

A Modified Jellyroll 1600: Oliver's Quilt

I actually started on this project a mere month after Fiona had been born.

I was still greatly fatigued, in lingering pain, but was on the up swing.  I felt like I needed to find something to do that did not involve poop, milk or screaming.

I hadn't been able to get around very easily back then.  The basement stairs to my new sewing room had been a big no-no for the last month. So, it was with great satisfaction, one random day I had enough energy to go downstairs and sit in a quiet room for an hour.

By myself.

That is a big deal, guys.

I started a Jellyroll 1600 pattern, so named because it's 1600 inches of fabric in the beginning, but finishes to a tidy 48 x 64 quilt, that's a little smaller than a twin sized quilt.  If you add a few borders you can easily make it to a twin size.

The above picture was taken in September 2012 when I started, but I didn't actually touch this project again until June 2013! Such is the life of a quilter.

I realized that the jelly roll I'd picked out (Ten Little Things by Moda)  was very "busy" looking once it was all sewn together.

In fact it was chaotic looking and it hurt my eyes.

I decided I would need to break it up with a solid color which would mean cutting thru my perfectly nice quilt top. You might cringe at cutting a perfectly pieced quilt top, but sometimes you just have to risk it.

It was quite a bit of calculating square inches, measuring twice, and then double checking again before I cut anything.

After a few little slip ups in the measuring department and cutting out more blue fabric, I managed to get it all sewn up.



It was now the end of June.

Oliver's birthday was fast approaching and I had to make a decision on how to quilt it.  I decided ultimately that it would be easier to send it out than try and quilt such a big top on my tiny table.  Even though I'd quilted large projects in my studio before I'd never sent out a piece of work to be professionally finished.

It's hard to pack up your hard work, mail it far away and hope beyond hope that the quilting will be what you imagined.


(Quilted by Missouri Star Quilt Co.)

3 long weeks later it came back.  I was downright thrilled with it.

Fiona even approved!



Though I didn't get it back in time to finish it for Oliver's actual birthday party, he did get it two weeks later to rave reviews and heartfelt thanks.




Things that are worth remembering when quilting a quilt top:

If it's going to be loved and used for lots and lots of years make sure your quilting is close together and uses a design that will go ALL over the quilt.
This helps minimize stretching of seams and fabric resulting in a huggable quilt regardless of all the washing and drying it will go thru.

Want to try your hand at doing a Jellyroll 1600?
Missouri Star has a really great tutorial on how to get it done:

A Long Overdue Post

When life gets busy things tend to fall to the wayside.

For example, I've been sorely neglecting posting for various crazy reasons.  You can pick from the following list of "crazy" below:

- Complete tear out and remodel of our main bathroom starting in April, finishing sometime in May. Discovering a huge mold and mildew problem in said main bathroom.  Bad contractors, slow completion, lots of painful naptimes and pints of beer.

- LOTS of pattern testing for the awesome Betz White

- Teething woes for Fiona

- A new nephew in June

- Reopening Tumus in July

- Completing another quilt, starting a second, 

almost finishing a third (but that one's secret ^_~)

- Desktop computer dying slowly

- Fiona turning ONE in August

and so on.

Blog posts do take time to write and think out and "down" time, being at a high premium these days, is a treasured commodity.

I do intend to make a valiant effort to keep you all in the loop of awesome as much as I can, so for now here are some fun pictures of everything we've been up to since March.

p.s.  Are you guys ready for the Holidays yet? EEP!

OMG 7 months

I decided today would be a good day to backup all of our Fiona pictures.

I've been told that the first kid always has the most pictures.  Being a "first" myself I think that's only mostly true, but there's 5 of us and that's alot of things to keep on top of and taking pictures isn't always part of that list.

We actually have been rather modest in our picture taking.  It's still alot but we aren't doing one everyday and we try to just take pics of things we love and want to remember....when we can grab the camera that is.

These last two months have been rough though.  We had to put our chinchilla, Yoshi, down just a week after Valentine's Day due to a quick/sudden moving muscle disease.  Because of it I haven't been back down to my sewing room in nearly that long.  He was my constant sewing companion and it's hard to be in an empty room when you're used to having a buddy nearby.

On a happier note Fiona is 7 months! She seems pretty old already.

She's not quiet sleeping thru the night yet, BUT it's getting better.

I didn't think she'd grow up this fast and I have to keep reminding myself that she's still a baby, but boy is she tall! (28in?? egads!)

And sometimes I can get a smile when I do a few silly things, she's pretty camera shy.

Happy 7 months Fi-Beastie.

I love you and can't wait to give you your own little art corner ^_^

p.s.

I plan on getting my sewing groove back on in the next few weeks.  I haven't forgotten my 12 quilt goal though I may modify it to be a few completed quilts and some smaller gifts at this rate ^_~