The Sewing Mom

I don’t have any pictures today, but my tackle is to get my house in order for guests arriving from out of town on Thursday. I’m going to post my to do list here so that maybe I will get things accomplished.  Our guest bedroom is by itself upstairs with its own bathroom, so these first 3 items are strictly for the guests.  I can complete those today because they will stay clean and I won’t have to redo them.  Everything else will just have to be redone between now and then, so I won’t do them in as much detail.

1. Put clean sheets on guest bed and make the bed.
2. Dust and vacuum upstairs.
3. Clean upstairs bathroom.
4. Vacuum t.v. room.
5. Sweep floors
6. Clear and clean countes (again!)
7. Dust and vacuum rest of the house (my daughter took care of her room yesterday!)

It’s really not that bad around here.  We’ve had so many guests over the past month that I’ve been keeping up with the cleaning.  You wouldn’t know it looking at my kitchen counter, but that’s where everything collects.  I could clean it this morning and by tonight it would be full again.

I did tell my daughter that if she helps me mow the yard tomorrow, I will take her for a pedicure on Thursday.  She’s been wanting one for weeks, so I think the bribe will work!

Happy Tackling!

Tags: house cleaning, tackle it Tuesday

I have been attempting to push myself to tackle this project for almost a week. I continue to find reasons and excuses as to why I don’t have time to do it, but I really need to get it done. You see, my current project is a tote bag. Now, I love to sew, I love to create and I love seeing and sharing the finished product. So, what’s my problem? Well, this particular tote is wanting to be quilted. I am not a quilter. I don’t enjoy quilting, probably because I’m not so good at it. Therein lies the problem.

You see, I’m a perfectionist when it comes to the projects I sew. I try very hard to do things right the first time around, but I certainly and not afraid to rip out a seam if I don’t like the way it turned out (probably why I own 3 different seam rippers). My machine, although it is quite capable of quilting, doesn’t seem to cooperate very well when sewing through thick layers that include batting. I’ve attempted several different machine adjustments and have yet to get it right.

I’ve spent the last few days reading through various sewing manuals that came with my machine, trying to figure out the best settings for this particular project. I’ve attached the machines “walking” foot and now have to figure out how the heck I attach the guide. The guide allows me to not have to mark the fabric with all of those quilting lines. If I can get the gide attached, I only have to mark the first line and then the guide helps me with all of the rest.

So, my tackle for today is to stop making excuses. Stop being afraid of the task at hand. Get in there and Just Do It!

Tags: machine quilting, tackle it Tuesday, walking foot

I’m progressing in the sewing of fleece blankets that I’m planning on selling at our booth in July. I was able to use my serger a week or so ago and finished the edges. This is a photo of one of the blankets as it’s being run through the serger.

Yesterday I spent time sewing the lace and trim to the edges of the blankets. This red one is now finished and the blue one is also finished, I added fleece binding to it instead of lace, I think it looks more boyish that way!

I have two more fleece blankets that are almost done. I am going to do the machine embroidery on them today and then they will be finished. Then I will be back to sewing a few fabric purses and bags.

I’m working hard to have a productive sewing week, which also means I am having to spend less time at the computer. That’s not an easy thing for me since I am totally addicted to my computer! I am still checking in though and will reply to all comments eventually!

Visit 5 Minutes For Mom if you’d like to participate in Tackle it Tuesday.

Tags: machine embroidery, sewing, tackle it Tuesday

After staying away from my sewing machine for over a week, (this is a long time when sewing is an addiction), I got back in there and finished sewing a bag that I had started 3 weeks earlier.

This is a charm bag with ragged edges. The front is made from 5 inch square fabric charms sewn together with wrong sides together so that the edges are ragged instead. I also used the 5 inch squares to form 2 interior pockets. The lining and back fabric are a coordinating color as are the handles which are reinforced with batting for shoulder comfort. The bag has been quilted.

This bag is a great tote bag and is for sale for $30.

If you’ve tackle something this week, why not join 5 Minutes for Mom and Tackle it Tuesday?

Tags: fabric bag, sewing, tackle it Tuesday

I was asked by one of my readers to create something for her child that will soon be turning 1. Besides creating fleece blankets, I hadn’t really done anything for young children, so this was a challenge for me and I took it on whole heartedly.

I began my using what I know and the working with the supplies I all ready possessed. I love working with fabric, so the project I came up with was pieced fabric blocks. These are about 2 1/2 in. square and can be embroidered with letters or small designs. I love using all the brighter colored fabrics for kids. These are stuffed with polyfill and are washable.

What do you think?

Tags: childrens blocks, fabric blocks, tackle it Tuesday

I’ve had so many things going on it was difficult to choose which one I was going to post as this week’s Tackle it Tuesday! My daughter was out of school all last week and so we decided to do some seed planting and that’s my tackle for this week.

As a kid, I always just put my seeds in the ground outside and, after several waterings, they’d pop up and turn into beautiful flowers. As an adult I’ve tried this same technique and achieved nothing. So, to help my daughter enjoy the planting process, i purchased a seed starter kit. We went to Home Depot and selected our seeds.

We put our seed starter kit together, added the water and placed the seeds in their little dirt filled containers. The lid was placed on top and the unit has been positioned in front of a window to receive as much sunlight as possible and now the waiting begins. Hopefully, we will have more success this way. Keep your fingers crossed!

Tags: seed starter, tackle it Tuesday

I have been so incredibly busy over the past few weeks that today I had to try to do a little catching up on a few things. My first tackle was to get a few bills paid. While I was at it, I got my calendar updated and hopefully didn’t leave off any upcoming activities.

While organizing bills and my calendar I also managed to tackle my email account. I had over 300 emails and this morning I managed to cut it down to around 140. I decided to take a lunch break and relax for a bit. So, no picture for this week’s tackle, but I’m sure you can get a good idea of what I spent my morning working on!

Tags: tackle it Tuesday

This week I decided to tackle something that’s been annoying me for quite some time, the kitchen island. There are so many days that I wonder where all the crap that lands on the island would go if we didn’t have an island at all! This is definitely something I need to keep up with on a daily basis or it will look like this again, in a hurry. If you really look in the picture, you can see that the counter had actually overflowed onto the stools, we couldn’t even sit down!

It really did take me all week to get it looking like this. There were a lot of papers that needed to be filed and items that needed a home. I didn’t just want to move the mess, I wanted to eliminate it. Plus, every time I would get it partially cleared, somebody would drop something new onto the counter. It’s definitely an ongoing, never ending tackle.

If you have a project, big or small, that you’d like to share in Tackle it Tuesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom and join in.

Tags: cleaning, tackle it Tuesday

I don’t have a picture this week because I’m back to tackling paper work and to-do lists.

I managed to get quite a bit of filing done over the weekend and have really been concentrating on a few major items on my to-do list. The item I am currently working on is getting my Texas driver’s license. I spent some time this morning gathering all of the necessary documentation and identification together so that when I go to apply for my driver’s license, I’ll have everything I need. Now, I just have to hope I can pass the written test.

The good news is that the Texas Department of Public Safety has a copy of the driver’s handbook online. The bad news is, it’s 104 pages long. There is no way I am printing all of that, so this morning, I spent about an hour just reading through it. When I got to the end, I found a practice test, 84 questions! I printed the 3 pages of questions and then spent the next three hours researching the answers.

Many of the questions are common sense, what shape is a stop sign, etc. Others, are more obscure. When can bicyclists ride two abreast? Some are somewhat difficult. When a driver’s vehicle is traveling at 50 mph, how many feet does it travel before he reacts to an obstruction. How many more feet does it travel after the driver reacts?

My plan is to go to the DPS office tomorrow morning after dropping my daughter off at school. I will have to fill out the application for the license and take the test. I’ve been told to plan on being there for several hours. I will be surrendering my Illinois driver’s license, so I shouldn’t have to take the driving portion of the test.

Wish me luck!

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Tags: tackle it Tuesday, texas department of public safety

I’ve been spending so much time on the computer lately that I’m not getting some of my other things done. So, I decided to use the giant whiteboard that is next to my desk and created my “to do list”. These were all fairly easy and basic things, but things that I tend to put off or simply forget to do.I spent most of yesterday researching orthodontists and dentists, trying to find the ones that accept our insurance proved to be quite a challenge. I’m still in search of a dentist, but I did manage to find an orthodontist and was even able to get my daughter an appointment for an initial consultation tomorrow. This is excellent because I am planning to sign up for the Health Savings account and need to know how much money to put in. It’s the account that if you don’t use the money in the plan year, you lose it, so my calculation needs to be pretty accurate. I was also pleased that when I explained what I was doing to the lady on the phone, she completely understood and was able to get us an appt. so quickly.

So, with the exception of calling a dentist and getting my mother-in-laws birthday box to the post office, I managed to get everything else checked off of the list and managed to start today’s list which is much smaller.

If you’d like to see what others are doing for today’s tackle, head over to 5 Minutes for Mom.

Tags: orthodontists, tackle it Tuesday