My First Flanged Pillow Finish!

Posted on October 9, 2005 by Jenna Magee

I guess I’m on a little bit of a finishing roll this weekend. Actually, I blame today on deciding to drag the sewing machine out of the closet. I was doing laundry and got sidetracked when I came across a pair of Terry’s sweatpants that have been developing a larger and larger hole in the side seam. Turns out it was an easy fix, I just needed the motivation to pull out the machine and run up the seam. No biggie. So, while I was at it, I pulled out the pile of clothes that also needed to be fixed.

I’ve been waiting to do some of these and putting it off due to the nature of the fabrics, the size of the damage or whatever. But, I figured today that I haven’t worn them in a while, so the worst thing that could happen is I totally screw one up and have to throw it out. Oh well! Not like I was able to wear it unfixed anyway! 😉

So, then, while the machine was out and my confidence in my limited sewing abilities was pumped up a bit, I decided to tackle the flange pillow that I wanted to make using the birth sampler I completed a couple of weeks ago. It took me a couple of hours, honestly. I had no idea how much time had been flying by, but there are an awful lot of parts, pieces, layers and sewing on top of sewing on top of sewing to do with this project. But, it is finished and I’m gleefully sharing my results with you. It’s a little wonky, but it actually looks better than the picture. I had to pin it to the back of my sofa to get a picture and things aren’t laying quite right, but it’s close enough. It wouldn’t fit on the scanner!

BTW, I am officially in love with fabric covered buttons. They are SO easy to make and they look fabulous! I would highly recommend it to anyone. I picked up my little kit with 5 buttons at WalMart and will be going back for refills now. It’s cheap, too, so if you’re thinking of it – just do it!


Cute as a Button Flange Pillow for Breanna

Now I’m off to finally eat dinner at nearly 9:30 PM!

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ISO Quick & Easy November 2005 Magazine

Posted on October 9, 2005 by Jenna Magee

Can someone out there please do me a favor? I believe that this is a UK publication. I found a review of it on San’s blog and I just have to have it!

It has a chart for the Blackthorn Fairy in it. This is my favorite fairy, so I’m looking to trade with someone who can get their hands on this issue for me, please. 🙂

I posted to a trading group on Monday, but haven’t heard anything yet, so I thought I’d throw a plea for assistance out there to my UK contingent of readers. If you’d be willing to help me get this magazine, please leave a comment for me and I’ll email you about it.

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Fairy Moon Fabric

Posted on October 8, 2005 by Jenna Magee

Ah yes, it arrived! Actually, it was a wonderful package jammed into my mailbox with the usual diligence of my mail man… but it was out there on Monday when I went to get the mail, along with two wonderful RAKs from ladies from The Wagon board. It lightened my heart quite a bit to have all of these unexpected goodies waiting for me after a tough weekend!

Of course, I was so moved by the arrival of that beloved Solo fabric that I pulled out the old WIP, ripped it off of the scroll frame, pulled out the ironing board, etc. I found two stains on the old fabric that have magically appeared since the last time I worked on it. VERY strange. I did my best to wash them out, but there are still vaguely there. I will need to make sure I work around them when I go to reuse the fabric. I’m thinking of cutting it into four symmetrical pieces and using one to do the Chatelaine New Orleans help design. Of course, I don’t have the threads yet, but one step at a time, right? 😉 Then onto the ironing. I ironed the fabric from one of the RAKs I received, the 5 from the SoloFest pack, the 4 others I bought and then onto the big Solo. After analyzing that piece of fabric on both sides and turned all different directions, I found that if I lay it the right way, then the purple is darker to the top and darkest in the top right area where the moon would be. I think that’ll be perfect, so it is now mounted on a scroll frame and tucked into a pillowcase until I have time to start her again.

This time, I think I might take Carol’s (?) approach of stitching the face first. Then I might tackle some of the endless areas of white. But, I don’t want to start her until I can leave her out and truly get her into a rotation. I don’t want to run the risk of the fabric getting stained again because I put her away for a long period of time. I’m hoping to start her again by January, at the latest.

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My First Tuffet Finish!

Posted on October 7, 2005 by Jenna Magee

I woke up with a nasty cold today that really made me feel like doing nothing but sleep. Figuring that this would be a bad time to work on model stitching (ya think?), I decided to make my first tuffet. I’ve been dying to do this for a while, since I first saw Judith Tuttle’s (Twisted Oaks Designs) tuffet in her Stitching Treasures II chartpak.

So, I had the idea a night or two ago to finish my first tuffet out of two pieces that I had already made from a Dinky Dyes kit I purchased as CATS last year for a Hardanger Scissor Fob. I ended up making two of them out of the same kit, with fibers to spare and they were about the right size to do an experiment. And here it is:

Hardanger Tuffet - Side A Hardanger Tuffet - Side B

I’m too lazy to take a picture and upload it to give you an idea of the 3-D aspect of it. Let me know if you really want to see it, but it’s pretty much the same kind of dimensions as what you see in Judith’s picture.

Posted in Life in General | 8 Comments

October Stitching Goals

Posted on October 7, 2005 by Jenna Magee

I’m still sticking to simpler stitching goals because I have a lot of work to do on the house before my birthday when we have visitors all weekend!

  • Complete current model stitching project
  • Start and complete this month’s JCS SAL ornament
  • Complete and finish Christmas ornament for SBE
  • Complete and frame Heirloom Memories sampler in honor of Terry’s mom

The last one is wishful thinking, but hey we’ll see what I can manage!

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September Stitching Goals in Review

Posted on October 7, 2005 by Jenna Magee

My goals for September were:

  • Finish current model stitching project – NOT DONE
  • Finish small baby sampler – DONE!
  • Start and finish this month’s JCS SAL ornament – DONE!

Two out of three ain’t bad! 😀

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Stitching Blogger’s Question of the Week – October 6, 2005

Posted on October 6, 2005 by Jenna Magee

Today’s “Stitching Blogger’s Question” was suggested by Bea and is:

When you have almost finished a pattern and start thinking about the next one to stitch, how do you select it? (a list, most recent purchase, etc.)

Hmmmm… what a fascinating question! I’ve been plagued by obligation stitching lately, so I think my next start is going to be one for ME! However, I would normally go through my stash and pull out whatever calls to me the loudest. Oftentimes, I even kit things up in advance just to stop their screaming. 😉 In fact, I have one that’s been sitting and waiting for me for months. I’ve been dying to make a tuffet pincushion (biscornu)!

That being said, I have a lot of WIPs that I want to start working through, as well, so I’ll have to balance out new projects with exchanges, SALs and WIP/UFO work. I figure that I should be able to get a serious rotation started in the new year, once all of the obligation and gift stitching has really come to a head.

Of course, all of that being said, I had a tough time getting to sleep last night because my housework goals for the next couple of weeks were swimming in my head, along with visions of finally starting into the graphics work needed for my intensive, heavenly website revamp. Shoot, I have contracted web work to do, too! Eeep!

Yeah, 2006 is looking like a good time to reprioritize my life. 🙂

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We Now Resume Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Posted on October 5, 2005 by Jenna Magee

Sorry for the morose twist, folks. I normally try to keep emotional, personal issues to myself, unless they’re happy. However, I wanted to post my mother-in-law’s obituary to my blog for a couple of reasons. First, it served as notice to all who read my blog that I wouldn’t be posting for a few days and the reason why. Second, for the people I’ve had to tell about this sad event, it’s been much easier for me to say “I don’t really want to talk about it right now; go here for more information.”

Thank you for all of your kind words of caring and condolences. It’s nice to know that I have such a supportive cyberfamily out there. Every new comment brings a sniff and a few tears. Fortunately (or is it unfortunately?), the world doesn’t come to a standstill for events like this one. The speed of life being what it is, I’m content to just be sucked right along with it.

There’s no shortage of things to be done in my household this month. I’m turning 30 on the 23rd (wow, really?!?) and we’re having people over, so I have a huge honey do list. Except most of them are for me! I cleared out the dining room Monday to make room so that I can paint a ton of trim. We ran out to Home Depot yesterday and bought some more paintbrushes and another canvas drop cloth. I’m not sure where the other one went, but we think it’s in the basement and I’m not wandering into the spider zone to retrieve it, knowing that I’ll have to clean it before I can use it. No time for that! So, last night I spread the drop cloth on the dining room floor and brought in all of the trim, plus the primer and paint. Let’s see, I have to paint crown moulding for the main bathroom, crown moulding, baseboard, door and window trim for the reading room and maybe a window sill for the master bedroom, if I have time.

I’ve already started to clean the house. FLYing be darned, I just don’t have time to work through that system right now, I’m in emergency mode! I normally wouldn’t be nearly as concerned, but we have friends visiting who have never seen the house (yes, we’ve been here for nearly 4 years, but they have had two children during that time, so they’re excused 🙂 ). That means I have to make EVERY room presentable, if at all possible. Hmmm… methinks Terry’s boat will have to go back under the spare bed for a little while. Which means I’ll have no excuse to not pick up the rest of the craft room. And the computer room will need to be picked up a bit, as well, despite needing to make room to setup my mom’s new computer which just arrived yesterday from Dell – a week or more ahead of schedule. And our bedroom – UGH. I don’t even want to think about that right now. Talk about the universal dumping ground. I think I may take the FlyLady approach of 15 minutes intervals in that room so I don’t get completely overwhelmed.

Yes, well, one step at a time. And lots to keep my mind occupied so it doesn’t have so much free time to wander into darker territories, eh? 15 days left to get ready! My parents arrive on the evening of the 20th. Okay now, less blogging and more painting!

Posted in Life in General | 1 Comment

In Memoriam

Posted on October 2, 2005 by Jenna Magee

Cyndy L. Magee (nee Leckie) passed away quietly after a long battle with cancer on Saturday, October 1, 2005 at her home in Medford, NJ. She was 56 years of age.

Born in Malden, MA, she resided in the Tamarac section of Medford, NJ for the past 21 years, moving there from Sicklerville, NJ. A private Physical Therapist, Cyndy was contracted by the Medford Twp. Board of Education where she worked for the past 20 years. She is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Canada and the Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, PA and was a member of the American Physical Therapy Association.

Cyndy was in love with life and will be deeply missed by her husband of 35 years, Gerry Magee of Medford, NJ. She is also the loving mother of Terrence (Terry) Magee and his wife Jenna of Lincoln University, PA, the sister of Donald Leckie and Elaine Kellogg both of NH and David Leckie of AZ and the daughter-in-law of Clairaine Magee of Canada.

A celebration of Cyndy’s life will be held privately and at the convenience of the family. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the BRADLEY & STOW FUNERAL HOME, Medford, NJ, (609) 953-7600.

In lieu of any other expressions of sympathy, the family requests memorial donations to the Fox Chase Cancer Center at Virtua, C/O 175 Madison Ave., 4th Floor, Mt. Holly, NJ 08060.

Mom2

Posted in Life in General | 13 Comments

Happy Dancing!

Posted on September 30, 2005 by Jenna Magee

I did it! I did it! I finished the baby sampler piece… WAY before midnight. In fact, with enough time to spare that I was able to scan it, then fiddle around with my scanning software’s color correction settings and scan it again! And here it is:

JBW Designs - Cute as a Button

The design is by JBW Designs, called Cute as a Button for Girls. I substituted DMC for all of the overdyed flosses called for, except for the GAST Evergreen in the border. That’s the only one I had, as I don’t have a lot of overdyeds. I also substituted buttons that I bought at WalMart which happened to be a reasonable match in color. They are a lot bigger than the button pack that I used when I stitched the model (which you can see here, if you’re curious), but the ones in the button pack didn’t match color-wise and I didn’t have enough time to go from store to store to find the best substitutes.

Now, I just have to find some time and the courage to try finishing it as a flanged pillow! Sorry for posting 3 times in one day for those of you trying to get caught up. 😉

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