Birthday Club Goodies

Posted on October 27, 2007 by Jenna Magee

Poor Sharon was so worried that her package had been permanently waylaid by the USPOS, but it finally arrived this morning. I hope she won’t mind if I “borrow” her photos.

Sharon stitched me Dani’s Stitching Dragon by Dragon Dreams. She customized the colors to be purple, just for me, and also put my initials on the blank fabric in the hoop that the dragon is holding and added my name to the bottom. 🙂



She finished it as a cube with a beautiful purple swirl fabric and gauzy, sheer purple ribbon. All in all, it’s a perfect finish and I absolutely adore it!

She also spoiled me rotten by sending along a bunch of goodies – 3 overdyed flosses in shades of purple, highlighter tape (nifty stuff!) and two designs by Just Nan – Moon Riders and Spring in the Square.

I was so thrilled to receive this package. Sharon did a wonderful job putting it together!

Posted in Stitching | 5 Comments

Latest Finishes and Guitar (Photos Galore!)

Posted on October 26, 2007 by Jenna Magee

I’ve apparently been rather neglectful with the photos lately. I have a couple of finishes and a finish-finish to show off, in addition to more information about my new guitar.

First, the finish-finish. I did this one more than a week ago. My short-term memory also seems to be failing me more on these meds, so I don’t remember exactly when it was and the photo date won’t tell me anything because I took at least a week to take the photo. But anyway, here is the Little House Needleworks Berries design finished as a flange pillow. I mostly winged it, but took a look at the tutorial on Focus on Finishing, just to make sure I was doing to correctly.





Next up is a tin frame necklace kit from Shepherd’s Bush that I bought when I visited their shop back in March. The designs aren’t straight in the frame, for some reason, and I’ve been unable to correct it. You have to make a sandwich of glass, stitching, cardboard, stitching, glass, smoosh it all together, hold it tightly and slide it into the tin frame, so it’s a bit tough.

My latest finish is a kit I picked up at Enchanting Lair’s booth at CATS in Hershey last month. It’s called Twinkle, Twinkle and I left the border off that was called for. The chart is up for grabs. If you want it, please leave a comment and I’ll do a drawing if multiple people are interested.





This is my fifth finish, so, according to my 5 Finish challenge, I get to start a new design, if I so choose. The decision will be a difficult one to make, as there are lots of beautiful designs calling my name, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the Just Nan WhimZi design that I picked up at CATS. I forget the exact name, but it’s a great transitional piece as it features a snowman standing behind a pumpkin. 🙂

Finally, Anna let me know that I had indeed NOT mentioned the purple guitar before. This was the main birthday present from Terry, so I’m surprised that I’ve been so remiss. I’ll remedy that now.

Terry bought me an acoustic/electric guitar (it does both). It has a beautiful purple finish on the front, along with mother of pearl inlaid around the opening. It has a built-in tuner that I’ve never seen done before, but is really nifty! You just press a button to turn it on, then strum a string and it will tell you which note is being played and how in tune it is. Great stuff! Terry then supplemented with a stand for the guitar and a microphone and stand. I’m a bit intimidated about using a microphone. Most of the singing I’ve done in my life has been sans microphone, so it’s a little bit intimidating, but will help boost my soft voice without me losing the unique tone to my voice by trying to sing louder. Here’s a photo of the whole setup and the guitar by itself:

Finally, I will show you a picture of the oriental-styled tops that I’m about to start making today:





If these turn out well, I may tackle a pair of the pants in black satin. We’ll see. 🙂

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 7 Comments

Thank You!

Posted on October 25, 2007 by Jenna Magee

Thank you to everyone who left lovely birthday wishes in the comments, or emailed me separately. I really appreciate all of your thoughfulness. 🙂

I took Tuesday off from work, so we just hung around the house for most of the day. I stitched and relaxed while Terry napped, then we went to Joann for some brocade fabric for my oriental tops. Yes, I wrote tops, plural. I’m going to do one in the short sleeve version and one in the long sleeve version. I chose colors that are different enough that it probably wouldn’t strike anyone as being of a similar pattern, or so I hope. One is a dark, hot pink and the other is an ice blue that’s nearly white. I can’t wait to start one of them!

We then went to Red Lobster for dinner. Seafood is one of my favorite foods. Especially crab legs. Mmmmm…. crab legs. *drool*

But I digress. My parents are coming down to visit this weekend and hopefully are bringing my favorite German Chocolate cake with them. 😀

Other than the purple guitar (I did mention that already, didn’t I?), Terry also got me a stand for the guitar, a microphone and a stand for it. Plus, he got me a Nintendo DS lite in red. I have a thing for red right now. I have a red Razr phone, a red Ipod Nano and now a red Nintendo DS. It came with the game Brain Age 2, which I’m very into and it doesn’t take much time out of my day to do a little bit of brain training every night.

Speaking of my brain, I was supposed to see the psychiatrist today, to discuss meds and side effects, but apparently he had an emergency and had to cancel. I’ll see him on Monday and am hoping to get off of at least the Abilify. I’d almost like to get off of both of the anti-psychotics and get everything back to normal before starting another drug. I’ve gained a few pounds, which is significant for me, so one of them is definitely causing weight gain. I also have had a lot of trouble concentrating and keeping myself motivated. My self-control is nearly non-existent and I can barely even read a book. As soon as I look at a page full of text, my eyes want to cross and I have trouble focusing on the words. I feel so much less effective in my job in the past few weeks. Things that used to come easily to me are more of a struggle now. All in all, I’m still not in balance and it has to end sometime, somehow.

Posted in Crafting, Journey to Self-Discovery, Life in General | 4 Comments

Renaissance Costumes and More

Posted on October 22, 2007 by Jenna Magee

Okay, so you wanted pictures, of the costume, right? Here we go!


Front:


Back:


And my hair lace:



I neglected to take a picture of Terry’s costume, but I have one of the both of us. 🙂





Posted in Crafting | 19 Comments

It’s Finished!

Posted on October 19, 2007 by Jenna Magee

Finally, the Renaissance costume is done. At least, mine is. Terry will finish up with his this afternoon or tonight, so we’re in good shape.

I’m heaving a ridiculously huge sigh of relief right now. And I’m also ready for my next sewing project, once Terry is done with the machine. The skort I was working on before I think I cut too small, so it’s going to be trashed. I bought a New Look pattern for an oriental-styled top with a mandarin collar and optional frog closures (if I can find them). There’s a long-sleeved version, a short-sleeved version and a side-zipper pant pattern to go with the tops. I can’t wait to dig into some sumptuous brocades that I’ve had my eye on for some time.

With this fabulous new machine (and maybe a trade-in for one that will do embroidery) and the weather maybe getting cooler sometime in the future, you may see more and more sewing on this blog. I have long arms for which it is terribly hard to find long-sleeved clothing that doesn’t look on me like it has sleeves somewhere between full and 3/4 length. What does appear to be the correct length usually manages to shrink on me, so it’s about time I start sewing my own clothing to fit.

I’ve never actually altered a pattern for length. Does anyone have any tips for lengthening a pattern?

One other finish to report. This time in the stitching arena. I finished Betsy’s Butterfly, which is a Little Leaf design by Elizabeth’s Designs. I’m not sure how I will finished it. Between this finish and another one that I’ll scan and show later, I’m getting close to being able to have a new start!


Posted in Crafting, Stitching | 9 Comments

Panic Attack

Posted on October 16, 2007 by Jenna Magee

I think I experienced close to a full-blown panic attack last night with my renaissance dress. I went to try it on with the sleeves sewn onto the bodice and it was too tight. I freaked out. I thought I was going to vomit, honestly.

Fortunately, Terry has such a level head and made plans for what we could rip out and where we could shorten the seam allowances to help out. I was working with 5/8″ seam allowances, so there’s plenty of room, it just meant I needed to rip out and resew some areas.

Terry said that he would take care of it for me later (he was heading downstairs to relax and watch some TV for the rest of the night), but I’ve learned that the best way to approach a panic attack is to hit the issue head on, so I continued stitching and found the problem getting worse and worse.

Bed time rolled around and I tried to sleep, but keep laying there, with my panic growing with every tick of the clock. I just kept thinking about how I was going to be in Terry’s way so he wouldn’t be able to finish his costume… blah, blah, blah. So, I got out of bed and started ripping the seams out on the too-tight sleeves, then resewed them with just a 3/8″ seam allowance. Tried them on and it’s MUCH better. Thanks goodness! Crisis averted.

Went back to bed and still couldn’t sleep. I laid there for at least another hour before I finally nodded off for good.

So, I’m tired today and we had to drive separately into work today because we both had meetings scheduled all over the place. I think I may leave early so that I’m not driving home too tired. That way, I can get home earlier and maybe do some more work on the dress before Terry gets home and wants to use the sewing machine for his costume.

Both of us have to be costumed and ready by Saturday. Wish us luck, please!

Posted in Crafting | 10 Comments

A PIF Gift From Carol

Posted on October 15, 2007 by Jenna Magee

I received such a nice surprise from Carol this weekend!

I found an envelope from Carol in the mail and opened it to find the most lovely Halloween pinkeep:






Her finishing technique is impeccable and the fabric she found for the back is so cute, with bats, cats and other Halloween motifs. The scan doesn’t do it justice, for real!

Thank you so much, Carol!

Posted in Stitching | 9 Comments

Sailing with Anna and The Dude

Posted on October 14, 2007 by Jenna Magee

We went out sailing again today, but this time we had visitors – Anna and The Dude. They brought a lovely basket of Italian foodstuffs that was greatly appreciated and will be gone in no time flat, I’m sure. 🙂

We had great winds on the way out, in fact too good. We were heeling over a little bit more than any of us were comfortable with at some points, due to gusts of wind, changes in direction, etc. However, by the time we turned around to sail back to the marina, the winds had abandoned us for locations unknown and we had to resort to motoring back. It was okay, though, as we were all getting rocked to sleep by the lunch in our bellies, the waves and then the hum of the engine. We’ll all sleep soundly tonight!

I hope they had a good time, as their company was a fun addition to our time out on the water. Fortunately, today was a bit warmer than yesterday, so I didn’t come back with a chill and hopefully neither did our visitors. 🙂

Tonight is for costume making. I made some more progress on mine and am nearly ready to put all of the pieces together for the finished product. Terry started cutting out his pattern pieces, so soon he will be ready to take over the sewing machine from me. If I’m lucky, he’ll give me a little help so that I can finish faster. I’m still not terribly confident in my sewing skills, even though I’ve done well so far. The wedding reception to which we are wearing these outfits is next Saturday, so we should have pictures to share after that.

I think I’ve decided to take mine to work to wear on Halloween, as well. I need to get as much wear out of it as I can, before the medications that I’m on cause me to gain enough weight that I can’t fit into it anymore. I’m already up about 5 lbs or so. *groan* I’m trying to fight it, though. I need to get more exercise and hopefully that will do the trick.

Posted in Life in General | 5 Comments

Okay, That’s It!

Posted on October 13, 2007 by Jenna Magee

I’m tired of my startitis. No more. I have projects in various states of progress all over the place and I have actually lost my Halloween project. It was a cute purple bat with plaid on its wings that said “Drop In For a Bite.” Isn’t that cute? Yeah, it was neat, but it’s missing. Crud.

I’m sick of this. So, I have decided that enough is enough. No more new starts until I have some finishes. I’m not going whole hog or anything, I just want 5 finishes under my belt before I can start something new. I think that’s a reasonable goal that I can actually live up to, so let’s go for it.

And my first finish is the model I’ve been working on for The Sweetheart Tree. Another one will be Winter Dragon on Leslie’s RR, when I finally can get it finished. I have to say that Winter Dragon is giving me fits. I know that it’s giving Leslie fits, as well, so I don’t feel too bad in saying that I will be happy to see it go home to Leslie when it’s done. 🙂

Posted in Stitching | 8 Comments

I’m So Behind…

Posted on October 9, 2007 by Jenna Magee

On blog reading, that is. I just took the plunge and did the dreaded “Mark Folder Read” function on my Stitching Blogs folder. I’m sorry for anything I’ve missed, but I’ve been model stitching and working hard on my renaissance costume.

I have less than two weeks to get the renaissance gown done and this weekend is devoted to sailing, so I’m having to get the sewing done in the evenings after work. It’s been a challenge, that’s for sure, but I’m just about to the point of putting everything together. Which means that I have to stop putting off sewing all of the trim onto the sleeves by hand. Then it will be Terry’s turn to help with his costume. He hasn’t even cut out his pattern yet, but I’m trying not to stress about something I have little control over. I mention it and had him actually help me with mine last night, so I figure the sooner I get mine done, the sooner he’ll start on his.

I was determined to do this whole thing myself and I have already tackled many difficult parts, but last night, I gave in and asked for help. More because there’s just too much to get done than because I didn’t feel like I could do it. So, with Terry’s help, the bodice is nearly finished. I guess I’ll work on the trim tonight.

Then there’s the model stitching. I did some work on it this morning that I forgot to write down the start and stop times for. Which is fine because it will probably negate the time I need for frogging three of the specialty stitches on the piece that I figured out were off on the counting. Grrr… Darned frogs. I need an anti-frog charm, methinks.

I really want to get this model done and back to Sandie soon. If only to be able to work on something else for a while. Christmas is approached at an alarming rate and I have nothing planned and no lists made. That’s bad for me, so it’s about time to start thinking in that direction. If only the temperatures would come down out of the 80s and start feeling like Autumn already!

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 6 Comments