It Works!

Now I can serge the fabric I cut!

Those of you who have been following this blog are acquainted with my love-hate relationship bad attitude toward my mini serger.  Yes, it's as cute as can be, but the darn thing refused to work.  This new development falls squarely into the "it doesn't take much to make me happy" category.  The serger is now WORKING!  And I will give all of the credit to Mark, who seems to somewhat enjoy getting things fixed with a great deal of patience.  I was pretty much done with the thing and ready to toss it or sell it for parts, but he sat at my craft table yesterday and got the chain going after discovering that the needle had been put in wrong.  Not by me.  The former owner gets all the blame for that.  So it was up to me to try it out and TA-DAA! 

I used my Friday day off to do some stitching and watching some vintage Project Runway (season 2).  I know.  It's kind of pathetic.  But I did get my Seasonal Sampler finished!  It was a nice change of pace stitching on this giant (10 count) fabric, but it did make it a little difficult for my eyes to re-adjust to stitching on 30 count.  Cute finish though.  I need to find a nice square frame for this one. 

In my ongoing quest to get the craft room organized, I finally went through the chart collection.  I must have done a good job because I weeded out about 20 charts.  These are ones I either have stitched in the past or ones that I know I'll never stitch.  I don't even remember where I got some of them.  But during the process, I got to look at each chart I own and made some decisions about where in the stitching lineup they are.  As for the charts I'm done with -- should I do a giveaway?  Put them up for sale?  This is something I'll have to decide soon. 

These are the ones that are going!

Lastly, here's a photo of Cosmo, while he was watching me type up this post. 

Christmas Finishes Before Thanksgiving!

I'm happy to say that I have a couple of finishes this week, just when we're getting into the hectic part of the holidays when I often feel like I'm a step behind.  My first finish is my fabric wreath!  When I saw this project online, I thought it would be kind of cute, but it turned out very pretty.  It will definitely brighten up a wall in our home over the Christmas holidays.  You can find the directions to make one of these wreaths here.  A couple of things though.  The straw wreaths were a little hard to find.  I finally ended up buying the last two 10" wreaths at Hobby Lobby.  It also calls for the use of a pinking rotary cutter, and as you may have read in my previous post, that just didn't work at all.  Never did find out what the deal with that was.  So if you already have pinking shears, you can save yourself some money and use those.  Just take a break while cutting out the fabric squares or your hand will fall off.  I didn't do the ribbon hanger because I'm going to hang the wreath on an existing nail and I didn't want that to show.  So I threaded a piece of fishing line into a large needle and poked it through the wreath in the back, knotted it into a loop, and now have a no-show hanger.  Oh, and use a thicker Phillips-head screwdriver to push in your fabric squares.

My second finish is my bellpull.  I stitched all three Christmas Box Ornaments by Country Garden Stitchery on one piece of fabric and found a nice bellpull hanger and there you have it.  It needs a good ironing around the edges, I know.  I was glad to be done with the metallic floss portion of the stitching, but it did make the finished product oh-so-pretty!

I wanted to show you another finish that I can't take credit for because it's Sheila's!  I believe this is from the 2010 issue of the JCS Ornament Issue.  I should know this, I realize.  But seeing as how this is her first ornament finish, I think it's pretty impressive.  So now when I want to do an ornament finish with the ribbon and beads, I'll know who to consult.  Very pretty, Sheila!

Also this week, I signed up for Daffycat's TUSAL.  That's "Totally Useless Stitch-a-long".  It just looked like fun.  You can find out more about it at Daffycat's blog on her November 15 post.  People probably think we stitchers are a little nuts for saving our floss ends, or orts, in pretty jars, but that's fine.  And there are currently 152 of us signed up for the TUSAL, so who's nuts?!

My serger continues to vex me.  I worked on it a little more this week and got it to where I thought the threading was absolutely correct.  Not so much.  It's still not making the chain when I turn the wheel.  Hmmmm.  I think I'm going to have to do what I've been avoiding all along -- unthread the thing completely and then start from scratch.  Someone online thought it would be a good idea to take your serger to a sewing machine repair place to have them thread it for you, but that would probably cost more than I paid for it to begin with!  But, just to let you know, the serger has not defeated me!  I am determined!

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.  What a great time to think about what we have and how thankful we are for it.  Until next time.

BOO! Scary, Scary!!

It came from the depths of the closet where is has been lurking for years.  And it chose the spookiest, scariest day to make its presence known.  All because it wants to torment its owner.  Bwahahahaha!  What could this horrible being be?  Okay, it's just a mini serger, but a little scary, don't you think?  No, you say?  Not scary at all?  But just look at it!  I bought this little device on Ebay maybe about 4 years ago because I thought it would be useful for sewing and for serging the edges of my stitching fabric.  It didn't cost much, and looks to be in good condition.  When I got it, I looked in the box (original, with instructions) and said, "Yep, there's a serger in there" and put it in the closet.  Yeah, I don't even know if it works.  Shame on me.  You see, I've been a bit intimidated by this innocent little machine even though it might make my crafting easier.  But now that I'm working at a cross stitch store where operating a serger is a necessity, I think I've overcome my fear.  I operate the one at work like a pro and can even re-thread the thing, even though it may take me a little time to navigate the threads through all of their little hook and loop mazes.  And now I am ready to tackle my very own wee machine.  It is kind of cute.  Plus, it will be interesting to find out if it actually works.  I'm determined.  I'll keep you posted.

To prove that I actually have been doing some cross stitch, here's the progress on my current project (one of them).  It's Christmas Box Ornaments by Country Garden Stitchery.  I kind of can't wait to get to the metallic thread and bead part!

My other goal this week is to get "Gobble" all framed so he can be on display through Thanksgiving.  Plus, Sheila and I will be headed to Joann's Crafts this week to pick up some supplies for a cute wreath project she found online.  And I'm going to get some yarn for a special project.

I hope you have a fun Halloween!  It's always fun to see all the neighborhood kids dressed up cute and excited to get a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite Halloween pictures of all time.  It just cracks me up every time I see it.  These cute doggies belong to my niece and my brother and sister-in-law.  I'm just jealous because I could never get my cats to wear costumes.