Cleaning Up

cape, belt, and jumpsuit - the whole deal

I took Sarah's costume to the post office this afternoon. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see if it fits. I tried it on and it's way snug around the hips (zippable, barely,) snug around the chest, and dragging on the ground, so I'm hopeful.

Now comes the welcome part of cleaning up. Not just my studio but the entire house needs a pick-up after the princess, the frog, and EK. Plus a little project on the side that you'll see tomorrow.

The leftover slippery fabrics are in a bag - pink for the princess, yellow for the frog collar and crown, and red and blue for EK. I will be ever so happy to go back to cottons for awhile. The patterns are back in their envelopes. And while I know I said that I was feeling that I wanted to really sew for awhile instead of quilting, I'm over that for now. Especially with the slippery stuff.

I've learned some good stuff, for example that my machine does a great job of sewing through velcro, which wasn't the case 20 years ago when I last tried it. And that basting spray comes up big when getting the satin to behave. And that there are transferrable skills from quilting that make the sewing go better, like using a bias binding. And that sometimes it's better to sew the way I think it will come out better instead of the way the pattern says. And, sometimes not.

These projects have been fun ones, but I'm ready to go back to quilting. I have three projects to think about:

(1) the Take It Further challenge for October (oh, no, is it really the 23rd already?)

(2) the online class I'm taking that I've done none of the homework for. Well, that's not quite true, I did purchase my fabrics and wash them and I read the first lesson. Sort of.

(3) a quilt that was in the last Quilters Newsletter Magazine and which uses candlewicking designs from my new machine - how can I pass that up?

Back to picking up pins and vaccuming up bits of tissue paper and shiny stuff.