Machine Embroidery Club

I've had two general classroom lessons on my new Janome Horizon Memory Craft 12000.  

This morning I went to my first monthly Embroidery Club meeting at my local sewing/vac store. 

There's a lot to drag to the club.  

Luckily the sewing machine has a wheeled case.  

There's a separate zippered and cushioned case for the embroidery arm.  

Then a zippered case that holds all the different size embroidery hoops.  

And finally a good sized tote to hold all the miscellaneous items (i.e., thread, needles, pins, thumb drive, attachments and accessories).  

During the summer months the club classes aren't structured so each member works on their own project. 

Not knowing this I didn't bring any fabric or stabilizer with me so I had to buy some muslim fabric and another roll of stabilizer.

  

My new turquoise tote bag, bought at a recent "31 Party", is perfect for storing and carrying all my miscellaneous sewing items to class. 

I decided to do a red work Christmas table runner as my project. 

So I worked on some Christmas red work designs.

 My thread kept breaking on the first three designs.  

I couldn't figure it out because I had a new needle and new bobbin in the machine.  

The instructor, Dianne, noticed my bobbin was in backwards.  Duh!  

I corrected that but still had thread breakage.  

Finally Dianne suggested changing the needle.  

I guess even new needles can be defective.

  

With that simple correction the fourth design stitched up beautifully.  

By then the three hour session was over and I packed up all my gear and texted Hubby to come and get me because I was hungry!

  

It was a fun class and I enjoyed walking around and talking to the other ladies and seeing what they were working on. 

Most of the women had Brother or Viking embroidery machines - no one had a Janome. 

Four designs so far.  

I don't know if I can do it, but I thought it would be neat to have one side of the table runner be Christmas designs in red work and the other side non-Christmas designs in blue work.  

Anyway that's my plan.

  

It was a good day to be indoors it reached a hot, humid high of 94 degrees today.  

The whole week will be in the middle to high 90's with no rain forecasted.  

Speaking of the weather, Hubby and I downloaded a new alarm/weather Disney app to our iPhones "Wake Up Disney" (price 99 cents) featuring the wonderful Donald Duck. 

It is so cute and if you have kids they will love it.  

Heck we love it!  

Never Ending Story

Now that some carpets have been cleaned here at Teacup Lane I can return to my craft/sewing room clean up project - my Never Ending Story. 

 Of course we still have to move all the furniture and stuff back into the upstairs rooms. Ugh!

Yeah...this statement about sums it up for my house. 

I love a neat, clean home but that doesn't mean that's what we always have here. 

 One can dream...

I plan to work on sorting through these piles on my tables today with the goal of having a clean, clear surface some day. 

 Yes, Pammy Sue, I know it probably won't stay that way though! 

LOL

Next I have to sort through the piles on the left side of our media room. That is all the stuff that use to be stored in my craft closet. 

 The wall unit on the right with all the white boxes is where all our photos from 38 years of marriage plus tons of photos inherited from both sets of parents are stored. 

 Sorting though all of those photos is a future project.

I started stocking the shelves in my craft closet. 

I'm so thrilled with the results. 

 Hubby has put up lots of these over the years. 

 Now it's fairly easy for him since he purchased a fancy German brand saw cutting table and saw a few years ago.

This is the other side of my craft/sewing room that you haven't seen much of lately. 

 That's my paternal grandmother's vintage sewing cabinet that houses her vintage Singer sewing machine which still runs beautifully. 

 My grandma made beautiful dresses on this machine for all of her granddaughters and even a few for my Mom.

Thanks for all the sweet comments you have left me as I make this journey to a better organized craft/sewing room.   I'm looking forward to finishing the re-organization so I can cutesy up the space.  

 We are so lucky to have a finished basement to house our hobbies.

Just a word about my method of blog posting for those who are interested. I have been mostly using the BlogPress app to do my postings since getting my iPhone. It's just quicker to select photos taken with my iPhone and post them through this app with my iPhone. The old way I took pictures with my Canon PowerShot camera, then had to manually download the disc onto my Apple laptop. Once I post on BlogPress I immediately get on my laptop and save the posting as a "draft" so I can "clean it up a bit". I resize the photos to extra large, make any corrections (typing on the iPhone with one finger doesn't compare to fast two hand typing I can do on my laptop) and add additional text if needed. I also have the Blogger app on my iPhone which works well for posting too but I tend to use the BlogPress app more frequently.

Currently I have 2,088 photos on my iPhone camera roll.  Every so often I download my iPhone photos onto my laptop and delete them on my iPhone.  I'm not very good keeping up with this task - usually my Hubby has to remind me.  We store all of our photos on an exterior hard drive for safe keeping.  However, I do like to also have them handy on my laptop's iPhoto program.   This is my current method there are probably better ways to do photos and posting but this method works for me now that I have an iPhone.   I would encourage you to get an iPhone or Smart Phone - they are amazing tech tools to help you organize your life in so many ways!
 



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It's Growing in Red, White & Green!

I'm having fun adding different bands of color to my Christmas Round Ripple.

It's getting bigger too.  

Luckily I'm not. 

We had such good results losing weight last year by counting calories we are continuing the practice this year too.  How much did we lose?  I lost 35 pounds and Hubby lost almost 40!  

Just the other day I discovered a neat app, MyNetDiary, for our iPhones.  It's an app that tracks our daily calories by meal and automatically totals our daily meals for us.  It keeps track of our weight too.  No more manually writing down the foods we eat in a notebook and fussing with the calculations.  After trying out the free version we ended up buying the upgraded app version - it's under $5 and well worth it. 

I have just two New Year's resolutions - continue to lose weight and add more RED in my life!  

Back to crocheting...I'm running out of the lime green color but I'm pretty much done with it.  

Next I plan to add another white band maybe with some of these fancy yarns.

Are you the type that plans out your color design and stitches ahead of time?

Or do you sort of "wing it" like I do?

In this band I added another two rounds of variegated yarn in red, white and dark green.

I may have to get on a step ladder to take the next photos.

I think I want to name this one...something better than just Christmas Round Ripple.

Any suggestions?

And there are more REDs to enjoy with our host, Sue, at 

It's A Very Cherry World

(here) 

for REDnesday!

Crochet & Coffee

Crochet and Coffee!

I'm having a very relaxing Sunday morning doing a little crocheting on my Christmas Round Ripple, playing with my new iPhone and drinking some delicious coffee made with my new Keurig single coffee maker.

How do you like my red iPhone cover?

That's Jessie from "Toy Story" as my background screen.  

After posting this I'm off to our finished basement to finish putting all the Christmas boxes away in their storage area. 

 How about some more of my crocheted reds to look at.

I love color...lots of it!

My crocheted throws...

Let's add their names shall we....

I can't pick a favorite.

Can you?