Pathetic Cookie Lady here…

so yea, no sooner had I hit publish and in walked the Hub announcing he was still up for a LOST if I was…..and then I felt like big baby. Oh well. I’ve got lots of work to do on myself I know.

So speaking of lots of work….I am supposed to be working on my list for FL and finishing up any sewing projects that I “need” for the trip. And here I sit, reading blogs, writing a post, and facebooking. By the way, is that even a word? Facebooking?

So I’ve got a house that i am ashamed of right now! Ugh. I am just so distracted lately…get this. so come on ladies, we all now that some days you are barely in the house b/4 the bra is unhooked and pulled out of your shirt sleeve, right? Well the hefty chick that I am, now I can only wear the front clasps and you just can’t do that little move anymore so to take off the bra requires full shirt removal. ugh. So yesterday I reached up the shirt and un did all the clasps…but then got distracted by something shiny and an hour later realized I was still running around with my shirt on and my bra on but the bra was not done up…..oh dear.

so I’ll try to have an update on the packing and sewing later…

I am getting frustrated…

It was a great weekend in terms of family time with the three of us but I am feeling very discombobulated.

In no particular order…

When I made the Buddy costume for Halloween, I learned ALOT. Not all of what I learned was about acutal sewing, but more about patterns and transferring markings and technique. I think I may have mentioned that having the hub help me with this one was great b/c he saw the need for some tools that I didn’t have and gave me the green light for them. So even though we didn’t get to use the costume I am greatful for the sewing experience. And I was excited to sew from a pattern.

I’ve tried sewing from a pattern before and it didn’t work out. Well I know now why. I didn’t follow it properly. I didn’t understand all of the markings like I thought I did and my methods for cutting and marking and pinning were shoddy at best. So with my new found confidence I pulled out a WIP. I was using an actual McCall’s pattern for some PJ’s for Olly. But I was very frustrated b/c nothing was working out. Cutting it was a bitch and when I sewed it up I had 100% botched the notches. So this time I took a close look at things, saw what I did wrong and tried to make it work none the less. I think I did a great job with the pants. pants are that hard anyway. But Olly didn’t want to wear them. he wants to wear the plain old bandanna pants that I made him this summer.

so I thought well, ok, that is fine. I have several bandannas that I bought last time we were at Walmart and I need some for him for Florida anyway. So when he went to bed I pulled them out and ironed them. Except none of them matched. Like, when I bought them, they came two to a pack and there were two different distinct designs and now I have only two that match, but seem to be incredibly off in size. So the bandana pants were a no go.

So then i took his fav pair of pants that I made him and made a pattern from them. They are basically bandana pants that I made using a bandanna as my size guide but I made them out of flannel. It is the most incredibly soft flannel and it has bugs all over it. so we call them his bug pants.

I sat down to do some research on line into elastic to make sure I got that right and next thing you know it’s like super late and i haven’t stitched a friggin thing.

Then I started fartin’ around with my ipod.

My music library is a complete and utter disaster. I’ve got like 500 songs in it, but some of them are from way back in the day b4 I used itunes and just called things track 1 track 2 etc. i can’t figure out playlists on it and I am going insane. I want it ready for FL.

Also it is no secret that I am addicted to certain foods. And it isn’t just the food. It is the whole thing around them. For example I can’t sit and have my oreos at 10 when my son goes to bed. I have to have them when we watch an episode of LOST on netflix. So if that gets scrapped, the watching of LOST, then I am also in jepordy of  not having my oreos. Trust me I know this is sick. so all night long I am like are we watching a Lost? his reply, I’m working on it. I’m planning on it. But now it is 12:30 and we haven’t watched it yet, he just shaved his head and is in the shower rinsing off (which means a 20 min shower b/c you KNOW  he is “prepping” since he is showering before bed, lord help me) and with each tick of the clock I am getting more and more angry. Angry that I won’t be getting my snack and angry that I am so angry about that. Does taht make sense? I know I know I am nuts. I am in therapy and I am working on it. But now see, now we will have a guaranteed fight. B.c I am also still so of the WW mindset that I purposefully don’t eat much real food so that I can have my oreos. It makes no sense at all, I realize this, it is just some residual save your points thing from Weight Watchers. but now I am also hungry. Hungry and Angry. Not good.  He will think nothing of this. to him, so what that we didn’t watch a lost, i am a loser with an addiction to cookies. He doesn’t understand the mental meltdown I am having over this.  I dont’ understand it either, I mean, why am I this way?

ugh.

 

update

I am itching to sew again but I’ve got to get us ready for Florida.

We just got back Monday from a quick trip to Canada. A close family friend passed away and my husband was going to go home alone for it, but as his mom pointed out these things sometimes have a way of turning into little family reunions so we went home as a family.

We decided around 3pm on Friday to go and by 8 pm we were in the car. Not too shabby for me. The hub helped me out a lot though. We finally figured out that while I am great at putting the list together and eventually getting us out the door with everything we need I am not good at the time management side of it. It takes me FOREVER to get my ass in gear.

So the last trip home we decided that we needed to put my hub’s career skills to work on me. He is a project manager so…..I told him to manage me! He very quickly set up a time table for me that afternoon and I cannot tell you how much it helped me.

I had to have this done by this time and this by this and so on until it was 6:30 and I was to have everything at the top of the stairs to be loaded in the car. It was terrific.  so I am hoping that he will work with me for FL this year.

It will be a bit different this year as we are going to Orlando, and no we aren’t going to DW, instead of Marco Island. We waited too long to book with Hilton and Marco had NO rooms. AND we are not only going with my MIL but one of my SIL is coming along wiht her 8 mos daughter. This shoudl be VERY interesting.

We will have a 3 bedroom suite so we won’t be on top of each other which is good but I am still not too thrilled about it. It has a lot to do with how it all came to be that she was going with it but also b/c I don’t really know her. SO on the bright side I suppose this will be a great time to get to know her.

I need to do some sewing before we go.

Boring update, but that is where I’m at!

Stay tuned and I’ll try to update on the sewing projects: some PJ’s for my son and some baby gifts for my newest nephew who is going on 4 weeks old.

Sewing update

Olly’s sleep is so out of whack right now it isn’t even funny. He went to bed last night around 10:30 but then was up at 5:30 and back to sleep until 9:15….oh and there was no nap yesterday. Ugh. SO as I was cuddling with him this morning at 5:30 I heard a familiar sound and it slammed me back about three years.

I had about 5 different posts composed in my head before I fell asleep. I really wish I had a flash drive I could stick in my ear and just upload all my stuff for later.

before I start hammering out what I think the stories were from this morning, I’d like to write them out in word and get it right. So stay tuned for those.

The costume is coming along nicely.

It is amazing how much I have learned from this silly little costume project. I mentioned before all the notions I picked up the other day, the tracing paper, the pins, etc. But last night, as i was collecting all my crap off the kitchen table, I realized another HUGE item that I am missing. A frickin sewing basket. I have one from when I was like 12, and honestly, I had it up on the shelf was weird crap in it. Not even my sewing stuff.  The thing is that when I am sewing I am ALWAYS looking for my crap. Things like my seam ruler, my pins, my chalk, my snips, all this stuff. If I had and used the sewing basket properly then this wouldn’t be a problem. So that is my next sewing purchase.

Also b/c of this project I am totally looking forward to sewing from a pattern. .

So I am still, over a year later, trying to figure out how to properly put pics in here….so for now, the back shot will have to do. It isn’t finished. I have to make the mittens, and do all the hems. I am going to make covers for his shoes too…..But for now, I present, Buddy The Dinosaur, made from this tutorial. I have several issues with this pattern and with the images they used to show the final project. If you want to make this, and have some questions, drop me an email and I will help you out as best I can.

 

Is anyone still out there?

I’ve done everything they say you aren’t supposed to do if you want to keep your readers.

I haven’t posted often and I haven’t posted interesting.

It’s weird though, b/c I haven’t really been into the whole blog thing period lately. Like, my Google Reader has 300+ items to read! That is a record for me. Seriously.

So what have I been doing? I don’t really even know.

It’s been raining around here nearly every day. So it isn’t like I’ve been off playing outside.

We had the wedding and then a week later my brother and his wife drove out here to spend the night before flying out (we live near a major airport) for their HM. so I guess that particular week I was busy cleaning up and getting ready for them. Which as far as the cleaning up thing goes, I’ve been getting better at it. Seriously. Much better.

So they were here and then they were gone. I dont’ know what i did last week…I keep trying to reorg this space here, my desk/sewing area…but I never get far or I get it cleared off and then wham half a day later it looks like hell again.

Right now i am working on this.  I have a few editorial comments on their tutorial as well. For starters I think it is very poorly written. And I’ve read lots of tutes my friends. In fact I am completly self taught in the sewing arena via Google, MonkeySee, and YouTube. So I think I know a good one when I see one.  Perhaps poorly written isn’t the best way to describe it. The thing is they assume ALOT. Like that the average mom with a dino obsessed kid who wants to sew this, knows what a lapped zipper is and how to sew it. I think they order things in the tute weird. They aren’t consistent with their description of things. They sprinkle in important sewing phrases like, RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER, just here and there. They never tell you to sew the legs up. Like the only reason I was successful with this was b/c I do have quite a bit of winging sewing experience. And I’ve made bandana pants. Otherwise, you would be like, whaaaaaa? Now, I also had some brain fart moments myself, due to no fault of theirs. This has inspired a future post, Just When You Thought You Could Sew, or Sew You Think You Can Sew? stay tuned….

God bless them for putting out the tutorial. I hug them for that. I was cooking up something very close to their no sew option in my head b/4 I found their actual pattern. But I think they could have written a better tute. I mean, they are in the biz.

anyway so i am elbow deep in royal blue and bright orange fleece and thread snips right now.

Major props to my husband who turned the 45 page print out into the pattern. Yes, we printed it out and then you had to cut and tape and piece it together to get the actual pattern. But he didn’t stop there, he also cut all the fabric out for me.  He is brilliant at that sort of stuff. Seriously. every single piece was exact. I need to get him cutting for Xmas!

The extra upside to him doing that of course is that he, like most guys, realizes that great tools yield great results. So where I have been hemming and hewing about getting a new rotary cutter he was like, yeah, go get one. He looks at sewing as one big tool fest. So today I went out and bought some new stuff and I am seriously wondering why I waited!

I normally use a 45 mm rotary cutter, by fiskars. But today I picked up a 28mm Olfa. he had mentioned when cutting stuff out that  a smaller cutter would have made things much easier.  While Fiskars is not crap by anymeans, it is not Olfa.

Also I realized that part of my problem when working with patterns is that I somehow decided that it was ok to disregard their marks. That is you know, things like notches and darts etc. Now it wasnt’ that I totally ignored them, it was just that I could NOT figure out how to transfer them. I had chalk. I had markers. I had pins and tracing paper. But nothing worked. so I thought it was easier to wing it. Well I have quite a few projects stuffed on the shelf to show you that it is not easier to wing it. So after lots of internet research, another shout out to YouTube and Expert Village, I determined that my “tracing paper” was actually transfer sheets for embroidery, which although they work in a pinch, are not in fact the same as pattern stuff.  Also that I needed longer straight pins for bulky things like fleece, and that I had crap tailor’s chalk.

One trip to Hancock Fabrics and $4o later and I am in business and excited to sew with a pattern again.

However, we have FL coming up in about two weeks.

We are staying in Orlando this year and NOT marco island. Long, irritating story as to why.

We will be staying in one of our time share resorts in a three bedroom suite. My mother in law and my sister in law and her 6 month ? 7 month? old daughter will be staying as well. My mother in law has gone with us the past two years and I love it. I am a little annoyed about the sil, details some other time, but I am sure that it will all work out.

The major difference for this year is that we are not on the beach. At. All. I am very upset about this but on the other hand it means no sand in my room. And there will be a washer dryer in our unit as opposed to down the hall so I will totally have to pack light in the clothing dept since I can do laundry every night if I want.

Well, for now that is all the crap off the top of my head.

Stay tuned for pics of the costume.

The somewhat short birthday post

I’ve been fighting a headache since last night.

It sucks. It is stuck right behind my eye. In my other life, also known as life before I had a child, I could sleep it off. I’d get up and go to work, suffer through an 8 hour day, and then just come home and crash. But not today. Ugh. laughing just makes it hurt worse.  So I’ll try to hammer out a post here, b/c I totally miss blogging but I can’t promise anything good!

I’ve been thinking quite a bit today of changes I need to make.

Changes I need to make and changes I want to make. Of course they are not always one in the same. For example I NEED to stop eating Mcd every damn day. But I don’t want to. I want to return to my documenting days but I don’t need to. It’s hard to find balance. which I suppose is something else I need to work on. Want to work on. There finally two that match! How about that.
So bc the things I need to work on aren’t nearly as exciting as the things I want to work on, I’ll start with the things I want to.

Way back in the dayI used to document everything. I mean everything. I think it started around the time my dad passed away.

I’ve always been a journaler but when my dad had his heart attack, and I spent hours just hanging out in the waiting room on the ICU floor, I really stepped it up. It was a coping mechanism. I would write all the technical stuff the doctors were telling us. Then I would write about how I felt, the general mood of everyone, or my visists with Dad. Then when his wife started slipping off the plane of sanity, I really started writing things down. And boy was I glad I did. But that is for another entry.

After Dad passed away I found some of my grandfather’s old journals when I went through my dad’s stuff. There nothing earth shattering. Just simple desktop calendars with about a paragraphs worth of space to write stuff. I don’t know much about my grandfather, he died when I was just about 5 months old, but it turns out he was a used car sales man. So some of his entries were nothing more than notes about the cars he sold that day. Other times it was the weather or my grandmother’s mom (so his MIL) that he was bitchin about. Just cute little things.

I kept my journaling up after dad died, but it was more that, just journaling. Dealing with my feelings. Not much of anything else. Then two years later I broke my leg and ended up in the hospital with DVT. Once again, in order to pass the time, and keep track of things, I started writing more about what happened that day in terms of doctor stuff and visitors (i nearly died I guess..seriously) and then after I got out of the hospital it was just fun. Fun to write at the end of every day, the mundane stuff. Like what I had for lunch, did I do any errands that day, dinner, funny things that happened with the hub and I or whatever.

At first, I just used the pages in my day runner calendar. I got VERY good at writing very tiny so I could cram it all in that tiny little space. But then I did some research and got serious about the calendars I was using to “document”.  I ended up going with Journal 21. oh baby. just writing about it now makes me happy. It felt good in my hands, had wonderful paper, and usually just enough room to write all my stuff in.

My intent with those journals was just to keep track of the day to day stuff. Little notes about our life together, stuff at work, family things, vacation and the like. But it slowly morphed into a scrapbook of sorts. At one point, back in 1998? 97? I was VERY into the whole Stampin Up craze. Then I fell out of that and into scrapbooking. Or so I thought. The scrapbooking thing turned out to be more of an excuse to hoard supplies than to actually create pages. So I ended up with massive, and I do mean massive, amounts of stickers. Very cool stickers. Stickers for everything. I was also very into take photographs with my 35mm camera. I do miss that camera man. I mean I still have it, but what I miss is taking a roll of film, getting it developed, and having the photos in my hot little hands. With my digital I have become very lazy. I couldn’t tell you the last photo I had printed out. But anyway. So I started using the stickers, and the photos, and the journal together.

Each page slowly turned into a story. It was fantastic. If I told a story about our crazy night of making homemade margaritas, chances are I had some funny stickers to accent the page and photos to go with it. So I started taping the photos in the journal so that they could be flipped out and you could read the entry. By the end of the year, the journal was a treasure. It was amazing. It was like one of those old spell books passed down that needed a buckle to keep it shut.

oh and i forgot to mention the markers. I was very into picking the right writing impliments. I made sure I used archival ink, and fine tip so I could fit it all in (in case you haven’t noticed i am not much of a Reader’s Digest version…even with a splitting headache…), I had the spring colors for spring, warm earthy tones for fall and of course red and green for winter. It was great.

That journal went every where with me. So that when I had a free moment, at lunch or whatever, I could work on it. But that also meant that the pens, and the stickers, and the tape and the tweezers to place said stickers on the page, had to go with me too.  So I ended up carrying it all around with me. Yes, even to work. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. Carrying in to my office a little handled box full of stickers, but now I am kind of embarassed. But whatever. I didn’t like most of those people anyway, but again, another entry entirely.

So when the jouranl got to be too much I left it at home. And then worked on it at night.

I kept it up until Olly was born. I tried to keep it up after the fact but it became quiet difficult. So I started using just a regular desk calendar. And these days I rarely even use that.

I do carry around a little 4×6 notebook with me at all times for things like lists, and notes, and the occasional journal entry, but it isn’t the same. And I miss it. I actually miss that obsessive detail note taking. it was very soothing.

So I really want to get back to that.

I want to get better at my blogging. I want to work again on telling stories as opposed to just bitching about stuff  all the time. 

I want to be better. Better at being a mom, a wife, a housekeeper.

I am not sure how to do any of that. But I think saying to myself, finally, that I WANT to do it, as opposed to saying I NEED to do it or I HAVE to do it, is a step in the right direction.

I guess in the end this entry wasn’t anything about my birthday.

shit.

It was a good day once I pulled my head out of my ass and stopped sulking.

there were a couple incidents but over all a good day. I do love my boys. They are so good to me. Oliver was just a great birthday buddy and then Duke took me out to dinner and that was nice.

hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze a lost or a sheldon in tonight (LOST or Big Bang Theory) with a piece of birthday cake and call it a day. My head is seriously splitting.

Happy Birthday

Today I turn 35
I have a lot i want to post about today, but also a lot to do.
I need to renew my driver’s license and first I have to find the renewal letter that they sent. So who knows how long I will be gone.
ugh.

I have lots on my mind about my age, but also want to share memories of birthdays past….I know I should have been working on this post ahead of time, but well, you know me and my time management skills….LOL
also want to talk about the birthday cake I made myself last night.
So stay tuned!

The Wedding part 1

It’s tricky, this blogging thing.

I love to write. I love to tell stories. But my stories all seem to need so much background that by the time I finish telling the background the original story has gotten lost. I suppose that is why I need to keep up this writing thing bc I need to practice how to tell a story.

I bring this up b/c I want to tell you the story of the wedding from this weekend. But there are a lot of characters in this story and I really want to tell you all about each of them.

The wedding was great. To see my baby brother and his gal up there so radiant was just, wow. Maybe I’ve just never been that close emotionally to the bride and or groom so i never picked up on it, but it was something to see.  My brother was just a stunning young man up on that stage (is that what you call it even in a church?) and his bride, was a tiny little princess. It was great. It was a simple ceremony. Simple in decoration, color, and ceremony. It was full of love.

I have MAJOR issues with his photographer though.  She told my sister (a mother of twins) and myself to be at the church for photos at 1:30 for a wedding that started at 3:30. She took about 10 pics of the kiddos. So we were hanging out at the church all that time with three little ones all dressed up, hungry and no naps. It was not fun. At least I had my husband to help. Unlike my sister. Her husband opted to stay out in the parking lot with the groomsmen drinking. Don’t get me started on either. HE WASN’T EVEN IN THE WEDDING.

Then the photog wanted us to stick around after the ceremony for more pics. Oh but then she changed her mind and told us to go over the reception hall and get the kids something to eat and freshen them up a bit and then they would take more pics. So like an hour later they are ready for us. Outside. in the cold. on a wet golf course. for, oh, I don’t know 4 more pics?

Go ahead, ask me how many pics I have with the groom. NONE.

That photog didn’t take pics with my mom, brother, sister, and myself at all.  NONE.

She took “family” pics at the church after she sent us away. She took pics of my mom and gramma with him and his bride, but not us.

So I have no pics of us with my brother and or his bride. None with the kids.

My husband is a wedding photographer. When he meets with clients he makes sure he covers what photos they want to be sure and get and if they don’t mention certain shots he reminds them, are you sure you don’t want this or this? Because I understand that the B&G should be done thinking when that day arrives. They should not be worrying about which photos are being taken. That is the photogs job. That is why you meet with the photog ahead of time to talk about this stuff. Which they did. And I don’t believe for one second that he opted out of those types of photos. Intentionally anyway.

She was also running the bridal party ragged taking shots before hand at the church. The B & G didn’t want to see each other before hand so they were contained in the “the man cave” and ” the bridal suite” at the church. It was cute actually. Cute except for the 400 odd times the photog was running them from the cave or the suite out to the front of the church for this pose and then ushering them back in to wait while she did something with the other group and then hauling them back out again. It was ridiculous. I would have put my foot down but she is too nice.

but you knwo what, if me not being in the wedding pics is the worst that happened, then who the hell cares. It is their day and their money and they were happy so that is all that matters. It was kind of a pretty big event for my family so it hurts that we won’t have those memories but oh well. (My sister and I both eloped).

More tomorrow.

time for LOST

Still here

oh blog I’ve neglected thee.

The wedding is over, it was beautiful. I am over the moon happy for my brother and new sister in law.

The pouch turned out great and she loved it. I’ll post photos soon.

Getting a hotel room for this weekend was the best thing we have ever done. Seriously. I plan on giving up Mcd for a month to save the money to do it at xmas. (of course it doesn’t cost that much but I am trying to emphasize here how serious I am about the hotel thing)

I’m working on a hand written outline of the weekend so that I can properly post about it.

October is my favorite month. Seriously. It is full of birthdays and anniversaries. It is the start of my favorite season, autumn. It holds the most dear memories for me regarding my husband. And yet, strangely also sparks all those fever feelings for that BOY again. Ugh. I mean, ugh in a good way. I think. So lots of posts brewing. I need to finish? or is it start? a post about how my husband and I met, dated, got engaged and married.

so many things.
But housework and a snotty three year old call.

Frustrated.

My brother is getting married Saturday.

I am over the moon for him. I love the gal he is marrying and they are so perfect for each other.  She is gorgeous and sweet and wonderful.

As i’ve mentioned before our gift to them is their honeymoon. My sister bought their plane tickets for them. 

But I wanted to make her a little gift yet for the wedding. Back in my previous life when i was working in an office we had a receptionist who was like a little martha stewart. oh and by the way, i got my nails done last night and am still figuring out how to type so all bets are off for punctuation and capitalization etc…..just deal.   ok so the receptionist.  She had told me about one of her projects she did when her daughter got married. It was this Bride ER kit. Just a nice bag with things like a sewing kit, bottled water, a straw, asprin, etc you get the idea. And she gave it to her the day of the wedding. So since I am the queen of all things travel size and just in case, my heart skipped a beat when I heard my brother was getting married b/c finally I had someone to make this bag for.

I did my googling and found lots of lists of things to include in the bag, but then things got a little busy around here and I got confused thinking that this was a gift I needed to give her at her shower and we all know the drama involved in that one, so I gave up. I decided to just let her girls take care of that since they probably already were anyway.

But I just couldn’t shake it, the idea of putting a little bag together for her. So I came up with an idea.

I had some fabric I had been saving for just for her, it is just a pattern of small wedding bells but the colors are her colors. It’s perfect.

I wanted to learn zippers and suddenly the idea of doing a little boxy pouch hit me. I decided that would keep it small, so I wouldn’t go crazy with product to fill it with, and it would let me use my fabric, and learn a new skill-zippers.

My idea was to make it more of a reception bag, not stuff she would need for the whole day, or even in the event of a rip or a stain.

• small bottle of hand sanitizer
• small tube of lotion
• breath spray
• and while I know they are not green and a waste of packaging etc (sorry Erica) the colgate wisp
• a mirror
• some handi wipes
• and kleenex
• chapstick
• lint roller for my brother

Just the things I thought that might come in handy after talking all day and shaking 100’s of hands.

So I set out to work. I quickly whipped up this little box pouch. But i didn’t do such a hot job with my seams and stuff and thought that the inside looked messy. Also it is a bit on the small side. At this stage in the project I hadn’t realized that I could make the pouch any size i wanted just using their tutes as guides. So i thought about it for a day or two and realized what I needed was a tute for a lined boxy oouch.

There are lots out there but they are all variations on the same one really. i needed to find the one that I could follow the best. So I settled on one, but in the process of makign it I kept getting confused.  So then i started referring back to the tute that taught me zippers to begin with. Ok so now i was set. Now i understood how to layer things and sew them up in the right order.

BUT between reading that one and  a couple of new ones I ended up as confused as Racheal trying to make a triffle. So then I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was skipping steps bc I didn’t understand the point of them, and well then I realized why they needed them.

So i put it down and rested for a day and did some more research. I read all the tutes until I could recite them in my sleep. I understood what I did wrong and sort of how to fix it. It wouldn’t be perfect, but I wasn’t making this as a makeup bag for her honeymoon, I just wanted a pretty little pouch for the reception.  So I picked it up again last night and finished it off.  It’s a little lumpy b/c I used flannel as an interfacing instead of actual interfacing, which for the record works well for larger things like a tote but it made it a little bulky and lumpy for this project.  But it looked good. I just needed to slip stitch, another weak area for me, the turning gap and I’d be good.  But it turns out that it was a touch a small. Like I could fit everything in there but they had to be in there just so.  Not good.

So that was when it hit me. I didn’t need to make things exactly to the size the tutes did, I just needed to follow their instructions. So after my husband and Olly went to bed I stayed up, distraction free, and cut, and pressed, and pinned, and stitched, and miticulously (or so I thought) followed instructions from one tute. And it was looking great until it came time to unzip the zipper so that I didn’t end up “trapped” and then i realized that in the very first step I had placed the zipper in the layers of fabric upside down. So at this point there was no way I could unzip the zipper and turn the project inside out and have the exterior fabric be well, on the exterior. I was totally pissed. I had the size of the pouch totally perfect. the seams were spectacular. The boxed corners were goign to be top notch. Damn it.

So now i am back to the lumpy one. I will just eliminate the lint brush and it should all work. I dont have any more bridal fabric and to rip the stitches out of the almost perfect one will take me until after the ceremony.

I am just so iritated that I can’t seem to get it all together at the same time on this one.

ugh.

so there, I feel better having vented about this for a bit.

Thanks. later i’ll try to fill you in on the gel nails and eyebrow threading.