Mariannes Motifs

The Wallet Factory is Open

I guess it's more of the small zipper pouch factory.  I've  made 7 of these suckers so far and I want to do at least one more.  These are for my Mother in Law, Neice and Brother in law.

I've gotten faster, but it still seems like every few has something wonky.  I won't show you the one I had to toss out it was a bit of a mutant.  The tan one is made of a Goodwill find shirt that was made of a nice tan check weave cloth.  Almost looks like a linen version of a ripstop nylon.  I thought that would be nice and masculine for a guy.

The L bag is from French Provencal fabric which I bought from a lovely online shop called French Connections.  They also have African fabrics and I really want to get some of those.  The bright monkey fabric is from Joann, and I thought it was cute for a 9 year old girl.

And Mom - if you read this far -- I made one for you, too, but it's not blogged cause I know you read this and I didn't want to spoil the surprise.  French Provencal, of course!

Long Day at the Wallet Factory

After a somewhat disastrous attempt at a penguin zipper pouch for Adam, I managed to successfully make not only Adam's but also Ben's. Penguins for both boys. I think they will like them. No ribbons or keychains on these due to a slight miscalculation.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Sewing a Bag "In the Hoop"

Making something "In the Hoop" is where you let the embroidery machine do all the sewing work and the piece kind of magically comes together.

It's not totally magic cause it involves a lot of reading of instructions and making sure things are lined up, cutting pieces, etc.  I made my first such project - a small zipper bag that can be made in the 4x4 machine.  (You are limited to little things when you have just a little embroidery machine, but its still pretty darn cool)

I bought the design from the embroiderygarden.com web site.  It came with all the different letters as well as a blank version for $12.00.  The instructions were well written with good pictures which is really important because there are a lot of steps to this sucker.

I used the material from a Japanese print pj top that I bought at Goodwill - I will be able to get another bag out of the same fabric, too.

Here's how it came out:

Machine Embroidery

I downloaded an embroidery design from the net and uplodaded it to my sewing and embroidery machine.  This is only the second embroidery I have done on the machine - the first was a simple one color design.

This one camefrom GoldenNeedleDesigns.com who offer free machine embroidery samples so you can get to know how the designs work.  (Great idea as I will most likely buy from them now)

Here is the finished design which I put in a little embroidery hoop for fun.

 

Need to Update My Blog Design

I really love Typepad (my blog platform) because it is so easy to use.  I am glad to pay for the full membership because it allows me to have all my blogs and not worry about a thing. 

However I really need to update the design of Mariannes Motifs!  I have some old design elements I need to clean up, like the share this module.  I need to fix it up or get rid of it. I think I need a new header, too, even though I really like my header.

I am glad for Typepad because I don't need any fancy website creation software but you still have to put the work in to keep things fresh and good.

Retirement Dreams

Next week is my birthday.  In the spirit of getting old as crap let me wax poetic on a few of the dreams I have for my retirement.  Not that I will be able to retire any time soon - It's just a dream you know... for later.

I would love to have a small place not too far from the ocean.  Maybe Florida, maybe something like these outer banks homes for sale.  I would like to have a metal detector and search for doubloons that will wash ashore just for me to find them.  Even if not, it makes for a good walk and you can clean up pop tabs from the beach.

Another one - get an RV and spend a year travelling to all of the countries great National Parks.   Roughing it with a WiMax connection....

First ever Quilting Project: Mug Rugs

What are Mug Rigs you might ask? They are something I between the size of a coaster and a placemat intended to hold your drink and a snack.

The  one on top was my first effort, and I really had a hard time with the bias tape border.  The second one is better I read some tutorials and used clips instead of pins.  I also used 1/2 inch bias tape instead of 1//4 inch.  Smarter. It's hard to get all the layers into a skinny bias tape like concealed hinges.

I am going to make 2 more of these puppies and have a little set of coaster thingies.  A nice way to start quilting.