Pardon the awful pun. It’s been a tough day, but it was capped off well. I’m not going to say anythign more about the day, but if you just want to know about the contest stuff and skip the sewing, just scroll down some

Tonight was the 2nd sewing class of the 6 week course. We covered seaming (hence the corny title). I took some notes and everything we did made sense. I’m hoping for some time between now and next class to practice what we did and to review my notes – tonight wasn’t so much about technique – we did sew and all, but we got lots of pointers and tips and I find that re-reading (and ok sometimes rewriting too) my notes makes things stick better.

Turns out though that practice sewing and tips don’t make for great photo ops…

Here’s two anyway:

This is the 1st seam we did – thrilling, isn’t it?

Look! A ruffle! We learned about basting, and the different things (including ruffles) it can be used for. I know many of you who have been sewing for years and those of you who have no interest are rolling your eyes or nodding off to sleep, so I’ll get to the good stuff…

Today is the 4th anniversary of the day I started this blog. I am also X number of comments away from 3000. So, in honor of both, I’m doing 2 giveaways. Whoever posts that 3000th comment will get a thank you gift, AND everyone who can tell me (leave a comment on this post) how many days in that 1st month I posted multiple times in one day (What the heck was I thinking back then?) will get tossed into the hat (knitted of course) for a drawing. To be clear, you just need to tell me the total # of days I posted more than once in a day, not how many total posts.

Prizes? Yes, there will be prizes, but more on that tomorrow (I’m not working tomorrow so I plan to post in the afternoon which will let me take daylight pictures)

Obviously the 3000th comment thing only goes until I hit 3000, but the anniversary part will stay open until, eh, a week sounds good – St Patrick’s day it is!

4 things – and no, no lizard (with a nod to “Blink“)

Anyone else get their butt severely kicked by the time change this go-round? I sure did, and from what I’ve seen around the Plurkiverse, I’m not the only one. I’m hoping tonight is better, it’s almost like losing all the ground I’ve gained in the last week or so.

Tomorrow is the second of 6 sewing classes. I’m looking forward to getting into more that the introductions and guidelines we went thru last week. We’re supposed to be addressing seams, and as part of our homework, we were supposed to buy 1/2 a yard of a cotton fabric that we could tell the difference between front and back.

I got this because the little daisies made me smile

I think the back qualifies

When I was waiting to have my fabric cut, the girl in front of me was buying 3 yards of another fabric. The clerk started unwrapping the bolt, and there was a little over a yard orphaned. The pattern is outside my usual color scheme and style, but there was something about it I really liked.

Guess who’s starting a fabric stash to keep the yarn stash company?

Third thing is a thank you. Today at work I had a very sad thing happen to my keyboard. Now this may sound crazy, but I really like my work keyboard. The key touch is “just right” and it doesn’t have the delete key in a weird place and the enter key is the right size (yes, I have issues. So what?) Anyway, my friend J, who also happens to be our IT guy (he was my friend 1st – we worked together in a place otherwise known as Hell, and became friends. Luckily, we work together again) came to my rescue. He fixed my keyboard and made my afternoon much better. Thank you J It’s the little things in life…

And finally, thing four – Tomorrow is the 4 year anniversary of my blog. I’m also approaching a milestone in comments, so I think I’ll tie the two things together and do a giveaway of sorts. I’m not sure yet what the prizes will be, or what the actual qualifier is, but by this time tomorrow (ok maybe a little later, I have to get home from sewing class and post it) we’ll ALL know what it will be. Just thought that if you read thru this far you deserved a little head’s up.

Carolina’s beating the Rangers, so there’s hockey to watch and knitting to do (ahhhh the road to the playoffs – I love this time of year, regardless of how badly and pathetically my team did AGAIN) – catch ya tomorrow!

I just got home from the 1st night of sewing class, caught up quick on my email and I’m heading off to take the new meds I was prescribed (yes, I spoke to the doctors office early about my lack of results, and I’m trying something new – we’ll see) and get into bed early. Not quite as early as I’d like but I’ll take what I can get.

I am glad I signed up for this class as despite a slow start tonight (I already knew how to thread my machine and bobbin, but I’m really glad she’s taking it from the very basics) I think it will be a good class. I hope to learn as much as I can from her in the next six weeks.

After class we shopped for the practice fabric we need for next weeks class – yes I likely already have something here I can use, but it was all 30% off… I will show you the 2 I got tomorrow – tonight just a weird, slightly artsy shot of my machine in class. I’ll try to take better class pictures next week

And now, off to bed with me! Sweet dreams (I HOPE!)

I mentioned briefly yesterday I got a sewing machine for my birthday last month. I’ve been wanting one for awhile, and this was my year It’s got some fancy bells and whistles I can grow into and isn’t so overwhleming with “stuff” that I would be afraid to even touch it.

Shortly after I go it, Aimee and Steph came over in an attempt to help me get started on the right path, starting, of course, with a trip to Mary Jo’s.

After an overwhelming walk thru (seriously – 32 THOUSAND square feet packed with fabric. And then more fabric. With a few notions thrown in for good measure. This was my second visit there, but the 1st time I went, I didn’t have a machine yet, and I didn’t buy anything) we left with some stuff for me to make an actual project – coasters for my honey to use on his desk. Steph was sure it would be a good beginning project for me, and she and Aimee were going to work on a set as well, but with a matching table runner.

I didn’t take pictures that day but thanks to the two of them, I actually finished 4 coasters that didn’t totally suck.

Look! Action shot!

In that pic you can see my newb status shining thru, but ya know what? It’s ok. I had fun, I’m learning to use my machine, and I made my honey smile.

I had another sewing day with Corey shortly after, and we made little project bags. Her’s came out great! Mine came out ok, save for one corner that I am not happy with but learned from. I didn’t take any pictures then either, and it’s not close enough for a pic now. Maybe later, but suffice to say it’s one of those average drawstring bags that looks good except for one bottom corner ;)

Then things started getting really busy holiday wise, There was the baking of eleventy hundred thousand cookies for work (really – damn close to it!) and other festive things. The machine sat a little bit, but only because time was not my friend. Then when things started to ease up some, I was at Borders with Corey during lunch (having it across the street from work is a blessing and a curse!) and we found this great beginners sewing book called Sew Everything Workshop. I sat down with it yesterday and went through the beginning exercises, including some free form messing around with the machine.

When I was done, I had a better understanding of HOW the machine works, and some good ideas of things I need to practice (straight lines anyone?). I also allegedly have a tea towel (folded neatly in the pile, hard to make out), but I admit to having no idea what it is, or why I would want one. I have a ton to learn and I’m really enjoying it. I know I will pick up a bunch by trial and error and plan to play often. I 1st need to get everything moved upstairs to the crafty room so I can use the table that was also a birthday gift. It’s got two fold out extensions with a bank of drawers down the middle. Pics once it’s all set up.

I had planned to knit after sewing yesterday but realized I had month end reports due today (I took the day off) so I spent about 3 hours getting those run and the data analyzed. Good times indeed! Then it was getting late, and there was a weird car issue we had to address so long story short, there was zero knitting yesterday.

As for today, we spent a good chunk of our day purging out our home office closet (which still had a few boxes from when we moved in 14 months ago). We threw out a ton of stuff we just didn’t need, shred paperwork we had no use for anymore and organized it in a way we can both live with. While there’s still a bunch more to be done, I’ll enjoy my victories where I can. It’s better now than it was, and I still have some time to go knit – which is exactly what I’m off to do!

Happy 1st weekend of 2009!

PS – my sidebar is having some issues as my feed service that keeps the links active and pretty seems to be suffering a bit of a post holiday hangover. If it doesn’t clean up in the next day or so, I will likely yank the php includes and skip the feeds altogether. Maybe I will see if I can find another way to do what Feed Digest used to do so well (but seems to have stopped) Blerg!