Yearly Archives: 2006

Do you Wist???

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OK. I don’t know what it means either.

Dictionary dot com has some references to archaic terms, but they don’t seem to apply.

What am I talking about??

It’s a web “thing” that lets you collect up websites on the fly. Sounds like bookmarks, I know, but it’s better. When you’re zooming around the web, you can click on a button on your toolbar and save a single thing to your “Wists” and go back to them later. You can collect items from other peoples Wists and add them to yours. I think it’s designed as sort of a WishList for shopping but has potential for a lot more.

I’ve got an “Add to Wists” button on all my ‘puters so that if I happen to be browsing around at the office, I can explore that cute little whatever when I get home.

Their website doesn’t have the greatest of all possible documentation, but I’ve plunged in and am exploring. Mostly I’m collecting up web tutorials for hand-crafts.

Wanta see my Wists???

Rustybobn Sews a Tissue Box Cover

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The bathroom needs a little holiday cheer any way it could get it. The Scotties tissue box on the back of the throne was a possible candidate to add some, so I decided to make a festive cover for it.

Looking around the web, I found several sites with instructions. As usual, I was trying to make it way too hard! The best instructions I found were at About.com. (I won’t link you there because they are so lousy with pop-up ads.) They took the measurements of the tissue box and added 1 inch for ease. That seemed like way too much ease for an inanimate object. I added a half inch, which was also too much.

Next time I’ll use a quarter inch of ease.

Anyway, Take the measurements of your box and add ease to length and width. Draw yourself a pattern that looks something like this: Tissue box pattern
Next, cut out the paper pattern and draw it onto an appropriately sized piece of fabric. (If you don’t want to embroider, you can just cut the pattern out of fabric at this point.) This happens to be a leftover from my recent jacket project.Embroider it if you want.

When you are done with the embroidery, finish the center hole as you see fit. I chose to make a facing. I placed the facing piece over the center, right sides together, and sewed around the opening. Then I cut the center open and pulled the facing to the inside. Then, I trimmed the facing and topstitched it in place. (You’ll see that it is green in a later photo.)

 Tissue box pattern
Next cut the box to the final pattern size on the lines you drew at the beginning. trim it
Pin the vertical seams together and stitch at your desired seam allowance. pin the seams and sew
It will look like a box when all four are sewn. Next you have to hem it. You can finish the raw edge however you like. I sewed bias tape around mine. All four sides sewn.
To get the hem just right. Turn the cover right side out and put the tissue box inside. Turn the hem inside all the way around and pin. I slip-stitched mine in place by hand. You do what you like. Turn under the hem
When it’s done, display it proudly. Your husband will say something complimentary and you can blush and say “Aw, shucks!” Finished cover.

Pink Velour Hooded Pullover

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Pink velour top front Pink velour top back

This thing makes me smile to look at at. How much more cheery can you get than bubblegum-pink velour??

With a hood????

PMB settings for this top

I drafted this in PatternMaster (click the thumbnail to see the settings) and made a few modifications in PE:

  • lengthened the hood 1.5″ as PMB’s hood is never long enough for me
  • drafted a front facing to suit my desired slit neckline style

It was a breeze to sew. The velour did not give me any stabilizer problems when hemming or anything. The only slight problem I had was when I was attempting to wrap the hem of the hood around the neckline seam to finish that. I had forgotten my plan and had hemmed the hood first.

Rrrr-r-r-r-i-p-p-pppp!!!!

This is the last garment in my sewing room. If I choose to make any more wearables before Christmas, it will be because I have free time and a deep, well-considered longing to do so…. No more “get it out of the way” sewing for now.

I can last a week, right??

I did not get the pink rayon princess tee cut and don’t plan to at this point. When I went to the table to cut it, it just didn’t speak to me anymore.

OK.

A year on the bicycle

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December 1st marked the one year anniversary of my starting to workout on the semi-recumbent stationary bicycle. I’ve averaged 3 times a week–that’s about 33 miles or 540 extra calories burned each week.

Woo hoo!

During the year I also walked the neighborhood occasionally with Mr H, bought (and used about 5 times) an inflatable fitness ball and dvd set, rowed on a Concept2 Indoor Rower a little–which is great fun but makes my knees swell–and dropped out of a beginner’s pilates class.

My pilates teacher was older than me and walks around in a body she could have stolen from a 20-year-old. I’m convinced that pilates is fabulous exercise if you’re ready for it. As for me, I need remedial pilates.

Or geriatric pilates…

Most of my friends who start exercise programs lose weight and look all svelte. With all this year’s exercise I’ve gained 10 pounds and have a significantly bigger backside to fit.

I’d be really mad if I hadn’t been a bony runt to start with.

If you’re concerned with diet and exercise, let me leave you with this article from a techy blog that I read:

What happens to your body if you drink a Coke.

Yikes!

Angels I’m watching over

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angel ornament

So far I’ve stitched out 8 of these freestanding lace angel ornaments. They are *so* pretty that I just can’t stop! They take about an hour to stitch out on my machine. If I run out of bobbin thread, or a needle breaks, it takes even longer.

On this particular one, I ran out of bobbin thread on the right-hand arm. For whatever reason, my machine didn’t beep to let me know. By the time I thought “That thing doesn’t sound right,” it had stitched almost to the end and I had to backtrack for many minutes to get to the place that it needed to start stitching again.

That one took about an hour and a half.

I’ve used three different threads on these, and the one I like best is a heavy-ish 100% cotton that I bought to sew with. I didn’t like it for regular sewing, and there are 5000 yards, so I’m glad to find a use for it!

As I mentioned last week, the angel is WAS a free download. It has been brought to my attention that the download is no longer available. It was (apparently) a sample of Expressive Lace(TM) by Marie Osmond Lace Up Your Life Vol. 1, so I suppose you could purchase it, if you really wanted the design.