Thursday, July 7, 2016

FOR THE LOVE OF SEWING! MY DESTINY!

I just looked at my blog after all these months.  I have not written on my blog since October 30th, 2015.  I will just skip to the current year.  It is not that my life has been that dull but I just got busy with other things and completely ignored my blog.  I will try to do better.
      I am sure that everyone knows that I won a sewing machine at the Sewing expo in Puyallup in February of 2016.  I was almost in shock.  I could hardly believe that my number was called for the grand prize.  The picture above is the Babylock Destiny.  I won the Babylock Unity which is a $10,000 machine. When we went to the Babylock booth the next morning I saw this Destiny.  The main difference between the Unity and the Destiny is that the Destiny has a scanner.  When I saw that scanner I really wanted that one.  I sheepishly went to the salesman and asked if by any chance I could upgrade to the Destiny and he said sure. He let me upgrade to the demo they had at the Expo for $3000. The Destiny sells for $17,000.  I would never get an opportunity like that again.
      Of course there is no such thing as "free".  I have invested in the carrying case which was pricey and a very expensive book with all the details on how to do everything and then I had to buy the accessory case to hold all the accessories.  Of course then there was the embroidery thread, and the bobbin thread and the stabilizer and the batting and needles, etc.
      The machine sews, embroiders and quilts.  Donna and I took lessons and Debbie took me to one of the lessons. We have learned a lot. You can take the lessons as often as you want to.
        I have learned so much about machine embroidering in a relatively short time. I have been putting together some projects which are quite time consuming but a lot of fun.  I will show some pictures of those later. Getting this machine has given me something really exciting to do.  I go upstairs almost every day and work on it. The machine does the actual embroidering but you have to make appliques and plan how to cut fabrics.
      One thing that has surprised me is that the embroidery thread goes a long way.  I have used so much thread and none of my spools are completely empty yet. The bobbin thread goes much faster and the spools of bobbin thread are expensive. At Quality Sewing they told me about the pre threaded bobbins. It is cheaper to use the pre threaded bobbins than winding it yourself.  It is so easy too.  You drop a bobbin in and when it is empty just put a new one in.  I found it is cheaper to buy them through Amazon than to buy them at Quality Sewing.
       Next time I will tell you about the Anita Goodesign parties we have gone too.  You have fun and learn too.
 

Monday, November 2, 2015

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Clouds
On October 30th the air was very warm because a big rainstorm was going to hit. I spent almost an hour outside watching the clouds and enjoying the warm air.  The storm did come in and we did get a lot of rain for Sequim.

It was rainy for Halloween and a little into Sunday. Halloween did not turn out to be a great day for Donna and Leif but that is their story to tell.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

GETTING READY FOR HALLOWEEN

My wonderful daughter and son-in-law
Donna and Leif posing in the costumes they will be wearing for the Church "Trunk and Treat" on Friday and then on Halloween they will be participating at the big "Trunk and Treat" at the Ford Dealership in Port Angeles. They did that last year and really enjoyed it. I will be here at the house handing out candy to the Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood. We did not have too many last year. It gives me a little more time to work on my counted cross stitch as I sit by the front window and can see people coming up the street.

Monday, October 26, 2015

NICE WEEKEND

Friday Donna, Leif and I went to the Kelly's (Rachel's parents) for lunch.  We ended up spending the day. We went to the Joyce country store and then to a park. It was fun being with everyone.

A picture of the small gifts we gave the kids.  Donna made the green bags with each of the girls names on them and a Thomas the Train pillow for Henry.  On the table is the small quilt we made for Noah.  I picked out the Dinosaur fabric. There was only one left in the store we went to.  I knew it was for Noah.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Pattern of counted cross stitch that I am working on now.
Now that I finished my Wolf picture, I had to have 
something to do. This one won't be as easy as it looks.  
All the bird seed is going to be done with French Knots.
I have a start on it

Thursday, October 15, 2015

SUNNY DAY

Pictures of our house and neighboring yards.
It was such a beautiful day.  I took a short walk and then took these pictures before I went inside. There was a long vapor trail which showed up better than I thought it would. These Smart phones take amazingly good pictures.
Dan and Darrell at Dan's Tire shop

They do more than tires.  They repair cars also.  Darrell does a lot of the car repairs.  It is wonderful to see my sons working together.