Sewing and Fitness

See this:




You know what it is, right? (And I'm not talking about my machine, but what's BELOW it. Yep, it's an exercise ball. What does it have to do with sewing? Everything for me.



Sitting and standing are still painful for me, especially on a hard chair, or even a cushioned computer chair. I don't know what it is, but my neck really hurts after sitting for extended periods of time.


Two days ago, my computer chair broke. So I brought my Sissel ball out to use as my chair. It doesn't solve all my aches and pains, but it sure doesn't make them feel as bad as sitting on a hard chair, my computer chair, or sitting in my car. I'm a person who likes to be in constant movement. Whether it's twiddling my fingers, moving my legs, anything! The ball lets me "keep in motion", and I think that is good for my aches and pains.


And do you know what the plus side to this is? I woke up the next morning after using it and some ab muscles that I never knew I had were sore LOL. Or maybe that's just because I haven't been able to do any abs since the accident. Just sitting on the chair with a slight rolling motion, whether it be front to back or side to side, works the core. Today, I'm going to see if it's a suitable height for the times I'm using my sewing machine. (I just checked and it is :) !) In any case, if you want tighter, more toned abs, switch your computer chair to an exercise ball. For people like me who thrive on constant motion, and even the ones who don't, I'm sure you'll be pleased at the results over several weeks. When I'm given the okay to resume weightlifting and abs at the gym, I'm hoping that at least one part of my body, my abs, won't be in a full revolt.


Today I put the finishing touches on DH's jacket. It was supposed to be done last week, but he had issues with the sleeves. The ribbing at the bottom wasn't tight enough. This was AFTER I had used a knit stitch and finished the seam allowances--)*@#&$%)*@#&$)@#*!!! Seam ripping a knit stitch on fleece and ribbing? Puhleeeaaassseee...I'd rather be stuck with 10 sharp pins. But I did it anyway. That is what you call love!


Thank you to Laura for the update on Wonder Tape! I sure miss having it.

Where's My Wonder Notion?

Who knows why it's hard to get Wonder Tape anymore, but I sure do miss it. It's a must-have notion for installing zippers in fleece garments and my DH's jacket has a very long front zipper.

On his KS jacket, the raw edges of the fabric where the zipper is installed are left raw and I hate that. It looks so...homemade :( . So I decided to bind the raw edges down the CF with bias tape. I think this was a wise decision. It made it easier to install the zipper with a minimal roller coaster effect from lack of Wonder Tape.

One more zipper side to go and it's done! Soon I'll post pics of his cozy jacket.

I Can't Believe It!

Pictures are coming! I finished my Lingerie set!!! It only took me 5X as long as usual :( though. My Lingerie set includes a short robe, bra and panties. Tomorrow I will do the reviews for all and enter the set in the Lingerie contest at PR.

I'll leave you with three chemo hats I finished last month for Stacey. BTW, she is doing SO well. Her tumor is almost non existent now and she just finished up chemo this past week. Hopefully she can wear these as just winter hats or give them away to someone who might need them. Sometimes we don't need reminders of where we've been.

Here are the final 3 chemo hats in the set:

Tomorrow I will post my "Beautiful Blue Moon" Lingerie Set.

Struggling to Sew

I had a bad week last week so I spent no time at the sewing machine, thanks to the lady who plowed her car into my van. So I'm currently struggling to work on my bra and panty set for the Lingerie contest over at PR. The bra should take me a day, and it might take all of this week to finish it unfortunately. It really depends on how I feel and how long my body can take sitting in a chair at the machine.

At this point, I'm just hoping to be well enough to work on it just a little bit each day in order to finish it by the contest deadline.

We'll see...sure hoping to have some pretty pics of some luscious lingerie by Saturday.

Finished Sewing Projects!

Here are two of the four that I have to post about. Both of these were done last week pre-accident so all I had to do was model them. I left off my head. I'm in a grumpy, dumpy mood. (You don't need to see it, nor would you want to.) Medical issues still plague me and that's why.

Anyway, first project is my leopard print skirt. It's just a simple, self-drafted pattern. You know the routine: measure your hips, add preferential ease, cut the width of the fabric to that amount, cut the length adding the hem and waist allowances and bam! You have the "pattern". I wore this outfit to church this morning. I was going to wear it with some fabulous heels I bought, but those will wait. Worry about tripping is one thing when you're healthy, but when you're not, it's a no go. Flat boots are a must.

The leopard print fabric is a mesh woven. The skirt is lined with a Bemberg-type of lining. The two layers sandwich the elastic at the top of the skirt. The black lining is about 3-4" shorter than the skirt for a "peekaboo" effect. I tried to show it in the pic below but don't know how evident it is. In the sunlight, the effect is more evident. I was actually ambitious enough to change the threads on my serger to do a rolled hem on the lining and the woven mesh fabric.

Here is the non-fancy, simple dimple, elastic waistband:

And here is the easy peasy rolled hem.

On to my elusive "perfect" pair of pants. They're not perfect yet, but they're getting there. The pants draft was from a Threads issue a couple of years ago. The pattern was self drafted from those instructions with tweaks from another Thread's article by Joyce Murphy on body space.

Before Christmas I ordered Marian Lewis' pants fitting book. The method she uses is not much different than what I did in Jean Haas' Darting Below the Beltline class, however, she does add some new info for the crotch area. I did NOT use the info in her book yet. At this point I just wanted to develop a basic custom block. Believe me, it actually looks like a Franken block 'cuz I have such a weird shaped body.

My plan now is to shave off another 1/2" from the back under the butt via a fisheye dart alteration since there is still a bit of baggy-ness in that area. I think my fuller right side is taking up more of the fabric than the left too. My posture isn't perfect in the pic for this post so I need to examine more of my back pics. Once that is done, then I'll create a separate right and left front and right and left back. This is a necessity for me. My right side of my body is both wider and fuller than my left with a bit of hip height discrepancy as well. This is partly what Marian discusses in her book. Ideally, for a great pair of pants I'd do well with a vertical seam down the middle of the back leg too. I'm trying to get a tradeoff at this point.

Another thing is I like my pants snug. There is almost no way I'm going to eliminate front wrinkles at the crotch with the fit I want, especially in the fabric I used. I could make the pants looser and the wrinkles would go away, but the baggy fit would bother me more than the wrinkles. Ah...the old tradeoff again. It is what is. I'm not going to obsess about these things, but ridding myself of most of the baggy butt wrinkles with my custom drafted pattern is my goal. Most, I say, because that fabric in the back also is ease. That doesn't make things easy. So I'll keep taking a smidge out of my draft, no more than a 1/2" each time. Give me another two or three pairs of pants and I think I have the almost perfect pair.

Here are the pants front:

Here's the pants back. Not perfect, getting there, but definitely better than RTW.

Next up are the shirts I finished two months ago. They need to be pressed before being modeled. Maybe tonight they'll at least get hit with the iron.

See ya tomorrow, hopefully!

Sewing and the Spine

Thank you, everyone, for your comments and good wishes. My aches, soreness, and occasional dull pains still plague me in the neck and shoulder area with mild intermittent headaches and slight sinus pressure. Yes, the other lady was insured by the same company as me. I've discussed options with an attorney. Still waiting to hear about my van. If you saw the crumpled front of her car, you'd get an idea with the amount of force that hit my van. Let me tell you, this stuff is really a pain in the a$$. One thing the attorney brought up was massage therapy in addition to the chiropractor. I never thought about that. My chiro is not a fan of muscle relaxants and neither am I. As she says, "The heart is also a muscle." I don't want to be relaxing all my muscles, just my neck and shoulders, so the muscle relaxant prescription still sits on my counter, and I don't plan on filling it. There is a massage therapy place near me so I will check that out today.

DD#1 had X-rays two weeks ago at the chiro. Then she had another set the day of the accident. I'll let the chiro check out both sets. As she was adjusting my daughter, she said her current back pain is definitely the result of the accident.

Off the topic of the stupid car accident, good news! I finished my khaki pants from my "elusive" perfect pants patterns. This was my custom, self drafted pattern I worked on last year. (Yes, I did say last year...). I'll take pics soon. Made great progress on DH's jacket. Traced off the pattern for my Vogue retro jacket, and finished cutting out the fabric and interfacing for my Burda blouse. Which reminded me as I was cutting it out--only work with great fabric. Life is too short for crappy stuff. I hope I don't regret using this brown, crinkly cotton for the Burda blouse. Pics are coming!

More later.

Its Been Awhile: Finished Sewing Projects!

Yeah, it feels like forever since I've actually posted about finished projects. Really, I'd like them to be garments because my garment sewing has been so sporadic lately, but any finished projects are good.

The first project is an embarrassing UFO. DD#2 and I discussed the idea of a Birthday Memory Quilt for one of her close friends. Her friend's parents took the girls to the 9/20/09 Mets game (which they won!), and I asked the mom to take pics for the quilt. DD#2's friend still doesn't know what her birthday present is, but my daughter has been telling her that it has been coming along. For an entire 4 months! It seemed like every time I tried to work on it, I'd get to a point then stop for some reason. I was planning on finishing it the last week of November, but my tension disk went wonky on my embroidery machine. It had to be serviced, and it took 3 long weeks to get it back. At that point, I was pressed for time with 20 headbands for Christmas presents for my daughters' friends.

Here are some of the headbands with their Christmas tags. The school name and mascot were also embroidered on them in addition with each girls' names. I used some great 100 weight fleece ordered from http://www.wazoodle.com/ (royal blue on the front/grey on the back and terrific fleece BTW). I made several changes from a book's design so it's essentially my own at this point and enjoyed using my Coverstitch for the topstitching around the headband edges.

The downside to these headbands? DD#1 came home and said several people were mad at her because they didn't get one LOL. I may have several orders come spring time when Track and Softball starts. Truly, these headbands were a big hit with their friends. These headbands were designed to perfectly match the embroidered scarves I made for their friends for Christmas 2008

Back to the Memory Quilt! Here is the quilt front:

DD#2 picked the pictures to use for the quilt and I embroidered the front with the Mets lineup from the 9/20/09 game. Baseball graphics and text were added for a customized Birthday Memory Quilt. It was great that the game date was also the exact date of her friend's birthday.

The quilt is double sided with orange fleece on the back. That side is plain because I wanted it to feel soft against her skin. The top and bottom edges are fringed and knotted, the sides are just fringed. I used the iron-on transfer sheets for the pics and ironed the pics to cotton flannel. For the edges of the pics, I used pinking shears, then stitched around the inside of the pinked edges to attach the photo blocks to the quilt.

Here's a closeup of the upper front of the quilt:

Here's a closeup of the lower quilt:

The one disappointment? The girls couldn't get a pic of themselves with David Wright ;) . But at least our darn Mets won that game. I was very happy for Danielle. She's a big Mets fan and we're a family of Mets fans although sometimes we wonder why.

Next up, finishing my leopard print skirt.

ETA, I'll leave you with a pics of Jake in my sewing room.