I broke down.  I couldn’t stop myself.  I was calling my name, making my fingers itch, and making my mouth water all at the same time.  It’s just too purty!

I have a weakness for samples anyways.  I have them all over the studio and I’m still looking for wherever I put that Kona sample card from before the wedding.  Hmm…  with the box of invitation leftovers, maybe?  … I digress.  I started looking for the right color for the night sky part of the dress and can’t really see on the screen.  When I started to order individual samples, I realized that it was probably better to just order the whole set and have it over with.  Oh DARN!

Once that arrives, then I get to go thread shopping!  Thursday night I got a wild hair and started playing with some YLI 100 silk thread I had from a vintage quilt repair last year.  It is so delicious to quilt with on Lola.  Part of me hates not buying Superior Thread.  They’ve been really good to me so far and I love their threads.  A little birdie tells me they’re working on silk thread, but it got put on the back burner in favor of a 40wt solid cotton (think King Tut size, MasterPiece solids) that will be out April or May.  I can’t wait for that, but now I’m forced to use retail thread for a while.  Heather and Bob, just know, I’m waiting with baited breath for that silk.

I know, I know, Bottom Line is the same size.  I tried it, side by side with the silk on a sample of silk satin with wool batt.  It’s just not the same on silk.  Maybe on cotton it wouldn’t be so obvious.  It’s somehow rougher to stitch with.  And that was running it under the exact same conditions as the silk (same top tension numbers, same bobbin thread, both off the spool not a cone)  Granted, rougher than silk isn’t saying much.  I can see why hand appliquers use silk.  It. Melts.  Melts, I tell ya!  I’m definitely going to use it as the background stitching on Violet Crown.  Luckily, Honey Bee (down the block) has a really comprehensive selection of colors.  I need to check with them about a sample card or ordering colors that they don’t already carry.

Now I remember why I have more projects planned than finished…  it’s just too much fun!

Tomorrow evening, while a customer is on the longarm, I’m hoping to get some things loaded up into my etsy shop.  I’ve had a few requests to sell my hand-dyed fabric, perle cotton, and silk ribbon.  I’m happy to oblige as long as it doesn’t take over my world.  Problem is, I can’t decide what to put up.  I could really use some feedback on what would be most interesting.  I’m considering:

- fat quarter or fat eighth sets, potentially in color wheels, single color gradations, or color runs

- jelly rolls (or other pre-cut sets) in color wheels at light, medium, and dark saturations

- yardage (any thoughts on colors to start?)

- misdyes

- perle cotton, both individual and sets (but can’t decide what to sell and what to keep for myself)

- silk ribbon (what I have already dyed is mostly bold solidy-type colors)

What am I leaving out?  What is reaching?

I am in awe of the enthusiasm I witnessed today.  And so, a thank you…

Thank you to everyone who called or emailed or IM’ed or texted to remind me to vote.  You all deserve hugs.

Thank you to each and every person who took the time to exercise their constitutional right.  You braved the hassles, the lines, and the traffic to protect my rights as much as your own.

Thank you to every person in history who fought to give us that right.  My eternal gratitude is with you.

Thank you to the women who were beaten in jail for daring to picket outside the White House.  Your strength makes me well up with tears of pride.

Thank you to every person who expressed your personal opinions, be they conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican (or Libertarian or Independent), radical or moderate.  I hope that you never have to fear reprisal for your speech.  I will fight for your rights with every breath I have.

Thank you to my parents who made me watch C-SPAN as a child and took me along to see how the process works.  I pray that I am able to teach my children as well as you have taught Jon and me.

Thank you to my friends who let me be rediculously political at times in my life.  You all should have been issued earplugs the moment you met me.

Thank you to each and every one of the delegates I met at the county convention in March.  Your willingness to put our differences aside and come to a compromise gives me great hope for the future of this nation.

Thank you to the politicians I’ve worked with over the years.  You didn’t have to be kind to a teenager who knew way to much about government for her own good.

Thank you to all the men who created this process that has worked so very well these past 200-odd years.  You deserve much more than to only be called Founding Fathers.  You risked everything to follow your dreams and I hope you would be pleased with the way we interpet your dream today.

And thank you to YOU for reading this far.  

I am very proud to be an American tonight.  That is not something I could have said after past elections.  It’s not because of who won.  It’s because of the enthusiasm I saw this year that I’ve never seen before.  I’ve been to precinct caucuses with 8 people and to attend one with 443 blew my mind.  To break records across the country for voting numbers and registration numbers is monumental.  I have great hope that our generation will stand up and work for the changes we seek.  I head to bed now with a calm about my heart.  I no longer feel like things are spiraling away from me politically.  I do see hope with the dawn.

Whenever I go to Dallas with my sewing machine, I always seem to forget something.  I’m packing right now for SF and I’m afraid I’m going to forget something important.  You know, like thread.  Or a seam ripper.  Something not very expensive to get another but that I have at home and will still be a hassle to go find.  There’s not any quilt stores near our hotel.  It’s a 45 minute bus ride to the nearest quilt store, but they might not have what I need.  Britex isn’t that far, I guess.  I just might not be able to find, like, rotary cutter blades or something.

So my question is:  What do you find that you always forget when you travel/go to retreats?  And what is on your must take list?

I nearly lost my website.  A customer emailed me saying that she couldn’t get to my website, so I double-checked to make sure it was still up.  NOPE.  The domain registration had expired but the company I used to register it didn’t send me any emails and I stupidly thought they would.  Another company had sniped it, too.  I was able to “reactivate” the domain, but the site isn’t up just yet.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it works and I don’t have  to pay some guy $200 to get my site back.  

This made me start thinking about my blog.  I’ve wanted to perk it up and change the theme.  That’s very limited with just the regular wordpress.com blogs.  Now, with wordpress.org, there’s a lot of options.  I have hosting space but I was afraid that if I moved the blog, it would be more hassle than it’s worth.  I learned this week that I can set it up so that this blog still exists and the feed still exists and it just redirects everything.  Thank you, wordpress!  Now I feel like I should do more research and see if this is what I want.

I have another customer today and then it’s time to pack.  We leave Sunday afternoon for a week.  I’m planning on posting while we’re in SF, so look for very different posts (like pictures of shoe stores…  hehehehe) and fun pics of zee TallBoy while we travel.  He’s hilarious in airports, I swear.  Looking forward to flying JetBlue for the first time, too!

Strangely enough, after just mentioning that I was looking for a real girdle, I noticed a woman at the gym this morning wearing a compression garment.  My trainer told me she’d had a body lift.  I remembered my friend Terry wearing one after her tummy tuck and she showed it to me.  They’re very very firm and it’s almost like my aquarobics swimsuit with the legs.  I’m going to look into that, maybe while i’m in SF.

Speaking of SF (and back to non-body-issue-type discussion), I’m getting things ready to take with me.  I’m thinking my to-do list while I’m there will be:

1. Buy stuff at Fabrix (and make a blog post about the store)

2. Finish The Bro’s graduation cross-stitch gift (just in time for his birthday!)

3. Start work on the Mario scene I’ve had designed for a year.

** those are both on-plane projects for the most part **

4. Re-sew Vegas Batiks

5. Sew on Margaret’s Empty Nest quilt

6. Make a 5-minute skirt (maybe two if I decide I don’t want to piece any on quilts)

7. Opera on Wednesday, maybe

8. Do more try-ons at Harper Greer, Go Figure, and Igigi (if their showroom is open) and, of course, share with you, my lovely readers.  I’m sure you’re all just dying to see more poorly lit pictures of me in partially awful clothing.  I’ll take a real camera this time and TallBoy will be at work.

9. Check out that fetish shoe store I saw last time.  You know…  the one across the street from the mosque?

10.  Maybe also check out Cookin’

Can anyone think of other things I should do while I’m in SF?

One thing about sewing your own clothes…  it’s hard to tell how the style is going to look on you until you’ve put in a considerable amount of time and/or effort.  So, I’ve taken it upon myself to go to a variety of stores and try on lots of different styles of clothing.  R tagged along and ended up taking some pictures of the few things that looked good in one way or another.  I’m going to share these, but please keep in mind that they were not only taken with a Blackberry, but they were also me mugging-all-goofy for the camera.  They look utterly ridiculous.  But I can’t really talk about them without *showing* them.

R really liked this dress.  He admitted that he has a thing for 60s fashion (I never knew that!) and he liked the flounce on the sleeves.  I wouldn’t have ever picked a flounce and even in the mirror I didn’t think it looked good.  But when I look at the picture, I’m surprised at how it balances out.  I also didn’t think I’d like the big round collars.  They’re a little too 60s for 50s-leaning-Deana.  But I have to admit that they do look good on me.  One thing I’ve learned from all these pictures is that Spanx are NOT a girdle, no matter what everyone keeps trying to claim.  I am now in search of a really really good girdle.  If I have to make it myself from 5 layers of spandex, I will!  Those bumps and lumps should be GONE with a dress like that. 

I don’t like prints.  They get dated too fast.  They’re often faddish.  I don’t do faddish.  Gosh, there are lots of things that I don’t do, aren’t there?  This shirt showed me that I can make the empire tops with woven fabrics.  But this is totally not designed for a pear shape and why do designers think that big girls look good with elastic digging into their arms?  Puffed sleeves are for redheads on Prince Edward Island.  :D

R really likes this sweater.  The sleeves work for me.  They do help balance my hips visually.  I have to be careful what I let R pick out, though.  This is the man that thinks I look perfect naked and doesn’t care if my shirt is too short or anything hangs right.  He thinks girdles are silly because they hide my shape.  I love him, love him, love him dearly.  But therefore, he is completely biased when it comes to what’s flattering.

Now, why is this the only focused picture of the whole lot?  I LOVE this view.  If I could erase the clothes hanging in the background, I’d make it my profile pic on Facebook.

This one really surprised me.  Do me the favor of ignoring the-arms-I-hate.  I never thought this would be so flattering.  It was definitely designed with a …uuuhhumm…. larger-chested-lady in mind, though.

And finally…..

This one I can’t decide on…  I feel a little bit like Madeline.  The big collar surprised me, but the fact that my favorite shirt hangs down below the jacket leads me to believe that it is too short.  Maybe over dresses, though?  What do you guys think?

I have somehow managed to bruise my left wrist.  No, not by being a super-klutz, as is my usual M.O…  By holding binding in place while sewing two quilts and by holding little bitzy flowers and beads in place on GUoB.  A BRUISE!  Seriously….  Granted, I’m prone to this because I tore this same muscle 12 years ago this week.  Old marching band injury.  

Yes, laugh all you want!  

I’m curious, dear readers…  What has been your strangest quilting/crafting/anything injury?

Mom called.  Asked me when the show was.  I gave her the dates.  She then asked when I had to turn in my quilts…..

<insert Charlie Brown ACK! here>

One week from today.  ONE.  WEEK.  7 measley days.  How did that happen?  It used to be two weeks!

I blame TallBoy and his alcohol poisoning on Saturday night.  Too much drinky-drink means wifey gets to stay up and make sure hubby’s still breathing.  Fortunately, it did not require a mirror as there was sawdust being created on that side of the bedroom.

There is no motivator like the realization of an impending deadline.  Tonight was:

- CC back on Lola to get the last little bits of quilting finished

- CC in the washer to get the marks out

- cutting out of flowers for GUoB

- blocking CC

- torturing TallBoy for opinions on where to place the flowers on GUoB

- sewing on of said flowers

- beginning to sew on beads for GUoB but realizing I hadn’t posted yet today

Et Voila!  

Ick, and now I have the hiccups….  again….  night, folks!

In looking for shoes for my fall wardrobe, I made the strangest discovery.  I spent a few hours in fruitless search for *that shoe* in *that color* and that will fit my giant duck feet.  When I found something (for a little more than I wanted to pay) I had to decide on a color.  In searching InStyle and Vogue, I kept seeing pictures of Natalie Portman with her satin pumps that are vegan friendly.  Really, I don’t care about it being leather or satin or whatever.  BUT, in thinking about satin pumps, I realized that I could get dyeable shoes and pick whatever color I want!  A very brief search brought me to my ideal shoes…

and then there’s this lovely one:

The best part of all of this is that the closest store is down the block.  I’m totally going over there tomorrow.

The worst part of all of this is that I still have to decide on what color.  But now at least I can get two pairs instead of just one.  :D