I subscribe to Nancy Zieman’s blog (Sewing with Nancy). She just posted about when she did the Perfect T-Shirt show, and what she learned doing the show. I really enjoyed reading her take on it, and thought you might too.
You can read it here.
Happy creating!
Do you see my new blog format? I’ve been doing a little work on it in the past week. I’ll share more on that later in the post.
This week I was playing with beads again. It was time for a new Medical ID bracelet for me, and for a friend.
My friend had purchased this bracelet, but as you can see, after wearing it for well over a year, she needed a new one. The coating on the Swarovski pearls had worn off. Now, she wears her bracelet all the time – in the shower, swimming – she doesn’t take it off.
I’ve used Swarovski crystals and pearls in the past and they haven’t done this, but I haven’t put them through all that hard wearing either. I take my bracelet off daily.
The new bracelet I made her is in the above photo as well, but here’s a better photo:
The new bracelet is over the old one. It looks much better. Classic design and lines. It’s lovely. I just might need one too.
While I had all my jewelry-making supplies out, I decided to make myself a bracelet. I love turquoise in the summer but didn’t have a Medical ID bracelet in turquoise. I do now.
The center three stone beads aren’t turquoise, but are the same stones I’d used in some earrings – dyed Imperial Jasper. The bracelet also has some lovely Sterling silver spacer and feature beads. I’ve been happily wearing it all week. My earrings, below, show you my matchy matchy. I made these last year.
Other than playing with beads, I mentioned I’ve been playing with my blog format. Do you like it? I love it too. It looks so clean and crisp.
Sadly it took more time than I would have liked. I’m not the most technical person, but I’m learning! Just to give you an example I took a full day to redirect the traffic from my old blog site to my new one. After spending time researching, trying something, it not working, more research and more tries… well, I found out I couldn’t do it myself. WordPress had to do that. It was so easy after I pushed a button and paid them a very small and very worthwhile fee! Done.
After redirecting, I spent some time taking photos for my background. I’d found a lovely lace background that I would have had to pay a terrible price to use – way more than real lace cost! Hmm, time to get some lace out.
Here are a few of my attempts before I found just what I wanted:
This is a lovely lace, but I wanted more in my background than just lace. The lace background was my original inspiration, but now I wanted more of me in it.
This is my kind of lace. This is so beautiful, but I found the black a bit distracting as a background when I was trying to read the text. As much as I loved it, I thought a little less just might be better for a background.
This one was a lot closer to what I wanted and what I felt represented me. But It wasn’t quite perfect for me yet. For my final background, you can see I kept my pearls and added my thimble. Perfect!
Happy creating!
This week I’m participating in a fun blog hop – just in time for Canada Day! For our hop, we’re featuring Canadian pattern designers. How Canadian is that, eh? I’ll be trying a new pattern and new-for-me company. Our blog hop starts today over on Happy Okapi and there is a list of wonderful deals in the post – all to celebrate Canada’s birthday. See below for the complete blog schedule.
Be sure to visit each of these brilliant blogs this week for more on our
outstanding Canadian designers and suppliers:
And, of course, to enter our giveaway for some sweet-like-maple-syrup prizes.
June 24: The Tour Starts HERE at Happy Okapi
June 25: Celine guest posts on Happy Okapi; Marsha @ Seam of my Pants
June 26: Fiona @ Tangled Blossoms Designs; Carla @ Half Dozen Daily
June 27: Sherry @ Thread Riding Hood; Reece @ Happy Okapi
June 28: Nicky guest posts on Seam of my Pants
June 29: Daniela @ On the Cutting Floor; Reece @ Happy Okapi
June 30: Michelle @ Michelle’s Creations
Canada Day–July 1: Ula @ Lulu & Celeste
July 2: Marsha @ Seam of my Pants
July 3: Keshia @ Sand Dollar Design Studio
July 4: Wrap Up @ Happy Okapi
July 6: Giveaway winners announced
Michelle’s Creations has a new home. Please visit www.michellescreations.ca.
Happy creating!
I’ve shared my journey with learning to fit and make alterations for my Omega shape. Just today, Beverly, the Fairy Bra Mother, has written a post dealing with this subject. It’s really informative! Take a look.
You can read it here:
Happy creating!
The really exciting news here is there wasn’t just one winner. There were five winners. Five!
We had fun with our Trivia Question. Did you catch that in our tour? The brand that used the advertising slogan, “Only in Canada, you say? Pity!” is Red Rose Tea.
Now for our winners:
We all have plans and we all have schedules. Mine changed suddenly last week, and my husband and I found ourselves flying to Ontario, Canada with only a day and a half notice. I knew right away though, there was no way I was going to be within hours of Bra Makers Supply and not go there. I started to make plans right away.
So here’s a little post about my trip to Bra Makers Supply. I was so excited to go, and to meet everyone. However, I arrived the same morning everyone was leaving for the Bra Makers Cruise. That was a small wrench in my plans, but I did get to meet Beverly and some of the staff. It all worked out great.
Beverly is as wonderful as you think she is, and so is the store! Due to our schedule, my DH had to rush me a little to get me out of the store. I arrived with a list in hand, and wanted to take my time and enjoy the whole process of being there, looking at everything, selecting what I wanted, taking photos all along the way. Our schedule demanded otherwise.
I did buy all the things on my list, but I didn’t take anywhere near as many photos as I wanted.
There were shelves that went almost to the ceiling. Everything is wonderfully organized; truly a bra-maker’s delight. Along one wall there were plastic baskets of rings, and sliders, and wires, oh my! Along the opposite wall were more shelves with laces, elastics, simply everything we need.
Just imagine shelves of laces!
Next to these were the Stretch Laces. I really could have spent a lot more time there. Well, my money would have run out eventually.
Below are just a snippet of the elastics. Right in the middle of the lower shelf that’s showing in the photo – the new Grey and to the right of it, the new Black Cherry. Oh so pretty! I heard they are going to be part of complete Finding Kits in those colors. Yay!
It was so fun, but DH was keeping me to my schedule. So a few quick photos, and it was time to seriously shop and hit the road again.
I bought everything I need for my Spring/Summer bra and panty wardrobe. That will be another post.
Oh, just look at that wonderful stash and me not at home with my sewing machine.
After we went to Bra Makers Supply, we made another quick stop: the location of the original Tim Horton’s restaurant. This may be the original site, but a new building has been put up.
This location is part restaurant – you can buy your coffee and whatever else Tim’s offers – but it’s also a museum. It was really a fun walk-through. Here are a few photos from the upstairs.
Does anyone remember these prices?
Here are the original donuts that were offered. I don’t remember any of these.
I thought this was a cute sign, so took a photo of this too. I have no desire whatsoever to be a Donut Maker, but a Bra-Maker. Yes, please!
This poster was great. I love how it tied the donuts to hockey. For all the non-Canadians reading, Tim Horton was a Canadian hockey player, who after that career, opened this chain of famously popular coffee shops, that are still very popular today.
My hubby is a Timmies fan, so this part of our stop in Hamilton was a highlight for him. With me not shopping, I had a little more opportunity to take few photos.
I can’t wait to get home and start sewing. Happy creating!
I’ve just posted over on So Sew Easy’s blog today on Types of Bra Patterns.
This is the third post in a series I’m doing for So Sew Easy on bra-making. The articles are starting out at the very beginning of what you need to do all the way up to jumping right in and start making bras yourself. This one deals with the different types of patterns out there. Not all patterns will work for all women, just as not every bra will fit every woman.
Here’s the link to take a look:
Happy creating!
I had such hopes my Watson was going to be perfect this time. The good news is my hopes aren’t completely dashed. My Watson isn’t perfect, but it’s not that far off.
Here it was beginning to take shape. I’d made two changes. The last time I’d made it, I made the largest size, but it was a bit small in the cup, so on this one I graded the cup up and then put some gathering stitches along the seam line and aligned those gathers at the bottom of the cup where it crosses the cup seam. Those little gathers are hardly noticeable and then I didn’t have to change the cradle at all.
The other change I made was to ‘beef’ it up a bit. I lined the cups with power net. It does offer a fair amount more support than the last one.
I have no idea why the front looks off-center like that with the foam cups in, but it doesn’t look like that without them. However, it does look a lot more deflated.
There, all deflated with wrinkles and puckers. However, the center front isn’t off. It now looks fine.
Here in the side view, you can see it gapes open a bit where the cup meets the cradle. It does that when it’s on me too, so I may need to shorten the underarm length on the pattern there. However, the more exciting part of this photo, which I don’t know that you can see there is really is more support to the cups with the power net added. It does give them more of a firm shape.
I didn’t do anything different on the back. In fact, I was a bit lazy. I often do the elastic along the band separate from the straps, but they’re all one this time. I also used band elastic again. I have it on hand, so used what I had. Especially as this bra was still a test.
On this side of the bra you can see where I put a pin. I didn’t have any sewing pins with me in my bedroom, so just used a safety-pin to know how much I’ll want to remove from the pattern. That’s an three-quarters of an inch fold there, so a fair bit to remove from the pattern, but I also have to remove from my Pin-Up Girls patterns there too.
So, will I make the Watson again? Well, if I do, I won’t use the power net for the cup next time. I may try a mesh instead as it’s a bit lighter, or I’ll double up on the Lycra. The single layer of Lycra just isn’t supportive enough for my size. An inside power bar is another option I’ve thought about to add more support to the Watson.
Lastly, a dear friend had her 50th birthday this week. She wears a Medical Alert bracelet but only has the one bracelet. I asked her if she’d like a second bracelet that can inter-change with her ID tag. She loved that idea – something with bling she said. Out came the Swarovski crystals and some lovely small hematite beads. She was so happy to get some more bling. What girl doesn’t love some bling?
Happy creating!
Well, that probably seems a little odd seeing as it’s not December. And I’m sure a lot of people thought it was odd. But we did just have Christmas!
My Mum came for a visit, and I haven’t seen her for seven years. I decided I would surprise her and we’d have Christmas. We bought gifts, wrapped them, put the tree up, and bought everything for Christmas dinner. And boy, was my Mum was surprised! And delighted!
My Mum loves Christmas, so she loved it all. She loves getting gifts and giving them too. As soon as she saw the gifts, that was it, we were going shopping. There was no way she was going to receive gifts and not give them.
We all had such a good time. I think the fun of surprising my Mum made the whole event so much more fun than usual. Everyone had such joy.
Here she is opening her first gift. Doesn’t she look happy? She was just like a kid!
We had such a fun-filled week. My dear hubby surprised both my Mum and me with an over-night trip to the mountains. We hit Canmore, Banff, and Lake Louise. All in a day. But it was great! One amazing thing about our over-night trip was we stayed at the same resort my hubby and I had stayed at for our anniversary – and we were put in the same room! It really was great.
Then when we got back and my Mum saw the cardigan that I’d made. The McCall’s 6844. She loved it. ‘You can make me one of those, can’t you?’ You know how Mums have a way of asking that’s really telling you – that’s what I was hearing there. She was telling me to make her one. So I showed her a couple of knit options from my stash and she choice this one.
I wish this picture showed the sparkle that’s part of the material. It’s lovely. I was kind of wishing my Mum had picked the other knit I offered. But she loved this. What’s a daughter to do?
And here it is all done. I think it is such a lovely pattern. It comes together so easily and it fit my Mum perfectly. I did shorten the sleeves again. I never thought I had short arms at all, but I had to shorten the pattern for myself and for Mum. Other than that, the pattern was good as it was.
The peplum on this cardigan is so flattering on all shapes. I’m curvy and it ‘hides’ a bit on me; but my Mum is really straight and it gives her more of a fuller looking shape.
And the back. I really love this cardigan. The shaping is so lovely. When my Mum tried it on, she loved it. My oldest dear son said he really liked it too – just like early Christmas at our house – this cardigan is a hit!
Here is my Mum modeling her new cardigan.
She wasn’t the happiest model – she doesn’t like having her picture taken. But I told her everyone would want to see it on her. Thanks Mum!
Happy creating!