Brother cs6000i my new baby...errrrrr....machine

Yesterday the ups man delivered an enormous box.  Finally it was my sewing machine that comes with part of my Dress Making and Design course through Penn Foster.  I had no idea what to expect other than it was supposed to be a Brother.  I was pretty apprehensive because my first sewing machine was a cheapie walmart Brother and I absolutely loathed the machine. Since I already have my Elna 3210 that I adore I wasn't too worried if this was the cheapie, I figured it would get sold and I would get a basic Elna or Janome for Hannah to start on. Ok back to the machine.  Out of the enormous box came a box with a hard carrying case and then out came the Brother cs 6000i, computerized and very pretty.  It has a nice extra width table which will be great for my future quilting endeavors.  It also has a ton of fun decorative stitches and features.  Well before I got myself all excited about the machine I asked my sewing mamas and did some review searches. I was nervous, there were a lot of comments about the thread tension, which was my drama with my first brother.  Ok ok, I can't judge the machine until I have tried it.  So this morning I headed down and hooked it up.  I was thrilled at how things went together, Hannah and I had a blast testing all the fun stitches and feet...  No problems whatsoever.  I have sewn with it all day even through thick layers with no troubles so far.  Looking good for the future of the machine in my home.  It also has an slide to adjust the foot pedal pressure, from slow/medium/fast.  Which means I can put it on slow, put Hannah on the machine and no matter how hard she guns it, its sews slowly.  Obviously I have a lot more testing of the machine, if it can keep up with the stash game for the 2nd half of the month it may just earn its way into our home.  Here are a couple of quick photos.

A few items from the Stash Game on Sewing Mamas

I was really all prepared to be sewing like a mad woman during the February stash game on Sewing Mamas.  Life has had other plans though.  I have a few things to show.  A shirt for me, from Ottobre Design, a table cloth with drawstring so the kids can't tear it off, a pleated folding chair cover and a cell phone case for my mom. I have even more motivation to sew with a move back to Montana in the next few months very likely. So here is my stash game so far.

Cafe Press Give Away Wendy you are the winner!

Wendy is the winner of a wonderful prize from my cafe press shop.  Thanks so much Wendy!

New favorite pattern from keykalou ~ cell phone case

I love the keykalou patterns on Etsy! They are fast to purchase and are emailed right to me to be printed out, I love this!  My latest creation I just have to share, a cell phone case.  My poor phone takes a beating, thumping around my purse and everywhere I bring it so I finally purchased the pattern and set out today to make it out of the fabric I designed through spoonflower.  You see I had 3 ~ 8x8 swatches of the fabric and the small size phone pattern pieces fit perfectly! What a great way to use them up! Well the main pattern piece went off the printed part a little but that part was sewn into the seam anyhow.   The pattern comes with a large pattern and a small pattern. The small fits my LG enV phone great, in the last photo of my case the cell phone is pulled up to show the phone!  I need to shorten the elastic a bit next time I think but I love love love how it turned out. My daughter saw the sewing machine buttons at Joanns and told me i had to have them, they go great with the design.  So for anyone wanting a fun, easy sewing project I highly recommend keykalou on Etsy! She has many fun patterns and I have several more I need to try out! The other great thing about these is that you cane make them to sell, I never sew a ton of any one pattern but I like to have the sellers blessing when making things that I do sell.

Cafe Press Shop Now Open and Give Away

Well I figured I would branch out a bit more.  I opened a cafe press shop with some of my photographs and designs.  So for those who love my stuff but aren't into fabric or sewing this gives you another option.  Please check it out and see what you think.  So in honor of this new shop, I am going to give away this.  Please post a comment telling me your favorite item from my shop and that will earn you one chance.  Be sure to include your email so I can contact you if you win. If you want a second entry please blog about my contest and then post a comment here and be sure to include the link to your blog post and again your email. And while you are at it you should follow my blog;-) Most of the photographs are from my Mom's garden back home in Montana as well as my garden here in Delaware.  Right now I just have the free shop so I can't have multiple designs for the same item.  If you see something you love but want a different design than offered please email me coveredbydesign at hotmail.com and I will see what I can do. Good luck.  This will end on January 31st at Midnight.  The winner will be drawn using random.org.

25th out of 68 entrants in the fabric design contest

I am happy to say that my fabric placed 25th out of 68 entrants in the spoonflower fabric contest.  For my first fabric design in a contest I would have to say thats pretty darn good.  Congrats to all the entrants!  And thank you to all my voters!

Stash Game Cleanup and Preparation

I have decided to participate in the sewing mamas stash game again this round.  I learned a lot from the last game and hope to do much better this time.  Today I took the time to clean my sewing area, it had been taken over by papers, patterns, toys (its in my kids play area) and fabric.  Whew, it is so much nicer I feel like I can actually get something done.  So I am working right now on tracing patterns.  Something I learned that eats up valuable sewing time during the game, I WILL be prepared this time.  Todays tracing was the Jalie Pullover Top 2911 in both mine and Hannah's sizes. I might get time for more but as I type the kids are off the bus and bound to need things.  I have several more Jalies I want to get traced and then its on to making a list of what I want to make.  I am very hopeful that a move will be in the near future and if so I need to destash quite a bit!  The game is on on Feb 1st!