FNSI, and a Plug

Thanks for all of the nice comments on my latest wardrobe acquisitions. I wore the gray skirt, tee, and ivory cardigan today and loved the outfit!

There will be two FNSI's this month, with the first this Friday. Click on the link to hurry on over to Heidi's blog and sign up for this Friday, and you might also win a copy of my OOO RAH Wallet pattern and fabric to make it.



I'm plugging away on two wallets myself. I need to finish one of them tomorrow night and get it the heck in the mail. The other needs to be done too but it's not as urgent yet. I also received THREE purse orders today. Yikes. I immediately emailed these peeps to let them know that Christmas delivery was not an option. ;-) Looks like it's a good thing I bought some clothes cuz my personal sewing time just got chopped. It's OK. Extra money at Christmas is a Good Thing. I think I have an xbox or 2 to buy.

Tomorrow is a casual Christmas pot-luck lunch at the office for my department. We're also doing a silly Yankee Swap, with the main rule being that the gift you bring has to be something found around your house that you don't want. (Can I wrap up STBex?) So now I have to go hunt down something. I have an idea and it's not even a bad thing. Then I have to get up early to put together the salad I'm bringing. Or at least the parts of it. You can't really make a green salad too far in advance, so I'll bag up the toss-in's separately and then mix it all together just before lunchtime. I'm not the only one who mainly eats salads at lunch, but since I do, I wanted to be sure I had something I could actually eat. Tricky, eh? ;-)

Can It Be?

Yes! Sewing for MEMEMEMEMEEEEEEEE has begun! I've cut out a long-sleeved draped neck top from the pattern morph of my TNT Ottobre tee from the print I showed you the other day.The Fire makes a good pattern weight. ;-)

I'll sew this up tomorrow night for FSNI and maybe I'll get something else done too. I'm full of ME mojo!






But I'm actually not too worried about quantity right now. It will be a very casual Thanksgiving and if I have to wear the same 2 pairs of jeans the entire time, I'll survive.

The hard part for sewing output will be keeping myself off my new Kindle Fire. I just adore this little gizmo. Between it and my phone, they do everything computer-wise I want to do while I'm away from my desktop — which, let's face it, is mostly just playing. ;-)

I'm not going to do a full review of the Fire because there are lots of them around. This one (Yes, it's that good) covers all the main points and I think it's very accurate. But I'll share my thoughts over the next few days/weeks as they come to me and I'll try to answer questions left in the comments.

I connected to my county library last night and downloaded 4 books, for FREE. Love the library. Love NOT GOING to the library to get books. It was so easy, as Amazon and my library talk to each other and all I have to do is check out the books and then go to my Amazon account and send them to my Fire. The whole process took about 5 minutes, after I had decided on the books I wanted.

But have I even cracked any of them yet? Nope. I'm currently reading Water for Elephants, downloaded for free from Amazon's Lending Library (well, "free" if you sub to Amazon Prime, which I did because it's well worth it). I see a little label on it with 32%, so it looks like I'm just about one-third done with it already.

This is my actual Fire, complete with smudgy fingerprints. These are all Droid X cellphone pics, BTW. Not bad. I emailed them to my desktop from my phone. Hah. I'm such a dork.

If I have any complaint at all, it's that my cover/case has still not shipped. Apparently, the green is on backorder. So I ordered a brown one tonight. I can live without green but I WANT a cover for this thing before my trip.

As you can see, it's set up like a bookshelf. You scroll through side to side and up/down and the media flips like on a carousel. It's a pretty intuitive interface, although there is a good manual pre-loaded too. I'm a geek. I like to read manuals and always do that when I get a new anything.

I don't know if I'd buy one as a gift for the technology-challenged for just reading. A lesser Kindle should be fine for that and lots cheaper. I can't compare e-ink to the Fire's display because I've never seen or used e-ink. I'm so used to reading on a screen that that aspect doesn't bother me a bit.

I love being able to eat my lunch at work and read at the same time without needing to prop up a book or rearrange when I need to turn pages. I look like quite the dweeb reading on my Fire with earbuds to my phone in my ears. Very convenient that my office PC has 2 front USB ports so I'm always charging.

I love that the screen is big enough to not feel puny to my old eyes, like my phone. Video is gorgeous on it, and streaming is very smooth. Almost better than cable. The color/resolution is beautiful. Better than my phone, I think, a Droid X, and equal to Alex's Droid Razr.

I've downloaded some magazines onto it, but I haven't really explored what's available yet. It definitely would be great if Threads would go the e-book route. How do we start a write-in campaign. I've looked at Lucky, Self, and Glamour because those were free. Lucky isn't very interactive but it's just as good as reading the paper version to me, without the hassle of deciding what to do with old issues. The other two have interactive extras, which is both cool and annoying because I feel like I'm losing my place. But that's just the newness talking. I'll figure out my own process. I also wonder if it's my imagination but the advertisement pages seem to need an extra swipe to turn the page, like they are programmed to be looked at longer. It wouldn't surprise me if this is true, but I honestly like ads in magazines so it doesn't bug me.

Susan asked if there's a spreadsheet app. There is, an actual spreadsheet, but I haven't used it yet. I don't see me loading up either my phone or my Fire with a pattern or fabric catalog. Too much work to do that. ;-) But maybe I can export my pattern catalog from ListPro (Palm days) to something to work on one of them. But I'm not in a rush to do that yet. There are also other cataloging apps that I haven't explored yet.

Speaking of Palm, I *love* that there's a Graffiti app for my phone so I can "write" with my finger in Palm-ese. I'm much faster with that than texting on a tiny keyboard. I can type 90+ wpm on the real keyboard and about 8 on the phone. Hah. I hope Kindle gets that app too, although its keyboard is big enough that I don't feel clumsy on it.

And with that, I'm going to go watch the end of the football game and browse through an e-magazine, but I couldn't let this comment from Bev pass:

"Are you sure you're getting a divorce? Any time there are issues, you guys are there for each other."

Yes, I am definitely getting a divorce. And, no, we are not there for each other. Only one of us is there for anyone and she's tired of living on this one-way street. ;-)

Ooo Rah Wallet Review & Giveaway

I'm writing this the night before so I haven't seen Melanie's post or review yet, but hop on over to The Crafty Cupboard and we'll look together. Thanks Melanie! I can't wait to see your wallet.

Then come back here and leave a comment if you'd like to be entered to win a FREE copy of the Ooo Rah Wallet Pattern and the fabric needed to make the wallet shown in the lower right of the pic below (2 Fat Quarters and 1 Fat Eighth).

I'll be drawing the random-number generated winner next Friday night (September 23, 2011). Anyone anywhere in the world can enter.

Edit: I'm home now and I've seen Melanie's adorable wallet and wonderful review! Thanks so much Melanie. :-)

Speaking of Friday night … don't forget to sign up for the September Friday Night Sew-In and then lock yourself in your sewing room tomorrow night and sew, sew, sew! I'm hoping to make another skirt. At the very least, I'm going to clean up the disaster that currently resides where my sewing room used to be. Click the FNSI graphic below to open up the sign-up page.

FNSI Projects

I didn't work on any wallets from my pattern, but I did make the Spiderman credit card holder for my son that I had planned.

It's nothing very complicated, but I did have to make two mock-ups first to get the overall and pocket size correct and make sure it still folded flat when loaded. The lunchbox panel was not the most cooperative with stitch tension so it looks a little off on the back. But Tyler won't notice that. I also tried pressing with a scrap and it actually didn't melt, so I was able to lightly press the finished wallet into shape at the corners and the main fold.

I didn't take a photo of the lunchbox I used before I started, but it's similar in style to this one. Softsided, with a Mylar/plastic-y front. $5.42 at Walmart for mine.

I cut the front off, pulled out the foam liner and then figured where Spidey's head would fall on my pattern and cut it to size. Because the lunchbox panel was narrower than my pattern, I pieced some cammie fabric to one end, which you can see in the inside view above.

After I was done with that, I tested a couple of embroidery designs and made one into this little "doo-dad" bag.I have no idea what I'm going to use it for, but sunglasses fit into it nicely.

I nearly had a heart attack last night before starting the embroidery, and then I had a case of STOOOOOPID. I put my embroidery disk into my machine and went through the menus to select the design and get it ready for stitching. Except I couldn't select the specific design I wanted. The touchscreen was not responding. I turned the machine on/off a bunch of times and tried different disks, all with the same result. I started getting a sick feeling that my machine was going to need service. Until I finally realized I did NOT have the embroidery unit attached. Duh. Once I put that on, all was well again and I felt stupid but very relieved.

FNSI

Tomorrow is the next Friday Night Sew-In, sponsored by Handmade by Heidi. I'm in for this month. Can you guess what I'll be working on? Yep, wallets.

I may make one more non-USMC from my pattern but mostly I'm going to whip up a simple "mini billfold"" for Tyler to hold his debit card, ID, and meal card. Marines aren't allowed to have anything bulky in their pockets, so a real wallet is out. When he heard that I was making wallets, he asked if I could make him something flat to hold his cards. No problem! The design in my head is very simple, but to spice things up I'm using a panel from a soft Spiderman lunchbox I bought at Walmart the other night. Tyler loves Spidey. (I don't think I ever showed the Spidey gear shift and visor covers I made for his Jeep from sheets.) He had a great Spiderman wallet from Universal Studios, but he wore holes in it and we've never been able to find a suitable replacement. This little cardholder I have in mind will make him smile.

Click the link above to sign up for FNSI and join in the fun. Random participants are chosen for prizes on Saturday and maybe you'll win! But the real prize is just getting something done.

Parting Shot: This morning's sunrise at MCAS Yuma AZ, with a couple of Harriers ready for take-off.

Friday Night Sew-In

I was a late-comer to the Friday Night Sew-In sign-ups, but I squeaked in. Thanks to Sarah who posted about June's FNSI because I've been meaning to join this sew-along for a while but hadn't managed to get my act together.

I'm happy to say that I actually started and finished TWO Friday Night projects. The first was to cut off the brown jeans I tried on the other day and make 'em capris. I cut off about 6", pressed and topstitched the new hem, and now they'll get worn over the summer until they are too big. Yeah, not exactly a "project," but it did involve sewing.

Next, I made good on my repeated threats to make yet another Hot Patterns Sunshine Top. I've lost count, but I'm definitely over 5 on this pattern. I forget where I picked up this fabric. Does anyone recognize it?

Here it is on Zillie:

And here it is on fuzzy me, paired with my "new" capris.

* * * * *

A number of you asked about the animation from yesterday's post. I converted the pics to B/W GIFs in my photo-editing program and then ran them through an old little program I have that will take a bunch of GIF files in the order I select and make a GIF animation file. I'm pretty sure there are similar freebie programs and/or websites out on the Interwebs if you want to make your own, just search on "GIF Animation."