Author Archives: iDebra

Barbie A Sewing

It all started one Saturday morning when Barbie got out of Bed to get dressed.

As she dug through her drawers looking for something to wear.

She felt she couldn’t find a thing to wear, so she headed for the closet.

Sorting through her entire wardrobe, this was to big , that too small, this she has just worn far too often. She still found nothing.

She was tired of all the clothes she had. Even though her drawers were full and her closet was over flowing. She wanted something different she was tired of wearing the same old things. As she sat drinking her morning coffee thinking about what to wear, depressed about her current wardrobe.

She suddenly thought “I will go shopping”.

So she dressed in a pair of pants and shirt that were easy to get off & on.

Grabbing her credit card. She was off to one of the major chains in her town she had bought from so many times before.

After spending an hour & a half in the store she found nothing that she wanted. Many of the same old clothes she already has or just the wrong style. Leaving emptyhanded and not ready to give up yet, the day was young.

She headed for another major chain where she shopped before. After spending 2 hours there searching through – evening gowns – wild colors and some new belly styles she still could not find any outfit that she wanted. Leaving again empty handed.

By now she was getting hungry from all the shopping and her stomach was growling. Not having much cash on her she went home to eat some cold pizza from the night before.

Now heading for a state of depression over her shopping experience she sat and picked at the pepperoni on her pizza.

Suddenly she remembered a girlfriend told her about this outfit she just bought off eBay. So Barbie grabbed her soda and headed for her computer. She logged on to the internet.

After entering eBay’s URL, she gets the homepage. Looking around she sees a feature on the front page, “Barbie Fashions”. Smiling she clicked on the link following the links to clothing & accessories. The first page comes up, she scrolls reading the titles, Used Lot – Vintage Lot – Barbie fashion – Ball Gowns – Fashion Evening – Huge Lot – then clicking to the next page – Handmade Barbie Dress – She clicked. Up came a beautiful floor length gown, being modeled by Theresa. Knowing Theresa was close to the same size, She thought, ” I could wear that”, but Barbie had not been to a ball or party in years where she would wear something like that.

She clicked back, another Handmade link, so she clicked to see another nice floor length gown, click back and going to the 3rd page, clicking every Handmade link she found finding – gowns – shorts – summer dresses – bolas – many nice clothes she liked, but it is February and she wanted something warmer more suited to wearing to work, like a warm skirt with a long sleeve jacked. Barbie already had a lot of shirts and if she could just find a skirt and jacket that would match any one of her shirts she has, then she could switch it off with different shirts and feel like she has a few new outfits.

Then she saw “Handmade SilkStone” Hesitating knowing that SilkStone Barbie and her were not the same size, she had to look anyway, knowing that those SilkStone ladies really knew how to dress. She clicked and Up came THE PERFECT OUTFIT! It was a real classy skirt and jacket set, the most beautiful that Barbie had ever seen! It was just what she was looking for, so she read all the details. Then her heart sank when she saw “Made to fit SilkStone will not fit any other Barbie”. She really wanted to put a bid on that outfit – she really wanted it! She sat and gazed at the outfit dreaming. Then it came to her “handmade that’s it I will make my own outfit”, ” I will make one that will fit me!”

She remembered the dress form and sewing machine in the attic that her grandmother had given her. The machine was old but “it ran good when she hauled it up there”, she thought. Looking at the clock, it was a little past 4. Barbie grabbed her coat and off to the fabric store she went.

When she got there she looked through the Barbie patterns and found one she really liked and looked a lot like the one that SilkStone was wearing on eBay. She grabbed it up and put it in her basket. She found several other patterns she liked too and got them all at half price, “What a Deal she thought”. After picking out some fabric she picked up some needed sewing supplies, pins, measuring tape, buttons, snaps, scissors and thread.

Excited she went home that evening and hauled the dress form and sewing machine down from the attic. She sat down to read the pattern. “WOW” she thought “there is a lot to making this outfit!” There were terms and directions that she did not understand, but she was going to give it a try anyhow.

She lay awake for hours thinking about sewing her new outfit.

The next morning she got up early – excited to get started, she grabbed a cup of coffee, then started cutting out her pattern. By mid afternoon she was busy sewing the jacket.

As she went step by step following the instructions it started making sense. By that evening she finished the last bit of sewing on her jacket. Excited she tried it on “IT FITS!” She yelled!

She then put it on the dress form, pinning it together so she could see where to place her buttons. She felt proud “MY FIRST HANDMADE JACKET!” She could see a few errors but they did not spoil her excitement over the jacket. She knew that she could make more and get better with each and every one she made.

She then went back to her sewing machine and started making the skirt.

Now”BARBIE A SEWING”

Opening the doors to whole new world of fashion.

Who knows you could maybe find one of her outfits in the future on eBay under OOAK!

I would love to hear your feed back.
Debra@Just-In.net
Last updated: Thu Jun 15 2017 00:40:11 GMT-0400 (EDT)
Barbie A SeWing in German – Deutsche Übersetzung: Kerstin Graf, im September 2004, mit Genehmigung der Autorin – Thank you Kerstin

Little Quilted Blanket

My Grandson Kayden ask me to make him a little quilted blanket to use in the front room. He picked out his colors “lime green and blue”. He ask for a satin trim.

This blanket was a real challenge for me. With the colors he ask for and he also ask me to use lime thread for the quilting. I let him pick out of my stash and he picked about 6 fabrics and some I thought did not look good, but he wanted me to pick out of these. He also wanted the blanks lite “Airy” so I did not want to do much quilting. I used a 100% polly batting witch gave it that lite airy feeling. Adding the satin binding was well for me new and scary. I watched as many videos as I could find on youtube until I felt I could meet the challenge.

Well the end result was not without flaws but turned out just the way he wanted it.
For him it was flawless.
Love is Blind!
I love you Kayden!
Grandma.

PE Design 10 Auto Punch Embroidery

PE Design 10 Auto Punch Embroidery was used to create this dog in this design. I used the fonts on my Brother Quattro II in the design. I show how well PE Design 10 did on the auto punch with the pathing. This was a simple black and white design that I used the auto punch to bring in with png extension. I made sure the file was clean before I brought it into PE Design 10.

Please visit Pooch’s Partners @ http://www.poochspartners.com they are doing some really great work there. You might find a pooch for you! There is a lot of information about adoptions, volunteering and donations any help can help save a dog!

My Brother Quattro II is not the latest machine from Brother but, it does such a find job and I just got it paid off. I am not ready to upgrade. I bought it with one of the promotions they offer for 60 months interest free. Those promotions are really nice.

Quilt Block using Starburst 60° ruler

I had this idea to make like a flower design Quilt Block using the starburst 60° ruler. thought I would try it out. Came out pretty good the first one I’ve ever done. I will only get better in time.

These rulers all cost a lot and are for specific designs, which often limits there use. Trying to come up with some other ideas. One thing I did not like about this ruler is it leaves a lot of wasted fabric. I had to find something creative use the waste for so I decided a Dresden plate would be nice or the fabric left overs. I hate to waste fabric!

I have uploaded this video to YouTube. Please leave your comments if you have any suggestions on how I could’ve improved the problems I had with the sewing. If you have a suggestion on how I could have improved the video would even be helpful, I’m new at all so it’s a learning process. Thank you.

Cat to Appliqué

Adding another Appliqué square for my quilt from the same coloring book. Here I picked out a cat that I really liked that is simple.

: Image to use for creating Appliqué.

: Cat Appliqué Ironed on background

: Cat Appliqué Sewed On

As you can see when you cut up a few items in the drawing you can add some real interest.
I have taken the back leg, tail, chest and inside of ears and made them a darker color.
With the ball of yarn I added, I did one solid color for the base color and added some scraps I had to add interest and they will fray with washing to add more texture.

Frog to Appliqué

Adding another Appliqué square to my quilt from the same coloring book.
Here I picked out a frog that I really liked that is simple.

: Newest Image I used for creating Appliqué.

: Frog Appliqué Ironed on background

: Frog Appliqué Sewed On

I made the belly out of another fabric. To get the tree branch in with the feet I cut them out but still leaving them attached to the main body and slid the branch into the feet. Worked out well. The original picture just had the ends of the branch empty, I added some leaves to make more interest.

I learn something new each time I make a appliqué out of a coloring book drawing. When I am done I often see where I could have done something different but still pleased with the fact that I did it and completed it. God knows I have enough unfinished projects laying around under something. LOL

Holiday Table Runner

The holidays are always so busy I do not have time to sew. But when the holidays are here I get these moments I wish I would have made something for the table to class it up under the all the yummy dishes. I don’t really think of these things until they happen. Here is my finished Holiday Table Runner I sewed for this holiday.

: Fall Table Top Runner

: Christmas Table Top Runner

: Fall & Christmas Flip Table Top Runner

I wanted something and did not have time to fuss over creating it. So I made this simple holiday table runner to put my Baked Dishes on for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Did one side for fall and the other side for Christmas. Staying away from a print that would limit just Thanksgiving I used some fall leaves so I can use it longer in the year.

Appliqué created from coloring book

Wanted to create appliqué from this cute toucan in a coloring book I found at the Dollar Tree. He looks like he would have personality. I can vision him to be very colorful on a tropical background fabric.

: Toucan Coloring Book Page

: Appliqué ironed to fabric.

: Appliqué sewed on with details

Choosing some bright batik fabric like this striking red made him stand our. Love the background fabric I found, it had that tropical look to it.

Sewing the details on I really like that look he has, kind of reminds me of my husband and the look he gives me sometimes. LOL

Needing to work on my free hand quilting skills and thought I would give this a try. I am creating a raw edge quilt and I want lots of texture so I thought some raw edge appliqué would look really nice.

New York Beauty Quilted Placemat

Creating this New York Beauty quilted placemat was a challenge. I think the New York Beauty is one of the most beautiful patterns, also not for the beginner. I had to try a few with some scrap fabric I had around and so I did, well I found it is not as easy as I thought it would be. It was a challenge and sewing on the curve without distorting the pieces was the most difficult. I found it fun and I still like the end result of the mat and use it for my Mac Book on my desk. Adds some cheer to my desktop.

: Looking at how I want to arrange the blocks.

: Drew on the blocks to see how I want to quilt it.

: Choosing my colors for quilting.

: Finished quilting and rolled binding from back color for finish.

This project gave me a chance to work with sewing on the curve, paper peiceing, and free motion quilting. All on a small scale. The more I practice the better I will get and I wonder what my post a year from now will look like and what I will think when I look back at this?

Wonder what I well try next? Maybe another quilted placemat.

Colorful Quilted Placemat for Practice!

I made this colorful quilted placemat to practice my free hand quilting and even assembling squares. I love all the colors that play in this placemat. These are nice on the patio table or TV trays too. They really live’n any place up.

I tried a method that I saw where you sew two squares together and cut them corner to corner to make triangles. Sewing them together you make some pinwheels. There is only one problem I had with doing this and that is the center of where I got pinwheels you have a lot of fabric in that center. When I quilted the placemat I did to run over the center of the pinwheels. I did take a rubber hammer and tried beating them down, but that was just to squish it not to try to sew on the center.

Now these don’t match much around the house but they sure are pretty. They do match my bedroom/sewing room I have some really bright quilts in there. LOL