New Adventures

Last summer I bought a cross stitch kit as a Christmas present for my sister. It's the Tardis from Doctor Who and it says 'Tardis Sweet Tardis'. I started working on it as soon as I got it, but thankfully I didn't get far before my mom checked my progress. Turns out it's called a counted cross stitch for a reason! Ha ha. I learn something new every day. I started the cross stitch border on the very edge of the aida cloth and my mom gently encouraged me to count out from the center of the picture guide. Turns out that my entire cross stitch pattern was going to be much smaller than the size of the cloth. She set me up with an embroidery hoop to hold the cloth and a storage box for all my
thread and cute little scissors. And once I had counted and started over again in the correct spot, I was in business.

But...I found that I was having a hard time making myself sit at home and work on it. I was too distracted with the TV and the animals and the husband and the Facebook. So, I was lucky enough to be invited to join a sewing group. I know, I wasn't really sewing but the ladies were nice enough to let me come and sit there doing my cross stitch. And I really, really enjoyed it. As Christmas drew closer, I finished up the cross stitch and decided to make it into a pillow. I ordered the fabric online and brought it along to the sewing group. One of the ladies, my co-worker, was nice enough to help a girl out and sewed it all together for me.

Once I was finished with that, I started wondering what I was going to work on next..so that I could keep going to the sewing group. I have a sewing machine. My mom gave it to me for Christmas years ago. But its been up in a closet unused for nearly all that time. Was it time to actually get it down and learn how to sew? Once the thought was in my head, I couldn't get it out. So I took to trusty Pinterest for simple, easy, beginner sewing projects. One project I came across was a tie-on dinosaur tail for little kids. I'm not sure how "beginner" this project was considered but I really wanted to do it for my friend's little boy. He turned three this week and I thought it would be the perfect gift.

Instead of getting my own sewing machine down (I'm working up to it) I took the fabric and directions to my Grandma. Thank goodness she was there to help me because I would have never figured it out on my own. Keeping to the seam allowance is SUPER important, I learned.

I did most of the sewing, and some of it had to be ripped out and re-sewn. But my Grandma did do a little bit of the sewing for me (mostly because I was over there for three hours and it was getting late). Either way, for better or worse, the tail was made and shipped off to the birthday boy.

It's the elusive Kidasaurus.

According to my friend, Jonessa, the tail was a real hit with Jethro and he even sent me a video to show off his dino ROAR!

Well, as much fun as I had putting that together, I did it outside of the sewing group. So, I still have to come up with a new project (maybe one that actually includes my own sewing machine). I might try infinity scarves next. How hard can that be?

I have another cross stitch kit heading my way...in case this whole sewing thing doesn't work out.