and now for my final TRICK: To Sew?

Saturday, June 12, 2010

To Sew?

While I am not a super traditional person, there are some things that are important to me. Like, my mom only ever cooked homemade food. No Spaghettios, jarred pasta sauce, cake from a box, etc. Looking back, I appreciate her effort and cannot imagine how she did it working two jobs as a single parent. In turn, I now usually cook homemade food. However, there are a few boxes of Annie's Mac-n-Chz in my pantry and my freezer has seen a Stouffer's lasagna box once or twice.

Essentially, in my book anyway, there are just some things a mom is supposed to know how to do. I am not saying we should all be June Cleaver, but we should have one or two classic mommy skills. For example, a couple of years back I went on a quest... an arduous journey if you will, to create the perfect cut out sugar cookie. I felt like I needed one cookie specialty I could bring to parties and school functions in the future. Well, it took forever, but I did it.

Now that school is almost over (yay, 2 weeks till my masters degree!!) I will be needing something to occupy my time. There are millions of things I would love to be able to do, knit or crochet, take beautiful photographs, go to cooking school. But I finally narrowed it down to sewing. I want to learn to sew. Last year I got an itch, went out and bought a sewing machine, thread, needles, patterns, and went to town trying to teach myself. Needless to say, everything from seventh grade Home-Ec DID NOT come back to me. I have mended a few diapers but that is about as far as I ever got.

Basic Sewing 101 here I come. With Courtney and my pal Amy. We will be taking a class together and I have been assured I will learn how to complete basic sewing tasks and learn how to sew a ruffle (hee hee).

Here is what I am dreaming of creating......

Ruffle Lamp Shade

Tank Top

Bike Bucket

Coffee Cup Holder

Flower Corsage

Reusable Snack and Lunch Bags

Tee Shirt Aprons

Flower Pillow

Ruffle Tee Shirt Scarf

Ruffle Butt Baby Capri Pants

Fruit Salad Hats

Fuzzy Caterpillars

I have found a couple of fabulous creative blogs with sewing tutorials and lots of other do it yourself crafty projects I will be sure to try out over the coming months. I will be sure to share my creations, the directions, and the cool blogs where I found them. For now, I will dream of that ruffle lamp shade on my bedside lamp one day.

Quote of the Day

Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction
-Pablo Picaso

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Recent Reads

Honolulu by Alan Brennert- 4 Stars
A lovely tale told by a Korean woman who came to America as a "picture bride." We learn of her challenging and oppressive childhood in Korea, her journey away from all she knew, learning the new culture in Hawaii, escaping an abusive husband, becoming an entrepreneur, finding love, becoming a mother, and living a fulfilling life. I previously read Molokai by the same author and loved it, which is why I snatched this one up as soon as I heard of it. I think I enjoyed this one even more! The writing is smooth and easy, the tales are gripping, and the experiences are harrowing which keep you wanting more of this woman's incredible story.

The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha- 2 1/2 stars
This book is a collection of vignettes celebrating the awesome things in life. The cold side of your pillow on a hot night, finding money in your coat pocket, popping bubble wrap, when cashiers open up a new line at the grocery store, and watching Price is Right when you were home sick from school. This guy also has a blog where people can submit more awesomness. It was fun to read, but not as great as I was hoping. I will probably read his blog though, because he is pretty witty and definitely made me chuckle and remember to appreciate the small things in life.

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson- 3 stars
PAGE TURNER! I read this in 1 1/2 days. The story begins with a woman waking up in a bed, next to a man, in a house and she recognizes none of it. Over the next few minutes she learns that she has amnesia and every night when she goes to be she forgets most of her life. She begins working with a psychiatrist who convinces her to write in a journal, so she can reread it each morning and hopefully begin to build memories. The mysteries of how she ended up in this condition and her relationships with friends and loved ones kept me on the edge of my seat.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - 4 1/2 Stars
Another winner here folks. This book was AWESOME (and a bit shorter than Cutting for Stone). This was a new perspective on World War II for me. The story follows a boy growing up in a Chinese household in Seattle during the war. He befriends a Japanese girl, which is STRICTLY forbidden by his domineering and emotionless father. He realizes he is in love with her just as her family is removed to a Japanese Internment camp for the remainder of the war. The stay in touch through letters and his enormous risks to visit her . I don't want to give away any more, but you simply HAVE to read this book. The relationships between the children and their families and even the public during these war years was an interesting perspective for me. The twists and turns kept me up till midnight and the ending was wonderful!

Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese- 5 Stars
Oh my! I LOVED LOVED LOVED it. It was long and delicious and I did not want it to end. The premise is a nun working at a clinic in Ethiopia dies while giving birth to twin boys. The story explores the people and relationships in these boys' lives through the eyes of Marion, one of the twins. He grows up in the clinic in Ethiopia with amazing adoptive parents who were friends with his parents and gives us a taste of the culture, food, and everyday life of an Ethiopian. He heads to America to pursue a medical career and his birth father. We read this for book club and had wonderful and rich discussions...I wish there was a part 2!

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton- 3 stars
This was pretty darn good. It took me about 100 pages to really get into it and the ending was a bit too quick, neat, and tidy. But not nearly as terrible as the ending of Handle with Care by Jodi Piccoult (I threw that book across the room and into a wall as I read the last word). I was hooked and couldn't stop myself once I was into it. It was a book club choice and there was more discussion than I remember in 3 years of book club. We were talking over each other and jumping into other conversations. I couldn't even keep up. This story centered around the lives of three sisters who grew up in a castle in England from World War II to the present. They had an eccentric family and extremely odd and famous author father. The mysteries weave through history and the walls of the castle, revealing themselves to the woman chosen to write a piece about the famed play written by the father. It was very good and I would highly recommend it.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

To Sew?

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