I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Lisa at The Hemline, my first tag! Here are seven facts about me.

1. I got married at the age of 19 to a guy I had known for only 3 months before becomming engaged. 27 years and 3 kids later we are still together!
2. I'm a professional storyteller (in addition to my sewing). I tell historical stories and personal stories. I call them, "Stories of Wisdom, Stories of Truth. I want my stories to make people think and question.
3. My youngest and only daughter will be heading off to college next year! (The older two are boys ages 25 and 22). This is the moment I've been waiting for, and now that its right around the corner, I tell myself I need to find a new life, and decide what I really want to be when I grow up - SMILE!
4. Even at the age of 40+, I am still my dad's little girl. That's something you never grow out of. When I go to visit he and I just sit and talk about anything and everything. My parents say I am the female version of my father.
5. In addition to sewing, I'm an avid scrapbooker. We won't even talk about that hobby! Let's just say I wish I had discovered it when my boys were little. I'm playing catch up on my photos.
6. When I get down or am going thru a tough moment, I go sit in the park. I admire all the beauty exists in this world. Besides, when you're going "thru" in life, its nothing like watching two squirrels fight over a nut, to put things in perspective.
7. I grew up very introverted and quiet. Caught a lot of teasing because of my height (6 ft). I was 30 before I was comfortable with my height. I'd always pray that I'd go somewhere and not be the tallest woman in the room. I tell folks God has a sense of humor, he answered my prayers, and made that room my house! My husband and I are the shortest in the house at 6 ft. My children are all 6' 5", 6' 1", and 6".

Well hopefully I haven't bored you with my 7 tidbits.

• Paco at Paco Peralta
• Krystal at Krustallos
• Adrienne at Real Life: Live and Unscripted
• artist1lisa at Sew On and Sew On
• Allison at AllisonC Sewing Gallery
• Leslie at Loohoo Originals
• Cidel at Miss Celie's Pants
  

I've tagged the folks above, as we said when we were children "Tag you're it!"

Tag Rules:

1. Link to your Tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a post on their blog.

My Yoga Mat Tote

I found a pattern for a yoga mat tote from Meream at http://boredandcrafty.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/yoga-mat-bag-tutorial/

I decided to use the log cabin block quilt pattern to make my cover. It was very simple and quick to make. See my review on http://sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/readreview.pl?readreview=1&reviewnum=32604.

A Vintage kind of day, and other surprises

Remember the vintage patterns that my Mom gave me back in May. Well I finally did one of them. It is a Butterick 8213. I'm not sure when it was in-print, but the original cost of the pattern was only 50 cents. It was very simple. Sewing instructions back then were written very SPARSELY to say the least. But I love the fit of the dress.

I also got a chance to use some of my fabric stash for it, so that was really great. Sorry for the picture, maybe tomorrow when the sun is out, I'll have my husband take one outside. I find it very difficult to do self portraits.

This weekend I also got the first of the three more boxes of vintage patterns from my Mom, and a box of zippers!

I've signed up for the stash contest on sewing.patternreview.com, so on to the next project.

Organizing my Patterns

Well, I've been away for a while, but I can say I've been busy.

• My daughter decided on a college (she's decided to do pharmacy)
• traveled home to see my parents (actually went fabric/pattern shopping crazy with my Mom)
• found a store called "dirt cheap" on my trip home, yes that's right - for another post!
• started teaching part-time at a local college
• bought an adjustable height table for my sewing room to do cutting
• got a stash of vintage patterns from my Mom
  
• used some of my sewing stash (& bought replacement fabric - LOL)
• organized my patterns
  

First things first though, the pattern organization. I decided to make an album of all of my patterns with 5x8 index cards, so that I can use when I'm shopping. Here's a picture of my book:
For my newer patterns I have a word template that I use. Then I go to the pattern company's website and cut and past the information that I need, such as a picture, pattern description, yardages, front/back line drawing:
I've left areas to add notes such as fabrics used, alterations made, etc.

For my older patterns, I copy the pattern envelope (front and back) by reducing it to a 5x8 card without borders. (My 4 in 1 printer has a copy function that allows me to reduce).
When I go shopping I just take the card out of my notebook and place in my purse. When I pick out fabric for a particular pattern, I clip a piece of the fabric and pin to the card. It makes it easier to pick out notions etc. since I have the card with the fabric sample attached.

Well needless to say I have discovered that I have a LOT of patterns to say the least. We won't say how many though - SMILE! And they've just increased by another 100 or so because of my Mom's gift of some vintage patterns. I had to send those by UPS, since the planes won't let you carry baggage for free anymore. I'll take pix when they arrive.