Just Sew-Sew

Groan. That title is terrible.

What's the opposite of plethora? Dearth?

That's what it is. There's a complete dearth of nice looking baby stuff. Decoration stuff. Clothes, not so bad, but decoration stuff, toys, etc are all so...blah. As in pastel.

Whoever came up with the idea that pastel is for babies should be taken out and lynched. Really. Pastel is so...BLAH. It makes me feel apathetic when I am around it very long. Of course, anyone that gets to know me is never surprised that I prefer bold colors. It's just my personality.

Anyway, thanks to my parents and Christmas, I have a brand new Bernina 230 sewing maching. It is absolutely beautiful. And it's smarter than I am. In fact, it's not named a "sewing machine", it's marketed as a "sewing computer" and it came with *lessons* on how to use it. You go into the store and they teach you how to use your new sewing computer.

I pulled it out of it's crate last night, figured out how to fill the accessory tray (very convenient, everything just snaps into place) and did a little basic stitching on some scrap pieces of fabric. It's been about 15 years since I last sewed a 4-H project, so I had to sort of go step by step and re-teach myelf everything...how to load the thread, etc. Basic stitching (press 1 for straight, 2 for zigzag, etc) came back really fast, so I grabbed the manual and spent the rest of the evening playing with the machine's memory.

First, I embroidered NOLANNOLANNOLANNOLANNOLANNOLAN across a scrap of felt, then I got really fancy and did an entire edge of NOLAN_PATRICK_FATTIG. Very cool. Husband even took my scrap of felt to show his mother today. The machine even comes with preprogrammed stitches that look like ivy twining across the fabric, or flowers, or curliques, or just about anything you want to use to embroider with.

My main project right now is a crib set. You know, sheet, bumper pad, skirt, comforter, and an organizer that hangs on the end of the crib. I looked *everywhere* for a crib set I liked, and would you know that absolutely everything out there right now is all in pastel? And it's mostly Classic Pooh. I am not a Pooh fan, and I'm most certainly not a pastel fan. Especially the nasty calf-scour green pastel of the classic Pooh stuff.

SO, my mom got me a crib set pattern, and I promptly picked out the brightest, boldest fabric I could lay my hands on. I'm using 3 fabrics. The skirt and the accents on the organizer are a navy blue fabric with sparkly silver clouds and stars. The comforter has one side of that fabric and the other a navy with millions of little deep yellow stars and silver sparkles. The fitted sheet is a marbled navy with silver sparkles. The bumper pad will be the star material on the outside, and the marbled on the inside, with silver and deep yellow appliques of moons, stars, clouds, and maybe a sheep or two. If I can find a cow jumping over the moon applique pattern, I'd like to do that. It has deep yellow ribbon for tying it onto the crib.

Anyway, right now I'm only missing binding material for the edges of the organizer, comforter, and bumper pad. I want it in silver. Do you know how extremely difficult it is to find binding material in silver? The pattern called for a total of about 50 *yards* of bias tape. I don't think so. So I'll bind it in something else. The Bernina website has an online lesson that shows you how to make your own bias binding, so I think I may just do that. It's much cheaper.

Just as soon as I get some pictures, I'll try to post them of my fabric...hopefully it turns out decently and I can have the confidence to try some others!