Time to do something about it

No way around it, I'm fat. And I'm slowly getting tired of it. I keep trying to be accepting of my body....I don't hate my body. But this darn belly, and fatty armpits, and the fact that I can't polish my toenails. Time to stop my complaining and just start exercising and eating better. Nothing too intense.

The hubby dragged me back to the gym yesterday. I did 20 min on my favorite cardio machine, the Cybex Arc Trainer.

using my favorite exercise accessory, my Ipod Nano.


Then just a teenie tiny bit of weights, at teenie tiny weight (that was supposed to sound funny, guess it doesn't.) I have a neck/shoulder problem and am not supposed to lift anything, but the stretching portion feels good.

So I've started. I also have tried since yesterday to watch the food. In about an hour though I'm out to lunch with the KC Pinheads. And I won't munch on any of the other yummies that are brought.

Goals - I don't want to diet, just pay better attention to hunger and the quality of food. I do want to exercise, and will build that up slowly.

Initial weight goal is to lose 12 lbs. Then just go in 10 lb increments (maybe 5, who knows.) I will post a ticker later.

Wish me luck.

Making pants fit

So I posted photos of the fitting the KC Pinheads are working on, the pants that just weren't fitting right. The other day I decided to watch the PalmerPletsch pants fitting video, and that got me motivated to try that method.

I'm at what I think is a decent fitting tissue, I just haven't gone farther.

The pattern I'm using for the Palmer Pletsch method is McCalls 5672. I bought it for the cute dress/tunic, but I haven't even started on that.

What I've realized is that so many of the patterns I buy have pants included, and at $0.99 a pattern, heck, I'm going to start cutting them up and experimenting.



But today's plan is to go back and attempt the Cynthia Guffey method again. I will bring my first horrid muslin to our Saturday fitting party, and hopefully a better fitting one.

My plan on my second attempt is to use a 1" longer crotch depth, and not allow for ease in the crotch. Don't ask me why...it's just my plan.

For this attempt I'm using the pants from yet another pattern I have around, the tunic looked horrid on me, and I was about to toss it. I'm finally getting smart....save patterns for awhile at least.

It's Vogue 8503


I'll try to be good and take pics as I work, and of my muslins. Even though it's so embarrassing to be seen in such a state of disarray. I just want it to be perfect.

And today's nails are Essie Click it or ticket. All was good till I messed up the thumb in the shower, so I did my first nail art.

A big thanks to the followers

Wow, it's really cool to see that people actually follow your blog. That little "follow" feature is awesome, and blogs that I've been reading just in my normal google Reader RSS feed, I'm now slowly switching over to "blogs I follow."

So here's a big



Here's a cute photo of my cat, Lucius. He's notorious for hiding in different places. I always know when he's hiding, because one of my other cats, Narcissa, will go around meowing in this special voice. She's done it since she was a tiny kitten. It's her way of saying "Lucius, where are you?"

Oh, he's hiding inside the partially un-upholstered chair.

Reupholstering for college

My two daughters will be sharing and apartment next fall with one other girl. We found these chairs some time back and now are starting to reupholster them.

Sewing for my daughter

My younger daughter is home for the summer and I'm looking forward to sewing for her. Yesterday morning I was happily tracing out a sundress pattern for myself, then I asked her what she thought, and she said "it won't look cute on you."

Ugh...

So I dragged her to the fabric store to help me find a pattern that would look good on me.

Ended up with the jumper picture above, which I started sewing up last night for her.

And also a Burda pants pattern

And I got myself this Burda t-shirt pattern. I was interested in it since it is plus size and I don't have to fuss over making it bigger in certain areas, and it has bust darts.

What's wrong with these pants?

My daughter was trying on shorts the other day when she came across this pair and just had to take a photo on her cell phone. I said to send it to me, I really want to share it.

Great Blog Information to share

Yesterday was one of those weird days. I didn't sew, I didn't clean, I did go out for lunch with Ody and her kids (that's fun,) but I did spend a lot of time on the computer working on my blog. I love the internet and I love google and finding all sorts of great information.

I found sites that told me how to change the backgrounds, borders and margins, and other stuff like that in blogger. I found a couple sites I like with great free backgrounds. I researched which photo sharing site I would like to use. I'll post some of that information in this post.

Awesome seamless backgrounds
Squidfingers
Pattern Cooler

How to do it yourself
FreeBlogForum - how to insert background in blog
Blog Busters - great tutorials

Free Designs
The Cutest Blog on the Block - Free Designs for your blog
Pimp-Your-Blog

And I decided to use Picasa Web Albums for my photo sharing. They allow up to 1 gigabyte free storage, and that's a lot of space, especially if you size your photos down to a decent size. If I did my math right, and please correct me if I'm wrong, you can post 10,000 - 100kb photos. And my 800x600 pixel photos are about 100kb.

Wow, did I do that right?

Well, hopefully some of you can use the information I've posted or at least find it interesting.

All my pretties

This is a photo of my nail polish collection. It makes me happy. I need to find a decent way to organize it.

Need to tweek blog a bit

Today I'm going to work a bit on tweaking my blog. I'm playing with Flickr and how to use it well. Also, as I was reading their guidelines, I've noticed that I have incorrectly uploaded a few images. On some of my post I have images of patterns, and the images were taken from their websites, i.e. Simplicity or Burda. Needless to say, that's a no no on Flickr. So I'm going to transfer those photos to my own private webspace and link them from there. Most sites don't like you hot-linking to them, so I'd rather not do that either.

We'll see what happens.

Oh, and I just took photos of my nail polish collection, so I'm going to blog on that later, and make a running list for myself of what I have, so I don't buy duplicates.

Okay, set up mostly done

Nails first though. This is 2 coats of China Glaze Grape Juice and 2 coats of Pure Ice Cheatin.


Here are pics of my stuff put away.







The area where I'm standing to take the photos is a sliding glass door into the dining area.

My empty new space

Emptiness is a weird thing at times. You get all these strange ideas of what you can do. Then you get pulled back as you remember your limitations.

I gave myself a $100 budget for a new table AND a bookshelf. I met it with $101 at HomeDepot yesterday. I got a 6 ft folding table and a big plastic shelf (which will later go in the basement. I have much more table space now than with my other table, which I love, btw.

But this is what I have for now. I'll post the finished photos when I'm done.

These are the photos of the pretty much empty room. The hot tub obviously stays, the purple chairs will be recovered this summer for my daughters who will be sharing an apartments (they were freebies and in great shape.) I'll keep the little orange cat, that's Bella peeking out of the step stool. I did a quick painting touch up and it looks nice.

Moving Sewing Room

Daughter #2 will be home for the summer and I've been using her room as my sewing room. I'm moving my stuff into the unused sunroom, which houses a broken hot tub (we hope to fix this fall) and other junk.

Here are the pics.

From this (excuse the mess, I'm a slob when I sew):


To this:

My quilting past

Quilting used to big an important part of my life, but that was many years ago. My mother took a quilting class when I was in High School, and she had a subscription to the Quilter's Newsletter, way back then. I was fascinated by the designs, and made my first quilted pillow for a friend's birthday. It was a 12" mariners compass, hand pieced and quilted. I have no clue today how good it was.

Through the years I dabbled in quilting, making simple baby quilts for my sisters-in-laws (I had many) and for friends. I would make pillows here or there.

When I had my own babies, they got baby quilts I made.

When I moved to Georgia in 1993, pregnant with my 3 child, I knew I wanted to become involved in quilting as a hobby, and an artistic expression. I joined a quilting group, 2 in fact, and had the time of my life.

In 1998, at a high point in my quilting hobby, my husband passed away. I was 34, he 38. Quilting didn't please me anymore. In fact, it hurt. I attempted to complete some projects, but it didn't happen. Eventually, I gave almost all my fabrics, books and supplies away. I even gave away a set of lovely feathered star blocks away to the quilting guild, which were later completed into their raffle quilt (I need to hunt down the photo.)

After my husband died, I got very involved with computers, and I designed some of my first simple web pages. One was a site where I posted some of my quilts. I didn't have a digital camera back then, so the photos are lousy. Following is a link to that original website. Ignore the ads and crap, I have long since lost my password and information to delete the site, so up it stays. I'll also posting a link to my old family webpage and to the memorial page I made for my husband.

Remember they were made over 10 years ago by a total beginner...just trying to find her new way in the world. But I'm going to post the quilt photos (and a few others) and my original text here also.

Quilts by Annette

The Wright Site

Memorial Page

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




TO FOREVER FLY
an original design, 1997-1998

This quilt began as a background for an F-4 fighter jet I planned on appliqueing on top. As I was working on the jet, my husband Brad told me that the intake valves were in the wrong spot. "Fine," I said, "I'll just do what I want then." I found the eagle picture on my daughter's t-shirt and drew the design from it. Brad loved the quilt. After he died, I named it TO FOREVER FLY and dedicated it to him. He will live on with the spirit of an eagle.

Each part of the eagle was individually stitched on a foundation. The finished eagle was sewn on top of the sky which had been foundation pieced. The landscaping was done by machine and by hand. The quilt is finished with handquilting.


TURBULANCE--The Day the Comet Fell Into the Sea

I went to a quilt show with some friends, and after the show we went to a nearby fabric shop. A bunch of beautiful blue "bali" print were calling my name, and I had to buy them. Within a few days I had most of the quilt finished.

But I felt something was missing, it wasn't complete. One night I had a dream about a comet falling into the ocean. I decided the next morning that the quilt needed a comet...so I made one with metallic threads.

The main part of this quilt is machine pieced, but the entire border was appliqued by hand. It is machine quilted with metallic threads.


Tulips

This is a small appliqued wallhanging. It is hand quilted.



BRANDON'S ZOO QUILT
I fell in love with this photo in a quilt book. The different zoo animals were so much fun to make. Finding the right fabric was often difficult, and I got the tiger and zebra fabric from a friend. The animals were paper foundation pieced. The quilt was finished with handquilting. Brandon sleeps under it every night (he used to, he's now almost 16.)



The double wedding ring is a traditional favorite and has been around for many years. I drafted the pattern myself, that way I knew all the pieces would fit perfectly.

I wanted this quilt to have the look and feel of an antique, so I used soft pastels and muslin. The batting is 100% cotton.

I knew it would need a lot of quilting to get that old fashioned look, and there was no way I could do that all by hand. It was my first attempt at free motion machine quilting. It is a very comfortable quilt.



I saw this quilt finished in a quilt shop and just had to make it myself. I had never done a watercolor type of quilt before, and finding the right fabrics was very difficult.

It is all pieced by machine and machine quilted.


Mayday Quilt

This was done as a mystery quilt with one of my quilt groups. We had to bring in a certain amount of floral fabrics and white tone-on-tones. As a group we sewed and sewed and sewed...then we ate and ate and ate.

I hand quilted this quilt. It's very pretty.



In a quilt group I belong to, each month one person gets to chose the quilt block she would like others to do for her. It can be a specific pattern, or color, or anything the recipient chooses. For my month I chose houses...any kind of house.

The challenge came in getting all those different sized houses to fit together. It was a fun puzzle. I added a few extra houses, trees, and checkerboards to fill in the empty space.

I finished the quilt with hand quilting and cotton batting.



This mariner's compass quilt is an original design I drafted myself. It is machine pieced with a paper foundation method. It is machine quilted.


Christmas in Georgia

This colors of this quilt were based on the fabric used in the border. It is a scrap quilt. I had a lot of fun with all the different fabric colors. I hand quilted it with both red and green thread.

Here the kids and I are celebrating Christmas 2001 with the edge of the quilt in the background. They are all a lot older now.

Much better with sleeves removed

I finally got the silly little cap sleeves removed and it looks so much better. In fact, I think I want to sew another one. I still need to do a PR Review.


Today's nails are China Glaze Rose Among Thorns (neon) and I'm not digging it at all. From what I've read, it's next to impossible to take a good photo of a neon shade, and I am going to agree. This looks orange, and the bottle is a real bright salmon orange, yet neon.

A case of the "I should know better" 's

Eek, why would I even think little cap sleeves would work on me. Egads...silly me. I will remove them and just do a normal bias around the armhole.

Here's the pattern, Simplicity 4190. I think it's kind of cute.


Here's me in the bathroom mirror. I really need to look into some new mirrors.


And yesterday I put on a fun nail color. This is China Glaze Purple Panic (neon.) Wow, you should see it in the sun, it totally glows. Of course, today there is no sun.