In a Photo Mood

Well, sad to say I have not been in front of my sewing machine for a year. My BWOF has expired. Some of my fabrics and patterns are still laying around as I left them. Last year. I have no idea when I'll be back into the sewing groove. I should...turn on my machine and let it run a few stitches. Let it know I still treasure the wonderful sewing moments we've had and that I haven't forgotten her. So sad.

I don't want to shut down this blog that I've shared with so many wonderful sewists. Many of you have left wonderful and uplifting comments and experiences. If you don't mind, I'll keep posting every now and then about what I've been up to. Just maybe, real soon, that sewing bug will come right back.

My photography hobby has taken me on a wonderful new adventure. I've been spending my weekends, taking lots of pictures. I had the opportunity last month to take a trip into DC for the Cherry Blossoms. My brother and I managed to get to the Tidal Basin before the crack of dawn. We stumbled upon a nice surprise and was able to take pictures of a bride in a beautiful setting.

A bride at the Tidal Basin


Her gown close-up


Got to love those white platform shoes


I have to say whenever I visit a place or town with my camera, I always come across a bride-picture-taking opportunity. It happened to me last year when I was in Chicago.


Overall, I'm doing well. Life is good. :)

A Saturday Christmas Play

As I mentioned in a prior post, I was tasked to take pictures for our Children's Christmas Program at our SDA church. From rehearsals to final production, I took over 450 pictures. Do you know how difficult it is to take pictures of youngsters? Always on the move, squirming, fidgeting, etc. As always, I enjoyed the picture taking experience immensely.




Here's a sample picture of some of the masks that were designed and used in the play. I see a french hen and a turtle dove mask.





The play was called "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and the kids were dressed to represent the 12 days of Christmas. There were many verses to be told and songs to be sung. They were all adorable.






As most of you know, I have to respect the parents' wishes and won't be posting pictures of the kids. Trust me, they were quite cute!

Playing Tourist for a Few Hours

I took my DB#2 to the Air & Space Museum in Chantilly, VA. We spent over 3 hours here. This was my 2nd trip to the museum and there was much more to see as they had finished the "Space Hangar" which included the Space Shuttle Enterprise. I let DB#2 linger around all the airplane engines displayed...as for me..."if you've seen one, you've seen enough".

Here's some pictures I took of our adventure:



The planes were everywhere:


Yellow ones:


My favorite shuttle picture...a winner:


The backside of the shuttle with DB#2 underneath:


One of 4 flight simulators:


Two simulators that actually roll and bump:




More planes:












And I couldn't get enough pictures of the space shuttle:


We were sooooo engrossed in all the planes, that we forgot to take a trip up to the tower. Next time.

So, if you are in or near the DC/Northern Virginia area...I highly recommend visiting this museum. It's less than a mile south of Dulles International Airport off of Rt 28 in Chantilly, VA. There's an entrance fee of $12/car. A real bargain if you can more than 4 people in your car.

Ready to Sew...Vogue Jacket and Other Things

I am now working on this Vogue jacket. View A with short sleeves. I am making a muslin...using inexpensive fabric to see if I like this jacket style on me. I really want to make View B with the long kimono-type sleeves, but decided to make the short sleeves instead. 1) to see where the short sleeve falls on my arm, 2) to gauge how much I need to shorten for View B sleeves, and 3) view A uses the least amount of fabric.


Here is the muslin fabric I am using. It's a cotton woven floral print with some lycra that I found in the clearance section at Joann's. The dark areas in the fabric is olive green. To line this jacket, I'm using an olive green lightweight cotton fabric. I could not find a raspberry or medium brown fabric to match. There was no way I was going to use orange fabric for lining. Oh well, it's only a test jacket and green will have to do.


G-Street is having another sale. I went off my G-Street Fabric diet. I had a list that I pretty much stuck to (e.g. weft interfacing, buttons, thread), but I made a mistake of looking at their fabrics. Here's what I purchased (left to right): dark gray and white floral sweater knit, black with white thread suiting, black and white squares suiting, and blue and brown diamond print sweater knit.

I also found a black heavy lace knit and a black jacquard floral print brocade for some future eveningwear garments.

I did finish sewing the buttonholes and buttons on my Butterick brocade jacket. I plan on doing a special review for this jacket real soon.

In non-sewing related news...I found an Omni-Bounce flash diffuser for my external Nikon flash unit. I tried it out when I took the two pictures above. I am very happy with the results. Now, I can take wonderful pictures of my fabrics without getting any weird results. Not sure if there's an interest, but I thought I would do a future post on the basic photo equipment that I use to take pictures. Let me know if you think it would be helpful.

I am looking forward to the long weekend of sewing. How about you?

Side Trip

My DB is in town for an extended weekend.

Yesterday, we took an early morning trip into Washington, DC. We arrived at the Smithsonian metrorail stop and came upon the Washington Monument. It was great to get an early start and we were able to capture some "quiet moment" pictures before the tour buses arrived.

Our goal was to go down to the Tidal Basin to see if any cherry trees were blooming. Yes...I know we are late by a week or two to catch any late bloomers, but DB's flight was cancelled last week. You remember...American Airlines and correcting the wiring in their planes (glad they were able to fix that issue).

As we approached the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial, there was not a bloomin' cherry tree in sight. Sigh.

We continued our walk along the basin and lo and behold, we find a tree full of blossoms.

We headed to the Jefferson Memorial and walked up the majestic steps.

We continued our journey around the Basin, we came across the FDR memorial park. This was a nice surprise. Here, they had several "rooms" with waterfall displays, statues, etc.

A startled squirrel was also passing through this park.

We left the Basin and headed over to the World War II Memorial.

We had an incredible day walking around and the weather was perfect.

So, naturally no pattern review got done and I am one tired puppy. :)