Digitizing Fun

I digitized this pattern for a gal. She loved it and it was fun to create.  If I spent a fraction of the time embroidering as I do digitizing my room would be overflowing with products. <3. 

Embroidering on Air. (Or so it seemed)

I got my old embroidery machine out and have been bitten by the thread bug.
As if I don't have enough going on. I found these scarves very reasonable and decided to try it. A few people said it was not possible, that just made me determined. If I had used WSS instead of printer paper on the front it would look much better. There was none in my stash and over an hour one way was to far to drive for a "betcha I can".

I did the beanie for my son in law yesterday.when the yellow finished instead of hitting the GO button.  
Silly me, I hit the power button. So of course it was offset down by an eighth of an in. I filled it in with free motion on a regular ....sewing machine. It turned out fine though.

Ashley's House

Tomorrow there will be an event to raise money for a project very close to our hearts. They are raising money for a smoke trailer used in training children of all ages what to do in the event of a fire.
Ashley Weir was Mira's very close friend all through school. From third grade on.
We will be donating 50% of our profits to the Ashley Weir Scholarship Fund. So I hope we do well, so we have something to give.
They already have the trailer and take it to schools or anywhere people want them to bring it to teach children about fire. They really want to get a flat screen T.V. and a DVD player for it. They play educational material during the tours.
There will also be a table set up with prints of Jessi Evans Art With the proceeds going to the Jessi Evans Scholarship Fund. Another girl that left us way too soon, I still can't type about her without choking on the words. So anyone within the vicinity of Norris City Crossroads church come on out and help support these causes.
God Bless!
~Ginger

Bread Yet?

   Between Craft Shows and sewing it seems I am spinning in circles. It has been a wish of mine to make real home started sourdough with no packaged yeast. Just the water and flour. It has finally happened. Tuesday was the first time I felt it was stable enough to use. So I carefully followed all of the instructions for bread using just my own homemade starter and after hours and hours my rolls were in the oven. ..... I went back to my sewing room, i had been working on several things in there all day. BIG NO-NO. I forgot I was cooking. One hundred and five (105) minutes later as I walked up the hall, The aroma hit me. Fresh bread! Oh man, so disappointed in myself. It did not burn, it dried. Like pottery. Fortunately as I was making the starter instead of throwing away the excess I kept one other starter, so I could give some away. It is so simple if anyone wants to do it. Here is what you have to do.
   One cup warm water to one cup of flour. Stir it up well, cover and set on top the refrigerator (preferably in glass container) until it gets all bubbly and smells yeasty (24 hours). If it isn't bubbly just wait. According to everything I have read it can happen in 12 to 36 hours.  I have a starter friendly climate and mine did well. After it is bubbly feed it 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of warm water. Wait again until it is bubbly. You might have water on top, that is fine (called hooch) just pour it off or stir it in. I kept mine. Now the next time it bubbles divide it in half. Throw half away and feed the other 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup warm water. Instead of throwing mine away - I made another starter.
   After you have done this several times and it is obviously a good healthy starter it is time to feed it again then putting it in the refrigerator. Feed it once a week with 1/2 C f;our and 1/2 C water. Throwing 1/2 away before feeding.
   To make your bread take the starter out and feed it 1 C flour and 1 C water let it sit on the counter until it is bubbly all the way through to the bottom. This is called a sponge. Make sure it is bubbly on the bottom too, it will look like a slow boiling cream soup or something. (you won't see it boiling, it just looks like it has been)  After the sponge is ready take 2 C of it and put in a bowl with 2 T soft butter 2 t salt and 5 t sugar, mix it up and start adding flour until you have a soft dough. Mine has taken anywhere from 2 to 4 Cs. Not sure why such a difference. Just use the dough consistency to get the proper amount, not the recipe. Barely dry enough to be able to knead. Knead for about 10 minutes.or until a finger hole poked in pops right back out. Let sit until it doubles in size. Punch it down, shape into a loaf and let rize again. Sourdough start with no added yeast takes longer to rise. A LOT longer to rise. Best to start in the morning or let the last rising rise overnight.
   My best advice is to not sew once you pop it in the oven.
   Enjoy!

Little Doggy Ruffs

  We have an event tomorrow to raise money for a local animal rescue. We wracked our brains and Mira finally asked me if I could make some doggy cuffs. She even came up with the label idea. I have seen dog leg warmers before although usually crocheted or knitted. So I made one and we put it on Thea. She did not mind it at all and when she would take it off she brought it back to Mira to put back on her. I did not get many made.  Oh well..  This is something I think I will continue to make..
God Bless.
~Ginger

Work, work, work, or not.

 I have been wanting to get a lot of items made up for our next two events. It just seems something happens everyday. There are so many things I want to blog about yet it seems there is never enough time. My sewing room is almost finished, just have one more cabinet and table to move back here. Things will be much easier with it all in the same place. Tomorrow evening we will be setting up in Carmi for Saturdays show. Then in one week we will have another event here in town. I would like to post some pictures of our displays, however if I remember correctly this weeks event will have limited space. We will see.
God Bless
~Ginger

Duct Tape and Baling Wire

  A silly fun fact I thought I would share. What is in a name? We changed our name from one that did not indicate what we did. Through long hard discussions we decided on ~ Emporium ~ It has a nice ring to it and denotes many items. Mira makes many things including her duct tape line. She does wooden wall decor, canvas wall decor, lanyards, beaded everything, crochet and so much more. I myself sew about anything, crochet about anything, do bead work and I bend baling wire. Yes! Baling wire or electric fencing. I bend it into rings, bracelets, and more. My favorite bent wire item though is my tree. So when we were trying to come up with a name Duct Tape and Baling Wire was at the forefront (for a minute or two anyway). We were afraid people would be disappointed when they realized we did not really carry nuts and bolts etc. ~Ginger

Another Fun Day

  We were supposed to have an event today, it was cancelled due to the weather. So I went back to sleep. Since I was going to miss church I had turned off my church alarms and just had the very early event alarm set. OOPS! I slept very late. When I finally woke up Ellie had eaten four, yes FOUR cupcakes. Oh my...

  First thing I did was start on diapers. We had some old hoodies from some popular brands, they will make cute bums. Then Mira came over worried about curtains for Baby Seraphina's room. So we pushed the diapers to the side and got out the only non-velvet white fabric I had. The Bridal Satin that we never used.
We got some curtains whipped up, now nesting mother can relax.
Mira has several plans for dressing them up. 

Not sure which one she will go with. 

Of course we will post pics and the "how-we-did-its" when we/she do whatever it may be.

God Bless!

Bum Covers from the Behind Side

   Just wanted to show what some of the backs look like. I meant to earlier and got sidetracked by life.

Diapers

Today we worked on diapers and inserts for Seraphina. We are cutting it a bit close since she is due in less than two weeks. We will have plenty done though. She (Mira) is going to use disposable for the first couple of weeks, so that eases the pressure some. 

"COW"girlie

 

This is the outfit I made before HUBFEST. It was an adult x-small and Fred the mannequin is just an 8 so I had to pin it in the back. It turned out quite cute though.

I am constantly wracking my brain for new ideas to sew. Things that are functional yet flattering. Something someone would love to wear. My forte is ultra stretchy so that is what I will stick with. ~Ginger