Alright, I give.

Whoever has come into my home and STOLEN my usb cord, speak now! Stop hiding! It can actually just be returned to me, no questions asked, anonymously...I won't press charges or anything!! All I want is my usb cord!! I want to share pictures with everyone! I want to share news in a visual way!

Since I can't do that, *sigh*, I'll have to share my news from yesterday in a ho-hum, ordinary way. So without further ado:

Yesterday...











I. SEWED. A. STRAIGHT. LINE.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Now people who've been reading here for awhile might know that although I've taken an interest in sewing (check out some of my awesome blahg links to the left, below the floating baby), and although I find myself in possession of a gifted-to-me sewing machine, I also found myself scared poopless of it, and of screwing anything up on it. There had been talk of taking it over to my mom's house one weekend and having her show me "the basics" (mainly threading the machine, since that's what everyone scared me with..."Threading the machine is the hardest part!"...or "If you can thread the machine without throwing it out the nearest window, you're good to go!"). But clearly, I'm 8½ months pregnant, and shouldn't be lifting anything near as heavy as a sewing machine.

But as luck would have it, mom came by yesterday anyway to help with some last minute preps for LMJM. I don't remember what made me think of the machine, sitting lonesome on the bunker floor in back of my chair, but I did...and I brought it out into the kitchen for her to view in all its glory. She asked if I had a manual, which I did, and we sat down together to at least thread the machine. Little did I realize that one has to, uhm, have THREAD to thread the machine (yeah, I'm a beginner). The spool that was on the machine was empty; there was material included with the machine, and lots of sweet little gadgets (including some kind of specialty foot that looks more like a torture device than anything else), but no spools of thread.

Thankfully, it wasn't too late in the day, so we took off to Michaels (which has a really bad selection of thread, by the way). After mingling around the Halloween and Christmas stuff that they already had on display, we found thread, oogled at the 44 dollar scissors (!!!!!!!!!!!), and headed back home. And what we figured out was this: Mom simply read the instructions and looked at the pictures, just like I did. :) Since all machines are different, that's what had to happen. And make it happen, we did. Once threaded, we also threaded a bobbin (I don't think that's what that's called, but I had no bobbins with white thread already on them, and she wanted to make sure I knew how to get thread from the spool to the bobbin, so that's what we did).

And to think...I had beautiful pictures of the straight line I sewed, and a zigzag I played around with as well...but since I can't post them, you'll have to believe me when I tell you how cool they looked, even on the little piece of scrap fabric I had! So now, I have a mission: I'll start going to the antique stores and thrift shops in the area in search of several things: fabric, preferably cheap fabric, since I'll just be playing around with it at first (practice, practice, practice), old patterns, preferably little girl dresses (I'm sure I could find little boy clothes too, but I've got a hunch that boy clothes are harder to sew, and I don't want to get frustrated), and any other little nifty sewing things I can find. I'll look for thread too, but I've heard you don't want to use "thrifted" thread for any serious projects, because who knows how old it might be, and old thread might be weak thread. But for jacking around, it'll be perfect.

So, I'm working my way up to become one of you special people...to join the ranks of those who create beautiful pieces, either for gifts, for your own enjoyment, or even to sell. And I promise...PROMISE that I will either find the usb cord or buy a new one in order to share pictures of anything I make, even if it's really bad (and there will be some really bad ones, trust me).

*****AUTHOR'S EDIT: I wanted to share this with you, as I'm sitting here listening to my younger son play in the bathtub. He yells over to me (I'm right across from the bathroom), "Mommy, did I tell you this joke before? What did the man say who was getting a Harley Davidson?"

"I don't know, what?"

"I can HARLEY wait."

I swear, he is his father's son.