More Blog and Website Updates and a little bit of Digitizing
It seems as though this entire month has been devoted to blog and website design and organization and not much sewing . . . the more I try to "finish" the SewAmazin website, the more I realize what I really should have been doing all along is blogging! But until recently, I didn't really understand what a blog is. I started out with the website because it came free with the sewamazin.net domain name and I just didn't know any better at the time. I've spent a number of hours this week reading blogs of other "sewing enthusiasts" and have learned a good deal about how to better organize and utilize my blog (and I picked up a few sewing tips and ideas, too!).
So now I've gone back to my website and streamlined it again -- I'll leave it up for now, 'cuz its free (and I like free stuff), but I've eliminated the Guestbook (hardly anybody signed it anyway and anyone who wants to comment can do so on the blog) and the Material Girls page is gone too, since I've copied and pasted all that content here to the blog. Instead of one "Projects" page I've spread it out -- Rich said it was too long a page to scroll all the way down -- so I'll have one page each for Sewing, Embroidery and Needlework. I get 5 free pages, so that will work nicely as a jumping off point back to the blog.
I did finally turn on my laptop for the first time this month and played with my 4D Embroidery for a few hours (to take my mind off of all this blogging confusion). I realized that I have only 2 weeks left to finish gifts due for July; I have 4 birthdays in July/August (3 nieces, 1 nephew, unless I forgot one of them) to make gifts, so I really needed to get a plan together.
My nephew Ryan's baptism is coming up soon; last year I made keepsake booties for 2 nieces from my mother's wedding dress and I want to do the same for Ryan. The design is from a Martha Pullen "Gift of the Month" club project. The embroidery is very flowery and girlish -- not good for a boy. So I'm using that design as a "template" and replacing the flower and vines with a shell (a baptism symbol) and scroll designs. I purchased the shell design from EmbroideryLibrary last year as part of a Religious Symbols design pack and used some of the 4D machine fonts to create the scrolls. It took me a little over an hour to come up with a design, but now I need to do a sample stitch-out and see if this looks the way I envision it.
I also went back to work on the minkee hankie blankie puppy face. I had thought I would try using 4D Sketch to draw the eyebrows to get that "arched" look (I was happy with the rest of the face already). It just didn't look right to me so I decided to go back to Digitizing and actually read the directions and try the curved satin columns again. I'm glad I did, 'cuz now the eyebrows look just as I wanted them, at least on the computer screen. I need to look at the stitch points in Stitch Editor and play the stitches out in order on screen before I do a sample stitch-out on this one. Hopefully it will be good enough and I can make those blankies and cross another project off my list.
I received my order from Embroidery Online/OESD yesterday -- over Memorial Day weekend they offered some clearance priced items and I ordered a CD of a Zebra Alphabet with 50 squares of minkee fabric to make baby blocks. I ordered pastel minkee, and I'm a little disappointed with the colors -- they look peachy and yellowish to me, not pink, blue or purple as pictured on the packaging. So I guess I will use them for the "sample" stitchouts and use my own colorful minkee stash for the actual blocks, which I hope to make in time for some of those July and August birthdays.
So now I've gone back to my website and streamlined it again -- I'll leave it up for now, 'cuz its free (and I like free stuff), but I've eliminated the Guestbook (hardly anybody signed it anyway and anyone who wants to comment can do so on the blog) and the Material Girls page is gone too, since I've copied and pasted all that content here to the blog. Instead of one "Projects" page I've spread it out -- Rich said it was too long a page to scroll all the way down -- so I'll have one page each for Sewing, Embroidery and Needlework. I get 5 free pages, so that will work nicely as a jumping off point back to the blog.
I did finally turn on my laptop for the first time this month and played with my 4D Embroidery for a few hours (to take my mind off of all this blogging confusion). I realized that I have only 2 weeks left to finish gifts due for July; I have 4 birthdays in July/August (3 nieces, 1 nephew, unless I forgot one of them) to make gifts, so I really needed to get a plan together.
My nephew Ryan's baptism is coming up soon; last year I made keepsake booties for 2 nieces from my mother's wedding dress and I want to do the same for Ryan. The design is from a Martha Pullen "Gift of the Month" club project. The embroidery is very flowery and girlish -- not good for a boy. So I'm using that design as a "template" and replacing the flower and vines with a shell (a baptism symbol) and scroll designs. I purchased the shell design from EmbroideryLibrary last year as part of a Religious Symbols design pack and used some of the 4D machine fonts to create the scrolls. It took me a little over an hour to come up with a design, but now I need to do a sample stitch-out and see if this looks the way I envision it.
I also went back to work on the minkee hankie blankie puppy face. I had thought I would try using 4D Sketch to draw the eyebrows to get that "arched" look (I was happy with the rest of the face already). It just didn't look right to me so I decided to go back to Digitizing and actually read the directions and try the curved satin columns again. I'm glad I did, 'cuz now the eyebrows look just as I wanted them, at least on the computer screen. I need to look at the stitch points in Stitch Editor and play the stitches out in order on screen before I do a sample stitch-out on this one. Hopefully it will be good enough and I can make those blankies and cross another project off my list.
I received my order from Embroidery Online/OESD yesterday -- over Memorial Day weekend they offered some clearance priced items and I ordered a CD of a Zebra Alphabet with 50 squares of minkee fabric to make baby blocks. I ordered pastel minkee, and I'm a little disappointed with the colors -- they look peachy and yellowish to me, not pink, blue or purple as pictured on the packaging. So I guess I will use them for the "sample" stitchouts and use my own colorful minkee stash for the actual blocks, which I hope to make in time for some of those July and August birthdays.
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