Progress!

First progress made was on the alterations that I need to make on Brooke's wedding dress. I managed to get the straps altered this afternoon...note the beads...I was able to just take off the ones that I meant to take off...no extras fell into the little container! Luckily where I needed to take them off was at either a starting place or an ending place for the hand sewn on beads. So I cut the thread away from the beads and then worked my way to the beads and took them off one at a time as I came to a group of beads and then had a long enough thread after I got them off to knot it and keep ALL the remaining beads on the dress...I hope!!! After I fixed the straps then I basted the new hem near the folded edge. I haven't gotten up enough nerve to take it to my serger...yet! I think that will be for another day...don't want to press my luck! But if I wait then I have to reposition things in the sewing room so Woody can get in there tomorrow when he wants to use the computer. I spread a sheet on the floor and then pulled the ironing board out, lowered it, and covered it with a piece of muslin. I am using the ironing board like a table that I can work on from my sewing chair. Worked well so far with what I have done. I may decide that I don't want to have to redo the set-up so go on and finish tonight...we'll see how tired I am by the time I have Woody connected for his dialysis treatment. I have his treatment all set up with the solution warming already tonight as we plan to start just a little early this evening. In the morning we need to have him disconnected from the dialysis cycler machine, breakfast eaten, and be ready to be on the road no later than 7:30 as he has an appointment in Franklin, TN in the morning with the surgeon who did his latest melanoma surgery. I guess you can call this a post post op appointment. Elijah's ball game was cancelled tonight due to a field that was too wet after all the rain that we got yesterday and in the night and some this morning. Woody did go to the Monday Night Furnace Room Prayer Meeting. He is home and settled in to relax before it is time for his next treatment.

I will end tonight with the second progress that I have made and that was with my sampler. I will include a picture of my progress since I posted Friday after getting the linen and getting started on it and also post a picture of the front of the chart of what the finished project "might" look like when I am finished. I can already tell you that changes have already been made. I moved the A,B,C,D and 1,2,3,4 rectangles up in the piece. I decided to not make the year and my initials quite so prominent...one reason my initials wouldn't fit in using the size that the designer used, pluw her initials were all curvy and interesting and my initials are all straight and not very interesting...and 2021 fits into the square a lot different than 1996 (that's approximately how long I have had this chart). 1996 is the year this design was copyrighted...I could have bought it a few years later...but probably not many. Anyway, I have had it quite a while. At the time I bought it I got the charms that are to be attached, the felt for the corner hearts, and the buttons that go on the hearts. It was good to already have those items as I'm sure that they wouldn't be available still...though, it could be stitched without them. I'm just happy to be stitching it now. I would have had a little more progress to show if I hadn't had to "frog stitch" (frog stitching is "rip-it, rip-it" (like rib-it, rib-it that a frog says!)). Anyway, I got to looking at some of the long row of stitching that I was doing to define some more of the little boxes and realized that the row looked too dark...I had managed to pick up the wrong brown to do that row in so I had to "frog stitch." I had started to put it back in, but haven't gotten back as far as I was when I discovered it. This isn't the most colorful of samplers and there are lots of shades of brown. I will be LOTS more careful of which strand of thread I pick up to stitch with after having to pick out probaly 40 or move x's. I don't like to do reverse stitching! And, that is the reason that I am leary of the next step on the wedding dress...once I commit to cutting off the hem of the dress...there is no going back and redoing...this is the part of what I have to do to the wedding dress that is the scariest...taking that first cut...and, do I trust me to do this with the serger...that machine is wonderful...but it can be a destroyer, too! But it would be so much better if I can do it with the serger rather than cutting it off by hand because it would end with the finished edge that I need to turn up and hem...just like the original hem! After I get that hem done... then I have to hem the underskirt...hmmmmmmm just thought...I should do the underskirt first as a little mess up there wouldn't show...will think on that a bit! Problem with that is I don't have that one turned up yet...was going to just be sure to make it shorter than the outer skirt...dilemma after dillemma...decision after decision...I think that I would rather cross stitch tonight! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious1