Little road trip for a cute little vintage sewing machine.

I've been searching for a new embroidery machine so I can expand my items in my shop and for craft fairs. So many designs that I love are for 5x7 and larger, and until now I've only had a brother that only does 4x4. It's a great little machine, and it stitches well and I can do just about anything...as long as it's small.

The Mr. said I could look around and as long as I found one that was not crazy expensive, we'd see if I could manage it into the budget. Well, I of course fell in love with a Husqvarna Viking Ruby machine, that is sooooo nice, however, it is at least $1800 and that's for an iffy transaction. These easily average $2200-$3000..USED! 

While I was searching Viking Ruby yesterday, this adorable vintage sewing machine pops up in the feed and it's listed for $100...

I know what you're saying, "I thought you wanted an embroidery machine??"

And I would reply, "yes. I do. However, this is a vintage sewing machine, that I've never seen before..I'm certain if I had seen it before I would be looking for it now to purchase!"

It was about 2 hours away from me..that was a minor deterrent once the gentleman accepted my offer of $60.

So off we went, my 12 yr old, 10 yr old, 4 yr old and myself.  

It was a pretty uneventful drive up thankfully, e
xcept of course, the people who do not know how to use their headlights in the rain!

Seriously folks, if you are in a light colored vehicle especially, but any vehicle, and it is raining, you should have your headlights on...if you don't your a terrible driver! There I said it.

It's been raining for so long here. The river is about to flood downtown and it is still raining soooo much. 

The whole trip took us about 7 hours, and once I got home, I couldn't wait to get my machine set up and see how it stitched. Honestly, I wanted to see IF it stitched.  

It came with a little stack of books, the foot pedal and the cams! Yea CAMS. It's a cam sewing machine, from the 70's..I love this thing so much.

It stitches beautifully. So smooth. So straight. So quiet! Which was a surprise. I do need to get a new hook for my bobbin, as this one is worn and it clanks a bit while sewing. But even with that $83 piece, I'm still very happy with the price of the machine.

Another small Grove order unboxing **NOT a referrer** just an compulsive cleaner/shopper..don't judge..just watch :)

I really just realized how to share this directly from my YouTube channel. I am feeling a little old...but I think I'm ok as long as I'm not asking my kids how to "watch a funny on the YouTube?" haha

Let me know in the comments if you get that reference...if you do we should be friends :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day, see you next time!

Would you kindly subscribe to my YouTube channel...pretty please??

Ok, so I have this YouTube channel and I really want to make it awesome with weekly videos and stuff, but I'm finding myself discouraged as it is still new and I only have 3 subbys. None are my spouse or kids though so that's something, haha.

I am working on videos now, and will be posting another Grove unboxing today, plus I'll be posting my first how to knit video this weekend. In my line up will be a review of my amazing vintage Husqvarna Viking 6460 Cam sewing machine, I'll be reviewing a singer em200, a babylock ellegante, and a brother innovis 4000d embroidery machine, showing you how I make bags in the hoop on the different machines, leather crafting, sewing leather bags and accessories, getting ready for a vendor show and so much more craft stuff!

My son will be making some appearances talking about his Tourettes and how he feels like it affects his ability to craft, along with some cool projects he will be doing.

I am always open to suggestions as well, so if you are a subscriber please leave a comment somewhere and let me know what video you'd like to see! Leave a comment here, I'll definitely see it!

I want to thank any and all of you who stop by to read this blog, and even if you don't jump over to YouTube, I still appreciate you so much! It is so encouraging just to see people reading my little quips of life here. I know in years I will be glad to have made this and see what I did and what my family was doing. So thank you for being here and sharing my life...I love you guys for that <3

Remember to give those hugs, say those I love you's, and check in with those people you don't think needing checked in on, as well as the others that do...keep going, keep breathing, I think you rock socks! I'll be back soon. Thank you...every one of you...even if it is just one of you :) <3

Frames, Trash and a little bit about ODD

I take the 3 kids to their eye appointments, with baby girl in tow, because if I leave the house you know she's coming and bringing her plus 1 to sit with her and hold her hand in the car...yea she's so funny.

We get to the mall, check in for exams, and start looking for frames, my boys are like BAM,

"Mama, I like these, are they ok?"

I'm like, "Awesome, yea they look great!"

Done. 2 out of 3 frames picked in less than 5 minutes.

Then there's my 13 yr old girl.

She's .... special...and I swear I don't mean that in a derogatory mean way...she really is though..everything with her is so..... "extra"? Is that what that means, I don't have any other way to explain it...it has to be so difficult.

She immediately says she wants these large black frames, that were too big and too contrasting for her...once I explained that she was immediately crushed yet continued to only choose black wide frames too big for her face.

I ask her which brand of frame she thinks are nicest..she says "Guess". So we go to the Guess wall, and I'm looking and I find a pair with blue inner frame and the tortoisey outer frame. Still brown, but with some light tones for her pale blue eyes and blonde/brown hair and fair skin...she says "hmm ok" but her face was just so unhappy. She said she liked the colored ones, so I chose some fun speckled purples, greens, reds, blues, no frames, plastic frames, metal frames, half frames...I was pretty sure we were all going home with pink eye after the number of frames she put on her face! haha

Then she goes back to the first pair I chose and says "I'll get these" I explain to her she does not have to pick a pair at this place, we can go other places for frames if she does not want these. But, she's done, she just wants to leave and so I give in and get the frames and feel like a complete failure as a mom.

As we are driving home, we pass a sports bar with a bit of open land between it and the next hotel on that little road, and it is trashed. It looks like people just park there and see who can throw the most trash the furthest into the field. It looked awful. My before picture doesn't begin to show you how bad it was.

My daughter, being the little environmentalist she is sometimes, said "Mama, could I pick up that trash? We have some plastic Aldi bags back here..."

I say, "yea, but I'm not going to keep those bags, we will just drop them at the dump on the way home".

She gets out, grabs gloves and a bag and starts picking up.

Let me also add, as you can sort of see in the pics, it was not nice out yesterday. It was grey and cold and had been raining for days...it was muddy and wet and gross.

Yet she worked hard, walking all around bending over and picking up 5 aldi bags of trash, plus a box she found and filled and a big trash bag she found and filled.




But she did it. And she earned her choice of pizza this weekend and a weird doll thing with teeth...Fuggler I believe it's called? I dunno,I think it's creepy, but she loves it..

When she does these things it makes me feel like I have actually done something right, raising her, and it makes me feel guilty for getting so frustrated with her behaviour at any other given moment.

She has ODD. If you are unfamiliar with ODD, it is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. When the child has issues with following directions from authority figures. Usually, they are also very obnoxious and lash out at people and yell and can become violent. She has all the clinical text book symptoms EXCEPT for yelling/lashing out at me, the authority figure. I believe that may be coming as we get into the teens a bit further.

So she does an amazing job on the trash, and is a gross muddy mess, but she's happy. And that is a win..she doesn't get "happy" about many things, so when she does it makes me happy.

I hope you enjoyed today's entry, I know it was a bit long :)

I hope all of you reading this are doing well and finding your little bit of happy in each day.

Remember, I'm giving away an amazing book in one of my other posts, I can't wait for someone to take me up on that! Random mail makes me happy...although I generally only get mail when I've bought something. Except Booksgiving. Booksgiving was great. So go grab my book give away...let me booksgive you! This book is amazing pillow fort reading...seriously.

Also, check in with your friends and family and see if they need a little bit of happy in their day as well. Keep going, keep breathing, keep living and keep loving...I do <3

UFO's...they are all over my house!!

Yea, I really wish it was the cool spaceship kind of UFO's with little aliens inside..I could get them to take me to some other planet.  I'd be a great Rick/Morty character...ah well, no, I'm talking about UFO's..or UFP's...UnFinished Objects/Projects!!

I keep finding little bags of yarns, needles, thread, fabric...so many things I started and just never finished. I tend to keep/hoard, craft items...I have bins and comforter blanket zip bags full and tucked away all over the house and garage, full of yarns or fabric or paracord or lace or threads or linen or scrapbooking supplies or possibly 3 die cutters...you know it's whatever..my point is I may have a problem..but it's ok...that's for another episode.

Today while showing my son how to cross stitch, so he could stitch out a Totodile that I found for him on Etsy. There are so many great designers on Etsy, I found a bunch of super adorable fandom type stuff and we are both kind of excited to do more! I had to find him some thread/floss or whatever you prefer to call this, I call it both. I knew I had at least 3 smallish bins full of the stuff! We found one pretty easily and it had lots of my more expensive stuff unfortunately, so I found him the other bin with the less expensive floss hahaha and we went from there.

ANYWHO, while working with him, I found a little bag with a project I was working on about 5 years ago! It's a cross stitch, based on the movie "Labyrinth". The one with David Bowie, and the crazy muppets and stuff all through it, and the baby in the weird where's waldo pajamas? Yea, you know the one...So this is the "Power of the Babe..." quote and it is surrounded by an art deco kind of frame and I am pretty sure it was supposed to be a gift for someone, but I ended up buying something instead...I may have gotten busy, I may have gotten bored, I may have just run out of time who knows.
                                                                                                          


My son is super excited though because I started stitching on it again a bit and he loves that we can do the same thing together. I hope he loves crafting and grows to do great things. If not then I hope he just does enough to make himself happy :) I love seeing him so happy with himself. He is having some ticking while cross stitching so it isn't like sewing was, but like I said he's happy so I'm happy..

If you stopped in to read, thank you! Don't forget to check out the other post for an amazing book give away!! Yea I'm going to buy you a book..no you can't choose it, but I promise the book I'm giving you is absolutely amazing and I am pretty certain you or someone you know and love needs this book in their life..I am going to be buying a couple copies and framing the pages and hanging them as art when we buy our house...yea...it's that kind of epic...go to that post..leave your comment...do it...do it now...

Until next time, keep going keep breathing, and just keep being you...don't forget to check in on your loved ones and let them know how you're doing and make sure they know you love them...every day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Book Giveaway inside!

I finally got our taxes done. 1 thing I can check off my list. whew~ I wasn't sure that one was gonna happen.

Now, I can move on to planning the year ahead. School, Dr. Appointments, bills....ugh I don't know why I was looking forward to this.

I am also excited to let anyone who reads this silly blog know that I am giving away a book. It's not my book. It's a book I recently received in the Booksgiving event I talked about earlier. I received the book "You Are Here" by Jenny Lawson. I read it the night it arrived and I have never felt so connected to a book before. It's easy to see people gush over her books on her blog of course, I think that's just good manners haha

BUT I am not affiliated with her or her blog at all, she most likely has no idea who I am, yet her book has seriously touched my inner most being with this book...and I genuinely love and respect her for writing it..I will be getting both of her other books as well.

LET'S GET BACK TO THE GIVE AWAY!!

I'm giving anyone who needs it or hasn't read it or is just going through a really tough time with depression/anxiety or who just needs something to come in the mail for them to open and distract them for a few minutes...ANYONE that comments that they would like the book..I'm going to buy it for you...because I love you...you are important...and I know you are gonna love this book...and if you don't, no harm no foul...just donate it to a library or a shelter or a thrift store that supports American Veterans...whatever you want...but I think it will touch you, and I want you to read and feel everything in this book...I want you to know you are not alone...you are here and so am I...so are all of us that are feeling alone and depressed.

So that's it, leave a comment here, make an amazon wish list with your shipping address, I won't see your address, I just buy it and it ships to you, your info is kept secret from me...I just want as many people as possible to have this book in their life.

Well, that's all I have for today..don't forget to leave your comment! Keep going, keep breathing, I do <3

See you next time :) 

I let my son with Tourettes use my sewing machine!

So I have 2 boys with Tourettes.

One is 16 the other just turned 12.

My 16 yr old is a more vocal Tourettes, and the 12 yr old is more physically ticky. So I was a bit nervous when he kept asking to sew. I mean I love him endlessly, but his arms tick a lot and I could only imagine him sewing something and his arm ticks and his finger gets under the needle and I freak out and then he freaks out and then there's blood everywhere and I decide to never let him in the sewing room (garage as it is better known hahaha) again....

But I did it...HE did it...He chose the fabrics, the zipper and decided how he wanted to make it!

He chose this awesome glow in the dark kitty astronaut fabric that I have been hoarding for a couple years now..afraid to cut too much off at once...you fabric crafters/quilters/sewers know exactly what I'm talking about...the rest of you probably think I'm a bit off...you're probably right, but not for this reason :)

He loves green so chose green lining and the only green zipper I had, even though he was notably disappointed that I didn't have a darker green zipper on hand haha...but as always, said "That's ok mama, this one is fine, I was just asking in case you had one because you have so many zippers".
No I do not have a problem hoarding sewing supplies I swear...I am really really good at collecting stuff :)

He wanted to hand sew first. So he did hand sew the zipper in then he top stitched the zipper on the machine, and then he machine stitched around it leaving the gap to turn the bag inside out, remembering to leave the zip half open inside even!

Then he hand sewed the gap in the bottom of his bag lining! He decided the blanket stitch was easier for him to do right now so that's what he did...and it looks fantastic! I'm posting a couple pics, and there's a video on the YouTube channel if you want to see the finished bag, and meet my wonderful boy :)

I am beyond proud. I can't believe how well he did, and how few ticks we saw while he was sewing...I hope you guys enjoy the video if you check it out.

I hope it inspires you to always try new things..no matter what you think makes it something you couldn't do. I learn that from my kids every day...They make me think, Hey I should try that new thing I've been thinking about...of course I end up getting side tracked and distracted into a whole nother project, but that's life right?

I'm gonna keep going, I'm gonna keep breathing, and everyday I'm gonna be thankful for all that I have and everyone that I love. I hope you will be too, because I'm thankful for you <3

See you next time!

Wow...lots of stuff happening!

Hey there! I have been working really hard on the shop and the house and the family thing and feel like I've neglected my blog, so I'm going to try and get caught up.

First, well most recently, I discovered Booksgiving... Yea BOOKS GIVING!! It is just as glorious as it sounds I promise. So, you get to send random books to random strangers that you probably don't even know! Because of the magic that is Amazon Wish Lists, and The Bloggess, you can jump in and look at other peoples wish lists and just send them a book..how amazing is that?? Yea that's what I said too.

So this was the 4th year apparently and that made me feel really sad inside because like I said ... books... yea... BUT then I was happy because I discovered it in time to send a book to a child <3 I am a super selfish person, because that made me feel so good inside...and I really love that...I don't feel good very often..so yea...

Plus, as a bonus, my list of  books for me and my littles were purchased by some other amazing person!! I added the list because my kids really love books and we have perpetual wish lists on amazon just for their books...so that if I have extra money or if they have earned a reward or some other alignment of the planets happens, I can just jump on and order one and it comes and they are surprised and I absolutely love the look on their faces when they see a new book...it just brings tears to my eyes...and although most things do make me cry, I am pretty sure this is one of my favorite things that makes me cry! hahaha

Another of my crazy ideas I had was to add leatherwork to my shop..well add it to my items, but I will likely make a new shop for the leather items.

I get a lot of requests for leather bags or leather trimmed items so I went and bought leather and some tools and watched YouTube of course because that is where we learn stuff now, haha, and thought oh yea I could do that!! That looks awesome and adding leather to my bags somehow would be amazing!! Oh man people will love that.

Well...yea, that is definitely something I will need to really work on..I love the items I've made, but when I bought the leather, the guy didn't split it like I expected. So I can't use it for bags, or trim on my items.

It's like 13 oz leather (which is really thick and stiff) and I wanted it split in half basically, and he just kind of shaved the back a little bit...not really making it any thinner to work with..I of course bought it anyhow because that's just what I did..generally I am one of those people that will refuse something if I'm paying for a service and they don't do it properly. But, in this case I just didn't...I felt like I must have communicated what I wanted poorly... maybe...but either way I didn't feel like it was worth keeping the $5 splitting charge out of that businesses account. It's not like I can't use the leather..I just have to learn how to make things with the heavy leather..I love learning new stuff so that's fine.

I have been working really hard on my YouTube channel as well..I never thought about how much planning and effort goes into those videos. I really respect these people that put up multiple videos...multiple quality content videos weekly...I haven't even started to edit and compile content..I just turn on the camera and do the video and upload it..it's just me, no filter, no retakes...just me as I am giving some info on whatever I happen to come up with that day.

My last video is an unboxing of my Grove Collaborative box. You know the ads you see everywhere saying "Hey Free Mrs Meyers Cleaning Supplies!!" yea, I went and investigated cause I like free and I like cleaning...although I've never really thought oh I love Mrs Meyers haha I figured I'd check it out because "free" doesn't always mean "free" or worth it.

I thought it was an ok deal though. I only had to spend $20 to get the batch of free goodies, and honestly dropping a $20 can easily happen if I'm online too long or walk out my door..I grabbed a few things I knew I like and a few things to try. If I wanted to spend $35 I think it was, I could've gotten another free item, but I was good at $20.

If you're interested in seeing that unboxing, it is up on my channel now, you can see it here :)

I have also been working on digitizing some of my own designs. I am not really good at that yet. I am not an amazing artist so I guess that makes sense hahaha

Oh, also, I've been diligently working on new curriculum research...I tend to run my school year all year instead of giving the kids a 3 month break. They do get a couple weeks in January/February just because it is usually my most depressed months and I find it extra difficult to get things ready for them every single day. I take the time to research new and fun curriculum options that will help them with whatever they are struggling with as well as try to find things that will be fun as rewards/enriching fun..if that makes sense. I just don't want them to ever be doing something that isn't helping them grow is some manner.

This year I am excited about a drawing program and some digital art drawing pads. I will post about them when we get them and probably do some videos for YouTube as well.

I am planning some how to videos for crochet, knitting and tunisian crochet. Also, I have a couple in the hoop projects for the embroidery machine, although I may put those off until my new machine gets here. The in the hoop projects make me crazy on the 4x4.

Through all of this I am noticing that I am actually going through a really depressive dip. I have been wanting to eat all kinds of breads/chocolates...I haven't wanted those since I was pregnant and I'm concerned it will just have me gaining back the 50lbs. I lost. So since I am able to see it I am hoping to be able to curb it and hopefully avoid it..but I guess I will see where we end up in Spring...if it ever comes. The other day I had to run the air conditioning to keep it at a cool 70 in the house, and yesterday and today I have the heat set at 64 just to keep it not freezing in here...I thought I was indecisive..mother nature has me beat by a mile!

Ok that's all I have for now, thanks for reading, remember if you're having a tough time, it will pass, just keep breathing, just keep going, even when you don't think you can...and don't forget to check in on your loved ones..let them know how you're doing and let them know you love them...every day <3 I will.