Doing and Thinking Challenge

Kathie at Two Frog Home wrote a few weeks ago about her desire to change from her habit of 'thinking' about doing things, starting projects she has been planning and finishing projects she has already started. She wanted to start DOING things. So she issued a challenge for others to join her in 'doing' things to help each other by encouraging and being accountable.


I have been thinking (!) about this and decided to join in as time permits. My life has been rather hectic this summer and now school will be starting next week and I don't suppose my life will become less complicated.


So, anyway. Here are some projects I finished this week (no photos, because, well, I was DOING things.):


1. sewed skirt from material purchased last April. I took my favorite skirt and used it to adapt the one skirt pattern I have. The cutting and sewing took less than half a day. I had to stop by the fabric store and purchase a 7" zipper, but I did that the next day and put it in and now I have a really lovely skirt to wear. Maybe I'll get a photo of it later this week.


2. cut out and sewed up a "......" from material I bought the same time I got the skirt material. I can't tell you any more than that because "......" is a little giftie for someone and that someone reads my blog. But trust me! It's cute! Again, I had no pattern, just cut and sewed.


3. hemmed the sheers hanging in my living room. When I moved here 13 months ago, only 2 of the 6 panels were hemmed to the correct length. The others puddled on the floor. Through the months I had pinned three more panels and hemmed two of them and there it stopped. This week I finished the project, took them down, washed and dried them and now they are waiting to be rehung.


I'm pleased with my progress! I have some more sewing projects I want to do in the next few days before school starts.


1. hem/repair white bath towel.


2. cut out and sew lining for filmy blue skirt that I can't wear because it's waaay too sheer.


3. cut out and sew skirt for Kiti, using left over material from curtains I made two years ago. Kiti chose the fabric from my stash and wants a simple A line skirt like the one I made this week.


4. replace elastic in a doll dress that belongs to Kiti. Her grandma made the rag doll and dress for her and the elastic has 'died' and I promised (how long ago??) to fix it.


5. sew a wool bag for myself. I bought the grey heathery wool fabric three years ago and never made the bag.


6. put curtains on our bedroom windows. The week we moved in here, I put up sheers in the bedroom, 'just until I could get the curtains made'. I put the curtains I really wanted in my room in the guest room, so now I shall change the length of the blue striped curtains and put them in my room and find fabric I like for the guest room and sew them up.


I know these 6 Doing action items are a bit ambitious, particularly since I have two tutoring students and I start school in 5 days.. I probably won't finish all 6, but if I put them out there by writing them down, I'll have a list of what I plan to accomplish.


You may wonder why all my projects involve sewing. I have an old hand-me-down Singer sewing machine. It works well but it has to be set in to a cabinet and the cabinet doesn't actually fit the machine. My little cottage doesn't have much room and I store the cabinet and machine in a closet when I'm not using it. This past year it just seemed like too much effort to pull the machine and cabinet out and set it up in the hall by the family room where everyone bumps into it. I decided that if I prove to myself that I will actually use a sewing machine, maybe I'll convince myself (and The Professor) to buy a new portable machine. I would like to learn to quilt, but I don't want that monstrous cabinet sitting out annoying everyone who needs to walk past it.


One more thing:

7. read a book I recently won in a give away on Bethany's blog, Red Yarn. Real Food, What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck.