Dresden pocket pillow

Today is a quick tutorial on how to make a dresden pocket pillow. This one isn't totally finished yet as I don't have the backing I want or pillow form to finish it today. (This weekend probably) 

Here is how we start. I used a charm pack of scrumptious by Bonnie and Camille for moda fabric. 

I picked out 10-12 squares that I liked together and cut 2 blades out of each using my EZ Dresden ruler. Simply turn the blade over and you will get 2 cuts. You will need 20 blades for this project. As you can see I cut mine at the 5" mark as that is how tall a charm square is. Then take your stack of 20 blades to your sewing machine and fold the top right sides together and sew across the top at 1/4" seam. 

Flip it right side out to make a triangle at the top. Line up the seam on the back center and press. 

You can gently poke out the very top with a chop stick or rounded scissor tip like I did. (Carefully! Don't want to poke a hole through the fabric) press. 

Then place right side up and press once more just for a quick second. Do this to all blades. 

At this point you can do a quick layout and move blade placement around as you like. Place them in a stack in the order you like and we start sewing them together. Get 2 blades and place right sides together. We will start sewing at the outer point and sew down to the bottom of the blade. 

I keep my starting threads long so I can tuck them in later. I continue around 1 at a time for 10 blades then begin the 2nd half. I will press all seams to one side before sewing the 2 halves together. 

Then connect the 2 halves just like you stitched the other blades and press from the wrong side again. 

Flip over and press from the front. 

Next I measured my bowl I wanted to use as the center. Since this is a pillow and this will be covered in the end I just used white. I used my pin bowl and you can use any bowl you have that covers the center. I did double side however in after thought I could have just done 1 layer and saved myself a few minutes. 

I traced the bowl on one fabric (wrong side) and placed another under it. I sewed on the circle line. 

Pinked the edges. Pulled the center apart and cut a hole in ONE layer only. 

Flip it right side out and press. 

Next I cut a 17x17" background square and centered my D plate on it. 

I measured from the valley to the edge of the fabric. It was 3" for me on all 4 sides. I pinned the plate to my background square then centered my white middle circle on the plate and pinned. 

I pinned in every blade and several in the center. 

And now it's time to attach it to the background fabric. Begin in the valley of one blade and either straight top stitch or zig zag stitch around. I like to top stitch this edge. 

Keep the needle down and simply lift up the pressure foot at each turn. It is many stops and starts however it really only takes a few minutes for one whole plate. 

I do back stitch 3 stitches at the very beginning and the very end only and I do my best to pull my threads through to the back. Here you see only 3 threads because one broke when I tried to pull it through. (Happens sometimes. This is why we back stitch.) I do like to place a small knot or 2 in my back threads. Extra security. 

Next is attaching the center. It's already pinned so I switch to a zig zag stitch for a smoother edge since this will be inside the pocket. 

When stitching circles I go slow. I use my left hand to sort of rotate the fabric around under the needle. 

This is where you could be finished with a traditional Dresden plate quilt block. To continue we are going to make another center circle (or whatever shape you like) it will simply be larger. I used a cereal bowl from my kitchen this time. 

Trace the bowl on your fabric again. This time you WILL need 2 layers of fabric. 

Trace your shape on your fabric and cut it out 1/4" larger all the way around. 

I just free hand cut this with my rotary blade. If you have a pinking blade this is a great spot to use it. (I'll trim this with my pinking shears after I sew. ) we I'll need a straight edge for the top of the pocket. Lay it out in the corner of your mat and adjust how much you'd like to cut off. (The middle of the pocket needs to be WIDER than the top of your pocket. I cut mine at the 6" mark. 

Almost there!! For this part I start stitching towards the end of the straight line, sew around the circle part then back to the straight line. I leave about a 2" opening on the straight top part to flip right sides out. 

Trim 1/4" away from the straight edge and use pinking shears on the round edges. Flip right side out and press. Then we will top stitch the straight edge only. (This will close our turning hole also.) 

Then position on your plate and stitch down the round edge only. 

Pull your threads through and your done with the pillow top! 

Back and finish your pillow anyway you'd like. (Many easy and quick ways to do this out there on Pinterest:) 

And the Minnie Mouse? She's my daughters favorite! This will be a present for her 2nd birthday in 2 months. Happy sewing! 

Blessings, Rebecca

Room cleaning time

Anyone else out there have small littles who are great at pulling out ALL their toys and just don't know how to pick them up again? To be fair she's actually my orderly one. She sort of has a little break down (like being overwhelmed at the mess) that she just won't look at it anymore. Yep that's her sleeping in the bed;) 

At night when my littles are in bed and my sweet husband has settled back into school work I'll pick up the house. Clean the kitchen, dishes and straighten up the living room. It's wonderful to wake up to a few clean rooms with no worries of stepping on stray toys and spraining your ankle. (Just saying) 

Our son who is 4 1/2 years old loves going to bed with a clean room but is the same in that getting overwhelmed that he just doesn't know where to start if every toy he owns is in his floor. Ha! He does need a little direction which I very much understand as I was once that child. 

I don't like how the mess can throw my littles out of sorts so I've decided that I need to add a few minutes to my night time cleaning routine and do a quick over view on their rooms also. I can also get a little scared of it to be honest! We have a smaller home which means all the rooms are together so toys just migrate through out. I scale back about every 3 months. We donate a few things to friends or family several times a year. But we also have family who gives us things through out the year so things are always rotating in and out. 

We just finished painting our living room and dining room so I'm in the process of getting those back together. (Planning on pictures one day) 

Blessings! 

Plans

I just have to share something today that means a lot to me. I had recently made a decision and not told anyone about it (except my husband as he was involved in the decision process). That decision was to have a merina placed. I am still emotionally struggling with our loss that happened 6 months ago and I pray many times a day that The Lord would tell us clearly to try again or just stop. But right now He's just telling us to wait an be patient by being silent on the subject. He speaks to us through prayer on many other things we have prayed over but He hasn't said anything about this. So I thought it would just be a good idea to get the merina placed and we could have it taken out later on if we felt that was what The Lord wanted. So I did my research and made my appointment. Everyday for the week leading up to the appointment I was feeling less and less confident in this plan. I found myself asking The Lord that if He did not want us to do this then please place a barrier there that will keep me from getting it put in. (And please make it something I can't miss as I don't take hints). I found myself praying this over and over again and not feeling comfortable with it as I was when I made the appointment. I decided to talk to all of my friends who have one and they all just love it. Not one complaint among them so why was I feeling not great about it? By the time the date rolled around I had decided I was going to keep the appointment and not make a final decision until talking more with my doctor at the visit. The day started great. The kids and I went to VBS, came home for a short rest then off to the appointment. I prayed the same prayer the whole way there that He would even use my doctor to speak to me on this as she is a believer also. We pulled into the Parking lot and started to walk into the building and out walks my doctor. Running to her car. I go up to the office anyway (sometimes she runs and grabs lunch and comes right back to the office) to see what they have to say. They tell me she has gone to deliver babies and while she will be back they are not sure how long it will be. At that one moment I promise I heard The Lord saying "here is a barrier you cannot miss". I about cried! I definitely cannot miss the doctor NOT bring present. Ha! I was so happy that The Lord intervened for us and kept us from making a bad decision (that we didn't know was bad for us). (Not bad for everyone, just not right for us). It gave me a chance to sit and talk with the office nurse who is very familiar with our history and make a decision I was much more comfortable with. Which was just to not reschedule and not have it put in. The Lord is so faithful and we trusted Him to guide us and watch over us in this big (for us) decision. And He did! I truly should not be surprised as He is always faithful! If we trust He will guide us in His plan then He will guide us in His plan. That was a little longer than I had planned but there it is. God is good and He is always faithful! And tomorrow a sewing blog. :) 

Sewing machine (bt time!)

I am one of those seamstress quilters who has just a ton of tools. And, yes, I do use them all! Here I will share just a few of my favorite tools. First up is my primary sewing machine. (And yes most of us quilters have more than one machine:) ) my primary is my Jenome Jem Platinum 760. I did some research before buying this machine. Now where I live Jenome's are not something you can go to a dealer and try before you buy it. (Lesson 1 for me) I purchased this one because I have a very dear sweet friend who let me use hers when my old one was acting up and I loved it. It just pieces so well for the quilter. Since owning this machine I have pieced and machine quilted about 8 quilts. For the several baby quilts it's very easy to quilt on. For my sons twins size and our full/queen quilt it was very very difficult. Can you see the throat size on this machine? It's super tiny! I believe it's about 6" square which is not enough space to squeeze 1/2 of a quilt under in order to quilt the middle of it. Like I said it can be done but beware of wrist/shoulder/neck pain after. Thankfully a sweet friend recommended I get myself a pair of quilting gloves which are sort of rubber coated on the finger tips and holy moly they are amazing! Totally worth the $8 I paid for them. They will save many wrist, hand, shoulder pains later. They just grip the quilt and allow you to move it effortlessly under the needle. From the picture below you see I have the extender table also. The original platform is just way to skinny in my opinion and paying for the table was the best investment. My quilts and clothes have turned out so much better due to the weight of the quilt isn't pulling on the needle and thread. 

Also just a few of the tools I use every time I sew. My Olfa splash rotary cutter. (Aqua is my fav!) I love my pink shears. They are my first pair I bought with my own money from walmart when I was 16. (So I've had them for 17 years. There is not a brand name on them) Next is my SeamFix. This one I've only had for about 1.5 years but man it is worth it! I used to go through seam rippers like crazy because I'd break them all the time but this one is going strong! Then we have my bobbins. I know a bobbin as a favorite? Crazy! But seriously these are the best bobbins for my machine. My manual only states that it uses a 15 bobbin however that is not at all accurate for my machine. It HAS to be a 15J. The "J" is extremely important or else my machine will not work. It's deeply frustrating to have creative ideas just begging to be sewn up and you can't because you have the wrong bobbin:( not fun. Creative sewing can be a lot like writing. It needs an outlet right away or it may be lost in all the other things in life. And last for this post are my little house glass head pins! Just love these because I press with a hot iron a LOT when I'm sewing anything and these will not melt (just get pretty hot). I had 2 sets but have lost many or lent them out to friends and have recently replaced them with glass head pins I found at my local hancocks. (Much more affordable by the way) 

More to come later! Hoping to post pictures of our 2 king size quilts I am working on. Blessings! Becca 

Piyo

So I've spoken about piyo before and I'm not totally finished yet. A few days more then I'll post my before and after pictures but just a few things real quick while I'm thinking about it. Things I love: the timer! I love being able to see the time for each interval. In doing many other workouts I would get impatient because I had no idea how much longer I had to go. Seeing the timer constantly has kept me going this 8 weeks. I didn't really see any big changes until the 5th week. While the scale didn't really budge until then that is when I started to see some muscle. (Which is what I was going for) while I do have about 10 lbs of fat to lose (total all over my body) I really wanted to lose it AND get muscular. I can totally see how easy it will be to continue on another 8 week session to gain more muscle. Now about that muscle. One con I had not thought about is that now I am about to finish my 8th week my new athletic thighs will not fit into my jeans. (And I was really hoping to fit into my jeans by the end of the 8 week season). One that was a con for me but will not be for others is one session (drench) is 48 minutes long. That is totally fine on my off day but when it falls on a day I work it's nearly impossible to get it in. On a work day I work 10.5 hour days so I get off work at 6pm, pick up our littles, we meet up with my husband at home, we cook dinner and don't get to eat until close to 8pm. Then we have to get the kids ready for and into bed which is never a short process. I wish I was the personality that could workout late at night but I cannot. It will keep me up for such a long time it's just not good. I've always been an athletic person, always played sports or was a walker (not a long distance runner here) but the whole trying to start a family and losing so many pregnancies really took my focus off of exercise about 5 years ago. So after 6 pregnancies (2 full term healthy babies) and losing 5 babies in pregnancy (1 was twins) it's past time to get my rear in gear and take control. So that is what I am the process of doing. After losing our last pregnancy in the second trimester I was able to really turn to piyo as part of my healing and exercise therapy. It is constant moving and in a strange way just so much more focused and calming that I confidently knew this was the workout for me to jump back into an athletic lifestyle. I do physically feel ready to take on something more extreme but I may stay with this one a while longer. I haven't made the decision just yet. One last quick thing that I see as a con (others will not) is that they promote shakeology. All of the beach body coaches promote it and they talk about it in the videos. Which can be annoying to some people. I don't mind it as I'm not going to order it. I find it to be way to expensive. It also got terrible reviews on the taste. I do make my own shakes at home. They are very simple. Just a handful of fresh organic spinach, 1/2 banana, 1 cup of any frozen fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mango, pineapple) 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt 1 tbsp ground flax seed, sprinkle of cinnamon, tiny sprinkle of turmeric and enough milk to allow my blender to shake it up. Any milk I have on hand: 2% cows milk, coconut, almond just what ever I've got. I've also left it out and used just water and it was great then too:) the way I make them I keep them under 200 calories so I add or leave out whatever I want to keep it in that range. Some days I use it as my lunch but other days I use  it as more of a supplement and eat a smaller meal. I've also added green tea to my diet and drink about 3-5 cups a day. I love hot tea but I also love it at room temperature with a little bit of lemon in it. Wow that was a LOT longer than I thought it would be for a "few things real quick" haha! Sorry! Pictures to come next week I believe is when I finish my first 8 week piyo session. Blessings, Becca 

Piyo!

Ahh life. Catching up on things will forever be my life. You know how you do one thing to prepare for another thing and when you actually have time to finish that thing you find your preperation is just no where to be found? This is my experience with my piyo after pictures. Life has been super busy lately and I just cannot find the pictures anywhere. And now I'm starting my 3rd week of turbo fire I should just take more pictures. In all honesty my pictures didn't look that different from the beginning. I didn't lose any weight on the scale but I did lose 5" total. I am 5' 7" and about 139 which isn't bad at all but it's just enough pudge to make me look uncomfortable. Everyone's normal is different no matter your height and my normal is not 139. I do believe that if you see someone and want what they have then you need to follow their recipe for success. Well, I'm not following the beachbody recipe exactly because I'm not drinking shakeology. I am drinking a protein shake but I cannot afford shakeology. And yes I have done the research. I know there are blog posts and you tube videos out there that say "well if you say you can't afford it that than you haven't tried hard enough". Nope. For several reasons but the main one is that when I finally get my body in shape I want it to be because of my hard work. Not because of a certain meal replacement shake. But enough about that. A few things about piyo: 

My first experience with Chalene Johnson and I loved the whole experience! She stays upbeat and tells you what you can do not what you can't do. She encourages you the whole way. 

I have an active mind and personality (there is just always something to do) so exercises that require one task for a long period of time just are not for me. I get bored in the first 3 minutes and will just quit and call it a day. (Think treadmill, eliptical, running). My first exercise love is aerobics. I love all the different moves and that it's always changing. Which is why I have come to love the chalene format. For years I have used the firm express and just love it. I still pull it out every now. The new HIIT programs are totally up my ally:) 

The workouts are very time efficient. I feel totally worked out after and they don't take up an afternoon. They flow wonderfully using your own body weight to build muscle (which is the coolest thing!). There is very minimal jumping and only in 1 or 2 workouts really. 

I love the timer! I need to see the timer to keep on track. I'm crazy like that. There is a great modifier if you ever need to calm down a move for your ability and she's always in good view. 

The videos rotate out the background exercisers (I don't know what you call them) so it gives you a great chance to see several body types at their physical peak. I really like this as I am built more like Chalene's sister Janelle than any of the others. My sisters are built more like Chalene herself. 

You can use child's pose anytime you need to. It is built into the routines but you can go into it anytime you feel you need to. 

It will totally define your rear. The moves will hurt but the results are wonderful! (Don't believe me? Just YouTube it and you will see tons of results with piyo) and one day my own if I can find the pictures. ;) 

There is a ton of plank work and it really hurts to do it but you have amazing upper and middle abs after the 8 weeks. Probably have amazing lower abs too you just can't see mine due to the stretched out lower abdominal muscles from 2 big pregnancies. Gonna take consistency (for the rest of my life) to get those things tightened back up. (But the women in the videos are proof that it can be done) 

Because it is lower cardio I didn't see any changes at all until about the 5th week. That was discouraging but I kept at it because I just loved the way it made me feel. (Speaking of, I am finishing my 3rd week of turbofire as I write this post and that with diet changes I am very surprised that the scale has not changed at all. Not one pound. I look a whole lot different in my midsection, upper body and face. I can wear tops I haven't been able to in a long time. So I am just very surprised that the scale hasn't changed at all. :(  but turbofire is a 20 week program and it's much more hardcore than piyo so I'm and for sure going through the 17 weeks I have left! ) 

In progress

I think I've said before how we "live by the seat of our pants" here at Parsons drive. Well now we are "in progress". So many things we want to improve on this year and my list keeps getting a little longer. Phone apps cleaned out. Hall and kids closets cleaned out. Finally got my herbs planted in the garden and one lonely tomato plant. (Starting bell pepper & onion soon) On the "get my rear in gear" front this is my 7th week of piyo. So far I am loving the way it makes me feel and the increase in flexibility. I have not lost any weight but have much more muscle than I did 7 weeks ago! I would still like to lose some weight but I believe that will come later and with consistancy. I couldn't even see any physical change until the 5th week but now I am totally happy with it. Now in my 7th week my wrists are still sore and I have bruises on my palms but i can just wrap them and keep going. (So many stinking planks) I have plans to do a full post on piyo when I finish my 8th week. We have also  way decreased on the eating out. (Super proud of that one) but it is not due to my meal planning skills. Because, well, right now I don't have any. (Still on my list) ;) these next few weeks I am focusing on the meal planning in order to decrease our grocery budget. Truthfully not even to decrease it but just to know where it is going. And with working full time weird hours there isn't always time in the day to run to the market if I discover I'm out of something I need for dinner. I cannot even plan on a certain day of the week to go to the market because of my work hours. So meal planning for me also includes looking ahead in the next week to see when I can even GO to the market. I'm also in the same old meals rotation because it's what we have done for the last almost 13 years now. So my new process is compiling my own list from my better homes and gardens cookbook and a few off of Pinterest. My husband doesn't really like casseroles (except shrimp casserole which is soo good!) or things totally cooked together so that has put my creative thinking skills to the test. We also love vegetables but I'm not totally skilled on a lot of different ways to cook them. Even that is improving due to a free class on craftsy they sent me for my birthday. (Thanks craftsy) All in all I'd say it's a win so far! Small changes are leading to a much less cluttered life style.  I have been able to work on my 2 in progress king size quilts lately and I am even finishing up a Sew Together Bag for my mom for her birthday this week. (It's got 4 zippers(!!!) talk about a challenge) and my mom is totally worth it! Hang in there with me. I am still looking for easier ways to get my photos into the blog since I'm blogging from a tablet. Maybe I should try from my phone? We will see. Blessings!