Time Flies....

Whew! Time has been flying by lately. School has finally started (ok, it was a week ago but who's counting). The garden is slowing down. I did get a little bit of canning done but I ended up with late blight on the tomatoes. After looking at some of the hot banana peppers yesterday, I think those plants may have it or something similar also.

I picked up my sewing machine and serger about a week ago also. I did miss both of these items tremendously. The serger had nothing serious wrong with it that a good cleaning and oil didn't fix. However, I did knock the timing off on the sewing machine. Not sure how I did it but I do know when it happened and recognized that something was wrong immediately. At least it could be fixed.

On the costume front, I have finally gathered all of the materials (I think) necessary to make the Riddler costume:

The black faux suede (in the middle) will become the moccasins. The purple fabric on the left will become the mask, the belt, and if I'm lucky, gloves. The green fabric on the right is for the pants and top. The paint is for all the questions marks that on the top and pants. I know, I need to get busy. I haven't figured out how I'm going to enlarge the question mark for the shirt yet. Any suggestions for a quick inexpensive way to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated.

Now for a peek at my "new" toy:

The cute little carrying case which contains some of the items below:

Yep, I found a Featherweight 221K. I really wanted one when I was quilting a lot and going to classes but was never able to locate one. This one kind of landed in my lap and came with lots of goodies. Along with the machine and the original carrying case, I received a zigzagger with all of the extra disks, a sock darner (that didn't look like it had ever been used), a buttonholer with extra attachments, three books, many extra bobbins, an extra bobbin case, the original attachments, and a couple of additional attachments. Being the fiend that I am about machine attachments, I have already added a couple of additional attachments: a blind hemmer, a picot / hemmer attachments, and a blind stitch braider. As the attachments for these machines can be rather expensive, I will not be adding anything else to the mix. I have been playing with this machine and it runs very well. I have played with all of the attachments and most of them work very well. The only item I was a little bit disappointed in was the buttonholer and that is only because the some of the extra disks are duplicates. The buttonholes look beautiful. The future will see me taking a few more quilting/sewing classes, if I can find them.

Now, the most exciting thing that has happen was I won a $35.00 give certificate to Marie-Madeline Studio (http://www.mariemadelinestudio.com). Go check them out. They have a cute shop with fabric and their own brand of patterns. I decided to try out their patterns. It was just too hard to pick a fabric.

Well, that's it for now. I need to finish up my existing sewing projects (wallet, and placemats) and then, get going on the Halloween costume. This may very well be the last costume that I make for my son. At 11, this may be the last year that is interested in dressing up and getting candy. He has always enjoyed going around the block, showing off his costume(s) to the neighbors, and coming home to hand out candy.

Happy Sewing!