Sewing Machine Review

Put up a review of my sewing machine on pr. You can view it Here.
Or look below lol

Put up a review of my sewing machine on pr. You can view it Here.
Or look below lol


A year ago approximately my lovey bought me the Brother LB6800THRD from Costco.
This machine was a significant upgrade from my old Brother machine which was the cheapest beginner machine you could buy at walmart. I'd had really good success on that Cheap machine which really made me when looking to upgrade want to stick with Brother brand. I like that i can find needles and bobbins for them without going to sewing machine shop. They have them right at walmart most of the time.

The new machine cost $389.99 and was bought from costco.com LInk
Here are the accessories that it has-

• 4" x 4" embroidery frame
• 8 presser feet
• Assorted accessories, needles & tools
• Bobbin clips
• Operation manual in English & Spanish
• Vinyl cover
• Instruction CD
• USB Cable

And here are some of it's listed Features-

• Embellish it with embroidery 70 built-in designs, 5 alphanumeric fonts, 120 frame patterns
• Design it with sewing 67 built-in stitches, 98 stitch functions
• Built-in variety of utility and decorative stitches
• USB cable for computer connectivity
• Embroidery rotation in 90”, 10” and 1” increments
• Large 4" x 4" embroidery field
• On-screen editing to create the perfect embroidery patterns
• Built-in memory allows user to save up to 12 embroidery designs or 512KB of data
• Built-in card slot enables use of 1000s of optional Brother® embroidery designs
• Easy-to-view, backlit touch screen LCD with on-screen reference guide in 16 languages
• Advanced needle threader saves wear and tear on eyes/fingers
• Automatic push-button thread cutter
• Super bright led-lit work area
• Super easy bobbin winding system
• Quick-set drop-in bobbin – drop in full bobbin, pull the thread through slot and start sewing
• 7-point feed dogs
• Programmable needle up/down

What I like about this machine
It helped bring my sewing up from beginner lvl. It has many options and sews so much smoother then my old non-computerized cheap machine. I adore the drop in bobbin which almost never snags, and the needle threader is great for me since my hands tend to shake.

The bobbin winder works fantastic, and the machine stitches are very neatly placed. I love the different stitches there are and often like to use some of the decorative ones for hems. The machine is lightweight due to being mostly plastic which some people don't like. For me it's perfect cause it's light enough to take with me to my friends house when we have sewing parties. The feet snap on easy, and it comes with quite a few feet. The embroidery part of the machine works pretty well and I love that you can hook it up to your computer and transfer pes files directly to the machine. I was able to get quite a few free embroidery designs online this way. It also came with a large starter pack of embroidery threads for the machine in different colors.

This machine has so many useful things it can do. If you can't afford one of the really nice machines like a Bernina or Janome, and love the extra's like i do (not having to snip the thread, needle up down position, needle threader, one step buttonholes in various designs, embroidery and monogramming) you will absolutely love this machine.

What I don't like about this machine
The only thing that I didn't care for on this machine is that the embroidery hoop is very small. It's only 4inches x 4inches which is the smallest size. Also it's not compatible for a larger hoop so you can't buy one and use it cause the carriage only fits the smaller size. Yet for the cost it's well worth it and still makes very cute designs!

Conclusion
This is a very nice affordable machine. In the whole year I've been using it I've had absolutely no problems with it. I very highly recommend it.

Ottobre i love you

As I was surfing the web one day I discovered these sewing magazines from Finland called Ottobre. Each issue has a bunch of patterns in many sizes. Even more exciting they have a version in English.
So I had order a few to try them out.
I bought one kids one and one adult one. They release four kids mags every year and two adult ones.

This is the cute dutch girl skirt that I made for my little cousin.
Doesn't she look absolutely darling in it. The moment I saw this blue and white fabric it reminded me of dutch ceramic that my husband has shown me before.

The bottom layer is a thin woven linen material, and the top layer is a stretchy sheer that I found on clearance at walmart.
The pattern is from Ottobre 6/2008 Pattern #33
"Double-layer" skirt in size 146

I loved this pattern. It was pretty easy to put together and I finished it in an evening. She loves the skirt and says it's very flirty. I did decide to leave off the second layer casing with tie because the material was so sheer. I would definitely recommend the pattern and plan to sew it again.
This magazine is super cool. The tracing of the pattern looks daunting at first but I found it pretty easy to find the lines I needed. Now I want more Ottobre's!

Dolly paint and dolly jeans

So I have this lovely Japanese 27cm soft bust obitsu my sister got me as a present.
She is fully jointed and able to pose in all sorts of fantastic ways. Then she got her a pretty blue haired head with blank face for me to paint.
I love the blue hair its shiny long and soft and reminds me of mermaids.
I decided she would eventually be made into a loosely greek themed water or sea nymph.

So I started her face up and am really loving all the blues and greens. She seems much nicer now that she has an actual face. I really like the shape i made her eyes although they still need some highlights, and eyeshadow.

Then I decided to make some dolly jeans from my friends leftover scraps. She loves to cut up her pants to make shorts. I used this blithe doll pattern.

The pattern was super easy to put together and I love the flared legs!
Hardest part of the whole thing was turning the legs right side out at the end.

They sit a bit funny on her hips since she has way bigger hips then the blithe doll, but over all I adore how they came out.

If you are interested in getting obitsu's for yourself we buy ours from Junkyspot.com

Totally Swank pajama pants

So I technically was going to give these to my youngest sis for Christmas.
It's another pair of pajama pants. I'm finding it my personal mission to make sure everyone in my family has some pajama pants made by me.
Since she lives in California and I didn't get to see her for the holidays this was given as a spring/Easter present instead.

She's a bit of a hippie and loves bright colors and designs. I found this soft flannel with bright flowers stripes and paisleys all over it.
It totally screamed her personality to me. Most of all it's a warm soft fabric and should be very comfortable.

Here is a closeup of the print and one of the decorative contrast pockets.

If you are new to learning to sew, or teaching yourself you should definitely consider starting with a pajama pants. It's very easy once you do two you can whip them out fast, and the family loves them!

For these I used Simplicity 2721, but recently helped my little sis make some matching pajama pants for her and her boyfriend using New Look 6321 and liked it much better. The new look pattern has real pockets in the side seams as well as a better shape. The pattern pieces were easier to cut out on the fabric since they weren't as big as the the simplicity patterns. I want to try making the shirt from 6321 for my hubby as well since the pants turned out so good.

Disney Fairies 9 inch doll review- warning nude doll picts

So I bought this cute Disney 9 inch Silvermyst doll from target. They are the perfect size to wear the moxie girls clothing which is nice because I didn't want such cute clothes to go to waist even though I'm getting rid of the moxie bodies. Here is a list of pros and cons to take into consideration for buying your own.

Pros-Cute faces, thick pretty hair with mild colored streaks, pointed elf shape ears already as part of face mold, nicely sculpted hands with individual fingers, upper body joint for leaning and twisting poses, real feet and can wear most barbie shoes, comes with doll brush outfit and cute lily petal boots, nice anime style facial features. Has more hip and bust slightly then moxie girls bodies so looks nice in clothing.

Cons- No joints in the arms legs or hips so limited pose-ability, slightly larger head for body which some people don't like proportionally. Slightly bigger hips and bust which means some moxie clothes need to be slightly adjusted in theory. (i took a skirt and just cut out the panties in it and it fit her fine)

Now for pictures!
This is what she looks like right out of the box. She comes with a blue gown, lily plastic shoes, and a green leaf hairbrush

full body shot

Upper torso has a join for twisting or leaning poses.

her hair has subtle blue streaks mixed in with the black. I couldn't see it from the box so it was a nice surprise when I opened her.

cute pointed ears

sculpted fingers- which are just screaming to me to make some tiny little dolly rings to switch out on her.

Moxie Fusion Doll

So I saw this cutey at Kmart and had to buy her right away. It is a Moxie doll released by MGA Entertainment.
Apparently it was because they were sued by Mattel over their Bratz dolls and Mattel won. So now they've come out with these much cuter (less slutty) looking dolls.
Well at first glance I loved how they have cute anime like faces, and super long thick hair, and darling outfits.
Once I got her home I found that the body was quite small compared to the head, had no pose-ability and worst of all there are no feet. Where feet should have been are little stubs which shoes attach to. This is well known for Bratz as well, except the bratz feet don't fit the moxie ones, and there is no accessory pack for moxie feet, so you are stuck with whatever style you have. Which to me defeats part of the purpose of a fashion doll; dressing them up and accessorizing.

Do not be dismayed though we have fixed the problem and it turned out beautifully!
Mattel has released a fully poseable barbie line known as Fashionista's.
So we put the Moxie head on the barbie Fashionista body.

Tada! First of all it looks a lot more proportional and makes the barbie much prettier.
I love the poseability and especially being able to have different shoes on her.

Here she's dressed in various styles and with her hair done. The moxie heads have a lot more hair, its a lot longer then barbies, and quite a bit softer too.

I plan to design some cute doll clothes for these fusion dolls, and have also been experimenting with giving them elf ears. More to come......

Elvish Staff christmas present

As promised the pictures of the prettier elvish style staff that I made for my middle sis.
I was inspired in the colors of it from World of Warcraft nightelves Moon Temple
but used the tolkien style elvish for the markings on the staff.

The hand grip part is wrapped with a soft brown suede leather strap.
The top piece is made from super sculpey with a glass gem in the top. The leaves were formed individually and added to the orb separately.

Wrapped with more suede there is cascading teal shells and a resin coin emblem accented with ink and acrylic.

The main par of the staff is bamboo that was already painted black, and then I put elvish letter painted in white and gold over the length of the staff.

The flower at the top is made with premo mixed with super sculpey. The glass bead is lined with a foil piece to help it reflect light.

A better view of the coin cast in resin. It comes out clear but then I put a teal wash over it to give it some color without making it opaque.

Closeup of the cascading shell beads. I tried for a waterfall effect in a spiral.