Hand Embroidery and Modest Clothing

Been slowly working on "Mimi's Bloomers" but have run into a stem problem.  1/4 bias stems are too wide and 1/8 ones are too hard to make.

I've thought about doing some hand embroidery stitches but haven't tried it out.  It would be cool to find some shiny embroidery thread (not metallic) that is used for hand embroidery.  If you know of a place, let me know.  Variegated would be cool as well.


Cycling:


I did something to my knee..either by walking or the last time I rode my bike.  It just has this achy feeling..nothing sharp and painful.  Just this dull ache.

Not being able to cycle or walk is driving me nuts with the heat wave.  I want to get out and either walk or ride, but it's really not safe.  I'm wondering if I need to start doing something like weight lifting for days like this.  Probably a good thing my knee is sore.

If you are Mormon, how do you find modest exercise clothing like for walking?  You've also seen my picture, so I'm not exactly skinny either.  Sports manufacturers seem to think everyone is a size 3, wears  itty bitty shorts, tank tops and then want a fortune for it.

I would love this outfit for cycling:

The shorts:

The shorts alone are 85 dollars and I'm sure even their size XXL is too small.

As for as something for walking around the track, nothing seems even remotely close to being comfortable, modest, lightweight, fits and doesn't cost 85 dollars for just the shorts.

Mukluk Pics

I detest pictures of myself, but I'll be brave and will put some up with me riding my Mukluk courtesy of my daughter.  Probably should have put better clothing on as jeans and a shirt aren't the most comfortable way to ride a bike, but it's all good.  My cool helmet was destroyed in my accident so I'm stuck wearing this retarded one.  I do not have a body built for athletics but my Mukluk always brings a smile to my face.  I got her up to 20 miles an hour on my own power today.  Sweet!  Didn't last very long, but it's the first time I've been able to do it.

I was at the park on Saturday resting after failing "Nemesis Hill" again when a couple of guys approached me asking about my bike.  One wanted a ride and I happily let him ride it around.  His buddy wasn't too keen on the idea thinking it would be too hard to ride so he didn't join in.  Guy riding had a blast.  Most people can't get over the idea of how light the bike really is even after riding it.

I've thought about bringing the bike out on my next trip to Swanson Park in Omaha, but I'm still not sure I'm strong enough to get it up the hills.  Gravel roads are one thing, powering up a large bike on steeper hills is another.  Chances are I'll bring hubby's Fuel EX 5 full suspension to see if I like 26 inch tires and a full suspension ride for mountain biking.

Mimi's Bloomers: Block One

Started working on block one a couple of days ago.  I was thinking of doing the appliqué by hand but realized I didn't want to deal with it.  So I came up with this:

I did an edge stitch around each of the pieces but I'm struggling with the points so they meet right.  Any ideas?  I also wish I was better at making all the purple points meet right.

A Quilty Post!

A quilty post!

Erin Russek has a "Mimi's Bloomer's" BOM that she started at the first of the year.  I gave up on "My Tweets" as I misunderstood some of the directions and really didn't feel like redoing some blocks.

I purchased a bright kind fabric fat quarter bundle from Moda called what looks like "Happy!" from the selvage last year and finally found a use for it with this project.  This is the first time I've used bright cheery colors, but I'm liking it so far.

I used my Cricut to cut out templates and later realized I didn't use the mylar that you can iron on.  Oh well.  But the five blocks I've done are perfectly cut out except for the circles.  The Cricut can't cut circles to save it's life.

Block 1:
My back finally gave out after doing this much yesterday and the colors are much brighter than my camera gives off.  I just need to purchase some white fabric for the background and see if I'm up to hand appliqué for this project.  If not, I'll just do a straight stitch with cotton or rayon fabric around the edges.  Rayon thread would really make this quilt pop with color.

Woot!  Got back out on the trail today.  Only problem was we couldn't find the right trail for bikes.  Three miles of wandering around was useless as every trail we found was for horses and hikers.  I knew we needed the opposite side of the creek but never found a trail.  So much for that plan.  I'll be going to Omaha instead.

First hill down nearly gave me a heart attack but I relaxed and went at my pace.  Then my son and I made a pact that he would tell me what was coming up so I could be ready for it.  He'd yell, "roots!", "downhill", "uphill" and anything else that would help.  After about a mile, I was feeling pretty confident.  The bike's brakes were working and my son's verbal map was doing wonders.

I did sort of crash.  My son went up a bridge that had an incline ramp.  He didn't get up fast enough and got stuck.  I nearly ran into him and somehow remembered to push the bike up and out from under me so you don't fall over on the back of your head.  The only thing I did was scrape up my inner thigh with the pedals.

We also got really close to a ledge.  Scared the crap out of him (good thing I don't have vision on the right side) and remembered this rule:

Most important rule of mountain biking is:  Look where you WANT to go, not at what you're going to hit.   We went past the ledge and did just fine.  


Kind of like FMQ where you plan ahead of the needle instead of looking at it and ruining your pattern or having to unpick the stitches.

It was nice to face my fears and make it through at least for now.  Still sort of jumpy though.

How do you guys deal with set-backs?  You have all these plans and then somehow it all unravels.  I pulled out my embroidery machine, did one design and realized I wasn't in the mood to do anything even though I wanted to make something.

I thought about doing another quilt but it required a zillion 2 inch wide strips and just didn't have the effort to go there.  And I'm not about to spend 80 bucks on a 2 inch die for the Go! Cutter.  I got over the novelty of that real fast.

A couple of people had some great boxes for cutting out on either my Cricut or Cougar but that means pulling them off the shelf and finding paper.  It seems too much of an effort to hook it up the computer and hope the machines don't eat your fancy paper.

I've even hit a brick wall with cycling.  I'm tired of my thighs burning all the time despite waiting several days to let them rest up.  A mile in and it's like my thighs suddenly ate lead for lunch.  I'm sick of hauling my fat butt up 3 mile hills and then have to turn around and do it again to get back home.  The last trip had a 200 foot difference in elevation.  That totally sucks the air right out of you.

Then I realized my stupid front skewer was loose from bouncing around all the gravel halfway home.  I'm lucky the front tire didn't come out from under me.  Stupid bike.  It's cursed.  That's all I need, another  concussion.  I'm about ready to sell it and then other two bikes and have done with cycling.  I'm too fat, too slow and making it more than few miles hurts.  It sucks reading that some guy twice as fat after a couple of weeks is doing 20+ miles and I'm gasping at 10 a year after starting.  I can do 20, but I pay for it in the end with being sick for two days.  No wonder we all hate exercise.  It's a reminder that you suck at that too.