Sharon Sews

My fave spring event is back - RetroRama! My girlfriends and I already have our calendars marks and are busy telling all our friends and planning what to wear. You do know that half the fun is deciding on the vintage look to wear. This year the event - RetroRama: Fashion Comes Full Circle - shifts its focus away from strictly 50s fashions and trends. The first time we attended, the focus was on fashion - RetroRama: A Celebration of 50s Style . We missed the second event but arrived early for number three - RetroRama: A Celebration of '50s Suburbia. We knew to get seats for the fashion show early and that if we wore vintage-inspired or vintage attire we could walk the runway once the designer portion was of the show was completed. This year the runway show will once again feature Twin Cities designers, but they'll be allowed to move beyond the the 50s decade. Their inspiration this year will come from the 1920s through the 1960s. You know, I think for future RetroRama fas

Reversible pillows from Anthropologie . Gorgeous fabric fronts, piped edges, side zip, with a coordinating fabric back. Display pillow with gorgeous fabric facing out. Turn the pillow over and it's reversible. Simple. Sizes range from 18" x 30" to 24" x 24" Only $78 to $118. One more reason I'm glad I sew. And if you need a tute on how to create a piped-edge pillow with a side zip entry let me know and I'll put one together.

Quit –verb (used without object) to cease from doing something; stop. Do you ever give yourself permission to quit? I have no problems not finishing a book if I don't enjoy the story. I have no problems returning a DVD unwatched if I don't enjoy the movie. I have no problems not finishing a meal I've ordered if I don't enjoy the food. But I just can't bring myself to say "Enough! I quit!" when I'm sewing something and I'm not enjoying the experience. Let me share one of those somethings with you. Two weeks ago, I pulled out a blouse I had begun work on quite some time ago. How long ago? Oh, I don't know. Probably a few years as I do remember purchasing the fabric from a JoAnn's store about seven yeas ago. The pattern was an OOP Vogue Attitudes - Vogue 1620 - a Byron Lars design. It was one of those projects that I cut out; began sewing; got bored; put it aside; gained a few pounds; tucked project away; lost a few pounds; pulled

Well, based on the comments from my last post , it appears I'm in the minority when it comes to being unknowledgeable about puppets and puppetry! Beth - great job converting those kids of yours to Muppet fans! Stacy - thanks for the tip about the puppets in Japanese craft books. I'll need to investigate some more. Lisa - sadly, I missed the first competition night - which was the puppets - but caught the creative ministries competition. Wow! Powerful stuff. Human videos was another thing I had never heard of before. BTW - that's so cool that your kids are involved in puppet ministry at your church. The kids I saw there were really into it - and really good! Sewing Chick - love that your cousin is so talented in the world of puppetry that he was a puppeteer in a movie. Kathleen - thanks for sharing your directions for making a puppet. I think I can handle that one quit easily! Then there's "Anonymous", who's actually my friend Linda. Turns out

As if I don't have enough interests in my busy life, when I heard about a puppet ministry festival that was going to be in town this past weekend I decided to check it out. After all, I've always been a huge fan of the Muppets from the Muppet Show. So much so that I bought my daughter a DVD of the original Muppet Movie a few years ago because I remembered how much fun we had when we saw it in the theater. Turns out I loved it more than she, and the DVD soon found its way onto eBay...sigh. Anyway. Back to the puppet festival. Another clown had contacted me to tell me about the event and since it was a minimal investment of time and money I went ahead and registered. I thought I might discover a way I could use puppets either in my clowning or with the children's sermons at church. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. I guess in my mind, I was envisioning an event more like some of the clown conferences I'd attended in the past. A fairly small group of atten