First the good news, a finished skirt!!!

 I’m very happy with how it turned out and I hope my dear friend likes it. Its got eight different fabrics worked into a pattern that goes all the way around the back. It is completly lined with muslin. The two peices are quilted together so the skirt is warm and moves seamlessly together. The bottom hem or “spin” is nice and large at 100in!! Its got a very deep “hidden” pocket on the front and a drawstring waist band.

 Last month I started a journey to understand what was going on with my body. My mother has lupus and it is thought there might be a genetic link to the disease. I was very worried when I started to have unexplained pain and fatigue beyond belief. I went to my doctor reluctantly and nervously. She ran a barage of tests and bloodwork. She was nervous about cancer, lupus and fibromyalgia. The tests came back saying that I didn’t have cancer or lupus so that was a huge sigh of relief. However she wanted to send me to a rhumatologist (a doctor that specilizes in pain disorders of the joints mostly) As I waited and this process moved slowly forward my pain increased, spreading to my stomach, knees, ankles, toes, elbows and mostly hips and spine. I was very glad that I said something to my doctor as soon as I started to feel anything because when I spoke up all that hurt was my wrists on occation, my forearms and my under arm area.

I went in to see the rhumatologist and he was a very very nice man (*whew*) he did some testing by pushing on my body in different spots, asked lots of questions and then told me that he felt I had fibromyalgia. I was in shock. This was not something I wanted to hear! No one would. Its something that is very misunderstood, something that everyone who has it experiences differently and something that could span from a slight bother and annoyance, to complete disability. For me its made it difficult to work on soap or sewing as its mostly in my hands, fingers and forearms.

I also just finished massage therapy school and now can’t use it due to the location of my pain. Its really rather depressing just now, but I’m trying to move forward, learn to handle and deal with it and continue my buisness and do the things I love. I won’t let this hold me down. I just won’t.

I got my sewing machine back yesterday!!! Oh what bliss…oh what wonderful work! I have made a note that I will be getting my poor baby tuned up more often. I had no idea what bad shape she was in until I got it back and felt the difference. No more shaking the whole table, no more noisy…no more slow, oh bliss I tell you!

 I’m not sure if new posts are showing up…someone alerted me by asking me to post, and when I responded that I had been updating here she had to clear her cookies and then saw all my new posts. I hope she was alone in that…though I’m not sure. So..if you can see this..yay!

Here’s the skirt I’m working on right now, now that I have my sewing machine back!!

Here’s the front panel, it still needs to be stitched down to the muslin. That will probably happen today or tomorrow

And then here’s a close up of the fabrics. I really like how this is coming out. She chose very well to get reds and browns in this time of year!!

I want to do another one of these skirts but in purple and just a little bit of green. I think that will be pretty. I’m so glad I can wear all my winter clothes now!! I finished making my winter clothes just as spring was coming up last year. I was so bummed so now I get to take out my mostly new clothes! Plus I’ve got new petticoats that I can wear under everything. oh I love layers!!

Technorati Tags: skirts, sewing machine, patchwork

Hello all, I hope your day is going well.

My sewing machine has broken as I said in my wordless wed post…I am extremly sad about this. It will be back to my hopefully better than ever in about a week. Sadly it broke in the middle of a skirt I was working on for a friend! She wanted a patchwork skirt like the blue and yellow one, but in red and browns instead. (here’s the blue and yellow one:)

So since I have nothing work related to discuss with you, I wanted to point out a few new places around “the net” which you may be intrested in!

A dear friend of mine, Summer has opened up an awesome group of bloggers over at “Our family village” there are a wide variety of topics from some awesome mamas. The great thing about the group of authors is that there is always something new! Check them out. Great stuff.

My dear husband and I have opened up a new blog over at blogspot to share and be open about relationships. We just graduated from massage therapy school (as some of you know) and one of our main focuses has always been couples retreats. We get along very well. He’s my best friend and I love spending time with him. I’ve seen so many others treat eachother poorly, be rude in public and just generally show a lack of love. I am very sad about the state of relationships in America and we wanted to try to effect couples in a positive way. So from our desire to create a retreat to teach cuddling, touch and communication among other things, has come the new blog “Ask him, ask her” The blog is a forum for questions for either him or I and essays about the state of relationships. We shoot from the hip and hope for easy to swallow advice for growth and heart warming love. Please come on over and check us out! Ask some questions and lets get the ball rolling.

Technorati Tags: skirts, referals, our family village, ask him ask her

My sewing machine broke in the middle of this project!!! Oh no! Its in the shop….*sigh*

Technorati Tags: wordless wed, sewing, patchwork