Welcome

Hello. 

My name's Barbie.  Welcome to my blog. 

I've actually been a blogger for three years now - I have a blog I started when I was pregnant with my first child as a way to keep distant relatives in the loop.  It's mostly pictures of my babies and the day-to-day activities we do.

This particular blog is going to document my adventures in sewing and crafting.

I've been known to sew a thing or two every year since I was 18 years old - usually it either had to do with a Halloween costume or I was sewing a hole closed.  My very first sewing project was a quilt I made for my boyfriend (now husband).  I had no prior quilting experience, no pattern, no internet, no real sewing machine.  Just some fabric, pictures (it was a picture quilt), cheap thread, and one of those hand-held battery operated sewing machines that broke down more than it worked.  Most of the quilt ended up being hand stitched, and now it sits tucked away in a chest at home. 

Fast forward about 10 years to the present.  I have two lovely children - Trent is 32 months and Claire is 16 months.   They are the lights of my life, and believe it or not, they are the reason I sew.  After I had my daughter I quite my office job so I could stay home with my kids during the day.  In the evenings I had a part-time position at a fabric/craft store.  Did you hear me?  A FABRIC STORE!  That's when my addiction began.

I have been sewing hard core for a year now and it's safe to say I am obsessed, and I love it!  I am 100% self taught (so far) and I've been taking pictures of all my finished products since the very beginning.   I usually use a pattern or a tutorial, but more recently I've been branching out on my own and just winging it.  By "winging it" I mean sometimes I literally just use what I consider common sense and cross my finders that I don't screw it up.  Other times I will carefully plan out each step, design the pattern, do the calculations, price it out, then proceed (so basically I'm not wining it at all).  Regardless, When I am working on my own creation I take pictures of each step along the way.  I do this partly because I want to be able to reference them if I ever decide to make another, but also because I knew the day would come where I create a sewing blog and want to share my creations with the world (or whoever you are that's reading this.    Anybody?)

So here we are.  Another sewing blog.  Another blog about Barbie.  I'll try not to bore you.

p.s.  the dog in my header is Maggie, our 8 year old pug!