You Say Toe-Mah-Toe

I've been missing my sewing machine as of late.

It hasn't gone anywhere per se. But our relationship is that of a troubled one. If we were two people trying to live harmoniously together, we'd have separate bedrooms. Or Mr. Machine would wake up one groggy morning and wonder why he was laying in the front yard amongst all his belongings.

I've been keeping him locked up in the complete darkness of my art room closet under consequence of his  'misbehavior'.

Two weeks before the beginning of December 2010, my Aunt Laurie signed me up to 

   have a table at a local   elementary school craft show. I was a CRAZY person at this time. Literally. I moved basically everything from my art room into my dining room. It was a clausterphobes NIGHTMARE and it began to be mine as well. 

I've been to many-a-craft show in my days. I know exactly what I am looking for and what I completely dislike (borderline HATE) seeing there. When less than a handful of days til the craft show came up- I began calling my process, or dining room rather, The Megan Factory. If my children could shred through sewing like Susie Homemaker or Martha Stewart, I would have put them to work in the basement; 

along with any foreigners I felt deemed to fit the job. But no. 

    My children are still too young to work in a child-labored sweat factory and foreigners are scarce. So it       was all me. Me in my own sweat factory. Sewing and sewing and sewing til all hours of the night, until my fingers were so raw and sensitive to the touch I thought perhaps I couldn't go on making anything else. 

      This is when Mr. Machine decided to pull his same old tricks.

      Loop de loops, frizzle frazz, and bird nesting every stitch. No matter what I did, he dug his foot down and said "NO".  48 hours and counting. I called my sister in a tizzy- I NEED YOUR SEWING MACHINE!! 

She willingly gave it up. Although I was completely unfamiliar with the knobs and dials on this thing, I had a new found hope. I was A-l-m-o-s-t finished. 

WRONG.

Her's was WORSE than mine. Good Grief. Now I truly was becoming the crazy lady on the block known for chucking sewing machines on her lawn. (almost). Thank goodness most of my machine sewn projects were 99% finished. I had to rely on my hands. My poor, damaged, dead fingers to finish the job. I glittered and hot glued. Searched wilderness for pinecones, mixing and matching fabrics, cutting, measuring, and slandering all I was getting myself into. Turned out the day of the craft show I had enough for fill a whole weekend affair- if it had been such. Instead it lasted about 3 hours. I could have taken up 3 tables instead of the tiny 6'x2' I was supplied with. Lesson learned. I went in blindly and found a few good tid-bits of knowledge through out of my cursed days in the Megan Factory. 

Now if that wasn't even enough- I had Christmas laying upon me like a ball and chain. Since my fingers weren't dead yet- Why don't I bust out some knitting. Hmm? Sounds good. I celebrated when Christmas was over. I swore off crafting forever.

Saying goodbye didn't come fast enough. From now on I was going to leave myself to the leisure of Fine Arts; Cue in the cards, bird houses, paintings, and other drawings and workings of such.

It's been a fine time. It really has. But I've begun to miss my old buddy, Mr. Machine. 

The fabrics, stacked neatly on the shelf have been calling my name. 

So out he came, all dusty and sorry. As I set him down on the dining room table I said, "Now you behave". And guess what? He did. Working in his utmost, best behavior. We're a happy couple again. 

Now I feel we're in our honeymoon bliss, today was a great day. The girlies happily helped separate fabrics and with little odd jobs. We accomplished a lot. 20 tomato and 30 strawberry pincushions. As I was making them, I thought- how cute would these be as a wedding favor, or place card favor at a Summer dinner party!? L♥O♥V♥E IT!

After sewing, the girls and I made a batch of Meringues. Inspired today by SisterBatik who was also chewing meringues today.

I admit I burnt half of them. (...My patience for waiting was running low). The browned ones tasted like toasted marshmallows. The perfect ones tasted, well, PERFECT. YUM! These don't last long either. Highly addicting I say. Highly addicting. 

{Very well worth and easy to make}

Happy Weekend Everyone!

♥