Character Flaws

I've always given myself credit for my strong points and been adept at ignoring my flaws. A few years ago I began asking the Lord to show me two things,--who I am in His eyes and who I am in the eyes of others. What a rude awakening!

There were times in the beginning I wanted to throw my hands up and say, "Enough already!". Now, for the most part, I just say, "Okay, bring it on!". It's not always easy to face the truth, but it frees me to do something about it. Identifying a problem doesn't make it easy to change, but it's a start.

I've had to drop "victim" from my vocabulary. Okay, fine, I'm working on dropping it. It's finally dawning on me that, whether by vice or virtue, I've earned every line and wrinkle, and every negative in my life. I take responsibility for that now. I don't accept blame because that just leads to self-loathing, but I do take responsibility.

The flip side is learning how precious I am to God. Regardless of my flaws. The miracle isn't even how much He loves me. The miracle is that I believe it. That's awesome!

Train Shirt

Finally the shirts are finished. I've taken the best photos I can (because I don't read manuals). If you double click on them, they show up better.

Trains

WOO HOO!!! Or perhaps I should say, CHOO CHOO!!!



The train embroideries are finished! I tried my best to sabotage the one I worked on today but just couldn't do it. At one point, the thread nested so badly that I had to work for about five minutes to "saw" away at the thread before I could even remove the hoop from the machine.

For those of you who don't do machine embroidery, a nest of tangled threads under your hoop can stretch and tear the fabric and get almost hopelessly tangled into the machine. (Ask me how I know that.) I prayed my way through the process. Literally. Whew! The fabric is fine and the machine is not damaged. When I was ready to go again, I backed up the stitching to where I thought it had messed up. It all lined up beautifully, but I didn't back up far enough. It's so cool because the part that didn't get sewn looks like a space between the cow catcher and the first wheel. Like it should be that way.

Next I put Tender Touch iron-on fusible on the back of each embroidery so they won't be scratchy. I cut a couple of them too small. I had one upside down and fused it to the pressing cloth. I ironed another one to the bottom of my iron, which reminded me why I should always use a pressing cloth and should NEVER do creative things when I'm tired. When I cleaned the iron I got some of the adhesive onto the ironing board cover. But it's all done now.

I do still have to sew the shirts back together. Considering how tired I am, I think it would be wise to wait until tomorrow. Then I'll also take photos.

The Train Saga

I finally finished the second test stitchout of the steam engine. It looks good with the new colors. There's only one color I need to change. I could start it tonight, but I'm too tired to finish it and I don't want to leave it hooped over night. I'll get at it in the morning.

Train Shirts and Travel Quilt

I'm currently working on a couple of gifts. I'm embroidering shirts for my friend's 2 & 4 year old boys. The 2 year old's is finished except for sewing it back together. It has a cute wooden toy train embroidery. The 4 year old's is a work in progress. Slow progress. I found a wonderful embroidery of a realistic steam engine. When I test stitched it, the embroidery was too dark to look right on a navy blue shirt. Next I'll test it with lighter colors. It has 50,200 stitches and 29 color changes and takes hours to stitch out. It's a gorgeous design and will be worth the time. I'm just afraid that the new colors won't work right. Then it'll be back to square one.
The other project is a travel quilt for my sister and brother in law. They've been all over the world, so I'm embroidering various countries and landmarks. The background will be a couple of world map fabrics. It will take a long time to finish, but a joy to work on.
Soon I have to make time to do some love quilts.

It irritates me when people try to limit me by saying that a particular activity, event, etc. will be too much for me. I make allowances for those who do not know me well, but NOT for those who do. I'll set my own limits, thank you very much. The trouble is that when I get on my high horse about something, I sometimes fall off the other side. I hate it when I get snippy with someone and later have to admit they were right. If they hadn't overstepped their bounds, I probably would have asked for help anyway. Yeah, right. I'd rather eat a bumble bee than ask for help most of the time. When you get old though, there are certain things that can be a bit difficult.

I used to wonder why old people bent over at the waist to pick things up. They looked so silly! When I became an old people, I realized it's because your knees won't always bend and/or hold your weight. So now I look silly with the rest of them on the days that I can actually bend at the waist without falling on my nose. The rest of the time, I ask for help. But that's the only situation where I need help. Okay, maybe there are a couple of other situations. I don't want to talk about it.

My motto of late is, "Don't bury me, I'm not dead yet." I may be getting older. I may not be as healthy or agile as I would like to be. But I'm definitely not dead.