New LDS Scripture Bag patterns & Giveaway

My little sister Monica (my Muse) puts her scriptures in what ever bag she is carrying to church, her purse, her Tote with teaching supplies or her diaper bag. Needless to say there are all kinds of things in any of those bags that could damage her scriptures.

So a while back I came up with this Scripture bag pattern, for the Standard LDS quad.

I've made a few, and we did it for a sewing group one month. The work great to use when all you want to carry is your scriptures or to put the scripture bag in another bag and keep your scriptures protected, from the lipstick in your purse the crayon's in your teaching tote or the moist stuff sticky stuff that comes in and out of your diaper bag.

When one of my favorite bloggers posted her little one was getting baptized. I wrote to her and asked if I could make her a gift. She was more than happy but her little one had Compact size scriptures. So that motivated me to make the other size patterns for the other size scripture bags.

Here is the Compact Quad pattern for sale on Etsy:

And the Large Print Quad pattern for sale on Etsy:

To win this sample of my Large Print Quad bag, just leave a comment.

I will also be Giving away one of the patterns, so if this bag is not your size, style or color feel free to leave a comment to win a pattern to make your own.

For extra entries feel free to:

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This contest will end on Saturday June 11th, at Midnight PST. I will announce the winner that will be chosen by Randam.org on Sunday June 12th.

5 Pattern Drafting Software for Sewing

One of the classes I took in College while I was getting my Degree in Fashion Design was a Software Evaluation class. We worked with 4 pattern drafting software in the class. Garment Designer by Cochenille Design Studio, Fittingly Sew by Knit Craft, Pattern Master Boutique by Wild Ginger Software and Dress Shop Pro by Living Soft. I'm going to add My Label by Bernina to make it a total of 5.

1. Garment Designer - Comes with all Standard Measurements built in, including infants, toddlers, children, juniors, petites, misses, women's and men's so you can design for the whole family it also includes some doll measurements. It thinks in pattern pieces and has all the pattern pieces you would need to create just about any design. You can easily click on the pattern points and bezier curves and do further pattern drafting of your pattern pieces. It has pattern intelligence built in, when you move the front hem it moves the back when you move the underarm point it automatically updates the sleeve cap. I enjoyed working with this program so much I now work for them.

2. Fittingly Sew - It took me a while to get a good fit out of this program. It had a fair amount of style options to choose from. Once I got the hand of it I was able to print out a pattern that worked. It gives you the ability to cut piece into sections and join pieces together so you could really get some weird shapes going on. It didn't have pattern intelligence so you needed to be really careful what pieces you were altering and make sure you went and updated the corresponding pieces.

3. Pattern Master Boutique - This program thinks in Designs. For example the Women's Wardrobe has blouses, dresses, jackets, coats, jumpsuits, pants, sheaths, and skirt Designs for Women. There are 5 individual packages. So the men taking the class had to design an outfit for one of the girls in the class because the college computer labs didn't have the Men's Wardrobe. You choose one of the designs in the category you want. You do have the ability to change the design by changing the neckline, adding darts, choosing different sleeves or collars and adding pockets. It was easy to use I would recommend this software to those that are just starting out with sewing and want to sew basic styles.

4. Dress Shop Pro - The teacher actually excused me from this assignment because no matter how I tweaked my measurements the software would not print out a pattern for me. The teacher and I work for 3 weeks on my measurements and never got a pattern. At least the other programs took the measurements no matter what they were and generated something. Not always perfect but never nothing. There are some reviews that had better results with the program. Like this one from Threads Magazine. There is also this one that has some really good comments.

5. My Label - If I were to ever cheat on my Garment Designer this is on I would try. The only reason I haven't is because of the price and the limited designs when they first came out. I see now on there website that the offer free design styles to add to your software. Why I would cheat on my Garment Designer: It just looks so cool, the 3D model of you, the ability to see the clothes on your figure (this is why the program is limited in styles it takes a long time to program Illustrate and write up each design). You also have the ability to embellish right on the screen, because Bernina does Embroidery software and Embroidery Machines this was the perfect addition to the program. If they ever come out with a Wedding dress Collection, I'm so there.

Wordless Wednesday - Memorial Day Dove's

At Monday's Memorial Day Ceremony, they released White Dove's. I was not in the correct position to be taking pictures of them, but I love this one. You can see the Dove but also the Memorial Wall.

Buying Alterable Women's Slacks

As long as I can remember Women in Business have been getting the short end of the stick. I've read articles on the difference in pay, the difference in benefits. I even read an article once on the difference they were being charged for dry cleaning. A man would be charged $2.00 a shirt and a women would be charged $5 because it was a blouse. Those are early '90's prices I haven't dry cleaned a blouse in a long time.

Well ladies here are some pointers so you don't get stuck paying twice as much for alterations on your slacks. This is what the back should look like. The waistband should have a seam in the back and the fabric along the back seam should be pressed open and finished to each side.

Unfortunately that is not the case with most women's slacks, they don't give women's slacks the same type of attention to Tailoring, even if you purchase some of the expensive one's. The only way to get manufactures to get you what you need is to tell the clerk at Macy's or Nordstrom's that you are not buying that pair of pants because they are not tailored in such a manner to be easily altered. Believe me they will pass it on to the buyer, who will pass it on to the Designers sales rep, who will pass it on to the Designer.

But for now what I had to do for a customer that didn't want to be charged for 3 hours worth of work for me to correctly tailor her pants while doing a simple waist shortening, was this:

Because the back seam was serged together, so I had to take the excess and fold it all to one side. It creates an awkward gathering of fabric.

It worked and didn't look to bad on the outside, but I was not happy with it.

Coachella Valley Cemetery Memorial Day Ceremony

Every Memorial Day my husband wakes up at 5 am and heads on over to the Cemetery and places flags on all of the Veterans buried there. The local Scouts Troop along with the American Legion and a few other small groups go to help. My daughter and I used to go up until a few years ago, when hands were few. Now hands are many, so we gracefully bowed out so other's could have the joy of service to our servicemen and women. Plus 5 AM is very very early, on one of the few days I sleep in, hehehehe.

Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you for the wonderful Ceremony. 

Painting Bird houses

My niece and nephew like being in my husbands garage. They found these cute wooden bird houses the other day and had to schedule a painting day.

My sister dresses the children in nice clean outfits everyday, and everyday they come over here they leave with stains on their clothes. I tried to avoid that this time by putting aprons on them.

They were doing great for a while, and then Lexi decided she wanted to paint Keegan instead of the bird house. Sorry Monica I tried.

This is the best picture I got of there faces, they would not stop painting to look at me!