I apologize for my disappearance, my MIA, but I entered the year with a bit of instrospection, I mean everyone should. 2015 was a great year, but 2016 will be an even greater year. As a believer, I know that my life is really not my own, neither are my plans and since I believe in someone bigger than me, I wanted to dedicate the first month of this year to God because at the end of the day, or year, all that I succeed in is because he allows.

Most  churches including my own do a fast at the beginning of the year and I decided this is definitely something I should do. Is this something that you should do? Well ask yourself

1. Do I need direction?
2. Do I need clarity?
3. Do I need power?
4. Do I need peace?

If your answers were yes then I say go for it. There is no time frame or limit, just a time you set aside to get the answers that you need. That being said I decided to fast from meat. I love meat and for some reason that was the one thing I said I would give up and so I did. 21 days with no meat. My first few days were tough. I promise you I had withdrawals and just wanted to pounce on some chicken wings, or a good steak, but I had to remind myself why I was doing this and this was not about the food but about denying myself for clarity, direction, peace and control/power.

So did I get what I needed? The year will tell.

Below are a few pics of what I ate. I am a visual person and with food, if it looks good to me I won't have a problem eating it and that was how I survived without meat. Another key is preparation. Decide what you want to eat before hand, get the ingredients and make it. The hardest times I had was when me and my husband would eat out. I realized not many restaurants offer meat free options, and that is a shame. I hope to continue to lessen my meat intake and cut off all "commercial" meat. That is beef, chicken and pork . We will see how this journey goes.

Have you considered fasting? If not I encourage you to. It may not be meat, it may be something else that you need to cut off to get your focus away from that "thing", to give you more time to focus on God.

Happy 2016 and I hope it is filled with success and favor.

 
 How to Host a vision board party

It's the holiday season and without fail, all things sparkly and festive are here. I have kind of stayed away from working with sequin and glittery fabric because I am too scared to mess up such pretty fabric. I happened to go to the fabric store and spotted some shiny remnant fabric that I thought I could work with. I picked McCall's pattern M7047 and it was the perfect easy pattern to go with the fabric and it can be warn three different ways. I loved that added versatility.  Sadly I have no red carpet, or fancy events to go to, so I will be dressing up to go no where LOL. Here is what I came up with. How did I do?

So I feel like I never win anything. I have entered countless competitions, small and big and never get anything. Despite all of this, I still try. I decided to enter Simplicity's Sewlebrate pattern  giveaway and all I had to do was name a pattern that I love to sew over and over and I could add a picture if I liked. Well I did that. You all know I enjoyed making my jumpsuits this summer and so Simplicity 1158 was clearly my favorite. Well surprise surprise!! Simplicity contacted me and told me I was selected as one of their two winners. I won.. me, me, me I won.

I love simplicity patterns and I have a good stash of patterns that am waiting to try. So what was the prize you ask???? More patterns (jumps in the air with elation). Things you can never get enough of; patterns and fabric. I am in now in eternal bliss.

I won !!

I have been toying around with different ideas for Dashiki Fabric. This is another one of those commanding fabrics that was popular back in the day and has made a come back. Dashiki is also know as Angelina, or Miriam Makeba a South African Musician who was a trendsetter, and so made it popular. I don't have much history on it but Wikipedia seems to have some interesting information about it. (Not the best source of information though). Anyways, here are a few of my projects so far. More to come.