That Awful Four Letter Word.......DIET!

         Yep.......I am on a diet again. However this is the first time I have ever posted about it. First off, I must say I eat a pretty well balanced diet. The only thing I might lack in is enough protein. I am not much of a meat eater. Usually the only time I eat meat is the 1 day a week when we go out to a restaurant. While in middle school I was a vegetarian for 2 years. I love veggies. These make up most of my diet and I snack on nuts, and too much sweets.
        Last week I watched Dr. Oz . I liked him in the beginning, but then it seemed he pushed suppliments too much. But this day was different. he was discussing the results of his 2 Week Rapid Weight Loss Diet. He made a good sense by allowing unlimited quantities of low glycemic vegetables. It also eliminates foods that can make you sick or be toxic to the body. Such as wheat,gluten, diet sweeteners sugar,and dairy. It does however allow 1/2 cup greek yogurt and 1 cup almond milk. The video of this show can be found HERE. He showed scans of the brain of a person using wheat, carbs, gluten and sugar and one without. The brain on these things seemed to be inflamed and he said along with other problems, it caused one to crave more food.The people in his audience lost an average 9 lbs in 2 weeks. Some were losing 26 lbs in 2 weeks.
        I started on Monday. The first day was a breeze,The second day I had to take my son to the hospital for a test so was gone half of the day. So I didnt get my breakfast smoothie. For lunch I then had the Bourbon Chicken Skillet but subbed out the red potatoes for more of the broccoli. Then chicken stir fry for supper with cashews. On the first day I lost 2.6 lbs. A total of 4.6 lbs in 3 days. I am thrilled. I just hope this continues and that I can stick to it. Here is a printable sheet on the diet

My First Needle Book Completed

   Remember is THIS post I showed you the pages I created or my needle book. This is a special project for me for a few reasons. One, this is my very first needle book. Now i have a place to keep all my needles together and they are labeled. Two, This is the first time I used my nicer supplies for myself instead of gifts. Three, the idea for this project was brought up to me by an online friend. She has generously given me some pieces of very pretty fabrics, ribbons, etc. The crushed velvet cover was one of her gifts, plus the beautiful button and hand dyed ribbons.
     I lightly padded the cover and used a piece of acid free board to slip into the covers to stiffen them some. The pages were then opened up and stitched into the binding one at a time. One stacked on top of the other. There is also a narrow pocket running up the edge of the inside covers to hold needle threaders etc. Some of the roses were embroidered. The two large dusty plum colored ones were done using a folded technique. The large leaves were wire edged silk ribbon. The cream colored hand crocheted lace trim running along the edge of the front was made by me a few months ago when I was practicing a new stitch. This was an after thought and not initially made for this project but i loved the look. My roses still need a lot of work. I have been practicing my hand embroidery off and on for a few months now, but have done very little ribbon embroidery.

I noticed that flower that shows up as a bright true blue really isnt. It has a color range from dark blue thru some deep purple.The flowers that look brown, are more a deep copper color, and the crochet lace is more a cream.
Here is the inside:

The inside pocket is a horizontal one running up the left side and inside right side of cover.
This might be a little more accurate representation of the color:

UPDATE

The wonderful teacher helping me develop my embroidery skills advised me to add some greenery to my cover. So here is the updated pic.

Needle Book Update

         I sent my friend the picture of my needle book page. She gave me several good ideas to make it look better. Here is how it is now:

I have to admit my bullion's are getting better. I think I might have preferred to have made the inch worm head to be the same green as the body. I may still change that.

Needle Book......What The Heck Is That?

        That's exactly what i said to an internet friend a couple of months ago. I have been a sewer most of my life. Many years ago I bought an embroidery machine, so I havent done much hand embroidery, but I enjoy learning new skills. Last year by chance,  a wonderfully talented lady contacted me about a crochet project, and we have been friends ever since. She is very knowledgeable and skilled when it comes to sewing, embroidery, and other skills. I have been learning a lot from her. She is an excellent teacher. A few months ago she mentioned about needle books. I have never heard of them or even seen one before. She explained how it was used to store all your needles in one safe place. I usually tended to just stick them in my projects, stick them in pin cushions to be lost among my straight pins etc. We are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I tend to just rush into things headlong, and figure it out as i go. I am also very disorganized. She is extremely organized and plans about making plans for a project.  She is slowly rubbing off on me. Maybe one of these days when I go looking for a certain tool or pattern, I will know exactly where its at,lol.
       She suggested I should make a needle book. At first I wasnt real enthused about the idea. I wasnt sure I would even use one. so I started researching these online. Looking through pinterest and Google at all the beautiful books created by others. It wasnt long before I was hooked. I had to have one. Another thing she has taught me is that when I plan a project for myself  dont be afraid to use your nice materials. I have always saved the good things for when I was working on something for someone else. Sadly to say my pin cushion is one I threw together using a plastic  container and padded the lid. I used old scraps that werent very attractive. So now its time to take car of ME.
       I saw cute needle books online that were pieced from cute prints, and had easy felt pages. Some had hand embroidery on the covers, and ribbon embroidery. Some were shaped like apples. My  teacher/friend sent me some beautiful ,purple  crushed velvet. I decided I was going to use this for my book cover. I also plan on some ribbon embroidery on the cover. She discussed using wool felt or flannel for the pages. I liked the simplicity and ease of using the felt, but when she showed me a pic of how she stitches around the edges of her flannel pages, I was in love. I tried linen, but just didnt get the look I wanted. So I used some white felt. I cut my pages 4.5" x 6". These will then be folded in half to a 4.5" x 3".I found some cute little trim in my storage and decided to use it rather than hand embroidery the flowers, but it could certainly be done either way. I used dark purple embroidery floss to make a french knot in the center of each flower to hold the trim in place.

Then I found some purple rick rack. I thought this would look pretty and add some color in the center of the page. I will stick the needles in under this. I used some cream color floss to couch it to my flannel page. i also took some matching thread to stitch the ends down and prevent raveling.  I wanted some labels on the pages to try and keep me a little more organized. I tried free-handing them on ribbon. Like I said "no plans", just "jump in" and go for it.....Didnt work. The letters were all different sizes. I didnt want to fool with the embroidery machine. I also didnt want to print them out on my printer. So I remembered I had some cross stitch fabric. So I first embroidered the letters on then cut it out. I took some more matching thread and whipped stitched the edges down to my flannel. I liked this look. I think i am done with these, and now on to the cover. Check back here for more pics and instructions on putting this whole thing together.