Art, Craft and Needlework, October, 2011

[Harriet]

"It is a happy talent to know how to play."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What are you playing at lately? In what activity are you finding whimsy and creativity?

We hope you'll join us in this thread - we'll sit and create together, show off our work to each other! Let us know what projects you're starting, continuing or releasing.

[Nancy]

Wool carding is on my radar this month I got a basket out to use for that. I'm so looking forward to this I can't believe it!

[Harriet]

Also the puppets you are making sound like fun, Nancy. Be sure and tell about that. I hope the children at the church get a lot of playtime out of them.

BookSaver got to go to a sewing retreat again - interested to hear what creativity is coming out of that.

Here, dd is the only one managing to be creative in our new situation. She is drawing, drawing, drawing all the time. She tried a few things in the form of graphic novels or comic books, making geometric shapes separated within a page and drawing inside each shape.

[Nancy]

I have a cone of yarn for a project and decided not to do that project after dgds did not want the vest I"d picked out as a pattern so figured I could use this white cotton yarn for puppets.
I'm making them up getting one a day done is not much of a problem. The church nursery and pre-school will enjoy them I'm sure. I've given some to the church for other things they do kids in crisis when police / fire fighters go to a crisis fire etc. they keep toys and blankets with them to hand out and local groups & clubs gather items to donate for that cause. The quilt guild makes quilts for it. I've knitted up baby blankets for it before. The church is trying to gather 500 new or gently used stuffed animals. {I thought of the puppets for that last month.}

These puppets are a great way to use up dabs of yarn too small for other things on the mouth and eyes, or stripes!

[BookSaver]

Projects from the sewing retreat:

1) Organized my sewing project bags and tools. They were a mess from several months of hauling to charity sew-ins. I tried to be organized about packing for this retreat, but ran out of time and just started tucking things I thought I would need into the bags. I knew I would be too tired to sew Thursday night, so used that time to pull everything out and sort all of it so I could set up the machine first thing Friday morning.

2) Started and finished the little kit I posted about in August, for what they called a "clothespin bag" in the shape of a little girl's dress.

3) Finished an apron that I had started at the spring retreat last March. This one is a floral cotton print for myself. Here is a site with reviews of the pattern, called the Tamari Apron from Sewing Workshop: http://sewing.patternreview.com/Patterns/4414

4) Made a very simple computer bag for my little netbook from some pretty upholstery fabric I found on the free table.

5) Took a favorite old cardigan that is wearing out, and traced around the sections to create a pattern. I have not been able to find a replacement to buy ready-made, so I need to find fabric to make one.

6) Assembled the pattern pieces from the jacket pattern on CD that I also mentioned in August. I suspected that it would not have a large enough size included, and that suspicion was correct. I copied the pieces I had traced from the cardigan that I know fits, and modified them to the shape of the new jacket pattern. I had practice fabric with me, but ran out of time to cut it out.

7) We prepared our meals as a group. The organizers had the menu for each day planned in detail, and everyone signed up for which meal they wanted to cook and clean. We worked in teams of 4. As a member of the event planning committee, I also pitched in to help with other basic duties. That took a lot of time away from sewing, but I thought the whole experience was fun.

[BookSaver]

My sewing group is doing a UFO (UnFinished Object) challenge. At the last meeting, we brought a UFO in a closed bag and put it on a table for someone else to pick up. Everybody had to open their bags during the meeting to show what they started with. We've been asked to take our finished projects back to the December meeting.

We do not have to finish the original project. We don't have to use up everything in the bag, either. We just need to use at least part of 1 of the fabrics in the bag.

One of the challengers was working on her project at the sewing retreat. She started with a panel print of a vest with an autumn/Halloween design. She thought it was really ugly. She cut the whole thing up into the pieces for a trio soft sculpture pumpkins. Last I saw of them, they were turning out totally cute.

I took the last bag left on the table, and it held 2 strips of fabric that had been layered together. They had only been sewed together at the edges. The under layer is a solid peach cotton blend, the upper is a floral print (stripes of red & blue flowers with kelly green leaves) on white eyelet. Looks like an apron to me!

I'm looking for a 3rd piece of fabric that will coordinate with all those colors, because the pieces in the bag aren't big enough. Either more eyelet in solid white, or maybe something hunter green. Maybe a 4th piece in gingham check?

I have 2 or 3 vintage apron patterns that use panels or gores for the skirt part.

Oooh, I also have a downloaded version of a 1940s(?) booklet that showed how to make aprons from handkerchiefs. I should look at that, too, in terms of just using the eyelet print.

[Harriet]

I took the last bag left on the table

Gutsy!

No picking and choosing, just take the last of the leftovers and prove you can turn the most unwanted one around! Sigh. Ya'll will all have so much fun. If I had gotten the vest panel, I would have cut it up, too. A new fabric, then, with no history. Without seeing your fabrics, my general thoughts would be to go ahead and bring other fabrics in for sure. Do you mean the eyelet and the print are separate or that is one fabric? Make sure you have contrast, but beyond that make sure you have fun and pull in some of your own taste. A gored apron would make the whole room oooh and aaahhh.

[Nancy]

I finished up another puppet this one is striped with grey dd mentioned that she got some books for dgd's bday so this will be a great one to go with those books!

H. put the others in the car to deliver next time we are at pre-school or church.

[BookSaver]

Sorry, that was a bad description. The eyelet fabric with floral print is one piece of fabric. It's printed in rows so it looks like stripes.

Unfortunately, the eyelet stripe is not wide enough to cut it in strips and just use the white as a ruffle. The floral stripe is dark enough that when I tried to fold it behind the white, it showed through.

I'm not sure why the other person combined the peach fabric with this printed eyelet. It sort of looks like the border on a pillowcase, but then why would she sew around all 4 sides?

Maybe she simply pulled a couple of scraps from her stash and thought, "Here, these will be a real challenge!" so she slapped them together and put them in a bag.

Looking at this, I don't feel so bad about what I gave away in the challenge. It was not quite half a yard of blue cotton print with trains. I thought it was cute fabric, but I didn't have a plan for it right away and I wanted to participate in this challenge. The person who picked up my bag happens to be a quilter, so I don't think she'll have any trouble coming up with a use for a kids' print cotton.

[Harriet]

Well, speaking as a quilter, too, a stripe to me says "border". I would probably be thinking in terms of bordering the bib of an apron in a fussy-cut of the stripe or bordering the skirt in it. It does sound like this piece had the purpose of confounding a re-do, doesn't it? LOL!

Nancy, that must be a cheerful outlet, making little puppets with personality!