Art, Craft and Needlework, January, 2012

[Harriet]

Each day is begun with a plan, and I try to stick to it to earn a little time at the end to sew.
- from "Time and Talent" by Nancy Breland

This is the place to report on the fun stuff!

What has your creative juices flowing this month? Do you have a new technique you're mastering? Is there a new project that you're planning? Or are you delighted to be completing some UnFinished Objects and feeling virtuous?

If you've gotten any compliments on your art, here's the place to brag! We really want to hear. If you've taken a picture you'd like to share, check out the Tips Hints forum to find the different ways to do that, and let us see. There you'll find Kathryn's "Posting Pictures" and Indiana's "Sizing Pictures Using MS Paint".

[Harmony]

My quilt book has never arrived. Waiting to make sure of credit card then cancel order and order from someone else. Lady never returned my email about it either.

Has anyone ever sewed any of those head coverings for chemo patients? I copied off a few patterns I found on the net, but not ever having done any I'm wondering which one to try. Myself, if I was buying one I'd opt for very soft stretchey band, but my sewing machine is very old. I can accomplish just about everything except a stretch stitch on that kind of material. Just looking for input from anyone who's tried this before.

[Lynlee]

Harmony - see what zigzag will do on your machine with stretch material.. I've crotched some but not sewn a head covering.

Yesterday I cut a length of my flanellette stash for a cot sheet and doll wrap. Its gone with dgd.

[Nancy]

Envious of you gals getting to do needle work I"m afraid that's went to the way size as I've had to devote more time to keeping the house up with it being on the market and gardening yard work had not really stopped for me with leaf removal continuing so things do not really look like they will be changing much this year in this respect. I"m doing good to get time to knit, or crochet once a week now instead of daily. ~sigh~ I tried to explain this to hubby and he did not "get it". He was not happy either when I told him I was not going to be trying so hard for the perfect house staging this year. But I have other things I want to do than devote my life to a perfect looking house. Gee ya think? LOL I probably need an attitude adjustment about this but I'm putting that off for tomorrows spiritual lesson!

[Harriet]

ZigZag stitch has done more than I thought it would in various stretch puzzles here over the years. But I'm not sure of the fabric/pattern and I may be mistaken, Harmony. I guess the tried and true answer is, make one from least favorite fabric and see? BookSaver may know more.

Nancy I am right there with you. Feeling a little sorry for myself over it, too. Burpee catalog came and I wistfully look at pages, then ask myself when I think I'll have time for that, either. But I will get to CREATIVITY, yes I will. Right now there are roadblocks, plus very important that I bring the 2 houses under control right now. But I see how it can happen.

[Harmony]

Aw, Nancy, I understand not having time for stuff sometimes. I get caught up in the office work and don't do anything creative for months. I will try the zigzag on some scraps and see how that does. Funny, I made DD2 some maternity pants with those stretchy panels, and the stitches never tore, but then a couple years ago I cut length off some too-long T's that were a bit stretchy, and those stitches did break.

[Nancy]

Okay I'm a happy camper today got the rest of that ball of yarn knit up & started the last ball of yarn on this project. It was time to relax and rest my back so I did that after story time with dgd. She did some home made sewing w/ shoe string cards I did for her of Christmas cards today.

[Harmony]

Nancy, that's great how you involve your DGKs in your crafts. I so wish I had done that with my DD's. One has always wished she could sew, etc.

Email today says my book order has been cancelled by company. Good thing A maz on does is cancel any order that has not been shipped within 30 days, and billing isn't done until item is shipped, so that leaves me at square one again! I will ponder what to do, there were a whole list of sellers for this book there.

[Harriet]

Look through them and choose one with a high "seller rating" or check reviews. Remember, you can always go to ebay, too, and choose a seller by their feedback score. Looking for the soap dish Kathryn recommended, I noticed at Amazon the main seller they use has terrible reviews. But the second one has nothing but praise. That sort of thing should help. I'm so glad you found it at the library in the meantime. Good ol' library. Here we have 3 weeks and then can renew online for another 3. I've recently learned to check for CDs in my interests, too, since I can keep them just as long. DVDs have to be back quickly so aren't much help to me. The library's a blessing.

[Harmony]

Well, I did buy that book from one with good ratings. She apparently just disappeared off the earth for some reason!

Now, the book I wanted and got from the Library, I copied the pages for this quilt I am starting. It was only 4 pages, not too bad and I can make all the notes I want on them. However, the color picture turned out very dark on my black & white printer, and wasn't very helpful in figuring out the amounts of each color she was recommending to buy. And I may have misunderstood something and think I overbought one color by 3 1/4 yds. I will know when I get this thing together.

After a false start, today I managed to get all my fabric purchased. It's all washed now, last piece is in the dryer. I did the 2 reds together, and had an ah-oh moment when the tan stars on the red appeared to be covered with red. However, that turned out to be just the wetness making them look that way, and after drying, the stars were just fine. Whew! I have ironing board set up to start pressing.

I am actually a little apprehensive about starting. I'm trying to tell myself, I think I can, I think I can....