Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

A place for Artistry, Crafts and Needlework; Decorating and Holidays.
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Harmony
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Harmony » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:02 pm

Did some more mending today. DH's TShirt with youth group logo (he wears these Wed. evenings) and the inside of the neck ribbing had come unattached and I fixed that. Hard fix, picture a 1/16" of an inch clearance, and the material was permanently curled despite pressing flat, and turning the edge under and stitching just below the ribbing. All while keeping my fingers out from under the needle and out of the way. But somehow I did it. He'll get some more use out of that TShirt now.

I took a sheet that had a couple rips in it and cut out enough and made a pillow case to fit my long narrow wedge pillow that I put in back of my pillows to prop them up on. It already had a soft cover on it, but a white slick pillow cover seems "cleaner" to me so that is on now.

I wonder how much stuff I would do if I kept my sewing stuff out all the time?

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Harriet
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Harriet » Sat Mar 09, 2019 7:09 pm

Nancy, I hope you enjoy your new curtains and enjoy planning the next set. That's smart to take usable parts of a sheet for pillowcases. Must be great to have a new machine!

Harmony, does that mean you are finished with pillow covers? Great to be able to mend something he wears often. My personal thought is that if you really only enjoyed putting sewing away, you wouldn't have the supplies and equipment in the house anyhow! So I'm thinking you enjoy more than you think! :)

I think Twins' Mom is busy with stamping.

BookSaver, if you miss a day, sew two seams the next! :D I assure you, we will be just as impressed! I have not done something every day but have kept it on my mind and written "in the cards", you know. Mostly straightening, decluttering.

Confession:
One thing that was driving me crazy was locating the work dd, HRH and I did to square and re-size to 5 inches the image of the old Morning Star quilt block that I could only find in the book from the '80s. Finally I realized that in my determination to protect it, I had put it between the pages of the book in which I'd found it, for safekeeping. :roll: Boy, was I glad to have that work back in-hand!

Even squared back up, that drawing was fuzzy - not crisp at all. Plus it had designs to resemble fabrics in the patch areas, which fuzzed the image even more.

So today during daylight I taped it under a plain piece of paper in a window and placed dots at every intersecting seam. Then I took it to a table and finished drafting with mechanical pencil. I'll make copies of this (and NOT hide them from myself again) and cut apart for a final copy to put onto vellum. This one will start off with paper-piecing but have to be finished with hand work.

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Nancy
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Nancy » Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:48 am

I have made the next set of curtisns, they are too long and need to be shortened. So I will be re- hemming them. I had to tweak the curtians did that. I disgurded one panel & spilt the other and got it to fit better.
Last edited by Nancy on Mon Mar 11, 2019 11:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Twins' Mom
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Twins' Mom » Sun Mar 10, 2019 12:34 pm

I have been stamping up a storm. I should take some photos of cards I've stamped and share them. Ordered more supplies last night, I'm trying to get some of the newer colors and S tampin u p has a promotion this month.
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [wo]man. Ben Franklin

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Harmony
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Harmony » Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:47 pm

I absolutely have to be in the mood to sew. If not, it's a chore. Sometimes when I get "into" a project, it seems different and I am happier. So... this time it got easier to do all the things I did. Yes, the 2 cushion covers for DD are done. The mending is done. (All except for darning socks). The extra pillow cover I made for my foam wedge is done. I have a couple more things in mind for later, and I still have a couple hems to do.

BWTG doing the curtains, Nancy. The measuring part and figuring that out is my least favorite part. And usually for me at least the hardest.

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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Twins' Mom » Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:19 am

Harmony, didn't you used to quilt sometimes? Or am I remembering wrongly? I know Harriet also quilts....
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [wo]man. Ben Franklin

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Harmony
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Harmony » Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:54 pm

Twins, yes I've done some quilting. I've made place mats, baby quilts and a few years ago I made 5 quilts for the DGSons for Christmas. I've made a couple quilted throws for bed covers here. I'm certainly not the quilter Harriet is, though. Piecing isn't my favorite thing though. I do love hand quilting and I have a nice expandable rack DH and I made. I actually don't mind hand sewing chores. It's the mechanical stuff of the machine and the drafting of patterns I don't care for.

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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby BookSaver » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:38 am

Checking in with my 30 Day Challenge: 1 seam per day
Day 1: Library Tshirt: 1 seam
Day 2: Library Tshirt: 1 seam
Day 3: Library Tshirt: 2 side seams, hem sleeves and bottom, finished
Day 4: Purple print top: shoulder seams
Day 5: Stretchy unlined jacket: 1 seam to add facing to neckline because the fabric is too stretchy
Day 6: Stretchy unlined jacket: Turn & 3 rows of topstitching on the neckline facing, finished
Day 7: Cat mat
Day 8: Cat mat
Day 9: Cat mat x 5
Day 10: Cat mat x 9
Day 11: Cat mat

I am loving the cat mats for helping me with this 30 day challenge. Last night after work I was exhausted and in a lot of pain, but on the way up to bed I stopped to sit at the machine and sew 1 cat mat. It was easy and made me feel good.

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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby BookSaver » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:54 am

This past Saturday was the first sewing group big meeting since early December. It was good to see my sewing buddies and admire the projects they brought to show. The program was by a retired museum curator who now has several personal "collections" of ordinary antique household items, which she has turned into traveling exhibits. She loans them to libraries for free and charges a small fee to give presentations with history lessons. She brought us her exhibit of sewing tools, gadgets, notions, and stories. Because of my interest in history and previous job at a Victorian-Edwardian era house museum, I've seen a lot of the items, but she had some cool things I've only seen in photos.

She had several sweet little sewing kits in a wide variety of shapes and styles (commercial and home made), pin cushions galore, toy sewing machines, all kinds of tools related to the lost craft of darning socks, a few buttons, a few things about embroidery -- and mentioned a whole separate collection of embroidery, tatting, and crochet items. She was a great speaker and the whole meeting was a lot of fun in spite of the nasty weather and bad roads to get there and back.

Now I am preparing to go to a 3-day sewing camp March 21-23. I'm the organizer and caterer for this one. I cannot get out of work on the Thursday so I'll go in the morning to unlock the building, make coffee, set up the tables, haul in food and leave instructions for supper (which will be "pull ingredients out of the refrigerator for everyone to make their own sandwich or chef salad"), and take in my machine and project box. I probably won't set up my machine on Thursday, though, since I'll have to leave at 11ish a.m. to drive to the library for my shift.

A couple of years ago at the spring sewing camp, I set up my machine and organized my personal space (built my nest) on the Thursday morning and left for work, with the plan that when I returned Friday morning all I'd have to do is plug in the machine and start sewing. Unfortunately, when I unlocked the door Friday morning and walked in, the first thing I saw was that someone else had put their machine in my space and moved all of my stuff into a pile somewhere else. It took me more time to reorganize everything and put it back together than if I hadn't set it up in the first place.

This time I'll carry my machine into the room but leave it in it's travel case because I know I won't have time to sew anything Thursday morning after I get all the tables and chairs set up. Actually, now that I think about it, I might wait and not load my machine in the car until Friday morning anyway. I'm sure I can figure out something that can be cut out or pinned in the short amount of time I'll have Thursday morning. In fact, it's probable that all of my Thursday time will be used helping everyone else bring in their things and set up.

So far,
(1) I have a knit top cut out that I'm saving to sew at camp. I've made the pattern enough times that I'm confident I can keep the instructions straight even with the many interruptions that happen at a typical sewing camp.
(2) I remember another top that I started a couple years ago and stopped because I didn't like the way it was turning out. It just occurred to me that maybe all it needs is a lining and that might solve all of its problems, so I'll look for that project bag.
(3) I also remember pajama pants that are half done, if I can find them to finish. I think at the time I had forgotten the elastic at home so I had to stop at the waistband.
(4) If nothing else, there are lots of cat mats that need no brain power at all so they are perfect for chatting while running the machine.

editing to add
(5) Origami market bag - I want to try this simple pattern, but it takes a specific size piece of fabric with a non-directional print. If I have time to look for fabric in my stash then I can try the pattern. I'm not going to go shopping for supplies for this camp, since I already have Too. Much. Stuff!
(6) Reading pillow - 16 inch square pillow with a pocket to store a book. Scribbled the instructions during that 24-hour webinar I saw in January.
(7) Pieced star pillow, also from that 24-hour webinar

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Harriet
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Re: Art, Craft and Needlework, March 2019

Postby Harriet » Tue Mar 12, 2019 9:41 pm

Twins' is going to post a link in MO instead. it will be fun to see her work.

Harmony
, I don't like the mechanical things re: sewing machine either. I like using it, not fretting over it! It really is frustrating when you're all primed to be creative and the bobbin or the threading or whatever, balks.

I truly do love the drafting of patterns, yes. Also love seeing a pieced pattern come together. Very satisfying.

BookSaver, really impressive job sticking with your March plan. Your sewing camp friends are lucky to have you, too. Enjoy making the tops, pants, bag - hope you get a chance with them all. What pattern is the star?

I've finished the original of the Morning Star block's newly drafted 5-inch pattern, with its 5 units separated, new seam allowances. I spoke too soon about the method this will take. As I worked with it today and imagined sewing it, I see that first a little paper-piecing is needed, and then I'll make four traditional machine seams, then go ahead with paper-piecing the units, then hand-sew them together.

Copied it onto vellum, so next up is cutting out the unit patterns and getting them into a baggie to wait for fabric choices. This one may be in purples or in greens - not sure yet but the other color will be for the Diamond block. The last blue spot in the quilt has already been taken by the partly complete Flower Basket block. Dd suggests even more blue, but I know that that means staying in my comfort zone rather than having a balance of color in the quilt the way I want.

I actually magnet-ed my original to the fridge :) a long time since I put creative work on the fridge! (Well, not mine, anyway!) But we have the new fridge, and no grandchildren visiting to create art right now, so there was space!


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