Art, Craft and Needlework, April 2019

[Harmony]

Harriet, love the fruit platter!

No, no pattern. Just had an idea in my head. I have one fabric case I'd had for a long time and used that for a pattern for the first one I made. Then I looked at u tube videos, all sorts of different ways on there. I just made sure the glasses fit.

Did think maybe they would make nice gifts. Probably would be a little more careful squaring things up, etc. if I was giving one away!

Sunny, I hope you have space someday for your sewing and scrapbooking and needlepoint. You've always been way more creative than me!

[Nancy]

Checking in with zero progress this month. I intentionally changed over to gardening.

I have been painting rocks again.
Did a rock drop.
Left fabric gift bags, and puppets at the trading poist.

[BookSaver]

Puppets, bags, stamping, quilted eye glass cases, fruit carving, and gardening ... What a fun variety of creative projects posted this month!

I've tried to continue the 1 seam per day challenge for the 2nd month. I don't always get to the machine every day, but when I have to skip a day then I sew extra the next day to make up. It has become a fun habit.

217 cat mats just need final clean-up to make sure I clipped all the threads.
I want to finish those asap and get them out of the house because they are taking up a lot of space.

I experimented with sewing a tote from a bird seed bag that a library patron brought in. The pictures on the bag are colorful wild birds, a cardinal, blue jay, and goldfinch. Unfortunately, the bag itself is an odd plastic that was not very fun to sew and I'm not sure it will be a very long-lasting tote.

Currently I am altering a knit top that I bought at a clearance sale. It is good quality fabric and a very pretty print with leaves in various shades of blue and dark teal. It started as a long tunic with short sleeve and a low scoop neckline. In order to make it safe for work, I have cut 6 inches off the bottom and I'm using that fabric to build a wide collar band and lengthen the sleeves a couple of inches.

I considered just adding an insert to the front of the neckline that would raise that part, but I thought that would still gap open when I bend over to put away books on bottom shelves. Instead, I made a tube that finished about 2 inches wide, and I'm treating that as a band that I'm inserting around the whole neckline so it will fill in the back and sides as well as the front. It sewed in smoothly the first time I tried, but the front stuck out oddly. I pulled it off, adjusted the overlap in front, and sewed it again. I need to try it on to see if that fixed it. If it still looks odd, then I will pull it off again and snip the center front into more of a V shape.

Once I have the neck figured out, then I will work on the sleeves to add a couple of inches to the length as a cuff that looks like it was supposed to be there in the design rather than just thrown on.

It's a lot of time to spend altering a top, but the fabric is so pretty that it's worth the time.