Art, Craft and Needlework, February, 2024

[Harriet]

What is the creative project that warms your heart as we head into February?

Do your eyes light up at the fun or challenge of the artistic ideas to which you "turn your hand" these days? Do you suddenly smile when you see a "finish" or solve a creative puzzle?

Let us know. You are inspiring to us!

[Nancy]

Wood glue has been my focus.
The dresser is a success I got it glued.
I am still working on the side table and chair seat.

I worked on the crochet hot pad & knitting projects I am currently working on. One hot pad done of this set of two.
My multi colored striped knitting project is now big enough to cover my lap and knees to keep em warm.

[Nancy]

Got some projects going did get the paint on the top of a dresser & side table.
Knitted on two projects & crocheting on the next hot pad got the first few rows accomplished.
-----
Update finished a dish cloth last nite.

[Harriet]

Here a blue-painted ladder-back chair has lost a small footrail, Nancy, so you are wise to get things wood glued promptly. I guess it was during the move that the little rail itself was also lost - we should have dealt with that faster, but things were moving fast.

I continue slowly working on the center of the quilt top. All the patchwork is done for that and the points match.

a tip : Eventually, I started matching difficult points by sewing just an inch or two of a seam across the intersection and, if it didn't match the first time, taking just that easy bit out with seam ripper to start over! I did that with longer-length (3) stitching on my machine for easy ripping, and when it was right, I sewed the whole seam normally. A lot better than sewing the whole seam with the 2.5 default shorter stitching and THEN seeing that it wasn't right!

Harmony loves to chat about getting patchwork points to match, and how you can pull your hair out over those things! I sure do miss her input these days and hope she can get back to us.

Next up for me is applique of a fussy-cut piece. The image pretty much takes up the whole space of the piece. I had to have a real storm in my brain for a while ( smile ) to figure out how to make the center of the image come out in the very center of the circle, when you can't see the image on the fabric back! Finally, I put a straight pin in the image center from the front side and just let it stick up into the air. Then I folded the freezer-paper template to find the center of it and pushed it down with the center on the upturned pin. It was funny to be ironing paper down AROUND a little upright pin, lol. But it seems to have worked, and the template is stuck down in the right place on the back. Today I'll sew around the edge of the paper with a lightweight fabric behind it and turn it.

I hope this center will count as "suddenly smiling when I see a finish". It may not make my eyes light up so much as cross!

This is the only fussy-cutting in the quilt. And I think it would have been fine without it, but the lady who wrote the original pattern set a great store by doing this, so I thought I'd try. I keep telling myself when it's not the center of the top that I'm working on, I won't be a perfectionist.

[Nancy]

Luv hearing about the process of your projects!
I am excited got brown paint for the top of the side table in the living room.
Got more cone of cotton yarn white this time for the sets of things I"m doing up with cotton 4 ply yarn.
I use em for the hot pads I make from a simple design lh granny taught me.
I use size H crochet hook. Chain 40 st. [stitches] then single crochet round and round till twenty rows are done, for into a diamond shape
and stitch closed, I add a loop with chain ten on the point to hang.

The grey I'm using on the strip project is the color that is up for a day or two.

[Nancy]

I got the living room projects 3 side table all match now and I did get em painted.
The last one is curing out, the flat paint is not my fav. but will work for now and at least they all match.

Knobs on a desk are next. Got it in Dec. started painting on it in Jan. then hurt my knee and had to take a break
so now I'm back at it. I'd like to get these done before gardening season kicks in.

Sewing got missed this year.
I am doing a bit of knitting using up scraps of yarn odds and ends on a random stripe yarn that is 2/3 s of the way done now.
I have two more hot pads started for those project sets they do take a bit of time.
Did some writing I'm processing some issues, the writing helps with that.

[Harriet]

Nancy, I'll share with dd25 how you do the hot pads because she does knit - just is quite a beginner. She knitted a beautiful hat/toboggan but somehow made it too small for an adult. I told her to quick give it to dgdC while weather is still cold and just decide that she meant to do that! She'll learn! We got to go to a new yarn shop and dd found some lovely, variegated yarn. From the yarn from the shop, she is trying to make a crochet neck scarf in a simple circle that can come up around your head. Maybe it's called a cowl?

I used my phone's flashlight feature to help me squint and see the turned-under edges of the quilt top's center as I sewed it down today. With light from overhead and also the machine's light above, the shadows of the foot make it hard for me to see something tedious. This was dark fabric, so that didn't help. I could grab the phone when I needed and aim the light sideways to make sure I wasn't sewing off the edge. I just kept going an inch or so at a time and must have lifted the feed dogs 50 times. But it's right and doesn't need anything ripped out.

So, the top has grown to 36 inches so far, and all that is finished.

Counting on the next steps not being quite so difficult. Next is making the same unit over and over again for a while.

The bad pin prick is healing well. It's been a long time since I got so stuck with a pin that I bled that much. What happened was that I swept my hand over the fabric to smooth it out thinking I'd put all the pins in the same direction. Nope! Not doing that again!

[Nancy]

Harriet Warning:
I knit dish cloths. They do not work as a hot pad will burn the hand!

I do crochet hot pads the ones I do are like a double thickness of single crochet.

[Nancy]

I finished another hot pad it complete that set.

I started one more, last 4 two more sets to go yea!

[Harriet]

Nancy, I told dd what you said about thicknesses with crochet/knitting and she understood you. Nope, don't need any burned fingers. She's still learning what stitches and yarns make what type of finished item. She loves working with them.

I've gotten out to the areas of the quilt top that can be done with long stints of assembly line for a while. Long seams, then more cuts. So that's been feeling like more progress compared to the fiddly center. Definitely more fiddly things will come up later, but this part is satisfying.

I found the wide traditional 18-inch-wide freezer paper, and I'm glad to have that. It's easier. Found it at WMart.