Art, Craft and Needlework, March, 2025

[Nancy]

I have started a new knit dish cloth got 8 rows done
enough for one point on the round star shaped ones I do with 14 points on them.
Finished it and started another one.
Did up three dish cloths this week.
Completed one crochet hot pad this week.
I mostly make things for donations like bags and hot pads and dish cloths to go in food baskets the church does in Nov.
and for family they need new ones as the others get cruddy In a year.
Happy to know how many I do in a week so I can get an approximate # for how many in a mo.
so I'll know when I can move on to other crafts after these are done.

I have knit prayer shawls in the past 1 or two each winter.
One year at a spinning weaving festival I sold dish cloths, they were the rectangle ones.
The round ones are stitched together not actually knit in the round with short rows.
------
Pausing on sewing till my new glasses come in.
plus gardening tasks are on my radar.

[Lauralind]

Dish clothes. I should try to make some. I think there's some of the right yarn in my box. Maybe

My blanket is coming. But it's really slow lately. A row or so at a time? I'm thinking one more color rotation after this current one. Getting close. But still.. oh well when it's almost done I can use it to keep warm and work on it at the same time.

You ladies seem very creative. I enjoyed reading about your projects.

[Gma]

Hello, Ladies,
I am starting to look around this new site - being a refugee from the sheforums, and so happy that we are being welcomed here. How nice to see an art, craft, and needlework thread that is active!
laurlind and kitty, I know you from the sheforums.
Nancy, a round, star shaped dishcloth sounds complicated! And you sew also - enough to need new needles! Do you use everything you make? Or sell? or are they gifts?
Harriet, quilting needs such precision! What a treasure to give a wedding quilt! And thanks for the intros to some of the other crafters here as well.
I'll introduce myself:
I'm Gma ( started the sheforums 19 years ago when my ds and ddil announced their pregnancy. I was so excited, I claimed the name! dgs is now a freshman at university, an honor student studying Civil engineering!) and I have had many hobbies through the years. I have a 1969 ELNA SUPER sewing machine that is still going strong. It has made everything from diapers when I was pregnant, lots of his clothes growing up, to dress for ds wedding, to mending dgs winter snow pants and ds hunting jackets. I knit, but not very efficiently, and crochet. Our church gives prayer shawls to each high school graduate. I started helping with that project shortly before I retired. I think I am on my 8th or 9th; my goal is to do 20. I like to embroider, and have done several cross stitch projects. My late dh was Norwegian descent. I learned and enjoy doing Hardanger as well. I am a member of mission quilters at church. Those quilts are 10 inch squares, finished size 60-80. We get together once a month and tie them. The tops are made at home. They get shipped around the world through Lutheran World Relief.

[Harriet]

Gma, when you said mission quilters, I knew instantly you must mean Lutheran World Relief. I have often felt admiration for their work. I hadn't heard those particular measurements/method. Over the years, I taught quiltmaking in two churches, and for one we had a large space to use and made quilts to give to the women's shelter "graduates" in big city somewhat near us. But we couldn't keep up with their growing numbers, and then that church lost their building anyway. It was a happy project during that time, though. I'm sure you find a lot of meaning in the monthly meetings and reports of how much is getting done.

Nancy has new glasses coming and I bet that will help her with creative things. Dr says she wouldn't make an appt with eye dr yet, in case my prescription changes even more with more treatments - there might be more steroids, which are what cause the eye changes. I don't know. It might be worth it to get a little better prescription in cheap glasses. In May and June I'm not supposed to go to other doctors' offices because of germs.

Old machines - I am going to inherit my maternal grandmother's sewing machine but the cousin who wants to give it to me lives in a very cluttered home and says it is behind many things right now. I understand - no judgement. Whenever I get it, it will be welcome. I have one of the machines my paternal grandmother used, but I don't think it is her best - one of her daughters probably got that one and my ddad got this. HRH says it is an industrial machine (so heavy you dread lifting it), and I imagine my grandfather bought it for her at a farm auction. She sewed constantly.

[Gma]

Thanks for the welcome, harriet
I believe that LWR averages about 300,000 quilts a year! That's quite a mission, that has been going on since, I believe 1945. Our church doesn't do many - maybe 2 dozen a year - as we meet monthly and try to get 2 done each time. I have only made 1 top, and was surprised at how much work it was to arrange the pieces (pre cut out even!) then sew them together in the right order.
Currently, I have ends fo prayer shawl to work in - about 10 rows to go, then done with that project. I hope soon. 2 others underway.

[Nancy]

What is LWR?

I had to rip out the last dish cloth not enough to finish it.
I knew that when I started I told my self when I began that one
I would use that yarn for strips on hot pads if there is not enough.

[Gma]

Lutheran World Relief

I brought my graduate's prayer shawl to church today - well ahead of the May deadline! And I have several inches done on Mother's (no deadline, but she is nearly 101, so I do want to get it done in her lifetime! Fortunately, she is not sick.