Art, Craft and Needlework, March, 2014

[Ivy]

Harriet, It's nice the cost of your flower-pressing craft's hardly costing anything.

Nancy, It's nice the puppets are coming along, too.

My pen pal, Melinda, got a purple & purple variegated reversible crocheted hat from me, earlier this month, because she turns 62 on March 29. I wanted to get it to her earlier in the month, as in SC it was snowing and icy. Now, it's just bad winds and cold. Her DD, Leighann, tried on her DM's hat, loves it, but it's way too loose for her. Leighann's in her 30's, I believe, with a DH and kids of their own. Since Melinda's hat was purple/purple variegated and that pattern's lost in my "stuff" somewhere AND won't fit Leighann anyway, I got out my "Ugly, but Warm Hat" pattern. It'll be done in two close shades of lavender, because it's a 2-strand hat, with an "M" hook. She'll match her DMom, yet this hat will fit better on her. I'm wrapping it in butterfly paper, to tuck into a mailer, and there is a butterfly stick-on gift tag, to stick on the gift, too. DH will mail the mailer out tomorrow. Melinda & Leighann will, both, be totally surprised!

Then, I need to finish 2 hanging dishtowels, due by May 6, for BFF.....

However, I keep "thinking" about dgd's butterfly motifs Christmas afghan. I'm so busy right now, I don't know when to begin it, but since it's done in squares, with a single butterfly on some squares, I can do a square here and there anytime. It's just getting to the starting point of actually doing it. I can set aside time, while the news is on, in the morning or evening, using the news as a motivational "tool" to get the job done, too. I have 9 months to go, come the 25th, want to do 3 big pillows for them, and puppets on a scarf for 2 dgs's. Dgd gets a butterfly afghan, butterfly pillow, and butterfly doll.

How early do you all begin your Christmas gifts? I usually, used to, start in July, but with writing and busy summers, I can't wait until then. I need to pick an earlier date. "Be Prepared!"

[Nancy]

Finished up another puppet this one green striped.
Hoping I have gained enough skill to tackle a pr. Of mittens at some point.

[Ivy]

I got the "Ugly, but Warm Hat," done within 1 hour this a.m. It's pretty in lavender. I have it wrapped with a note to the DD of my dfriend in SC, so I feel good about it being on its way soon, this afternoon, when DH mails it off. WOW! She's gonna be so surprised! But it's "fun" to do something "Just Because" and unexpected for someone else, who you know through their Dmom.

I have found a Lion Brand Microspun Yarns striped pullover sweater in 18-months size, for Dgd who is 14 months now. She's tiny. On payday or after payday, I'll go purchase the yarns and get busy on it. I found a pattern at Red Heart for a pullover boys' sweaters with a dinosaur on the front. It'll be cute for Dgs-3 and Dgs-5. Maybe they'll be able to fit in them by time the school years starts.

[Harriet]

Forsythia and Bradford Pear blossoms pressed today in the same brown RD book.

Searched the woods and found the fern again, but there is absolutely no change, in color or size. It still looks exactly like it did in February, as though there had been no spring thaw, no new growth. Everything around it quite changed and greening. I don't know enough about ferns to know whether this is normal or whether, perhaps, the rains/snow were too much this year and it didn't make it through the flooded conditions, may be dying.

Dinosaurs - my grandboys have stayed crazy about them for years, DangerBoy almost 8 and still fascinated.

Nancy used to participate in Rudolph Club, meaning working on Christmas crafts every 25th of month, all year long. Just to answer your question, Ivy. As far as me, I suppose a lot of this thinking and gathering is in preparation for floral bookmarks I can give this Christmas.

[Nancy]

I do not do much for Chritsmas crafts. I have been bouncing around some Christmas sox knitting ideas red and green that way I would only have to do one until I learn how to do sox!

[Ivy]

Harriet, I'm uncertain on that question about ferns. But I asked DH and he said it's probably because of the cold.

I decided to not do sweaters, after all, because to be equal to dgd AND the 2 dgrsons, it'd be 3 sweaters total and I don't have that kind of time. But what I've gotten planned so far, for Christmas for them, I can work with those items and get them done.

When I finish the 2 hanging dishtowels for BFF, I can slowly start Christmas things, put it on my calendar with the countdown feature, too. I'll take breaks for small projects, for pen pals or our home, though.

I just put Christmas Gift-Making on my electronic calendar for the 25th of each month, ending on November 25th. Thanksgiving Day is Nov. 27th this year. It'd be so wonderful to be finished by Thanksgiving, so I could bear down on stories and plans for 2015 again. So the 25th was a super idea, Harriet, for me to focus on monthly. Thanks for that idea!

[BookSaver]

Sewing camp results:
I only worked on the little cotton tote bags. I took a pattern for gloves, as it's still one of my goals to learn to make gloves. Unfortunately, once again I didn't have as much sewing time as I'd hoped, so I didn't even take the gloves pattern out of the bag.

Finished sewing 8 tote bags:
2 with dalmatian puppies and red fire hydrants on a blue background.
6 of red calico with little flowers in blue, white, & yellow, and tiny green leaves

Made them with old-school techniques so they will be sturdy for the preschoolers -- French seams on the body of the bag, reinforced handles, boxed the bottom, nice hem around the top, and pressed all the seams to set after sewing them.

The finished bags need to be ironed a final time before they can be donated.

Cut out the bodies of 16 more bags:
10 more of the red calico
6 of a modern kids print of children playing on the seashore and swimming with fish

Need to cut handles for all of them.

Sewed some of the side seams for the seashore print bags, and then ran out of time.

These are easy enough to do that I ought to be able to sew more of them while watching tv.

[Harriet]

French seams - BookSaver, the best thing about that idea is that the parents can wash the bags without as much concern about the seams fraying. At first I was just assuming you made the French seam so that it was on the inside but it dawns on me you might have made it so it looked like a piped pillow around the outer edges? Smiling that you boxed the bottom. You are really taking care of these children. What.... no covered cardboard rectangle for the base? (Oh, I'm teasing!)

Yes, the cherry tree is blooming and I pressed a few of those blossoms, too. I see a couple of my dmother's old flowering shrubs are still blooming a bit, so those might be interesting to press.

Went out with dstepson's family and dd15 to play frisbee golf at a park which is mostly a tall-pine forest. Searched for wildflowers while dd and dstepson played. We were almost to the end of the course when dstepgd said we weren't going to find any. I looked down at her feet and showed her wild violets! She kept finding a new place to stand and announcing we wouldn't find any flowers there, either, but unfortunately that didn't work again, lol! Pressing them was a little disappointing - did not realize that the base of wild violet blooms is so fat - hard to press. I think I should have a few pretty specimens.

[BookSaver]

Harriet, you were right the first time. The French seams are on the inside of the bag. The body of the bag is either a 15"x30" rectangle folded in half and sewn up the sides, or 2 pieces 15"x15.5" with a seam at the bottom before the sides are sewn.

It may very well be a waste of time to make the bags so durable. We don't have any way to know if the bags are kept and washed when dirty, or if they're immediately thrown away.

However, I have heard that some of the children with whom the agency works are homeless or in foster care, and all they have available to carry what little they own is a thin plastic store sack or a trash bag. At least the fabric tote bags I make will last longer than a plastic shopping bag, and I hope the kids like them.

It is always fun to sew on bright cotton prints. I keep an eye on the freebie table for geometric designs and florals as well as the juvenile prints. Of course, a lot of other sewing group members like those, too, so I have to move fast when I see someone bringing in those pretty pieces of fabric.

[Nancy]

I am thinking of doing a project note book like knitt7ny diaeires. But I would also include crochet and ofher yarn crafts. Has any one done that! I got a note book journal, but thinking I should have gotten a graph paper mead comp. Notebook I stead. Or even cards.

Still thinking about a stitch guide book to buy.