Art, Craft and Needlework, February 2019

[Harriet]

What are you LOVINGLY creating this month? What are the supplies you are needing, where are you finding the space, when are you finding the time, what does it look like, don't you just LOVE it? Here's the place to tell all!

In January,
lucylee came in to encourage, and to report on shadow boxes she bought, now displayed with family sports history
Harmony considered a new project of fleece pillow covers, but the fabric may be hard to find. Hmmm... ..
Nancy painted new stones, stitched up dish cloths and hotpads, and warped her loom with turquoise (sounds pretty)
catnipper experimented with a phone alarm to change creative projects, plus she's helping with wedding planning!
BookSaver attended an online sewing class series, and brought us the of donating handmade bookmarks to libraries
Harriet made a patchwork bookmark gift, sending along a riddle to solve, and was the model for hand & foot sketches

We know we are awaiting Twins' Mom's potential weaving stories (she got a gift of lessons!)
What other interesting tales may be told in February? Can't wait to find out... ..

[Twins' Mom]

Thanks for the reminder about the weaving lesson, Harriet! I had put the thought aside until after January's trips (and tribulations) and now seems like a good time to get on it!

[Twins' Mom]

I enjoyed some stamping yesterday. Dh suggested I make a card for a bat mitzvah that had occurred while I was at SLC. It took all afternoon and I started over completely once but got a card done that I could live with. The focal image I chose was pretty busy, so it was difficult to put additional patterned paper with it, and the whole thing was complicated by the fact that most of my inks have dried up. Many of them are over 10 years old, so I guess it's not surprising. And I started out with a green/pink color scheme and didn't have the right green to pull it together.

If I want to stamp on a regular basis I need to build up my stock of ink. I have lots of cardstock and patterned paper.

THe card I ended up with is gray, black and white with little tangerine "flags" on the front. The focal image is a stamped black on white star of david in a circle in a square with cirleques and little stars of davids around it. On the inside I added some patterned paper to the left margin with the gray, tangerine and aqua chevrons.

Last night spent some time looking at ink pads and new stuff. I don't know where I would start with new ink pads, if I ever did. There are 40 core colors with an additional 10 that are two year wonders. When I was beginning it seemed that I would always need the color ink I didn't have....

[Nancy]

My why I remember as a kid I had never seen a spinning wheel or weaving loom in action.
So that became my "why" how to keep those and quilting from dieing. I have been doing work on progress on
knitting round dish cloths, and the crochet temp. Color blanket.

[Nancy]

I heard a kur-thunk when I was sewing last time thought uh-oh that did not sound good. I tested it today, it will not zig or zag.
So I am rethinking my sewing goals.
Might have to find a repair shop or replace my machine. Sigh. I think I want one with out a computer chip.
I finished up another round green dish cloth and am closer to the last of crochet blanket.

[BookSaver]

A week ago my coworker asked me if I could knit some baby hats for someone in her church to take on a mission trip. I had been looking forward to finally getting back to some sewing projects, but I have a very hard time saying no to projects for children.

I delivered 8 small hats today. It would have been more, but I decided to try a different pattern for one because the picture looked pretty. It turned out to be easy -- row 1 = knit 1 purl 1; row 2 = purl 1 knit 1. However, it involved just enough concentration and keeping track that each row took over twice as long to do as the easiest pattern; it also needed twice as much yarn as the simple knit pattern. Since I was pressed for time and running out of yarn, I decided to switch back to the quick & easy pattern to do the rest so I could make as many as possible.

I've used up almost all of the yarn I had on hand. I could maybe get 1 more hat if I made stripes with all of the little leftover bits of yarn. However, the colors don't really coordinate well so I'm calling a finish to that project.

Now that I've delivered those, I think tomorrow I will have time to play with fabric.

A member of my sewing group gave everyone a notebook in November and asked us all to use it as a journal starting January 1, 2019 to keep track of all of our sewing projects for the year. Mine is still blank!! She also asked us to decorate the cover to personalize it, and I haven't even done that yet. I have a few ideas of fun things to put on the front, just need to get the supplies and start playing.

I guess I could make note of the online sewing classes I've taken since January 1. At least then I wouldn't have totally blank pages mocking me.

[Nancy]

Shopping for sewing machines. Window shopping actually. Found a sale. Open arm is a must for me not a singer, maybe a Janome, brother or Viking. For occasional mending and simple garmets. Wish me luck. Not one in the thousands .

Made anorther knit dish cloth stitched to be round.

[Nancy]

I have decided on a sewing machine now to get one in stock or order it. It was way fun shopping for it looking on line.

[Harriet]

That's great, Nancy. Smart to take time and think it through. I hope it turns out to be easy to either find or order.

BookSaver, simple doesn't always equal fast, I guess. Sometimes a pattern can look like a no-brainer and be anything but. Good job trying to get more little hats done, though.

Having a mental block with my quilt project. Was going great guns for months until I realized in Jan how tired HRH would feel, not supposed to go out into the world much, with so much more falling on me. Now I have guilt when I think about getting back to it. Not keeping up with other things well enough to believe in "free time" right now. I think Twins' Mom mentioned something like this in PYWC. I think there was a hand-stitching part of a new block I had drafted, so that I could do that while waiting with him at his next treatment time. But I am thinking instead about how I'm not up to speed with it, so probably would make mistakes, shouldn't take the time to get it ready because other things are priorities, etc., etc. Don't know. Maybe just typing about it will help. Could jog my subconscious enough to "sleep on it" and emerge more optimistic.

[Nancy]

Had to change my mind again the other one was not easy to find or order. I ended up with a Singer Classic 44s machine. No case no bag. I put it up on the table till I got through the owners manual, and u tube instructions. I am enjoying the pre threaded bobbins have learned to operate it and got some bobbins loaded. Love how easy it is to thread. Rehemmed older pj ' s a do over project. Practiced on dog towels to learn stitches on. I need thread I like the bag of 12 diff. Spools of lots of colors of thread I got last time. Bobbin organizer is great. I did not get enough for project pj's sigh. But I had some other I can use.
They have an app if you have a question. I have not loaded it yet. Joann's is calling lol!

Okay back from morning erands, got thw fabric and grey thread. Fabric has been preshrunk & is in the dryer.