Art, Craft and Needlework, January, 2018

[ejagno]

Last year I was nearly insane by the time I finished an afghan for my Mom's birthday Nov. 30th. I was then thrown into some major sewing projects for a huge Christmas party being held two weeks after this. Of course owning a Cricut meant everyone dropping off toys, tablets, laptops, cell phone cases and even storage closets to have designs put on them. I love it when one of them said, "Oh, you look tired. You really need to start getting some sleep at night." Really? Then YOUR stuff won't get done.

This year I decided that I would do a minimum of 1 row per day on 4 more afghans for family members. Of course DH just threw 16 costume jobs in my lap and I didn't find out about it until these guys started showing up to be measured.

I really love crafting but I really hate having demands put on my time. I knit, crochet, sew, serge, make wooden and canvas wall signs, do customized Yetti's, alot of canning, soapmaking, t-shirt designs, car decals and the list goes on but I find that my creativity doesn't just come on when I wake up every morning. I have to be in the mood. I never wanted my crafting to become a job.

[Nancy]

Ejagno welcome!
I have painted up a new batch of rocks with words on them, months and some names. Practicing lettering with a brush it is a challenge for me.

I started another hot pad in yellow orange white ombre colors.

[Harriet]

ejagno, those deadlines that come up fast can take the joy out of creativity. In my case, too, seeing so many happy possibilities but not enough time is a downer. I hope you are enjoying afghan making! You have a lot of interests.

Rudolph Day for me here, today. I can just imagine you all in such surprise when you hear I made bookmarks.

I sewed 4 patchwork bookmarks of Japanese-look scraps and solid black, hoping men will like them as gifts. HRH thinks so. They have a sort of sophisticated menswear look to them. Was able to do some assembly-line chain-piecing on these.

Finished their sewing - almost! I can't find my shoebox of beads. I like a lightweight bead on a cloth bookmark's ribbon, and ribbon needs to be secured by the finishing topstitch, so I'm stuck. Thought about other methods, but they might disappoint me. I'd wanted a Rudolph finish in one day, but I think the thing to do is wait, and enjoy the finish next Rudolph Day.

In extra time, I worked on patchwork ornaments and should have finishes on some of these next time, too.

Btw, I experimented with photocopying patterns for those, sending tracing paper and "easy tear paper" (brand name) through the copier. The tracing paper did pretty well - just a touch of wrinkling but so little it doesn't matter. The "easy tear" printed, but scrunched up in the exit port of the copier (texture is soft like a very thin interfacing), so I probably won't try that again.

All in all, I had fun, forgot to eat (smile) and am on my way to being JUST LIKE NANCY and having some handmade gifts (made this very year) ready for Christmas. What a concept.