Art, Craft and Needlework, April 2015

[Harriet]

What's making your creative world go 'round these days? Please come in and let us in on the enjoyment! If you have a photo you'd like to share, instructions can be found in the Tips and How-Tos forum. There's been a lot going on in March... ...

Twins' Mom created greeting cards according to a color challenge
Nancy made vertical button holes in a garter stitch sweater
Nancy's granddaughter is taking chain stitching skills further!
lucylee is coming up with ideas for creative display of inherited scarves
BookSaver helped her sewing group make backpacks for Haitian children
Harriet got out the pattern paper to try copying favorite pants
and finally got that quilt design wall up!

edited to better exlpain BookSaver's charity sewing

[Harriet]

Today CBS news did a piece about a Dream job!

[Nancy]

Thanks for sharing that link Harriet.

I have 2 sweaters nearly ready for sleeves so this is sleeve month! The mauve one needs me to figure out the design on the top of the sleeve ane if I am going top down or bottom up with it. I have the wild flower sweater 2 sleeves on the Denise set of needles I got used love em. They snap into place unlike the knit picks ones that come unscrewed while knitting! I am considering the optional carring case that goes with them.

Last month I also did 3 hats and learned the spiral decrease for the top of them Iam excited about that wanted to know how to do that for a while.

At class the leader suggested a matress stitch around the button holes so the do not streatch out. I coukd crochet around em too.

Trying a diff. Crochet pattern for a granny square have more practices to do on this one before I am happy with it.

I have started mittens to go with one of the hats for dgd.

[Nancy]

For the yarn meeting this week we sat out side for a bit then walked half mi. then did some crafting.

I finished a couple dish clothes this week have one more to do.
Knitting class in a bakery is dangerous for a diabetic. LOL!

[Harriet]

We've posted often here about brain function/youthfulness being benefited by creativity. A new study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, from Mayo Clinic researchers who tracked several hundred people, gets into that more deeply. They studied "mild cognitive impairment" (not Parkinson's or Alzheimers diagnoses, but the ordinary brain decline we all want to avoid). I'm still trying to figure out everything they have to say, but here are some points:

As a side note, regular use of a computer offered 53 percent LESS likelihood of having trouble with "mild cognitive impairment". That's good to know. And social and group activities offered 55 percent less. Also good.

But the interesting part came when they studied creative activity. The benefits in avoiding mild cognitive impairment ranged from 43 percent to a whopping 73 percent - the most benefit they could find. Why the range? Well, the more "artistic" the activity, the greater the benefit. In other words, sewing the same pillow over and over, or making a large set of all the same pottery bowl or woven basket would give some benefit. But the more you yourself are designing different, unique pieces, learning new techniques, really expressing yourself to personalize your creativity, the more benefit your brain gets. You have to exercise your brain to do the kind of problem-solving that lets you come up with ever more beautiful or satisfying pieces.

Another thing they found was that making a point to pick up new creative abilities "in middle age" (whatever that means) also gave greater benefits, whether starting a whole new art form you've never tried or starting different ways of creating in the one you know.

[BookSaver]

Very interesting, Harriet.

That's an even better excuse for me to take a sewing class later this month, to learn new creative techniques related to making knit tops, and improve my pattern drafting skills in general to help my clothes fit better.

sewing the same pillow over and over, or making a large set of all the same pottery bowl or woven basket would give some benefit

That's good, because I'm still trying to finish a stack of little bags for preschoolers, which are all made the same way. In fact, several are being made from the same fabric, so I'm not even seeing a change of colors.

A slight correction to the beginning post in this thread: The backpacks I sewed with the sewing group last month used the same pattern as the ones that people do for Lutheran World Relief. However, the ones we made will be delivered by a local Catholic church to villages in Haiti, and I don't think they will be filled with anything. The children need them to carry their books to school because most have to walk long distances every day. My sewing group is not affiliated with any church, but one of our members belongs to the Catholic church and asked the group if we would help them with this project.

[Harriet]

Wow, I must have been sleepy when I typed, BookSaver! I just didn't explain that correctly at all. Corrected now.

I agree with you that it's good that some repetitive creative work is healthy for us, too. I love making a bunch of small gifts assembly-line style because that way I can make more. Every time I think of a small project, I'm sure I won't reinvent the wheel.

After reading about the study, I toyed with the idea of joining dd16 in sketching sometimes. I don't believe that would be my "best fit" for learning a new creativity, though. Just can't get excited about it. A year or so back I enjoyed the Zentangle style doodling for gifts and was happy to give some, but then I certainly seemed fine with letting that be the end of it, didn't I? lol. Did not keep it up, which tells me I was not as inspired as I thought. Dd tells me one of her motivations in cleaning her room is space to learn to paint. I wouldn't mind learning more about watercolor techniques, if that's what she does.

Of course, what this really bodes for her room is that it will get better, right before it gets much worse!

Our church denomination's retreat gift shop has always requested handmade items to sell, usually through long letters with lists and explanations. This month they sent out an invitation to just look at their new Pinterest site ( ! ) to see clear photographs of the exact types of things they hope to receive. The world is certainly changing!

[Nancy]

Had to really think to remember the round knit dish cloths sort of had to relearn that so will be doing on every quarter or so. I have made 4 of 5 button holes on this sweater I have going.

[Harmony]

Y'all are just so creative. I don't consider myself very creative at all. I can do things, but most times I don't often enjoy it, but do plow through something to get it done.

Tonight I did something that's been on my mind for years. For Christmas quite a few years ago I got a beautiful photo album and of course it just sat here and sat here... I'd had the idea to put all the grandkids' picture in there, the 5 x 7, 8 x 10's... then I tried using a big frame but didn't like that idea because they don't update the pics often enough.

Anyway, today I got some filler sheets and post extentions and put it together. I took out all the white stock; I sorted all the pictures I'd been gathering in a drawer as close as I could by age. Then I mounted them on the pages, using card stock with colors that went with the colors in the pictures. I didn't do all the scrapbooking stuff people do, but I did arrange the pictures and crop them a bit. I think it turned out just beautiful. And because I didn't put all the thick stuff people put in scrapbooks, the pages lay flat and there's room for quite a few more pages. I guess it took about 4 hours to do it. Now everything is protected in acid free book and in my moving stuff around I left the perfect spot on a table so people can pick it up and look.

The kids may be all growing up, but I can still look and remember how sweet they were when they were little.

[Nancy]

Current sweater is done with the knitting part. I need to seam it up still.