Found Items

A few things I starred in Google Reader. My list of starred items is over 130, and dates back over a year. Think it’s time to clean it out already? Anyway, here’s some interesting tidbits I was reminded of, some recent, some not so much. Some of you who are addicted to blog reading and attached to Reader like me will have seen a couple of these.

1. Pencil sculptures by Dalton Ghetti. Lots of patience. Reminds me a bit of Willard Wigan.  2. Kirby’s Epic Yarn game for the Wii, designed with a crafty graphics look. Folks like me are apparently not so uncommon in the gaming world, because The Sims Medieval is coming out soonish also. 3. Needle artist Jean Baggot’s life story as a tapestry (video after the link. Fascinating.) via Craft.

4. Norwegian Black Metal by Karabouts. Her crochet sculptures are very creative, and the photography is clever as well. Laughed out loud. 5. Cross Stitch Animation Video. A story in cross stitch via Craft. I keep watching it and then feeling tired at all the detailed work that went into it. 6. Anatomy of a Sewing Machine from Whipup (fascinating if you like mechanical moving parts!),

7. 101 reasons to buy handmade from the artists of Poppytalk. Read this first last year, still like it. 8. Paper weaving for kindergartners from from an antique book, described as “apparently American, from 1892, made by ‘M. Kistler’” from the Beinecke Cabinet of Curiosities. I wonder if kindergartners still do interesting things like this. 9. Berkeley has some seriously awesome Pacific sunsets. Do you think someone one-upped my sunset picture from last Sunday? Maybe one of these did?

Up to some quilting, cooking and stuff …

Prepare for an extremely random post of different stuff. The annual fundraising luncheon I co-organize is happening in 1/2 a week. Six hundred something people for lunch. So not only am I tired, I’m feeling sort of scatterbrained as well. Coherency is not my strong suit at this point. Collating large quantities of data is.

So I’m really, really excited because I finally bought a walking foot attachment for my machine, and a 1/4″ walking foot. Can you tell I’m thinking of making another Large Size Quilt? I must be crazy.

I’m not sure if I should admit this, but I’ve never gotten any extra feet for my machine. I’ve been shy of learning new techniques for my machine, so for a long time I just stuck to the standard metal machine foot. Eventually I graduated to the zipper foot and others. I’m behind on learning machine gadgetry because I am self-taught. I figured out four feet by myself, and honestly some of it, well, it never occurred to me that some of the attachments existed (a ruffler foot? honestly!).

To educate myself about feet and what they do, I bought this book one day when I found it at Half Price Books. <– the Sewing Machine Attachment Handbook. It’s pretty good. There are a crazy number of things that you can do with machine attachments, as it turns out. Ruffling, pleating, smocking, hemming, cutting, darning, whatever. The book has quite a bit of history about machines and their attachments, which I found really interesting, partially because one day I’d like to own an antique machine. Anyway, if you’re interested in crafting gadgets or maybe you’re self-taught like me, it’s an interesting read.

In other news it’s farm market season again, so I brought home a bunch of leafy greens (I love lettuce with the roots still on), beets, eggs, fennel, zucchini and more! I’m (as usual) not thrilled with the hot weather, but I am excited that it’s produce season again. This year I’m going to join a CSA if I find one I like. I’m also starting to cook more again. Yesterday evening I cooked a really nice sweet asparagus and lentil soup – has carrots, onion, peas, roasted garlic and red bell pepper with prickly pear jelly and hot curry. For lentil soup, it’s on the pretty side, and it’s spicy and sweet. I made about a gallon of it, so it’s good that I like it.

Wesley has completed Obedience Training part 2. He took his test with two very excited Staffordshire terriers, a funny Corgi/bulldog mix, a crazy dorky Husky and a chilled out Labrador. Everyone passed the test, which was staying in place while the owner was out of sight, and then coming to the owner on command past a plate of food, sitting in front of us, and then heeling back to home. I must give most of the credit to my mother-in-law, who spent a lot of time training him while we were on vacation. Next I think we’re going to do agility classes since he has the basic commands down. This apparently involves lots of running around and using equipment (for me as well), which I think he will find awfully fun and interesting. He still has tons of energy that not even walking 3-4 miles a day can burn off.

Anyway, I’m 90% done with my new Memory quilt, I’m excited to say, and when I have some spare energy I’ll explain my rather abstract concept for it and how it ended up looking.

Woo! Back to … well, I’m going to sleep actually. Ta!

Cushion & Keeper

A little while back I made a cover for my sewing machine (purple and green, of course) and typically, I completely forget to use it. Right now it doesn’t make much difference if I do. My machine sits in its own little closet, surrounded by all 1,000 of its closest sewing notion friends. It has its own lighting and chair, and because there is a door on the closet, it is one of the only things in the house to escape the depradations of cat, dog and dust. The Cat does, however, frequently wind around my feet when I’m sewing. Just on principle, you realize, because cats just can’t stand having places in the house they cannot enter.

I’ve now followed up my much-neglected cover with a quilted pad for my machine, a pad which also features convenient pockets for stashing sewing items that I’m constantly misplacing.

Now there is a pocket for bobbins and scissors. And a conveniently matching pincushion. And of course, one of the most frequently used tools of any sewer’s kit – the seam ripper.

Now there is a removable pocket (attached with Velcro) – a place I can stuff the millions of thread-ends and teeny bits of fabric each sewing project produces.

Now my little closet is a lot prettier, eh? I surprised myself by doing a very tidy job with this. I didn’t even lose my patience until the very end!

Details: This sewing machine pad with pockets was based on a free pattern from Butterick (it’s the Machine Organizer in their Free Patterns section – I think my fabric is prettier). I used felt instead of thinner interfacing, and quilted the back. Theirs is an organizer, I wanted to create something of a pad. Plus, you might as well know that ALL the patterns in this particular group of sewing items are going to feature quilted linen.

Other alterations:  I pieced the front pocket from the same fabric I’m making the other elements from.  I also added the velcro and additional pocket for threads.

One more note – this pattern calls for single-fold bias tape, which I used, but wouldn’t use it again. My quilted pad is too thick for the size and type of tape, and although I made it work, there may have been swearing that took place as a consequence.

Next up is some wrangling with my crochet hooks, I think. I made 2 hook rolls, and I may continue experimenting for the “perfect” hook roll, whatever that means!