Half-forgotten crafting
May's priorities:
Repair/cleaning of 3 not-mine sewing machines in house
Learn how to sew piping
Begin a project to do solely for the sake of the blog (from a short list)
Before the first weekend of the month, I worked on a crochet basket (quelle surprise) but decided it wasn't going to work out and I didn't like the yarn combination, so I unraveled and separated it.
The first weekend was one of those lovely weekends that feels like it has acres of time. I punched out felt for weeple feet, cut out a bunch of new bias-test fabric squares, cut a few more fabric circles for pattern weights, worked on a sewing machine, and wound a new ball of yarn for baskets (for those counting, at this point I had 2 prepared 3-strand balls of yarn and the one "magic chain" basket in progress). The sewing machine was the non-serger Sew-op machine, and after a pretty solid amount of work I can't make it sew well in reverse, so it's getting scrapped - but the bright side is its bobbin case saves us the $12 of buying a replacement bobbin case for a different machine.
I even worked on a refashioning project that's been hanging around for a long time. I thought I maybe had it done Saturday but it didn't really look that great so I decided to make another go of it Sunday. Take 3 was satisfactory and it went into the laundry hamper. Also Sunday, at the Sew-op, I cleaned and oiled the machine with the transplanted bobbin case so it can be adopted out, and went over three other machines to assess them. Rare speed! I even had a little time left so I sorted some donations and took home a bunch of clothing to sort into thrift/recycle/keep.
On the second weekend I started and finished another crochet basket, with a smaller matching second basket, and undid the "magic chain" I'd done so far, having realized I didn't have a good idea of where to take it after that significant work was complete. Instead I wound those 4 skeins into two 2-strand balls to be used together in a double spiral basket. I did some assessment of the materials for my upcoming pillow/sham project and bought everything I think I need for it, and started working on the second sewing machine to fix up.
After that I stopped keeping good track, but here are the highlights:
May's craft spending:
very light interfacing, white muslin, bias tape for pillow/sham gift ($29.43)
two remnants for stash ($3.38)
yarn for gift crochet project ($4.19)
May's completions:
1 sewing machine dedicated to scrap
matching large and very small crochet baskets
strawberry pot crochet basket
saggy double spiral crochet basket
small wrapped-edge crochet basket
jeans and capris waists adjusted
boxers patched
June's priorities:
pillow/sham gift completion
stabilize waist of new pants
start making weeples for work training "badges"
plug away at all in-house sewing machines
Repair/cleaning of 3 not-mine sewing machines in house
Learn how to sew piping
Begin a project to do solely for the sake of the blog (from a short list)
Before the first weekend of the month, I worked on a crochet basket (quelle surprise) but decided it wasn't going to work out and I didn't like the yarn combination, so I unraveled and separated it.
The first weekend was one of those lovely weekends that feels like it has acres of time. I punched out felt for weeple feet, cut out a bunch of new bias-test fabric squares, cut a few more fabric circles for pattern weights, worked on a sewing machine, and wound a new ball of yarn for baskets (for those counting, at this point I had 2 prepared 3-strand balls of yarn and the one "magic chain" basket in progress). The sewing machine was the non-serger Sew-op machine, and after a pretty solid amount of work I can't make it sew well in reverse, so it's getting scrapped - but the bright side is its bobbin case saves us the $12 of buying a replacement bobbin case for a different machine.
I even worked on a refashioning project that's been hanging around for a long time. I thought I maybe had it done Saturday but it didn't really look that great so I decided to make another go of it Sunday. Take 3 was satisfactory and it went into the laundry hamper. Also Sunday, at the Sew-op, I cleaned and oiled the machine with the transplanted bobbin case so it can be adopted out, and went over three other machines to assess them. Rare speed! I even had a little time left so I sorted some donations and took home a bunch of clothing to sort into thrift/recycle/keep.
On the second weekend I started and finished another crochet basket, with a smaller matching second basket, and undid the "magic chain" I'd done so far, having realized I didn't have a good idea of where to take it after that significant work was complete. Instead I wound those 4 skeins into two 2-strand balls to be used together in a double spiral basket. I did some assessment of the materials for my upcoming pillow/sham project and bought everything I think I need for it, and started working on the second sewing machine to fix up.
After that I stopped keeping good track, but here are the highlights:
- put in my first sewing machine parts order: Featherweight bobbins, Touch & Sew feed dogs, and a spool pin cap. Milestone!
- made a "strawberry pot" crochet basket. That is, a basket with little outcropped pockets that open into the main body of the basket. I don't know.
- made the double spiral basket out of the former magic chain yarns. I like the idea - post stitches ending in spike stitches that make icicles of each yarn-pairing across the outside of the basket - but the basket itself ended up saggy and uneven.
- attempted to take in the waists of a pair of jeans and a pair of capris. The capris worked; I did them second and pinched some fabric out of the back waist toward each side. The jeans actually seem to fit better but it's not apparent how much my fix did... for them I tried to sew elastic across the inside back waist, and the elastic seems to just be staying stretched out. But perhaps the extra thickness plus a tiny bit of shortening is doing the trick.
- assessed my clothing situation by cleaning out some dresser drawers. That's how I found the two "not quite" pants above; I also pulled a pair of PJ pants that need alteration. We did a clothing shop and I have a pair of pants to stabilize the waist of, and from the items I brought home from the Sew-op I held on to a velvet shirt to try to refashion (it's the kind with a short zipper at the top back that makes a mock turtleneck) and a piece of beautiful fabric that would be a lovely dress scarf if I added edging to it.
- patched a pair of boxers that were pulling apart at a seam
- started reorganizing my baskets, bags, and stacks of stuff, realizing the crochet baskets that are actually useful are the biggest and smallest of the ones I've made. I'll need new yarn to make more really big ones so I made a small one and wound yarn for some more small ones.
- started a new possibly-big basket. It's single-strand, though one of the yarns is getting stitched around the other periodically, so I'm not sure how sturdy would be as a big basket. It's not quite even small-basket-base sized yet so the jury is out.
- bought a book on household wiring (from lamps to entire farms, it promises) and some heat-shrink tubing to cover the bare wires on the sewing machine I'm working on, which I discovered has a tendency to run by itself. The sheathing is cracking off near the pedal, and where the pedal and wall cords meet and plug into the machine. I sent a photo to my sewing machine pals with the caption "Wire wire machine on fire!"
May's craft spending:
very light interfacing, white muslin, bias tape for pillow/sham gift ($29.43)
two remnants for stash ($3.38)
yarn for gift crochet project ($4.19)
May's completions:
1 sewing machine dedicated to scrap
matching large and very small crochet baskets
strawberry pot crochet basket
saggy double spiral crochet basket
small wrapped-edge crochet basket
jeans and capris waists adjusted
boxers patched
June's priorities:
pillow/sham gift completion
stabilize waist of new pants
start making weeples for work training "badges"
plug away at all in-house sewing machines