Paper, glue, scissors, yarn, etc.

Fantastic - belly dance outfits takes a lot of time and are beautiful.

I have a funny story about knitting. I was knitting a bunch of pullover sweaters with mohair (ugh). I'd done 4 and was on the last one. I had everything done, just had to sew the arms in. I was pretty tired, been knitting for some time, and it was now about 1:00 a.m. For some reason I started sewing the body first, anyway, I sewed it all the way to the top so it was a pillow case. I look at it and with my muddled mind think "What the hell did I do that for?', so I painstakingly undid it. For some reason (tired!), I unpicked the whole thing. Then I started again and sewed it all the way up again. I looked at the pillowcase again and realized I was an idiot. I threw it down in disgust and went to bed.

Lesson learned: Never do anything when you're that tired. That mohair is a killer; it just sticks to itself like velcro.

I just bought yarn this weekend for a new knitting project: a throw of brown and hydrangea blue.

I was a mad knitter and crocheter and embroiderer , crewel making person (etc) for a while. Still have to take photos of my really good vests..

I succumbed into knitting tharn when I made a sweater for my husband. Sort of blousson sleeves, as it turned out.. oh... no... I tossed it, not bearing the great unravel move. I have mems of my mother making argyle socks for my dad.

I crocheted a vest for a friend who didn't get it, and that stopped my dulcet presentations.

Whatever... I was taking drawing lessons then too, and the drawing classes won.

I'm a crocheter, but haven't gotten past the basics. Most of what I make, I make freehand without any pattern or any idea of how to do what I want to make. For instance, I've always made hats by starting with a long series of chain stitches at the brim and then shaping the hat from there with various types of stitches. Turns out it is completely backwards. Most of the online patterns say to start at the top of the hat and work down to the brim.

I'm currently trying to teach myself via youtube video and online instructions how to make granny squares so I can make some slippers with them. I'm learning that what I've thought of as the popcorn stitch all these years is really called the puff stitch and that there are many variations of it. The popcorn stitch is quite different.

I have a friend who is an expert knitter and she recommended this site to me for free crochet and knit patterns and instructions. You have to register to gain access, but after that everything is easily navigated:

https://www.ravelry.com/

These are the slippers I'm attempting to make. They're each made from 6 granny squares. I'm only using two colors of yarn, not the kaleidoscope of colors shown here:





At the rate it is taking me to figure out how to keep the stitches in the granny square uniform so it still ends up a square shape, I may have these finished by next winter!

It's all a matter of turning the piece as you work and making sure your stitches are even. Those are the easiest to make, IMO. You can pull the shape a bit so you get your square. And make sure you have your chain stitches between the double-crochet things.

my favorite blanket (stinky is crashed on it now) is a crocheted comforter made for me by an ex girlfriend. purple and black. and cat hair.

it was a test pattern for her to try before making them to sell.

I remember the blanket more fondly than the lady, unfortunately.

i'll prolly have it forever.

there's something not quite right there...

That made me smile a lil - purple, black and cat hair. We have afghans my mother knit when she was in an afghan mood. I should photograph them, and the sweaters we've got, too.

My oldest granddaughter will be 10 this year. The next one turns 8. I found a wonderful book, Hand-stitched Felt by Kata Golda, who I understand has a line of felt toys. The directions in this book are simple but the products are great.

Then I found Kids Crochet by "Kelli Ronci," which I understand is a pseudonym. Again, this book has clear directions and allows kids to produce attractive and useful items.

It's good to see craft projects for kids created by authors who realize that kids have taste.

I guess I never realized you were a grandmom, POM. Somehow that didn't register with me, I guess. How great that you're sharing this with them.

I've been a Grandma for a long time. I was in the delivery room when the oldest was born.

I bought an easel for all my granddaughters to share and was thinking that they needed little artist's smocks. I entered the phrase "child's apron pattern" into the Q block at the upper right and was introduced to two sites that make me feel there is hope for the world.

www.sewliberated.typepad.com is a very personal and yet universal blog site and commerce site of an inventive young mother who is a Montessori teacher and designer.

Through this site, I happened upon Bunte fabrics, available at www.buntefabrics.com

Wow!

I think we have that one -- my 10-yr-old absolutely loves it. She's a major crocheter now. (Well, major as in she loves it and is good at the basics, she hasn't tried anything too ambitious yet.)

I helped her crochet a scarf last year (it was taking too long, we tag-teamed, I made progress when she was at school), I hadn't ever really crocheted before and really enjoyed it.

We're both sewing all kinds of ornament-type stuff this year.

I'm also taking up decoupage, finally. We're redoing her room and I wanted to create some art for it with a lot of the new colors (mostly a bluish lavender, a deeper plum purple, cream, bright light green, and black). I planned to paint it with acrylics and went looking for purple birds to pattern it on.

That led me to this site, which I adore to the point of not wanting to publicize it (my little secret), but I'll share it with you guys:

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

Originally I was going to just paint one of the vintage bird images (a really gorgeous one), then went to an art/craft show that had canvases with handpainted acrylic backgrounds and then decoupaged faux-naif dogs and cats and stuff. I briefly thought of doing something similar to that (as in, using patterned wrapping paper or wallpaper and making bird shapes out of that) but then decided to just use a bunch of the vintage birds -- paint a background, print out birds (I have about a dozen saved already, great colors), cut them out, hand-paint a tree for them to roost on, and decoupage. I'm looking forward to it.

I might do this one separately on its own canvas, I really love it and the colors are perfect:



That's a small version, she makes HUGE versions available so you can print it actual size (about 9" X 11") at excellent resolution. (Thank you, Graphics Fairy!)

Hi POM,

Funny! My sewing group (yes I belong to a sewing group, very fun) just made children's aprons, I went and tracked down the url, et voila:

http://sewliberated.typepad.com/Montessori%20Childs%20Apron.pdf

Looks like it's the exact same one!

I didn't make one but the moms who did gave it rave reviews.

The bloggers at the site were enthused about it, particularly the use of Velcro.

I'm glad that enough women are still sewing and have sewing groups. I used to take a quilting class that was more of a loosely organized evening out with sewing machines and big tables for cutting all done under the guidance of a master quilter who could solve any problem.

Look what I just found!

http://butterick.mccall.com/sbf876-products-8471.php?page_id=434

Teepees!

I'm not sewing at all lately, lately as in since I started the whole art thing back in the seventies, when I was at the height of my mad craftsmanship but switching over to drawing, painting, etc. But, back in the day, my mother made all my clothes, or mostly all, until I learned to sew too. Skirt making was one of the first things I learned, and... left over material would turn into aprons..

On crocheting, I got pretty swift at it, but dropped it as I said in the seventies. But, in the eighties, we shared a studio with some clothing designers, and one of them was a maven of fine yarns. So.. a colleague and I went berserk and bought up her remaining french and swiss yarns. I still have some of them, all my knitting and crochet needles, and a lot of my sweater instruction books. Can't manage to toss them.

Somewhere along the line, with a change of eyesight (I guess when I needed bifocals and then trifocals) it became hard to both watch tv and see my knitting..
Now I'm used to trifocals and could probably get going at knitting again.

I thought the teepees were great.

My daughter has decided to learn to knit. I think she hates sitting still to watch something on tv.

My daughter-in-law was taught to crochet by her Native American Granma, who is also a champion organic gardener. She hasn't crocheted in years but I thought it would be nice, now that the two oldest girls are 7 and 9, to send them some crocheting supplies for Valentine's Day which is just before February vacation.