AMANDA'S BASKETS: CIRCULAR WEAVING & A HARD DECISION...

Monday, April 1, 2019

CIRCULAR WEAVING & A HARD DECISION...

Well, the beginning of another week is at hand and I am still trying to figure out what happened to last week. Saturday was the sunny, warm day that I asked for...Sunday, raining and cold. Today, just cold and windy...but it is sunny.

I literally played hooky this weekend from any news (a weekend habit now), cleaning (well, I did straighten up a bit), shopping (just a little grocery shopping - we were out of a couple items) and cooking (the chef cooked this week. He loves the Instant Pot. He made wonderful, fork tender, corned beef in a couple hours.)

I did read a lot and played around with an old craft...circular weaving. A great way to use up scrap yarn. I made the loom out of cardboard using a very large baked beans can for a template. If you make one remember that you need an odd number of slits.

I made three weavings using embroidery thread as the warp and scrap sugar 'n spice yarn for the weft. Because I had so many slots the middle of the weaving was rather thick. Check these out...

On the top two, I added a braided edging. I left that off the bottom. This is a great craft for kids of all ages. I would make the number of slots smaller. Just remember to make the number odd.

I came to a major decision this past weekend concerning one of my favorite groups...the Auspicious Stitchers. They are located in Manhattan and meet weekly. I really wanted to continue with the group but, quite frankly, I just can't justify the costs. The cheapest way in would be by bus and that's $32 round trip. The Train is more. And by SnowWhite, well the costs are well above $50.

And those prices are just for travel into Manhattan, not any subway costs, or incidentals, etc. It would add up to $1664/annually for just the travel into the city by the cheapest method. On a fixed income, that's a big chunk of change. A month and three quarters worth of rent. So, I have sadly decided to only attend occasionally.

I am going to continue with my participation in the Empire Quilt Guild, though. It only meets once a month for ten months and I do love leading the workshops.

Hope the weather is getting better where you live...
Thanks for taking the time to stop by...
See you tomorrow...

CRAFTING IDEAS

I am always looking for a small piece of paper to write down something which will later be disposed of. I decided to use some of the scrap paper of which I have a ton. I mostly use the paper for glueing projects. I decided to cut the paper into a small size. (Six pieces from a piece of copy paper.). But just having them sitting on my desk would get messy without a container. So, using a cardboard box, I cut it down to size and using a hot glue gun I glued the ends together. Using a picture from a magazine cut into pieces and stick craft glue, I glued the pieces to the box inside and out. I also used some decorative tape for the outside edges. And to finish the top corners which were not covered, I used straight pins with colorful tops. Looks nice and works well.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

So in looking over your habits what did you find? Some popular good habits folks have are: Meditation, exercise, journal writing, flossing, reading and walking up early. Some not so great habits included smoking, saying yes, swearing, tolerating folks, not sleeping enough, always complaining and constantly making excuses. Do you have more good habits or more bad habits? Is it time to change? If so, start with the easiest bad habit to change, not the hardest. This will give the best chance of success. Decide on the best way for you to change your habit. Worry too much? Set a time to worry and then stop. You may have to stop yourself several times at the beginning but keep it up and you will worry less. Or, alternatively, write the worry down as well as options to stop the problem. Just figure out which way to stop is best for you.