AMANDA'S BASKETS: STUDIO REDO PROGRESS & LESSON LEARNED

Thursday, June 6, 2019

STUDIO REDO PROGRESS & LESSON LEARNED

Well, I am already for the guild meeting on Saturday. Everything is done!!! Yeah!!! So tomorrow I hope to pick up some flowers and veggies to plant. Yes, I know that I am behind but with all the rain, I really couldn't plant anyway.

So I have finished sorting my fabric. What's nice is that I can now see the fabric much better and I kept only the fabric that I liked and could see using.

And I put up another design wall next to the fabric shelving...

Now I have two design walls. Remember the other one is on the opposite side of the studio...

And my computer/project area is much more spacious...

The tall white table which right now contains all the stuff I will be bringing to the guild meeting is great for fabric cutting and ironing. There's plenty of space for the computer and then the black table in the forefront is clear and ready for projects.

The quilt in front of the black table is covering my keyboard.

Next week after I get the planting done, I want to begin going through the shelves and the rolling carts. If it's like my fabric stash, I should be able to donate a lot of 'stuff'.

One of the things I needed to do for my second design wall was to hem the sides. Both design walls are made out of painters cloth which ravels easily. Well, my sewing machine was giving me problems. The fabric was getting jammed. I rethreaded about a million times, I changed my needle, I even used different thread including bobbin thread but it still jammed after about ten stitches.

I finally decided to take off the cover plate and remove the bobbin holder. I cleaned everything. Put it back together and tried sewing. Still jammed up.

Off when the throat plate for another look. I finally found some fabric literally glued to a tiny plate on the left side. It took a while to get it off...thread and fabric just plain sticky. I then took a look at the needle and it too was sticky.

Once I cleaned both the needle and that area inside the machine, I replaced everything and it sewed beautifully. To test my hypothesis as to where I got the glue, I tried sewing some velcro dots which have adhesive. After one five inch pass, my machine was already jamming.

So, I cleaned everything off once more and once again it sews beautiful. Lesson learned. I will no longer sew on adhesive velcro dots.

That's all of tonight...
Thanks for dropping 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.

MAGAZINE IDEAS

(New) One article in the Farmer's Almanac 2024 is a list of trends. One I knew about is the trend to downsize in just about every area. Another trend that I was surprised about was called ''The Human Library' which offers people on loan to talk about specific subjects. Finally, more folks are adding pets to their family and as a result, stores are adding more pet food, toys and medication to their offerings. There's also a nice garden article which suggests mixing vegetables and flowers together for success.

RECIPE IDEAS

Have you every made Cherry Dump Cake. It calls for 2 cans of Cherry Pie Filling (21 ounces), a white cake mix, 1/4 -1/2 cup butter, melted & 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans. In a 9 by 13 pan, spread both cans of cherry pie filling. Add the melted butter to the cake mix and break apart the resulting mixture and crumble it evenly over the pie filling. Sprinkle the pecans evenly over the mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 - 45 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Fast, easy and very delicious.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

What if you want to establish better habits, then decide what habit you want to work on. Again, try an easier one first for that good feeling of success. Let's consider more exercise. Start small. Don't try to run a marathon right away. Set the amount of time, the type of exercise and when to do it to begin making sure that it is within your reach. If it works for you each week add a bit more. Walking is one of the best ways to get good overall movement but there are many exercise videos on YouTube of varying lengths and difficulty to check out. Change your exercise routines to eliminate getting bored. For hardcore exercise with weights, give yourself a day in-between to recover. Even on days you would rather not exercise, do it and see if you feel better. It takes an average of 66 days to establish a habit. Just think 66 days to establish a good habit for a lifetime. Sounds like a good thing to me...how about you?