Sunflower UnLtd

The Quilt class from Hell. part 1

2009-05-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

So where have I been? Working, working working. I had a mini vacation planned. 3 weeks before the vacation I heard the person who had been teaching a quilting class no longer works for us. I am talking to the person taking the class over and she is not comfortable doing it. Like an idiot I say "I'll do it, just clear it with the education director!"

Now the class was in 2 days, the education director called me at 8:30 that night to say the info was in my folder. Now is when I find out that they are not halfway through the class, as a matter of fact they are treating it like the class has never happened and one of the ladies is returning to New Zealand in 2 weeks. As far as the director is concerned as long as the they get the top pieced the class worked.

Great, what have I gotten myself into? Are the students angry? Are they confused? Next day I picked up the instructions for the quilt as I headed to my crochet group. This is not a bad quilt I see, but not one *I* would choose for a beginner. It is a variation on a roaming or Roman stripe and is strip pieced. The class quilt is done in sage, pink and brown prints, not my colors, but hey I just need pieces for demo.

I head home, hit the stash and start cutting strips. Pattern calls for 11 fabrics. Each block uses 7 strips. 2 cut at 2.5, 2 cut at 3, 2 cut at 3.25 and 1 cut at 3.5. They are put together with a .25 inch seam and a 12.5 inch block is cut on point. Then scrap area is unsewed, sewn back together opposite way and another block cut. that last bit is the part I am leery of teaching beginners. If their sewing skills are debatable that can get messy if the seam frays or stretches due to resewing.

Class was the next morning, so I made 1 strip set that was sewn incorrectly to demonstrate how mistakes multiply when piecing, one put together correctly, I cut two blocks from a third and had the scraps ready to take apart and sew back together in the alternate order with a note to point out that I used only 7 fabrics here, but with 11 there is a much greater variety and scraps from different strip sets could be combined as long as the sizes were the same. Meaning each block must have the 2 of each strip width and 1 of the 3.5 to make the block no less than 18 inches when sewn together. I also made 6 parchment paper templates and packed up my 12.5 square.

So class day arrives and so do 2 students Andrea and Susan. They inform me yes the class had 5 enrolled but they are the only 2. Ok, that makes it a bit easier. Susan did not bring her machine as she was not certain what would be done since they had a new teacher and as she later admitted was not even confident there would be a class after the previous 2 lessons. I mentioned that I had heard one of them was returning to New Zealand . Both are from the UK originally and Susan was returning for a visit the same week as my vacation. She had hoped to get the quilt finished before then to take with her, but if it was not possible that was fine as she will be visiting again later in the year. Not was I was told, but actually was better.

Let me point out here the from HELL part of this class had nothing to do with the students (anyone who has taught anything has one of THOSE classes). In this case it was the time constraints and the circumstances.

I started the class by laying out the strip sets. Both students have their's cut except Andrea has a lot. She has one of the same fabrics that Susan did but it would not behave when she cut it. I looked at it. It is a lousy mill run. Susan's batch was like any other printed cotton used for quilting. Andrea's was much lower thread count and felt almost like a heavy gauze. It stretched and refused to cut or tear straight. We trashed those pieces and she had another brown picked out instead. She started to cut them.

It was at THIS point the real headache came out. It seemed the previous instructor did not like the pattern as it was given to us to teach. OK I can understand that. I am not in love with it either for a beginning class. She had decided to alter it, she had left the students with instructions to cut 6 fabrics at 2.5 inches and 1 at 3 for each square. Now even this English major could do the math on that one. To cut a 12.5 square on point you need at least 17.5 inches. What she had given them came to no more than 14. She had told them it would work out, but had given them no printed instructions.

OK, so now what? I went ahead and had them sew their strip groups together, and copied the instructions for them with warnings that they would be changed now but at least they could see how to perform certain techniques and have explanations of WHY things are done differently in quilting than in fashion sewing. Then we measured the first strip sets. Susan's worked with an 8.5 square and Andrea's looked like a 10.5 or maybe a 9.5 I recut 2 templates on the fly. But both really want a plastic square. I showed them how to cut one either with or without a window. We decide to end class a little early and everyone would meet back in 4 days to cut the squares and start the layout. More next time.

Fantastic Crochet buddies give me the best birthday

2009-02-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

My birthday has just passed. My two crochet buddies did the best thing anyone could have done for me. Roz gave me a bottle of Pink Truck and Diane put together a notebook of amigurimi patterns for me to use as is or alter to my heart's content. Thank you Ladies - you are the best!
The Pink Truck will come in handy if i get frustrated by a pattern that is the notebook.

Do you have a friend that is "into" a craft of some sort? Take a page from these two ladies. For me the notebook was the best idea. If you have a scrapbooking friend and you sew maybe trims, laces and buttons that are too small for you to use would be appreciated by them. For a sewer, Maybe a decorated box or accordian file for their small things. Quilters appreciate graph paper, colored pencils. fabric scraps and LOTS of safety pins.

Remember the gift that shows you thought about what the person would like is the best type of gift.

Roz and Diane, Thanks again.

Amigurumi Puuchuu

2009-01-19T01:04:00.000-08:00

For those of you with no interest in amigurumi, anime, crochet or altering patterns skip this. The rest of you..

This started because I was hitting sites looking for ideas. Someone posted this link on ravelery. For a crocheted Kerochan from Card Captor Sakura. My first thought was OH! I could alter that to make one of the aliens from Excel Saga.

So the pattern alternation saga begins. I have the basic form done now. I have already altered one thing. I made the head a closed ball, it just seemed to not be round enough when attached to the neck. Next the ears, after some playing I decided to chain 25 crochet 1 row starting with doubles for 11 stitches, then half doubles then singles to end. I couled them, and sewed them on.

Next, the diaper.. I decided to make that as a seperate piece and sew that one as well. THe rug beater weapon is a straw witn a chained 'beater. But I am stuck on the antenna. Will post a picture as soon as I get it done.

Falling behind

2009-01-14T00:35:00.000-08:00

One of my goals is to try and complete one thing a day that i have been falling behind on. Between the dentist yesterday and feeling not so great today, I have now fallen behind. So In order to keep up with my schedule, tomorrow I will working on a pair of pajama pants for DH. The PuuChuu toy and After my trip to the fabric store, the bathroom rug. Keep on me about this.

The list:

2 pairs of pajama pants for daughter
3 pairs of pajama pants for husband (1 completed)
quilt for fireplace
PuuChuu
Bathroom Rug
average of 1 batch of CP soap a week
Quilt for Queen-sized bed
Liz's quilt
Olive's quilt
H&I Quilt
Daughter's cosplay costumes
My Cosplay costume
Fleece pullover for daughter
Throw for daughter's bed
Stuffed animal hanger for daughter's room
Bathroom Curtain
Crocheted sweater for work
Crocheted tunics
soot sprite
boot slippers
crochet tabi (have to alter a pattern or convert a knit one to crochet)
sweater for self
sweater for daughter

And that is what I have started on or in the works. I need to clear some room in the stash areas, so keep on me people. Otherwise I will get lazy, again.

Stuff

2009-01-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Here is the Calicifer toy completed. The most difficult part was actually getting the eyes right. The second most difficult was finding the orange fun fur. I went out and bought the stuff for this because I wanted to make him, but I am finding that small stuffed toys are great for using up those little scraps of yarn from larger projects. So far the best sites I have found for patterns anad ideas are www.lionbrand.com www.ravelry.com and www,craftster.org.

The rug is almost completed, but what color to border it in? Seems like everyone is split evenly on this.. I think it may boil down to what do I have the most of in my stash?

Pajama pants are the big thing again this year, but why do they call them lazy or leisure pants now? It seems that flannel is not recommended for children's sleepwear because of a lack of fire retardation. BUT the fire retardant fabrics have been found to release a chemical that may kill children too. So LEGALLY it looks like we cannot put our children (Under age 12) in any clothing. Our government at work.

The price of Tea in your Community

2008-12-13T00:54:00.000-08:00

Alright I agree. The economy is just plain bad. People are claiming if they do not spend money it will not get better. Well, spend it with me on my site, or any other small business. Why you ask? First off you are helping more than just me in this.

For example, if you were to buy a bar of soap :
Into that bar went,
Oils bought from local merchants
Fragrances bought from US companies
Herbs bought from US farmers.
Packaging bought from local merchants or
Soap bag made by myself. Yarn bought locally.

So in a nutshell, your 5.00 is being spread over 5 companies at least.
Ok so you don't HAVE to buy from me and honestly if you live in Canada, the UK or even Florida, I do not ask that you do. But I do suggest you look at local merchants first.

Granted sometimes they have to charge a bit more for an item or service, but usually you get much more than just the item. You get service and you are helping your local community.

4 years ago every strip mall in my area had a local computer repair and sales store in it. Now I know of 1 fairly far away to whom I would not take an abacus. What happened?

Best Buy, Circuit City and CDW happened. But I do not need a gaming machine, or a networked business computer or even a laptop. I just need something to keep my accounts on and write letters. Yet, none of these stores sell what I need. If my machine should break, these are the only places in the area that service machines. They would rather sell me a new one. To top it off, Circuit City is closing its store in my area. So now I have 2 choices. What happens if the other two follow suit? Ever try to buy a computer on the internet when you cannot access the internet?

The local shops closed because people went to the other places for computers. In many cases, the computers were more expensive than if they had talked to a local person. I never spent more than 900.00 for a desktop from the shop I used to use. And he always built it to my specifications. He never overcharged. He always gave me what I needed (with a little more room for expansion) and the owner knew me personally. As a result I sent business his way whenever I could.

But it was not enough. Too many businesses went to Best Buy. Now maybe they treat business accounts better than a single unit buyer. But last time I walked in telling them what I wanted, they tried to sell me what they wanted to. I do not like laptops (for many reasons) Yet that seemed to be theor solution for everything. Granted the laptop was inexpensive, but the docking station, adaptors and other periphial necessities made it less cost effective than buying too much machine. But since they are one of 2 merchants in my area that sell anything remotely like what I need and they do not carry what I really want, they were confident that I would buy from them. I did not and I let their home office know why.

That is the OTHER advantage of supporting your local merchants. They will try to stock what you want or need. They will try to get things for you. Why? Because it will make you happy and keep you coming back. It may make you refer more business to them.

The chains want to homoginize things to make it more cost effective for them. They want you to buy Red Rose tea because they have a contract with Read Rose. Never mind if you do not care for it, or if you prefer a different brand or tea mixture. They want you to buy Red Rose. For now. If they get a better contract with Lipton they will want you to buy that and stop carrying the other. You can contact their corporate offices, but if they are the only place that you can get tea in your area, they will stock what they want to. If you want tea, you will buy what they want to sell you.

But if you buy tea from a local grocer or a specialty tea shop, now you can back up your complaint by withdrawing your money from the chain. Yes that will cut into their profits. But would you rather see your money go to a conglomerate based elsewhere or to go into your community?

So, when you can, buy locally, support local craft shows, farmer's markets, and businesses that are locally owned and run. You are putting money back into your community. You are perhaps adding jobs to your community if through your and others efforts the local businesses grow. Last but not least, you are building a relationship with a local person who will (or at least should) be grateful for your support.

2008-11-30T18:51:00.000-08:00

The weather has turned chilly and it is time to break out the sewing machine, crochet hoks and all my other crafts that I tend to pursue in cooler weather. Let's face it sitting under a couple of pounds of yarn as you crochet a bedspread is no fun in 90 degree weather. Struggling with a quilt while sweat drips off your nose tends to make you hate quilting.

So my planned projects are:
Find a way to get the stupid guitar straps to not stretch when holding a 40 lb bass.
The crocheted Dalek
A quilt large enough to block the fireplace for February and one I will enjoy looking at when we are snowed in.
Soap (of course)
A quilt for ME
A crocheted bedspread for my bed for the summer.
Gi's
Cosplay costumes for Acen 2009

First Glove

2008-11-29T20:09:00.000-08:00

Okay so I started the typing gloves based on a pattern I found on Ravelry by Nichole Verville. As I suspected my small hands are a pain. Hers crochet up to medium. So I am following her's atm with an eye to making it a small.

So far instead of Ch 18 13-14 looks like enough. And instead of 8 rows for the thumbhole it lookes lie 5 or 6 would do it. The pattern is so far fairly easy to follow But I am about to try making it for the OTHER hand now I will try with my changes. If it fits better them will make in some nice black wool blend or maybe even a thinner chenille.

New project

2008-11-29T00:34:00.000-08:00

So I am looking around ravelry.com and I came across the perfect gift for many of my friends. A crochet Dalek. There is a knit one as well. The pattern is free (of course you can't sell it or BBC will get after you) There is only one small catch, the author asks for a donation for a family. No you don't have to, but if you don't you will probably feel guilty!

Here is the link. I'll post a picture when I get it done. Crochet Dalek

Yarn and Other Snobs

2008-11-27T23:21:00.000-08:00

I teach and indulge in crochet. Lately, I joined a small group of like minded crocheters that are tired of yarn snobs and knitting snobs. These are the people who ask why you are not using the top of the line wools and are using that junk.

Here is my answer, I crochet because I enjoy it. I can create things that I like. I am allergic to most wools, so I use non wool yarns since it is difficult to crochet when you are crying. I work part-time at Jo-Ann Fabrics. They sell yarn. I get a discount and of course coupons. As a result I buy what I can afford. Yes, that is right not all people who crochet have tons of money to put into their hobby.

I have had some luck with wool-ease and cotton and wool blend yarns. But others still affect me. I do not crochet to impress people. The purpose of our group is camaraderie, sharing and a reason to get out of the house. One of the members started it because she tried to find a group in her area. Most were knitting groups and told her not to come if she did not knit. One said they would LET her come. Finally she found a group at a yarn shop who when she pulled out her WIP asked why she was using such a low grade yarn.

So for everyone who believes you MUST use a hand spun and dyed yarn, I suggest you move on. For anyone else who loves crochet and will put up with my woes when I try to knot (I am a rotten knitter). Welcome. This blog will include crochet, my soap making and other projects. Other members of Sunflower Unlimited who have items for sale or on display on the site are welcome to join the blog as well. Just ask Zeta to send you an invite.

Now without further ado, let me direct people to this site: www.ravelry.com It is a website devoted to knitting, crochet and who knows what else. Once you get there you have ask for an invitation. Mine took 5 days to come, but I have seen the list as short as 2 days. It has tons of projects. Lots of information and links to sales. It also has ways to keep track of your stash and projects. So for all of you knitters and crocheters looking for more projects or help with one it is worth it.

Strawberry Ice Cream Soap

2008-09-11T23:46:00.001-07:00

Yep, that is what it smells like. That strawberry Ice cream you used to get in those cups with the wooden spoons. This one is not a hemp oil. So it is good for all skin types. We will see if the FO holds.

So, what is the difference between and FO (fragrance oil) and an EO (essential oil)?

Well first there is the process by which they are made Essential oils are always extracted directly from the plant. So if you are using say a soap with Mint EO it was distilled from mint. This is important to know if you have an allergies. Also be aware that many plants will irritate the skin in a concentrated form. That is what an EO is.

Next is an FO Or fragrance oil. There are a few ways to make these. but all of them involve a using a carrier oil. Most common is to mix EOs and synthetic fragrances. Some FO's are as much as 80% EO's most are not. The big difference is that an EO will remain the same over time. An FO's scent can go off. What smelled like chocolate might now smell like vanilla or worse rancid oil.

Also not all oils are created equally. There is what is called the flash point of an oil. In soap making it is the temperature at which a scent burns off. Orange is has a very low flash point. Most orange soaps as a result are hand milled.

I had a horrible time with almond scents until i found that almond oil is high in acid. Even in a scent it would halt or even reverse the saponification. It puzzled me because Almond oil is used in some soap bases. Many almond scented soaps as a result are also hand milled.

Usually I use essential oils in soap so we shall see how this scent holds. If it holds - good. If not, I can always hand mill it or sell it as pink lightly scented.

Chamomile/peppermint

2008-08-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, here is an experiement Touch of Hemp Chamomile/peppermint soap.

Chamomile is soothing to the skin and hemp is rejuvenating. Peppermint is an astringent and has been use as an antiseptic, hopefully this will produce a soap that is good for oily skin types. Peppermint oil can be an irritant for some people - I am one of them so once the soap has cured we will see how it performs. If it turns out alright, it should be ready in 4- 6 weeks. tomorrow I shall try another batch if soap, but I am almost out of hemp oil.

For people who may have allergic reactions to oils here are the base oils in the touch of hemp they may contain any combination of the following oils depending on the scent. Be aware most oils are made from nuts or kernals, although they can be made from roots, flowers leaves, fruitskin even the bark of trees. IF you haver an allergy to anything ask before you try it. And as always if you react to something stop using it.

Allspice (Pimenta dioica)
Almond oil
Angelica Root (Angelica archangelica)
Anise (Pimpinella anisum)
Anise Star (Illicium verum)
Basil (Ocimum basilicum)
Bay (Pimento racemosa)
Benzoin (Styrax benzoin)
Bergamot calabrian (Citrus bergamia)
Bergamot mint (Mentha citrata)
Birch (sweet)(Betula lenta)
Black Pepper (Piper nigrum)
Blood Orange (Citrus sinensis)
Blue Tansy (Tanacetum annuum)
Calamus (Acorus calamus)
Caraway (Carum Carvi)
Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum)
Carrot (Daucus carota)
Castor Oil
Cedar (Juniperus virginiana),(Cedrus atlantica) or (Cedarus deodora)
Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis),(Matricaria recutica) or (Matricaria chamomilla)
Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum)or (Cinnamomum cassia)
Citronella (Cymbopogon nardus)
Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea)
Clove (Eugenia caryophyllata)
Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao)
Coconut Oil
Coffee (Coffea arabica)
Coriander (Coriandrum sativum)
Cumin (Cuminum cyminum)
Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens)
Blue Cypress (Callitris Introtropica)
Davana (Artemisia pallens)
Dill (Anethum graveolens)
Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus),(Eucalyptus polybractea), (Eucalyptus citriodora), or (Eucalyptus radiata)
Hemp oil
Marigold (Calendula officinalis)
Palm Oil
Palm Kernal Oil
Rosewood (Aniba rosaeodora)
Shea Butter
Soybean Oil
Tangerine (Citrus nobilis)

Guitar Straps Coming

2008-08-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

I found a Market for the straps, so now I am researching the best way to create straps that will not stretch too much. It seems I will have to use leather. Anyone hve any ieas for prefabs that are ugly but could take some decoration?

Starting to Keep track

2008-05-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

Alright, we are back from ACEN. I saw tons of great costumes, some not so great. Many were bought, as I discovered speaking to the cosplayers. So, for those of you interested. I am CONSIDERING starting to sell Gi and Hakama combinations. Here is the thing. They are fast, cheap and easy to make IF I use broadcloth and there is no decoration added. These are for costume purposes only. Ok well maybe you could wear them around the house. They are by no means meant for martial arts practice.

Now, if I get enough interest I might add a silk line. BUT and it is a big one. Silk costs. Even by the bolt and raw silk is not cheap. So I need to know I can get enough orders to cover the cost of the silk.