Check your hardware store for a pair of ceramic block magnets. Scrounge up a neat old tin container. Antique stores are filthy with typewriter ribbon tins and other appropriately-sized metal containers. I’ll bet even an Altoids tin would work. Ka-pow! I’ll wager that making one before the start of KCW will increase your efficiency next week by a minimum of
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I can’t wait to tell you all about this project – from its crazy inception (over a particularly strong cup of coffee) to how the design features seemed to evolve organically, on their own. I will report on the process of making a muslin – how useful a tool it was and how it came together surprisingly quick, without seeming
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I’ve spoken so many times of the Sugar Maple Music Festival, that summer event which we revere more than any other. We afford it sacred calendar protection normally reserved for holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and now Solstice. Please don’t plan on getting married, birthing/baptizing your baby, or dying on the weekend of the Sugar Maple; we probably won’t attend. (your
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I’ve shied away from the mention of heat waves and drought here in this space. I suspected that, given the slightest opportunity, the whining and self pity and utter sluggishness resulting from this drought would take over the podium, that even the mere mention of it here would feed the monster and make it multiply, like the yeasty proliferation of
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The kids’ lack of proper sun protection caught me off guard this year. All day Sunday was spent under the rays, without the slightest bit of brim to shield those delicate heads. Better fix that quick. With little ado, I found the perfect pattern, the Bucket Hat from the Oliver + S book Little Things to Sew. As for fabric,
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I’ll be honest. As soon as we decided on Portland, ME as our travel destination, I high-tailed it over to SouleMama to start compiling a list of must-sees. A fiber shop (KnitWit), another fiber shop (Purl Diva), a fabric shop (Alewives)..it was an itinerary that prompted me to pack light, leaving room in the suitcase for tactile ‘souvenirs.’ That I
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I celebrated my birthday yesterday by lounging around in floppy clothes and knitting nearly nonstop. I shared and loved this cake, made by my three sweeties. It was a good day. Some things that might make this thirty-fourth year stand out from those previous: + My days of changing diapers are through. That Boy is wearing Big Boy Underwear! This
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We’ve officially made the leap from kleenex to luxurious flannel wipes. It’s been a gradual transition, one that has at times been impeded by a lack of pockets. If you can’t carry a hankie around with you all day, then they’d better be at arm’s reach, I realized early on. Eight little baskets insure that they are. Super-special fabric for
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When I set out to challenge myself to not buy any new fabric for a few pennies shy of a full year, it seemed BOLD and DRASTIC and DELICIOUSLY RESTRAINING and possibly IMPOSSIBLE. A year seems such an unimaginably-large chunk of time, too big to wrap my arms (and hence my brain) around. But, oh, if I could do it,
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My studio is in a state of emergency. Fibers are everywhere – the woven kind one uses for sewing, the fluffy kind one uses for spinning and knitting. Patterns are everywhere – the kind that comes nicely contained in an envelope and the kind that manifests on scraps of paper in the midst of a creating binge. Thread ends and
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