Flashbacks You'll Love

This blog is pretty old. There is a great deal of good stuff in the older posts.

(I miss my cuddly Charlie)

Here are some of my favorite posts you may have missed:

Trial and Error Learning in the Creative Process.

Essential Tools for Becoming a Designer 








How Designers Create, A Style Discussion.

Blueberry

Chickee made this yarn holder for me and called it the "Blueberry".  It's made of an Oat container.  The straw out the top is where you thread the yarn through and continue working with it.  Inside that container right now... Patons Angora Silk. 

Adding Beads

Hi All, this is how I get beads onto my yarn. I bought the "flexible beading needles" that come in a multi-pack at Hobby Lobby in the jewelry making area. The beading needle is a long (4.5"??) silver wire with a circle 'eye/loop' at the end. That circle end is where the yarn goes. You have to get the yarn through that eye. I had to use my tapestry needle, thread the needle with my yarn, take my tapestry needle and pull that through the eye on the end of the beading needle. Let the tapestry needle free, leave the yarn in the beading needle. Thread the beading needle through the eye of the beads and push it down onto the yarn. The eye/loop of the beading needle might bend, that's ok. Shown is Caron yarn in SPA with 6/0 size seed beads.

You can also use a "Big Eye Needle" but I couldn't find mine! I'll have to get some more and show it to you.

Surprise Web site

Here's something you may not know, I visit the following website almost every single time I write a pattern. What could it be? Yarnstandards, yes, but not this time.

I go to Manuel's Web No, it's not scary, yes, your kids can view it, it won't get you in trouble at work.... it's a conversion site that helps me convert inches to cm! Exciting, huh? Maybe not, but very useful. Like I said, I have this site bookmarked and I refer to it every time I write a pattern when I am writing the sizing and gauge sections of my patterns.

Cory or Avril?

Here's my new dressform, and as you may know, every dressform needs a name. I'm thinking of giving her a name that reflects an attitude, a kind of edgier, hipper, innovative, cutting-edge, text-messaging, Jeep-driving, black eye-liner wearing, I-pod toting, bad girl with a heart of gold. Like a cooler little sister. yep, that's what I'm going for. Any suggestions? I'm thinking Cory or Avril or maybe something with a little ethnic heritage... She looks shiny and plastic, but she's actually covered in a fabric so that you can pin things on to her.

JoAnn's had the dressforms on sale earlier in the month and they ran a coupon for free shipping. With such a big item, I couldn't resist combining the specials.

Sketching garments

I like to think of myself as "artistic" and I did manage to pass my drawing classes in college, but I don't feel very comfortable sketching garments for submission or design, until now. Probably a year ago, I got this "average woman" picture from Threads Magazine's website I don't know if it is still up on their site, and I don't know where on the site it is.

They also had toddler, adult man, and a few other diagrams. I printed it out and now I put it under tracing paper. I sketch on the tracing paper, on top of the diagram, and Viola' I have a sketch that is in general proportion to the person I am designing for! I add lots of notes around the sketch about yarns, stitches, areas of interest, and suddenly, I can see it.