Latest Projects

I've been working on some little crafts lately!

First, some fun news. I found a sewing machine! Well, I should say, a full sized one (as opposed to my questionable, travel sized one from last fall). I'd been popping my head in the nearby pawn shop for the past 6 months to ask after a machine, but it wasn't a popular item. Recently, though, someone suggested the Sun and Green Recycle (thrift) shop. This place was simple gold when it came to used goods. Plentiful, varied, and cheap. It reminded me a lot of Goodwill in that it employs people with disabilities. It was a shock to not have crisply dressed employees greeting me hello every few minutes, but kind of a nice one.

The sewing machine was tucked behind some tall humidifiers and beneath portable radios. Not too easy to maneuver it out in the 2.5 wide aisle, but it was worth it. A little scratched, but only $12! The bobbins I bought on the way home cost half that.

So, to put it to use, I've been working on a cathedral window style quilting project. The nice thing about it is that you can stop adding on at any point and it's just about complete. The not so nice thing is that it requires lots of crisp corner precision and measuring. We'll see if it grows past my current 4 windows any time soon.

Another endeavor from last week was to teach a friend how to crochet. I made her a purple replica of her noisy dachseund, Ojiro, and she wanted to learn how to do the same. So she came over on a lazy Saturday afternoon to learn first the basics of crochet. We soon got to the Amigurumi specialty, the magic circle, and started on her first animal ever. A snake! Partly because I had talked so much about my great hatred for them at length the day before, and partly because she was born in the year of the snake.

I tried to make mine as benign as possible, as seen left. She has a flower sewed on for coquettishness, and can bend liberally.

The next day I left her on the desk of one of my English teachers anonymously.



This last one I keep seeing in student's hair, so I wanted to try to make one myself! Actually, they usually have flowers, but I discovered that butterflies are a lot faster and have fewer ends to tuck in.