Testing, Testing

Newsprint necklaces

I've been sorting and consolidating my jewelry supplies, taking short breaks to test  things to see if I should keep them or toss them.

 

A Creativity for Kids paper bead rolling kit was a keep, if only for the nifty little bead rolling tool. It is so much easier than rolling the paper around a toothpick. OTOH, my hand cut strips from the newspaper made better beads than the kit's machine cut scrapbooking paper. We won't even talk about the plastic beads that came with the kit, okay? I had to substitute beads from my toss pile. It also had stretchy gel beading thread, which needs no needle. A boon.  

Creativity for Kids necklaces

The internet is full of  projects using resin or Dimensional Magic from Mod Podge on paper stuck to wooden forms. You get a lovely high gloss item with Dimensional Magic. I put images on wooden nickels and stuck pin forms to the back. I'm less than thrilled with the images I had to use, but Dimensional Magic stays.

A stash of soutache braid will be very useful when I attempt a soutache braid and bead creation real soon now. I've used bead tips and soutache as necklaces to hold small charms.

By Annetta Valious, mylovelybeads.com

My entire collection of felt fits in a copy paper box, but there's oodles of red. For awhile, I bought it up whenever I saw it at Goodwill. When life gives you red felt, make felt flowers. I've got a Pinterest board full of different flowers to try.

Most of my beads are in one place, but there are escapees in every room of the house. There are bead findings in the thread box. There are beads in the box that contains my MIL's worn copy of The Settlement Cookbook. There's a matchbox of bead findings from jewelry that fell apart 20 years ago, tucked into a box of buttons. Many years ago, I rescued vintage beads from a cashmere sweater that moths riddled, and tucked the bag of vintage beads into a box of sewing supplies. I also bought necklaces from thrift stores, just to deconstruct. I could never find the box when I wanted it, so I bought findings and beads.

It will be such a delight to go to one place for jump rings and jewelry findings rather than pawing through 6 boxes. I recognized each tiny bag as it appeared. Nothing sneaked in while I wasn't looking. It's not that I blithely bought huge quantities. It's that I would bead madly for awhile, put things away, then not be able to find what I wanted during the next beading spurt. First all the jewelry findings got put in one place, then types of things separated out. Seeing the variety of my findings makes me feel wealthy. 

Speaking of wealth, I modified a quilted bag from Goodwill, giving it features Vera Bradley puts in her quilted bags. There are two pockets inside the purse, a pocket on the outside, and a strap for the housekey. I put vintage red rickrack on it, too.

Paper Bead Mania

Currently I am obsessed by paper beads. I can't make just one. All I have to do is mark two edges of a sheet of paper off in 1/2 inch increments and make triangles. The triangles get rolled around cocktail skewers and dotted periodically with glue. I use Elmer's. Some people use glue sticks. In any case, it can be done while on the phone, reading Facebook, waiting for the water to boil.

I've marked them off in something called a watercolor pencil. When the pencil color gets wet, say, with glue, it smears nicely. It gives excellent soft stripes on a bead. On my fingers, it is less excellent. My triangles don't come out even. I have a feeling that even if I just made long rectangles, I'd manage to make mistakes.

Beads made of printer paper colored on the edge with watercolor pencils.

These stripes are addictive. I love seeing how each bead turns out. And  I'm using paper I would have thrown away. I drew on the backs of coupons I printed out and did not use. I drew on the back of a community flyer. This is politically correct time wasting, and I am using a box of toothpicks I bought many many years ago when it was only possible to buy 1000 toothpicks at a time. The box disintegrated.

In a video of a young woman making beads, we are warned to keep the strip centered on the toothpick. "If you do this," she opines, "your beads will come out perfect, every time." She obviously does not work with my handicaps.

There is a video by a tattooed young man who sneers at the thought of making beads one by one. He covers a cocktail skewer in foil, takes 6-inch wide pieces of newspaper, and begins rolling. First off, I'd like to say that his beads are obedient because they are afraid of him. In my hands, paper does not roll up obediently. It crumples, uncoils, lies flat and laughs. In the event that a sheet of paper agrees to be coiled around a skewer, it makes a flabby roll. I will make one bead at a time, thank you.

I'd far rather have a written tutorial with photos than a video. Too many videos show you the technique and babble without a script. Apparently going back and editing out pauses, repetitions and inaudible bits is considered cheating, even when the video is linked to a website that sells supplies.

Any paper can be used for beads. Glossy magazines  and catalogs don't come to my house. The ad inserts that come with the local paper are shiny and have pretty colors, but the paper is fairly flimsy. A single length produces a skimpy bead, if you use a single sheet. You can make a longer triangular strip by going across two pages for a fatter bead. I think I will make a batch of cylinder beads and then roll triangles around them-- just for sanity's sake.

Beads made from a newspaper insert.

Scrapbooking paper is conveniently sold in books of long skinny strips, so I can test lots of colors. It's thicker than printer paper and newsprint. My half-inch wide triangles produce a pleasingly plump bead.

Rolled paper beads awaiting coats of Mod Podge sealant.

Now that I have little bowls of finished beads, I will have to do something sensible with them. I could string them into necklaces, put them on eyepins to make dangles for earrings, string them on wire in a metal frame for pendants or bracelets.

Shorts /Adjusted Expectations

Planning before sewing is probably a good thing, but leaving room for adjustment is more important. I have acquired the habit of buying less fabric than the pattern calls for when I have a specific pattern in mind (I'm short and can do that), and more than is needed for generic things. For instance, 1 1/2 yards is enough for  a skirt or pair of shorts for folks up to size 14. I bought 4 yards of a pant weight that I didn't really care for, figuring I'd make a couple pairs of shorts alike. The price was right, and mucking about in the garden would ruin most fabrics.

I bought fabrics intending to use them in the next 18 months, and lo and behold, it was 18 years before I used some of them. I acquired an unhealthy fear of pants patterns. Not wanting to waste fabric, I held new patterns up against clothing that fit and could not understand how anything that shape could turn into the shape of the finished  garment. I tested 6 different sizes of similarly designed patterns up against each other and found no discernible difference in size. I concluded that none would fit.

The solution is simple, but took me years to arrive at: avoid tailored pants. I should make pajama pants, yoga pants, pants with elastic waists. When there is oodles of fabric at the sides, the crotch length is less important. I avoided this for many years. Elastic is wrapped in polyester, and I was sensitive to polyester, particularly at the waist. Again, the solution is simple: make the waist larger.

This year, I bought Simplicity 0328 more for its t-shirt than its elastic waist shorts, and traced the shorts pattern a size larger than the pattern indicated. I added to back crotch length and subtracted from the front. When I got them to the try-on point, I noticed that the bits of fabric I had left for a waistband would have to be pieced and that the irregular stripe would not match. I looked at the 2 pairs of shorts I had made from the same fabric last year, and commenced deconstructing. Tedious, and it took 3 days to get enough thread bits out of the fabric. I had the fabric I needed, it matched perfectly, and I felt vindicated.

I did not use the Simplicity waistband with its cute sash ties. Sash ties would add several thicknesses of fabric at the waist, not to be considered in the current heatwave.  I made a casing to hold the elastic, a folded ring. I put a ring of elastic inside, folded the fabric down, and sewed. Every so often I pulled on the elastic to get it past a ruffle of fabric. Then I sewed the encased elastic to the shorts. 

In this way, I avoided having to thread elastic through a tunnel, a process I find to be hard on my finger tips and fraught with opportunities for disaster. If I used bodkins, I had to make the tunnel wider than I wanted just so the bodkin would go through. Sometimes I had to unpick seams because the tip of the bodkin got hung in them. If I used safety pins, there was always the chance that the pushing would cause the pin to open. I have been stabbed by open safety pins, I have had to open the tunnels. If there was a way for threading things through casings to go wrong, I managed it. And of course I assumed that all failures were my own fault, as opposed to normal differences in metals,plastics, elastic, fabrics, and humans.

In sewing, willingness to make adjustments is the key to success. At least, for me it is.

My sewing experience is that the only thing that matters is to be sure to cut everything too big, slam the thing together, and adjust, adjust, adjust. The garment is finished when I am tired of adjusting.

Deferred Gratification

Sometimes, doing only what is reasonable and logical results in doing nothing at all. I kept myself from performing one activity, and it eventually led to not being able to initiate much of anything that was not essential to daily living. And that is just existing. 

The back walkway has always looked too narrow to me. It is more than twice as wide as the sidewalk joining it to the driveway, a sidewalk barely wide enough for a one person. The back walkway is wide enough to accommodate 2 chairs and still leave room for a person laden with bags of groceries to get by without effort. How could that be too narrow?

It niggled. It just looked wrong. It bothered. Removing good concrete to pour new went against the grain and besides I couldn't afford it. Adding a cement surround was deemed stupid, complex and unnecessary by the significant other. I'd seen all the preparation a neighbor went to to ensure a smooth walkway. Measured, dug out, watered, rolled, let sit for a year, sanded, and then poured.  Could I stand the mess? The significant other could not. After awhile, I stopped seeing it as too narrow. I was just vaguely aware that I didn't like it.  

And then one day, a day too hot to do anything unnecessary--should I mention that I was running a temperature?-- I began digging around the outer edge of the sidewalk. I would pour cement around the rocks I'd been digging out of the flower bed. A look at concrete prices at the local hardware changed my mind on that. A 10 lb. bag of concrete cost more than a 40 lb. bag had 7 years ago.

Brick paths are laid on sand over clay. I could do that. I had a pile of bricks I had removed from around a flowerbed. Why not line the outside of the walk with them? Why not please myself and stop worrying about the correct way to do things? If I don't like it, I can remove it with less effort than it takes to patch cement.

It took very little time and effort to dig a trench around the sidewalk, very little effort to place holey bricks (one reason the brick sidewalk through a flower bed didn't work) on their sides, and less effort to tamp down the clay under them so they'd lay more or less flat. The curve was a small problem, because there was a cement lip. I could lay bricks flat, but not on their side. I stole more bricks from around my flower beds. I dug and laid brick in 10 and 15-minute increments. It was a little job that took days, but has big satisfaction.  

A little brick surround pleases Smokey.

Smokey never hung around the back walkway before. To Smokey and me, the back walkway looks right. I can move on to other chores, other projects. At the end of the summer, when the brick has settled a bit, I will buy patching concrete to fill in between the walkway and the bricks. Right now, small stones will do.

You Ought To Sell That

Sooner or later everyone who has successfully sewn for herself hears, "You ought to sell that," or "I bet you could get real money for stuff like that on eBay or Etsy." I'm not persuaded that it is true. There's a special mindset needed  for selling online, and a lot of skills. You don't just get to sit home and craft. You have to be a photo stylist, photographer, and photo editor; copywriter, bookkeeper and marketing person as well. Instead of making whatever pleases you or a special item for a special person, you have to make multiples, hoping your choice will please people you don't even know. If you decide to sell at local markets and craft fairs, you have to think about displays, schlep the stuff, and be charming to people. Charming is a skill I lack.

I look at what things sell for and what people are willing to pay. I used to make teddy bears. A good bear takes the better part of 2 days to make, and takes special joints and a certain kind of plastic eyes. By the time I'd totaled the costs, I'd invested $20 in a bear that with luck, I could sell for $25. And table rent, gasoline and incidentals weren't factored in. I decided that bear making was not for me, because I couldn't imagine a customer who would be willing to spent $75 on a 14-inch bear. After the first bear, it wasn't a lot of fun, anyway.

Online prices for doll clothing can be depressing.  I refined a pattern for years before I could reliably turn out successful doll dresses from it. Similar dresses are sold for $8, and I'm not willing to sell mine for that.  A person with a long track record gets $20 for hers. The fit is visibly better on the $20 sheath dress, and it looks pretty much like the ones I make. $20 is a fair price for a tiny dress that can take 90 minutes to make, and that does not include the intangibles such as the time and experience it took, finding the right fabric for the scale of the doll, or presenting it for sale online. Considering the cost of materials and the time it would take me to make something similar, I'd be earning a negative wage if I started at the bottom. 

I tend to research things to death. I helped out at several craft fairs and learned that a good display sells mediocre merchandise, a low price deters buyers, and a strong back is essential. A combination dog wash and spring festival is not a good venue to sell jewelry unless your jewelry is dog-oriented. Selling felt masks and Halloween themed jewelry at a gourd festival just before Halloween flopped. A felt mask that took 3 hours to make was too costly at $18, because people came to the fair looking for bargain pumpkins. Elaborately painted and carved gourds were admired but not purchased.

Manning a booth at a craft fair demands a strong back. Sometimes there are wheeled carts and onsite helpers. More often, you schlep things yourself. A low rate for space rental is offset by your needing to provide table, tent or umbrella, and more. If you are serious, you will buy or concoct display racks and stands. You'll devise displays that lift from their storage containers to the tabletop without needing to be put together. 

Feedback from lookers and potential customers is stimulating. I found that necklaces I made for myself because I loved them were appreciated. After years of being told that my taste was too sophisticated and that no one would buy my stuff, I found positive feedback delicious.

P H D -- Piled Higher and Deeper

When I called Bulk Waste Pickup the instructions were precise: If you intend to put out more, call us and say so or it won't be picked up.

 

The person on the other end of the phone line wanted to know the types of items, sizes, metal or wood.  How much metal, how much wood. How much does it weigh? Is it painted?

I had a stack of old  window screens. I hadn't counted them, and wouldn't until I had to move them. I told Bulk Waste I had 10.There was a pause, as if I should have included measurements. I was clearing my garage, but Bulk Waste made me think that I needed permission to get rid of things, and I only put out the screens.

Several weeks after I called to get my name on the list, I carried screens to the curb and stacked them neatly. There were 14, not 10. Would they leave 4 on the ground? I put them out mid afternoon, when I had time and energy, not at 9 PM as instructed. I am not fool enough to tote unwieldy screens down 120 feet of driveway in the dark.

Does each piece of garbage needed a pedigree? Should I list the number of screens with plastic mesh as opposed to those with metal mesh, and the total square inches of each? Did I have a linear foot count of the wood? Did I need to count the metal screen hangers and screw hooks and eyes as well?

Six weeks in advance, I don't even know precisely what I OWN. I'm sorting. I will keep things, give things to friends, donate what I can.

Dealing with Bulk Waste Pickup, I began to have sympathy for folks who move away and leave towers of garbage on their tree lawns. They HAD to, because Bulk Waste Pickup wanted to know what would be put out long before the people knew what they would be keeping. 

Deciding what to keep and what to jettison is the easy part. Old TVs, clothing  and computers go to Goodwill, building materials go to ReStore. Books go to the Planned Parenthood book sale. Fabric in lengths of a yard or more goes to one church. Smaller bits go to an organization that makes quilts. Plastic takeaway containers go in the recycle bin only if they have the right codes on the bottoms, and the list of the right codes has changed several times in 15 years.  Once upon a time I knew that Bulk Pickup would haul away anything that was left after I had found new homes for  as much as I could.

 At 7 PM  I passed an occasional house with vast piles of assorted non-food rubbish. How had they answered Bulk Waste? In the past I've seen these piles and been certain that Bulk Waste would deal with it. Now, I'm not at all sure. 

Street Legal

So much of my life is like walking uphill. I drove to a store I'll call Kroger Universe, to differentiate it from a regular Kroger store. Kroger stores helped put Mom & Pop bookstores, toy stores and drug stores out of business by including entire aisles of nonfood items. Kroger Universe would like us to buy dishes, pots and pans, furniture and oodles of toys. Plants and gasoline too. They'd like us to live there. There are tables and free newspapers next to the deli counter. The magazine rack is next to a Starbucks kiosk. The aisles  are wide enough that even a woman with 4 children can't block one entirely. It is well lit. There's no feeling of impending crushing by towering shelves.