It would appear that
the “knave of hearts has stolen some Tarts” …..
though our numbers
have dwindled to a regular core of about five, we still manage to have a lovely
evening, sharing proposed new projects, giving tips on the thriftiest means to
achieve said projects, showing an extensive “show and tell” (pretty good from
only six of us present actually), pawing over each other’s books, magazine’s
and recent additions to fabric stashes.
Talking about new tools and products, the pros and cons of this thread
versus that; we are loving Superior Threads needles and Pilot’s FRIXION pens, a
gel pen that disappears when you iron it (must mention they don’t like being
left in a hot car), and there were some keen minds ready to investigate the use
of Prisma pencils to “shade” fabrics using Esther’s technique.
This particular
evening’s conversation ranged from the controversial copyright issue recently
settled in the US
to how to get “smells” out of books and how to dry books that get wet.
For those wishing to
know, Evi our resident librarian suggests popping smelly books in a paper bag
and then putting the paper bag along with some kitty litter into a cardboard
box for about a week; as for wet books, put them in the freezer (I imagine the
frost free type would be best), when the water has crystallized you can fan the
pages and the ice crystals mostly blow out, then you leave the book open to air
further. Now I don’t suppose this is for
“flooded” books but might do the trick when you (or one of your children)
manages to knock over a glass of water on a book.
We even managed to
move on to stainless steel soap to get rid of garlic and onion smells from your
hands when cooking – Carole suggested that while she loves her stainless steel
soap the same effect can be achieved by rubbing your hands on your stainless
steel sink.
Hot buy at AQC was a
light SET from Trevor The Scissorman now also The Daylight Man – Evi bought a
bundle of floor lamp, flip up table lamp and clip-on LED on a flex arm all for
$128, apparently last year the price was more and you got less – well done Evi.
We liked Julie
Haddrick’s Kokeshi Playtime with full scale appliqué patterns which Emma bought
for 12 year old Sarah to undertake (as she is obsessed with all things kokeshi
and cherry blossom), we didn’t like the blocks being listed in metric though
(haven’t we become creatures of habit?!).
Best book of the
evening was Yoyo Bags by Takako Watari – thanks for bringing it along Carole
and Evi for investigating its availability.
Here’s a little of
what you might expect to see in it:
As for the photos –
not Kate’s usual very professional standard but Emma’s little snappy point and
shoot; now I did say that there was substantial show and tell, but of course I
didn’t photograph it all! A great deal
of the show and tell was of planned projects and purchases from AQC, Esther’s
show and tell was from her latest BOM which you can look at here:
Kate has finally assembled her Anna Bella - a Janet Sansom machine embroidery patterh bought as a kit from Somerset Patchwork. She had done all the machine embroidery, but piecing the Lemoyne Stars was a lion in the path until Bronwyn Van't Hof showed her the way. Thanks Bronwyn.
Jennifer's Oriental 2, which is spectacularly effective. We all admired the Sashiko panels.
Emma very modestly did not include her Easter quilt which was delightfully quirky.
I hope you do not have to wait so long for the next post, but Arrivederci for now!
