fiber art how-to reading

Book Review: The Dressmaker’s Companion by Elizabeth Haywood

Since receiving “The Dressmaker’s Companion: A Practical Guide to Sewing Clothes” by Elizabeth “Liz” Haywood for Christmas, I’ve wanted to write a review of it. I haven’t gotten around to it until now because every time I dive into this treasure to figure out what to write, I get lost in all the fabulous information presented. When I first opened the book, which is a hefty 449 pages, I landed on the section discussing the…

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family ideas product packaging products reading

Clever Marketing of Banned Books

Hubby and I had occasion to visit San Diego last week. While there, we visited a shop called the Sea Hive. It was a combination of a maker’s market and antiques store, with the floor divided up among numerous sellers. One seller, whose area had a sign that said “Gentleman John,” was selling old books. Laying on a round table in Gentleman John’s space were numerous books wrapped in blue wrapping paper. By the blue…

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art challenge fiber art observations

A Little Color-Matching Test

When I was earning my BFA degree for visual arts, one of the required classes was on color theory. It makes sense seeing as how so much of art depends on how colors interact with each other. During the class, the professor, Merle Sykora, who also happened to be my weaving professor, gave us an interesting color challenge. He provided each of us with 2 index cards. We were to combine two colors of gouache…

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fiber art projects

Pockets So Big They Should Be Called Saddlebags

A project I was busy with over the past few weeks was sewing a dress from a pattern I got years ago. I had some green cotton fabric with white polka dots in the amount I needed, so I set to work. (I love me some polka dots! (●’◡’●) ) While the pattern claims that “It’s Sew Simple,” it was a bit more challenging than the typical pants pattern I’ve made countless times before. I…

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design family home projects

Bringing Sunshine Into the Kitchen

The year is off to a rollicking start. I wrote one post at the beginning of January and here we are already, staring at the end of the month. I sense this year is going to fly by. I’ve had numerous ideas for blog posts, but no time to write them, so I’m going to see if I can write a couple of them today. First up, another home improvement project Hubby and I completed…

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