Stitchmarkers

Spent an hour the other night making stitchmarkers with beads and cord.

They are very simple to make:

Carefully melt the end of the cord with a lighter, quickly form the end of the cord to a tapered end with wet fingers.
Place all the beads for one stitch marker on the cord:  ----oOooOo--------------

Make a knot on one end:  ----oOooOo----------&  
melt the end of the cord after the knot to a small ball of nylon.

Cut  the cord to the lenght you want, remember that the middle knot and the end knot will "eat" some of the cord length.

Make a knot on the other end:   &-------oOooOo----------&
melt the end like you did with the first knot.

Now divide the beads to two sides:   &oOo--------------------oOo&

Fold the cord in half and make a knot for the loop:

Making a design wall

I have finally gotten my design wall up.

It is made to fit one of the walls in my sewing room completely lengthwise and from the roof to 8" above my work table.  It basically covers the whole wall, which is great!

My husband made the framework and I covered it with 2 layers of fleece (cheap fleece from IKEA) and then a beautifully taupe colored thicker fleece totaling 3 layers which makes pinning easy and gives you a luxurious feel.

I am sure you can figure out how to do it from the pictures:

Back of design wall showing framework

Framework

Framework

Tacking on the basic fleece, first on the sides..

Then on the back

in two layers

Front of design wall with basic fleece

Third layer of fleece is tacked on the same way as the other layers

Finished design wall

The design wall is fastened to the wall with the same kind of brackets as we used to make the frame.  It could also be screwed to the wall right through the framework.

How to move books

I love books, and I have plenty of them, approximately 1000 lbs.  Moving them is tricky, you don't want big heavy boxes that have to be picked up from the floor, this will break you back.  My books are organized by author, so I really don't want them all mixed up.  I want them in order and easy to move.

I've found that the easiest way to move books is in grocery bags with handles.  The bags can be labled with numbers to keep them in order and they are easy to pick up and carry, you just have to bend your knees a little and go.

Ok, I had 30 bags to move, but it worked very well.  No broken backs, and all in order.

Mug rug tutorial

I've been making crazy quilt mug rugs out of scraps. Start by putting some Joni Mitchell on the CD, I cannot guarantee a good result without her..  ;-)

Let's see what's in the scraps today...

Start sewing pieces together with a quarter inch seam allowance. Don't put too much thought into it, just find scraps and sew.

Sometimes the scraps are too big, I sew them on first and adjust the size later, I find it easier to see the design that way.

This mug rug is going to be small, just 4 x 6 inches, just enough for a mug and a cracker.  When you feel happy with the design and size of your top, cut it to size.

Now cut a piece of backing and a piece of batting half an inch larger than your top.  (I didn't do this... but do as I say not as I do...)  My batting is an old wool blanket, leftover from a quilt, and my backing an antique sheet-scrap.

Sandwich them and pin.

Then quilt.  I chose to quilt in the ditch, sewing just next to the seam on the side that doesn't have the seam allowance under it, if I had used a better color thread this would have made the quilt seams almost invisible.

Now cut to size and bind.  There are easier/faster ways to bind a mug rug, but I do it the same way as my full size quilts.  See the binding tutorial.

Good luck!
Comments are appreciated.