Selecting the Right Cloth or Paper for Your Craft Project

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by Owen Jones

Up until fifty years ago, the vast majority of women knew how to sew. All the women that I knew as a child sewed and knitted and manufactured some of the clothes for me and my four brothers. When I was eight or nine, I and each other child in my class was taught the fundamentals of knitting and before I went off to college, my mother taught me how to take up my jeans, sew on patches and repair my clothes.

Unfortunately, sewing, knitting and repairing clothes has largely died out in the United Kingdom. I now live in Thailand and I do not see much evidence of sewing or knitting here, so I assume that these arts are dying out all over the world among the masses, although I am certain that there are individuals everywhere who still knit and sew.

It is a real shame. If you are going to make your own clothes or furnishings like cushions, pillows or soft toys, it is pretty essential that you select the right fabric for the job. Using the wrong cloth will make your task more difficult and might even render your work worthless. So here are a few suggestions on choosing the correct cloth for the task in hand.

The first and most obvious thing to do is read the recommendations on the pattern you are using and if you are a novice take that advice until you know what you are doing. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not read the instructions anymore. I can not remember the number of times I have seen someone struggling to assemble something and found the instructions in the bin with the packaging.

Get to know textiles by examining the fabrics in the shop. Ask questions about textiles and look at the fabric on the bolt or roll. If the fabric does not look right on the bolt it probably will not look correct anywhere else either. When you unroll a couple of feet of the bolt, does it lie flat or does it roll up or crumple? Grab a handful and squeeze it. Does it crease easily? Does it feel right?

Is the fabric fraying on the bolt? If so it will fray while you use it too. Look on the bolt for special cleaning or handling directions. Do they suit your needs?

It is quite a problem to work with satin because it slips easily. T-shirt knit is also a problem because it rolls up on itself. It is almost certainly best to avoid these materials until you gain some experience

Cotton is the best fabric for beginners because it is easy to work with and everyone is very familiar with cotton goods. We know how they should feel and we can tell good, thick heavy cotton from cheap, thin cotton. We also all know that cotton shrinks. Therefore before you cut your cloth, wash it and cut the shrunken cotton fabric. In effect, you have pre-shrunk it.


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Ideas for Baby Showers and Invitation Freebie

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Ideas For Baby Showers

by Owen Jones

Baby showers are well-liked events, especially in America. A baby shower is usually given or hosted by a friend of the expectant mother, mostly before the birth but sometimes after it too. The point of the baby shower is to collect presents for the child and its parents, which is why family of the mother find it awkward to organize the baby shower themselves - it looks too much like begging.

If you can get a friend to arrange a baby shower for you or if someone offers to do it, the invitations should be sent out a month or two before the birth day, so that the mother is not in too much uneasiness and is not likely to drop the baby during the party.

It is nice to have handmade baby shower invitations. There are two ways that you can do this: either design the invitation card yourself and have it printed out or choose a template at the printers. Both approaches give acceptable results.

If you have the invitations printed to a standard size, you can purchase cheap envelopes at a budget stationery office, but if you go for some weird size, ask the printer to provide the envelopes too.

Usual details like the date, the time, the venue, your name and the baby's name can all be printed but you will have to write or type the recipient's name in personally. Add your phone number as well so that recipients can ask questions if they have any. If you would like the party (and the presents) to have a theme, you should say that on the invitation. Perhaps the card could be in the same theme as well.

In fact, if you want to go down that route, you could download a suitable image off the Internet, say, a scene from Peter Rabbit, and give that to the printer so that they can print that onto your card.

People are very busy these days, so make sure you give your friends at least a month to book you in and get a fitting present for the shower. If you would like to be fairly sure how many people are coming, enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard in with the invitation, so that they can let you know easily.

If you are looking for items to do during the party, you could get the guests to suggest names for your baby and guess the sex or weight of it too. You could use a cross on a chain as a pendant to see if it the movement predicts a boy or girl and how many individuals get the same movement. You could also discuss themes for the child's bedroom after it is born, one for if it is a boy and one for if it is a boy.




About the Author:


Owen Jones

Email: owen@amiabledragon.com

Keywords: baby shower,bedding,knitting,beds,birthday,party,gifts,handicrafts,recreation,hobbies,family,tradition,parenting,other,uncategorized

Word Count: 470

Category: Crafts

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