5 stocking stuffers to give to your sewing hobbist

If you are not a person that sews and you are looking for Christmas gift ideas for a person that does sew then take a look at my list below on 5 stocking stuffers for the person that sews.

• A good quality rotary cutter. That little item would be welcomed by anybody that enjoys quilting.
• A nice pair of ergonomically correct scissors. There is nothing worse than a cheap pair of scissors that make your hands ache after only using them for 15 minutes.
• A portable light. Those sewing machine lights are not that strong and a good light that can be moved around to spotlight their sewing work would greatly be appreciated.
• Spray tacky glue. Used to tack on pieces of cloth to a backing without using pins, great for applique work. That item is usually found in the hardware section. Make sure it is for cloth only.
• A book of sewing ideas. There are just times when the inspiration does not come and we need a boost. Make sure the book is at least under one year old from the original publishing date. There is nothing worse than getting a book that is outdated fashion wise.

Now you have some ideas just take a walk down the craft aisle and see what you can come up with. If you know what type of sewing the person you are buying the gift for does, you will have a better idea of what they would like to have.

What's hot this Chrstmas season - doggy outfits

From the current looks of things that are selling it is the doggy outfits. Petco is reporting record sales in that department. If you are inventive you can do custom made outfits for dogs. They can be costume types or weather related to keep the dog comfortable. What Petco lacks is the ability to have every size for every dog in stock. Go to a local Petco and see what they are carrying and make the sizes they are having a shortage of. Sell them on eBay. If you have a quick enough turn around on making them then you will probably make a good profit this season.

Free holiday decor pattern

How about this item to dress up your table this winter? This is an elegant table runner. For the detailed instructions with lots how-to photos go to the link below.
Elegant table runner pattern

A handy casserole carrier for you to make

Here is an handy item that will come in useful around potlucks and parties this time of year. It is a casserole carrier. The link below has the free pattern and plenty of how-to photos. Custom design one for yourself or as gifts or to sell at those craft fairs.
Free round casserole pattern

Web hosting pitfalls

One of the biggest headaches you will have in finding a suitable host for your blog or website is "down time". Down time is what as referred to when your website is not available to visitors. One of the web hosting companies that I use has been having problems lately with their servers. The more time that they are down the less visitors I will have to come and shop. This is one of the major items you should look into when you are shopping for web hosting. Always look to see if the hosting company boasts about "up time". You should also Google the company's name to see if they have any bad reviews about them.

Researching for the right company to host your website is very important. If you have a brick and mortar store you know how much importance you put into finding the right location and landlord - web hosting is no different. Questions you should be asking of a hosting company are:

• If the hosting company does not own their own servers who does?
• Do they offer SSL?
• How secure are their servers? meaning of course can they be easily hacked.
• If I buy my domain name from you can I take it with me if I decide to leave?
• Do you have a real live person I can talk to if I need to?

What is selling at the craft fairs?

At my second craft fair this pre-holiday selling season I can tell you that buyers are being picky. They are not buying items you can find at Walmart or the Dollar Store. Take for example 2 women that were knitting and crocheting at the last craft fair and had a stack to scarfs they had made. Those scarfs were not selling. The price they were asking for them was only $3.00 each. The bottom line is that the Dollar Store is selling knitted scarfs fr only a dollar.

The more unusual items were selling. Handmade, stuffed, cartoon turkey sets were selling. T-shirts with sayings about the economy were selling. Buttons with funny saying on them were selling.

Uniqueness is selling this year.

Would you wear a blanket?

With the Christmas buying season almost in full swing and much too early this year, I am getting emails for some interesting stuff that people want to sell me. Most of the items are for electronics but once an awhile I get an item that piques my curiosity. This time it was the Snuggie, a blanket you wear. Just click on the link to see the item and a video of how you wear the thing. Of course sending it to me those people don't realize that I might make one of my own and check it out for usability.

Off hand I don't like the idea because the thing is open in the back so using outdoors like they promote might be awkward. I would also stay away from any fire or flames if I had the thing on and that includes a gas stove.

We have several "throws" in the living room to use when watching TV. Of course I made them from a plush fleece material that was on sale for $3.00 a yard and each one used about 2 yards. I have also made a "wrap" by just putting a long slit in the material to make one solid back and 2 pieces that drape down the front of you like in the picture below.


Here is a simple pattern for making a shawl/wrap from 2 yards of fleece material:

• buy 2 yards of fleece material (54" wide or wider)
• trim the edges of the fleece with a rotary cutter or scissors to remove any manufacturers markings or names and to leave a nice flat edge.
• if you wish you can round off the square corners
• use the layout guide below and cut out a round area in the middle of the fabric and one long slit. Cut the slit on the length of the fabric not the width.

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Since fleece fabric doesn't unravel you don't have to sew anything. So there you have a quick wrap/shawl.

The value of a back up sewing machine

I have come to realize the value of a back up sewing machine when I have a deadline to make something. Thank goodness I have a regular old fashion sewing machine that does have some simple fancy stitching functions.

I had to drop off my main workhorse (a Babylock) machine today for a much needed tune-up. When I got there they told me that it would be ready in a WEEK! I have several items that need to be done by the weekend (pulling out my hair at the thought!!!). I was hoping to get the Babylock back in 48 hours or less.

Now I get to drag out my older Brother sewing machine for a workout.

The sewing machine blues

You know the old saying "when it rains - it pours". Well it poured on my yesterday. I am designing and making several embroidered fleece blankets for a local craft fair. The items were being donated to raise money for a local school. Yesterday evening I finally came up with a really nice idea for one of the blankets. I wanted to have blue snowflakes embroidered on fleece then appliqued to the blanket to hide the back side of the embroidery.

I had my snowflake design on my new laptop with the Vista system. My Babylock Esante was not upgraded for the Vista system so I spent at least 1 hour getting the upgrades and downloading them into the Esante using my old XP computer.

Now I was ready to put the snowflake design into the embroidery machine. Everything went well and I sewed one snowflake and it was awful. The tension was extremely tight on the top side and so I thought I would try it again with a looser tension - no difference until the needle jammed and I has a birds nest under the fabric. I turned the machine off and on and this time I tried a different pattern. The birds nest happened almost immediately this time. This was about 3 hours of frustration and I then decided that the machine needs to go in for routine maintenance anyway so I would have them look at the birds nest thing at the same time.

I was wondering if the software upgrade could have done anything to the machinces' performance. I tried to do a brief search on the internet for any discussions on that matter but I could not find anything. Later today the Babylock gets to make the trip to the sewing machine store for maintence. The blankets will have to wait.

Easy to hand sew bookmark

Here is a link to a quick hand sewed bookmark. Just something to make while keeping everyone else company while they watch TV.

Bookmark

The page has great how to photos.

Items that are selling at the craft fairs this year

I was at several craft fairs this past weekend both as a seller and as a customer. First off I can tell you that sales are down but only for cheap novelty items that are quickly made. Potholders that are mostly for show were not selling. Jewelry was selling as long as it was not handmade. Buyers are older and pickier this year. Quilts were selling, t-shirts for kids were not. The older retired crowd had more money to spend so I will be adjusting my sewn items to reflect more decorated blankets and warm items for the elderly. I did not notice any seller offering any custom made items this year as in years past. Also the number of sellers was down so the offerings of each craft fair was almost half of what it was last year. The prices of having a table at the craft fairs was also down from last year. Some of them only charged $5.00 compared to last year of $20.00

One way to get a new sewing machine

When I was growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area my parents didn't believe in credit cards. My mother didn't drive and we walked to the grocery store all the time. Those were the days before the first big shopping malls existed. On the way to the grocery store we would pass several childrens and womens clothing stores. These were small boutiques because the big name clothing stores were not around yet - no shopping malls remember. My mother would have a very small budget but she always managed to have good quality clothes on our backs. She did all of this with the fine art of lay-away. It was very common for each store to have it's own lay-away policy and often it was the only way for many families to afford the necessary items other than food and shelter.

It was a shame when most stores abandoned the lay-away concept in favor of credit cards. With lay-away there was no finance charge or credit checks. The only store that I know of that kept the lay-away plan is Kmart. With the Kmart Lay-Away plan you can lay-away almost any of Kmart's merchandise except perishables and flammable items. There are only 2 other items you can't put on lay-away at Kmart and they are cell phones and computers.

For people on a budget Kmart has several different brands of sewing machines. Since they are the part of the Sears family they have Singer, Kenmore and others.


With the lay-away plan it might look more affordable to those on a tighter budget since financing credit cards is so expensive.

A wealth of how-to videos online

The internet has more information than the local college when it comes to teaching people how-to make something. Below is a really good video on how why you should start your own custom embroidery business. I have a Babylock embroidery machine that I use and I love it. I don't do the custom order personalization type of embroidery. The embroidery I do is more of enhancing the articles I make.

A new how-to video

Pictured above is a new twist on a baby's security blanket. To make it special there is a company that shows you how to personalize it. Here is the link to the how-to video, click here

The same company also has many other baby items listed here. Lots of great ideas if you make baby items.