All posts filed under: Crafty stuff

Friday Review: Village Books & Crafts, Palmerston North

I’ve been meaning to write this review for ages, and ages, and just haven’t gotten around to it. Village Books and Crafts 318 College Street Palmerston North Ph:06-355-5735 Email: Village Books and Crafts What it is: Village Books and Crafts is a small, friendly locally owned store, teaching centre, and mail order company. It stocks everything you could ever want for quilting, fibre, and surface design. And Dianne Southey, the proprietor, knows everything you could want to know about quilting, fibre art, and surface design. The Good: So much delicious quilting and crafting pogey bait! Silk ribbons! Lace (on sale as the store was clearing out its stash, so I picked up a bunch), embroidery floss, buttons (one of the largest selection of novelty buttons in New Zealand), thread, fabric, jewellery fixings…the list goes on and on. There is even oodles of stuff that I have no idea what to do with – fancy interfacings and fabric dyes, doll bits, and acorns (I still don’t know what those are for). Fear not though, the shop …

Murphy’s law of sewing

Published by The Dreamstress

If you sew a coat, the weather will be unseasonably warm. If you sew a summer top, the weather will be unseasonably cold. If you sew a full skirt, a crazy windstorm will arise. All sewing of silk or pretty summer clothes will result in rain. So, in the terribly changeable Wellington spring weather, what’s a seamstress to make?

Sewing in Hawaii

Published by The Dreamstress

You know you have the right job when you do it while you are on vacation. I did a lot of sewing in Hawaii. First, I made the Uncooperative Skirt cooperate. I added pictures of my mom in it to the post. She looks really cute! Second, I mended a huge pile of stuff that my parents set aside for me. They know me well! Then I went to a friends house and did a quick ‘rescue the over-cleaned chairs/add some pizazz job’. I got to work with beautiful South American textiles. I also worked on a quilt. I do it every time I’m home – turn my fabric scrap boxes into quilts, with old blankets as the batting. I don’t finish one every time, but it doesn’t matter – I can always do the last bits next time. This time I got everything but the edge bindings done on my quilt. I like the quilts I make for the farm in Hawaii. They are real quilts, made of leftover bits and fashioned out of …