I sew out of necessity, don't know if I like it though... sometimes you just can't find what you want, so you've got to make it.

I've enjoyed crocheting, knitting, sewing etc. For a long time, I hadn't been doing anything, but over the last few months, I've started sewing again. I made two pairs of drapes for my living room, and just this weekend, I finished making a coat (I've had that fabric for YEARS, and I finally got to the project!) I think the next thing will be knitting - my granddaughter wants a sweater.

Cheryl, I know what you mean about sewing because you can't find anything in the stores that is 'right'!

I love sewing; I love fabrics, the colors, the possibility for creating something really interesting and unavailable in stores. I have been making my own shirts for three or four years now; they are in all different kinds of fabrics and each one is unique. Some are made from fabric intended for quilters, some I find in the kid's section of the fabric store. Some of the new hand painted batik prints are really gorgeous; I've made quite a few from those. It's kind of like "wearable art." And this way, I get clothing that is different and original, it fits right and it satisfies the artist in me. It's also kind of fun to have friends who shop for their clothing at stores I can't afford begging me to make them one!

i finally expanded my sewing from repairs over the years to actually making things last year of those hard to find items such as leather fringe vests and India rug handbags which many of you have seen and few have bought over the summer of '07.
i believe KJ may have a picture or two of me sporting such items when she was up gracing us w/ her precence.
had to put sewing on hold recently for a couple of months due to another back surgery on the 16th Jan 08. can't wait to start up again, it is kind of fun to do and keeps one busy.

Thanks to my being forced, in eigth grade, to take sewing and cooking (because I was a girl) instead of shop, the only thing I've sewn since 1968 is horseblankets!

Yah, enforeced sewing class got me off the needle crafts, as well. I grudgingly made a skirt, but I wanted to take shop. So after high school, I taught myself VW repair, with the help of the original Idiot book. I don't even sew buttons back on.

Yep mine was a skirt too Shel, and I made it out of RED corduroy to make a statement about being forced to do it! And I never wore it!

Crochet...wasn't that that guy in Miami Vice?

Yeah, Crockett & Tubbs. That's a good show. It still comes on the Sleuth channel. I had to take home ec top. Early 70's I guess. The dress I made wasn't so swift looking lol. I got my aunt to help make me a tye dye pants suit. I had no idea how to do it so she made most of it with me watching lol. I wish I had her sewing talents...

I got in trouble in Home Ec all the time. By the time I took my first Home Ec class, I already could sew better than the teacher so she hated me. Instead of standing still to have my skirt hem pinned I'd end up dancing (Specifically to Joy the world/Jerimiah was a bullfrog - who knew). Id get yelled at for "racing" the sewing maching engine...LOL And after I finished my project, Id sneak and do my friends, who weren't textile friendly. My friend Scotti's dad - of whom I had a huge crush - worked in the textile industry in NYC and used to bring me bolts of fabulous fabrics. (Scotti was one of the Textile impaired so I got it all)

HOWEVER, the other half of the year was "cooking". I remember dropping any entire container of jimmies/sprinkles what ever you call them in your neck of the woods...and screaming to invoke fear that the floor was infested with ants. (I was very convincing and cleared 1/2 the room). Mrs. Bell - picture her - she actually wore glasses with the idiot string that keeps them around her neck when she didnt have them on... would try despirately to teach me how to crack an egg...(Michele finally taught me and Scotti at a PJ party in the middle of the night). And other fine details of culinary expertise. My hugest blunder was these Molasses cookies that was supposed to produce about 2 dozen. My problem with cooking is boredom. If it took 24 scoops to make the batch of cookies - how much faster it would go if it was only 6. So I lumped up 6 piles of soupy mud colored dough on the tray. Popped them into the oven and went off to read or dance or practice my tennis swing. Oddly, my cookies werent done when the rest of the other girls cookies were....the went on for quite a while long. Some how they developed these bubbles here and there, that when they finally came out of the oven, would pop and sink like pock marks into the cookies. I brought them home - proudly and triumphantly - and offered them to my brother...who gave them the name "Moon Crater Cookies". Although they looked pretty awful, they were eaten - of course everything in my house was eaten.

I can't say I ever wanted to take a shop course, cars looked dirty and I was sick of the guys fawning over the duel exhaust and hurst shifters... and wood working looked dangerous and I didnt like the looks of the machines. (Afraid my hair would get stuck in them) But when I sketched a design of my "dream house" when I was 18 it was a double A Frame with an enclosed walkway across the second floors - a pool between the two buildings and flower boxes in every window - but it had no kitchen in it.

You were very wise at 18... no kitchen in your house!!!

I was one of the artsy people in high school and college...home ec was similar to RegFaith's experience...easy, because I was already a better and more adventurous cook than the teacher, and she would continually have to talk to me because I wouldn't follow her recipes...I'd add a little more cinnamon and ginger to the cookies, a little more garlic, basil and oregano and parmasan to the spaghetti sauce because I always knew a better way to make it...so instead of a bland, insipid result, mine was terrific. It pissed off the teacher. I didn't care! I still see recipes as just a guide...not a rule...unless it's for baking.
When I was an art major in college, they were also offering classes in industrial arts...so I took Industrial Ceramics along with my studio ceramics class. So, instead of hand building a project. we poured clay slip into plaster molds, used drill-press like equipment to carve out clay pot saucers and learned a lot about how things are made in mass quantities. It was really interesting! I was also the only female in the class, (1972) and the professor was suspicious and cranky, and didn't appreciate my presence in what had previously been an exclusively male class...I was the first female to upset that apple cart.
The art department at Ball State had a full carpenter shop...drill presses, table saws, jig saws, etc. and assistants to help you with your project involving wood or plexiglass. The assistants were all missing a couple of fingers. I think they were there to make sure we didn't lose any of ours on the table saws. I appreciate the instruction I got in handling the equipment there...it's a good thing, to know how to use large electrical tools.
I also helped build and design scenery and props in the theater department there...I got pretty good at carving props out of styrofoam with a band saw and a sabre saw...anything that we couldn't make from styrofoam, we built out of wire and masking tape, which spray paints pretty well. The most interesting thing I had to make for a prop was a lobster...since it only had to look good from 50 feet away, it was pretty convincing. I also got to do a lot of makeup for plays...I remember turning a 22 year old hunk of a guy into an old, old man with toilet paper and Karo syrup, then covered with greasepaint and powdered to make the mess set, and texturing the "skin" with orange peel. It was probably pure torture to wear for an evening...he said it was very itchy, and he tended to draw flies. It was fun..it was painting and creating on people instead of on canvas, paper or fibers.

So, together we can be Suzy Homemaker. I'll cook, you sew! Life is good.

I actually liked both sewing and cooking in Home Ec. The teacher was kind of a joke, though. She wore skirts made out of granny squares (this was the 60's, but even so, they did not look groovy on her, but rather laughable), and....she....spoke....like....this.....

Hey Sue - Very interesting!! I did a bit of set design and enjoyed it very much. I know this comes as a shock to everyone - being the shy thing that I am - but I was in a few plays too, and absolutely loved it. I always thought that was what I would be "when I grew up". As a matter of fact Im sure of it - when ever that will be.

I forgot to mention that in my very early 20's - my (then) husband and I would redo cars for extra money. We'd buy a junk for next to nothing, He was really good at auto mechanics, I'd redo the upholstry and both of us did the the body work. I loved working with "Bondo" & red led. I could use an electric sander without chopping into the repair - and I learned how to shoot the paint without the orange peel.

I think the Bondo passion was because I was thrown out of kindergarten* and never got to play with finger paints. - to this day finger painting still facinates me but I still can't tie my shoes very well.

*The school asked my mother to remove me from Kdrgtn on my second day because I was branded "incoragable", (not me???blink blink) But the following Sept. we had moved to a different parish and I was too old for their kindergarten. Mixed with the fact that I could print, write script and do multiplicatoin and long division, due to my mothers "home schooling" (of course she didnt know that's what she was doing back then - to her it was just paying attention to her kid) I was put directly into the 1st grade.

Anyway - there are several VW bugs, a VW hatchback, a 66 Chevy Nova and a chocolate brown 62 Ford Falcon station wagon out there with my body work on them.

Wyld et al...Another little insite - The double AA frame with the walk way was so that I always had room for friends to stay over - while giving us both accessibility to eachother and our own space - that was me at 18 - sound familiar???

Judy - Why does it not surprise me that you liked Home Ec? LOL You are too cute! I love ya.

Ceashell - Sometime remind me to tell you about Mona Labowski - the imaginary perfect housewife. She worried about waxy build up.