Saturday, November 17, 2012

Cutting Knit Fabric

I have sewed many dresses for my girls. For some reason or another they never get worn. It wasn't until I started working with knit fabric that they started to pick clothes I've made to wear everyday. One dress in particular I had to make twice because I couldn't coax Tea out of it. There was a bit of a learning curve though. Trying to cut knits was near impossible for me until I figured this trick out. Ditch the scissors. But using a cutting mat and a rotary cutter I don't accidentally stretch the fabric while I'm cutting. Using pattern weights to keep the pattern pieces in place help, but I use whatever I have on hand. Usually my cell phone and a Quilter's ruler will keep my pieces in place. I definitely recommend trying this trick. It's well worth it.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Hurricane Sandy

Last year I had to evacuate my home. Irene came through and flooded our basement with over 5 ft of water. We lost a lot in the flood last year. Mostly things that were replaceable but a few things that were not.
Flooding7

This past Sunday, with the threat of another Hurricane looming, I pack up the girls and headed north, to Canada.
Monday was spent in my pajamas watching the news unfold online. It was very emotional to be stuck, helpless, watching the area I have come to call home get devastated.
My father in law is in an area that isn't expected to get their power restored for another 2 weeks. We don't know how long it will be before we see power at our house either. Our neighbor has let us run an extension cord to our fridge from his generator.
As sad as I am that we can't return home for a while yet, my heart goes out to the people who lost everything. 
It wasn't until I experienced it that I realized just how awful the experience of flooding is. Where a fire is the heart attack of homes, a flood is like a slow cancer that you see coming but are helpless to do anything to stop.
I have been trying to simplify our home. I'm going to take this opportunity to purge and donate.