CRAFT: along 2009

Finny and Donk of the 2007 'In Stitches' Stitch-along and the 2008 'Simple Gifts to Stitch' Stitch-along have created a new ~along for 2009. This year they are sponsoring an ~along based on the CRAFT magazine blog. Although the magazine is now defunct, the editors have promised to keep their blog going and Finny and Donk have decided that for each month in 2009 they will choose two projects from the previous month's blog to be completed. Each month there will be one sewing project and one 'other' project to be completed.

I have not participated earlier this year but this month's sewing project really spoke to me. The project was to create 'crooked coasters'. Essentially you create some simple coasters and quilt them crookedly. Hers is what I came up with:

Let me explain a little about my choices.

I need coasters for around my desk and sewing machine as I can make a mess with my beverages. In addition I have a dog that likes to drink anything I drink who is even messier than I am so you can see why coasters are needed around here.

If I make coasters they need to be able to disguise any stains that come from being messy thus the fabric choices.

Stitching crooked seemed like a no brainer. When I am trying to precisely stitch quarter inch seams for quilts it can sometimes take a couple of tries to get the seam correctly sewn thus the attraction of crooked coasters.

I did find that stitching crookedly over multiple coasters just too boring so I experiemented sewing a semi-precise reducing square, a representation of X and O, something that looks like space junk paths and one according to the instructions.

The other project for this month is '5 minute pizza dough' which is so mis-titled. It really takes hours as you need to let the dough rise for at least two hours. I long ago decided to never make yeast doughs again after many years of getting up early in the morning to punch down and form the Challah loaves every Friday morning. Not even for homemade pizza will I knead dough by hand again.

I wonder what April's sewing project will be? I might catch-up on the February and January projects just to see what I can concoct.