Potpourri Friday

It's Friday again - time to share with you my potpourri of happenings and thoughts and events that occurred during the week. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one's point of view ;), not too much has gone on around here this week. Except it seemed to go by fast. And it's snowing. Again. Sigh.

I was thrilled this week to learn that my post about organizing all my patterns and ideas was featured over at Laura's, I'm An Organizing Junkie. She even gave me this cute little "Storage Star" to display! Isn't he so cute! I have to say that I am really enjoying my notebooks and have already found them immensely helpful. It is such a joy to decide on a pattern, find it instantly without having to search through every corner of the house, pull it out, take it to the craft/fabric store and have everything I need at my fingertips. I really don't know why I didn't do this years ago. Thank you Laura, for the sweet little star - I really love him!

I have been working on Michelle's nursery layette and have almost finished it. The crib bumpers have sweet little stuffed stars that decorate where the bumpers join together. As I was making the stars, I thought of how I should share about what my most very favorite craft/sewing tool is. I keep a pair of them next to my sewing machine always and they have simplified the most difficult of tasks. I have a spare pair in case they get lost. Because that would really frustrate me. And I have never seen them at a craft store, although they should carry them. But you can do what I did and ask your dentist to order you a pair. Or two. Here they are:
A pair of hemostats. When I was a dental assistant we used these all the time for suturing. I loved suturing. Tying off sutures has the most delicate of knots and it always fascinated me to watch a dentist with large hands do such intricate work- it really spoke to the crafty side of me I guess. Anyway, one day I was watching the doctor suture after a molar extraction and it occurred to me that those hemostats might come in handy in my sewing room. So I bought a pair from him. And they have been indispensable. For instance, you know how when you sew a long tube and you have to turn it inside out? I used to struggle and struggle with this. Not any more. Now I do this:



You see the secret is that the hemostats have gripped tips and the handle locks. So you just slide it down the tube, grab the end in the tips, lock the handles, and pull it through. It's incredible how easy it makes this task.

They are also great for turning and stuffing fabric. Like this:




I love how you can use them to smooth points without poking through the fabric and how you just grab bits of stuffing and stuff them nice and tight in the smallest of places. Everyone should have a pair of these.

They also come in very handy for docking puppy tales - but that's a whole other post!




And have you been watching LOST? Oh. My. Goodness. Just when you think there can't be any more twists or turns - you get a HUGE one. AARON? What's up with AARON? I dvr'd this episode - I have to watch it again. This show is going to give me totally grey hair. But I love it! It's the most mesmerizing tv in a long, long time.

Oh, and one more thing. I found a great little website that makes word clouds out of the most frequently used words on your blog.


These words are the words that represent me! I like that. I like that a lot.