Sew I See!

This is a fairly off-topic post from the usual fare, but I suppose photography is a "craft", too, so it fits well enough.  In any case, it's something that interests me, as an amateur photographer. Maybe it's not readily obvious in my recent photos-- because I tend to take fairly blah WIP and FO photos, lately-- but I do  enjoy photography.  Particularly nature photography and macros.  Part of the hobby is editing the photos.  Post-processing.  Polishing them to show them at their best. Some years ago, Donald introduced me to shooting in RAW (instead of "just" JPG), and now that's my preference.  (Actually most of the time, we shoot in RAW + JPG, but if a RAW version is available, that's the one I'll choose.)  RAW allows you much more control and flexibility in post-processing than JPG does.  There are times when a JPG is simply not usable, but if you have a RAW version of the same photo, you can correct the exposure and tone (warmth, coldnes

I forgot when writing the last entry that I meant to mention thread holders. Most of the time, I put the ball of crochet thread into a glazed ceramic bowl, where it can spin around freely.  It keeps the ball off the floor; I'm usually satisfied.  For times when I need the project to be more portable, I just pop it into a plastic food storage bag (the cheap, un-"zippered" kind, though the zipped ones work, too).  These bags have the added benefit of providing a spot to store the WIP away from dust and dirt. For some reason, though, when I was working on the latest doily, I began to wish I had a "real" thread holder.  (Maybe because the ball is so small, it was moving around more than I'm used to.) There are some pretty ones for sale, online.  (The commercially available ones are sometimes called "string holders".)  You could also make your own fairly easily with a piece of dowel and a block of wood for the base.  Then there's the "toi

Latest crafty doings: -- Sewed a dog toy for Luna using a scrap of polar fleece. I've made a few of these for her, and she enjoys them.  They're as easy as can be-- especially if you have a sewing machine (though you could  sew it by hand).  For this one, I took a long strip of polar fleece (which is more durable against chewing than other fabrics I've tried), folded it together lengthwise (right sides together) and sewed along two sides, leaving one of the short ends open for stuffing.  I stitched along those sides twice to make it extra sturdy, then turned it right side out.  I stuffed the tube loosely, alternating wads of polyfil with a couple of plastic shopping bags (which make crunching sounds that dogs find interesting), then sewed the end shut (by hand, because it didn't want to fit under my sewing machine's presser foot). Voilà!  Stuffed dog toy on the cheap, and no eyes or noses for obsessive chewers to remove and eat.  (No photo, but it's not m