About as different from that awful movie as it’s possible to get. In this first explanation of Barbara Roberts, she is a high school freshman! She has only the most innocent, girly things to worry about, in an idyllic America-of-the-past lifestyle. For her first meeting with Ken, he saves her day, and she wears flats. […]
Sharing 1962 Novel “Here’s Barbie” Excerpt Read More »
My daughter showed me Granny Guns on Instagram and I wanted protein cookies. Her recipe is a bit too focused for me, with no flour. I wanted flour like real cookies. I looked at some of the recipes on some protein powder websites, then as usual went away and did something different. This is the
Protein Cookies Recipe: Going Unsweetened Read More »
I went looking for marshmallows without pig to make smores. The health store had only mini marshmallows. I bought them rather than my quest end fruitless, but you can’t really make smores out of those (except in the oven, which isn’t as romantic). A few months later I discovered them at the bottom of a
Great Cocoa Marshmallow Cookies Read More »
I see a real need for this. It’s a simple, easy dress to fit any Barbie shape. We have a pile of naked Barbies! They need clothes quick, and they should be able to share. Let’s go. Here’s a pull-on shift dress, about as basic as it can be. The other is a basic peasant
Barbie One Size Fits All Sewing Patterns Read More »
Oh guys, it’s been a journey, I must say. More about that later. At the moment I’m *grateful* that I still have technology enough to produce a reasonably decent printable pattern. We have moved off grid, kind of feels like we fell off the world computer-wise. I have Android and a little solar battery and
My First Barbie 13.5″ Free Printable Sewing Pattern Read More »
By request! Here’s a cute country girl look. The crop top is the peasant pattern shortened a little and elastic added, and here’s a pattern for the slim denim skirt. That’s the first draft. I finally got around to testing it again! I’m off grid at the moment. At least I have my tablet and
Denim skirt for Barbie BFF 28″ Read More »
Therapy crochet while I listened to a message at home. I started messing with dishcloth cotton because I need some more dishrags, kinda reinvented the wheel (this basic sc lace doily idea’s been around since early times) but then added another petal in between to make twelve instead of six, and AFAIK that’s new. I’m
Spiral Lace Single Crochet Mat Read More »
Built from the septagon mat, but I decided to make this a separate post. I was so tickled with how the septagon design looked that I wanted to make some more using flower colors. Good luck joining seven sided motifs, so it had to turn into eight. But a square is simpler! While messing around
Crochet Openwork Octagon Square Motif Read More »
I wanted, not a dishcloth, but a cotton round to lie on the kitchen counter for cushion under pans and things. I wanted it openwork for more ventilation. 1) Dig through the internet for two hours 2) There’s nothing like that 3) Invent something. Not that I really cared until I started, but there aren’t
Crochet Openwork Septagon Counter Mat Read More »
Could it be this easy? Just add a knob to the hand wheel? I didn’t know, but the motor doesn’t work any more, so there was nothing to lose by trying. I drilled a hole in the hand wheel and attached a bit of dowel with a screw. Voila, a modern zigzag hand crank sewing
My Homemade Hand Crank Singer 403A Read More »
I’ve had some kind of block lately and have to force myself to write. This is an exercise. “Write something.” The website name was an exercise in self-acceptance many years ago. I grew up disliking my name, but later realized that might have been because my mother only called me by it when she was
But can it make Spirographs? Yes, it can! Only basic ones, not fancy designs like Illustrator, but they’re pretty and they’re easy and fun. They scratch my Spirograph itch. Here’s a basic oval that was Selection – Duplicated, then the copies rotated. It really only takes moments once you’re used to how Ivy Draw operates.
Spirographs in Ivy Draw Read More »
If you need to transfer sewing patterns or other patterns from pdf document to paper without a printer, here’s one method using Ivy Draw. Craft magazines used to come with miniature patterns on a grid to be enlarged onto graph paper. Nowadays it’s rare because of printers. But sometimes you don’t have a printer. Ivy
Enlarge Patterns Without a Printer: Inch Square Grid Method Read More »
Loving this app! Absolute genius and SO affordable. It fills in the gap when I need to get something done and I’m not near Illustrator. I couldn’t find much in the way of a manual or tutorials, so here I’m compiling my own guide page as I figure things out. Have patience with a work
Ivy Draw – Vector Graphics Editor for Android Read More »
It’s about as simple, basic and easy as a sewing pattern can get. Free pdf to print at home. Free pinafore dress pattern with modest neckline and long armholes. Adult woman/misses size. This is a multi-size pattern I made up several years ago. Nowadays I think I made the sizing more generous than it needs
Jumper Dress Pattern for Women Read More »
I was having a granny square thing for a while and churned out a bunch of scrapghans. But what about a granny crochet diamond? I can’t remember what got me on the idea of a diamond shape, which is sad, because usually the long-winded story of the whole course of the inspiration and development is
Diamond Granny Crochet Motif Read More »
Amazing! From my imagination to a motiv that was exactly what I had in mind, on the first try. That’s not usually how it goes. I’ll have a try at writing the pattern. If you see any errors let me know. With center color, ch4, join with sl st In the ring, ch3, sc, (ch1,
Six Petal Flower Crochet Motif Read More »
Here’s the latest tidying of my website! I wanted it to be completely on WordPress since I’m about to move off grid and need to be able to make all my changes online. Wait, does that sound backwards? I’m going where there’s no power, so I won’t be able to run Dreamweaver on my desktop
I love Miss Blue’s beautiful space princess hair. Of course my first dress for her had to be a princess seams sundress. Princess seams are not a very easy design to create. I set out to do a strapless at first, but it didn’t happen and this did. Might be because I can identify with
Princess Dress Pattern for Curvy Barbie Read More »
The goal was to make a square chart for cross-stitch or needlepoint by tracing a background image onto a grid. I found various methods to make the chart, but nothing about how to color it other than resorting to something like bitmap painting with the fill tool. There are plenty of ways to automatically digitize
Make Charted Needlework Graphs in Adobe Illustrator CS5 using Live Paint Read More »