Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Reference Notebooks

I have a section on my bookshelf for my collected reference materials. I'm not talking about reference books. I have a whole set of three ring notebooks that contain leaflets, pamphlets, printed out pages, handouts from classes, and the instruction sheet(s) that I got when I purchased the whiz-bang gadget of the week to make crafting easier. I've got a notebook on machine embroidery stabilizers and another one on hand embroidery fabrics. I've got at least one notebook for each of my sewing machines. 

Yes, I use the information in these notebooks. I can't keep it all in my head. There are days that I think I'm doing well to remember that I wrote that information down once upon a time.


Thursday, December 5, 2013

More Rainbow Looming

I'm still addicted. I've discovered that videos by kids may be difficult to follow, but videos by adults who don't know how to zoom in, focus, or fast forward can be equally difficult to follow.

A tip for adults who wish to make these bracelets for themselves is to get a second loom and hook them together to make an 8" bracelet. However, for some of the bracelets that require a second (or even a third!) loom to make a child sized bracelet that doesn't need extensions, you may not wish to make something that big. In that case, make your first bracelet and then immediately rip it apart, bit by bit. Check the size, and remove rubber bands until you get it down to your size. Put away the extra rubber bands and then take the bracelet apart. (It's a PITA to try to save a partly done bracelet) Re-make the bracelet using only the number of rubber bands that you need to make it fit your wrist. There is no other way to make sure that the finished bracelet will fit your wrist. I've tried and tried, and each pattern comes out a different length.

I've purchased rubber bands from a variety of sources and they are of different quality. The Rainbow Loom bands break least often. They all break, and never at convenient times.

Speaking of time, if you know what you are doing and just want to knock out a bracelet you already know how to make, allow 20 minutes. For a new pattern, allow up to 45 minutes.