Monku Monday

It seems only appropriate to do a Monku Monday post to follow up my Happy Friday one. This morning as I was driving Buddy to school I started thinking about the project I stayed up way too late last night with. I was working on some softies for Buddy and I made the mistake of doing the faces after I had finished stuffing them. I was going to use a freezer paper stencil and fabric paint for the face details, but the roundness of the softies jammed me up. Anyway, it got me thinking about other snags I ran into while crafting this weekend and I came up with my Monkutare Crafting/Sewing List:

1) Doing softie face details. Before sewing/stuffing or after? I can never decide. Before - it's harder to position the face and the personality of the softie hasn't had a chance to emerge yet. After - hiding the knots and getting my needle in the right position is a big struggle with a stuffed piece.

2) Having to re-thread my bobbin when I have just a couple inches of sewing left to do.

3) Losing my needle when hand sewing. Always a bad scene when I'm sewing while sitting on the sofa. At night.

4) Stuffing. A big craft time eater, because no matter how hard I try to stuff evenly, my softies end up looking lumpy and I waste a lot of time restuffing. I keep meaning to order some of the wool stuffing I've read about on other blogs because I heard it stuffs a lot nicer.

5) Turning fabric tubes. I have so much trouble with this and have had little luck with tube turners. So far using a safety pin and thread to turn my tubes works best for me, but for certain easily fray-able fabrics I'm sometimes forced to hand sew the tube shut from the outside.

6) Water soluable fabric pen ink that has a bad habit of re-emerging even after it's been wet to make it disappear, sometimes days later.

7) "Someone" using my good sewing scissors for cutting things other than fabric.

8) Rotary blades that seem to rust overnight (here in Hawaii anyway) once they're removed from the package.

9) Having to add seam allowances to patterns. This always drives me nuts, and so many Japanese craft book patterns come without seam allowances. Maybe I wasn't paying attention in sewing class that day, but is there an easy way to add allowances to patterns?

10) What to do with fabric scraps? Ever since I started sewing I've never been able to decide whether it's better to cut off all the hanging scraps of fabric left over after you cut the pattern out, or just fold them back up into the fabric. And if you do cut them off, should you save the scraps or throw them out? I'm talking about the scraps that are only a couple of inches in diameter.

Do any of these ring a bell or is it just a Monku Monday?

I forgot to add:

11) Zippers - which really aren't as hard as I like to think they are, however, I do think they are hard to do well, especially when sewing clothes.

12) Curved seams. I've yet to decide whether clipping curves is better or worse. I guess it depends on the fabric weight and application. But I really hate when my curved seam looks more like connect the dots than a nice smooth curve.

Comments

[lindsey]

ditto on most of the above!
as for the seam allowance, in short-no, there's not an easy way to add it! i went to fashion design school so i was adding it all the time to my patterns, and it was not fun! i recommend using one of the lightweight seethrough quilting rulers that are 2"x18', and adding seam allowance that way, either by transferring the pattern to another piece of paper, or directly onto the fabric. it's still not fun, but the ruler is great for going around curves!

[KIRSTEN]

oh my goodness #2! all the time! drives me nuts.

[stephanie s]

hmmmm, so so familiar.
going down the list...
•i always do the face last, exactly for the positioning reason. the trouble i run into is the little fibers of stuffing coming through the needle hole.
•i always have extra bobbins of colors around, something is usually pretty close...
•yep, always am amazed i haven't hurt myself, always...
•try a different brand of poly stuffing, the very slippery stuff is harder to operate in my opinion. i like wool, but shoot, sometimes it is too expensive to use all the time.
•yep •yep •hmmm •hmmmmmm
•drives me nuts too to add allowances, since half the time i forget...grrrr.
•i save them, and that is why i can not find my way out of the studio some days...

[Michelle]

Oh, I can so relate! #2, hate that, absolutely! Especially when sometimes I'll continue sewing for like another foot before I realize, hmmmm something sounds different... And #3? I hand sew 90% of the time, so I've done my fair share of losing pins or needles. Now that I have kiddies running around, I've gotten more careful and only put exactly 10 pins and one needle in my wrist pincushion, so if I do lose some, I'll know how many I need to find. But there's always the debate, do I stand up? Or stay seated in the same position, not even daring to rearrange the folds of my clothing? Ugh. I've heard of some glow in the dark glass-head pins, that could come in handy!

[Kat]

Anyone who is from Hawaii or Japan probably knows the term "monku" very well. Gah, my parent's used that phrase many a time with me and my sibs when we were little.

Anyway, great post, I especially can relate to numbers, 3,6,7 and 8 (for my mom and not me). Mom is a great crafter, mainly into sewing. I feel I have a real problem with number 3, because she was the one who'd lose the needles and I was the one who'd STEP on them. I can also really relate to number7 because I and my 2 sibs and dad were often scolded for cutting things (especially sticky things like tape) with mom's "good" scissors.

Monku on!

[justJENN]

2 and 4 can bite me.

[hannah]

2 and 7 drive me nuts...

[Jenn]

there are small discs or things you can load your pencils into that they sell in quilting shops that let you add a 1/4 seam. the first look like a small, brass disc and the other ones look like those squishy finger helpers you put on pencils but you put two in. then one traces around the edge of the pattern and the other one makes the seam. the disc ones are easier to find around here but they work best with heavy templates.
I have a great tube turner thingy that I love. I don't know how I lived without it. it is called turn-it-all and it has three plastic tubes in red, white and blue, each a different size and some wooden dowels.
just let me know if you want some more info!

[Andrea]

You know those little packets that come in pill bottles - the one's that say 'do no eat' all over them? A friend of mine used to keep a few of those in her sewing kit to keep her needles and scissors from rusting. Worked like a charm.

[joyce]

#7: i hide my good fabric scissors but i think my husband used them to cut something hard b/c they don't cut smooth anymore...

[Cathy]

Turning tubes right-side-out was always my (and my sister's) job as kids. If the tube is big enough, and one end is sewn shut, you can put a pencil (or I guess a knitting needle or crochet hook if it's a small tube) butting against the seamed end, and then pull the fabric over the pencil/needle/hook and get it right side out that way.

I was one of those rascals who would use the sewing scissors for paper. They were the best scissors in the house!

[SusanChristine]

#10....did you see Molly Chicken's post and what she did with scraps?

http://mollychicken.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/09/did_you_here_th.html

I bow down to all of you craft goddesses!

[hillary]

#2!! number TWOOOO!! Always. Without fail. Drives me flippin bonkers.

[Donna]

Reading down your list, all of those sound familiar to me! I do like doing the faces afterward, because I agree it's easier when the doll/animal has a bit of personality already.

[Cherry]

2 - yes
3 - uh huh!
5 - oh boy yes
7 - sheesh yeeh
10 - me too
and 11 - yep

[Rose]

I'm so glad to hear you have the magically reappearing pen problem! (Well, not glad....) That happens to me too, and I thought I was just imagining things (like how I'd already washed the pen out).

[Kate]

I agree with absolutely everything you said! I know number 5 is the one that is going to make me swear and cry today.

[Lisa K.]

Love your blog, and your list. Misery loves company, so it's good to know that everyone hits little bumps along the way.

I use a chopstick to turn my tubes. I have super skinny ones, and that seems to help.

[Lavender]

I have a little gadget that looks like a double tracing wheel. The first wheel is just a wheel that you run around your patterns, while they're placed on the fabric. The second one is a little plastic container and wheel that deposit powdered chalk on the fabric 1/4" around the paper. It works well with clothing patterns but itty bitty craft pattern pieces are too small.

[futuregirl]

I stop "someone" from using my good scissors by hiding them and having a decoy pair of scissors that is always prominently displayed.

I do this with the manicure scissors, too. I have a already-messed-up pair on top of the bathroom counter for "someone" to use to cut the tags off his clothes (etc.) and I've hidden mine in the drawer under the makeup.

You just have to be careful that "someone" doesn't see you access the good scissors ... or you'll have to find a new hiding place.

Oh, and that reminds me, right after I got the rotary cutter, "someone" thought it would be a good idea to use it to cut wrapping paper for presents. It was a debacle. Once the package was wrapped and the extra paper on the flap needed to be trimmed, the rotary cutter was slicing through the air, sawing at the paper ... I thought he was going to lose a finger. He declared that the rotary cutter didn't work at all, and has left it alone since then. Whew.

[Mama22Boys]

I don't know much about crafting but I love the phrase you coined ... "Monku Monday". Would it be okay if I borrowed it from you? Of course giving you credit! :)