Finding Older Patterns

If you are looking for older patterns to fill in your collection or start your collection of patterns i have run into the most wonderful place on eBay. This does not replace looking at garage sale and thrift stores but is to be included in that group. This lady not only sells the patterns but she does this to help 'her girls' earn extra money for the girls' activities. The girls help run the store and she has a huge collection of patterns. So, If you are looking for Annie's Attic, Leisure Arts, and the other patterns you can no longer get a hold of this is the place: SillyGirl914

Anyone for Swiss Straw?

I have been spending some time on eBay shopping for some patterns. Boy! are the charging a lot for patterns! I afford some of the patterns I wanted. But i did manage to find some that were not too spendy. And I bought some Plastic canvas patterns for Barbie's furniture.

Then I was thinking about using yarn and how that makes the drawers not slide so smoothly and I wanted drawers that would slide smoothly! I don't think I am asking that much so I went surfing for Swiss Straw. Can't find any under that name except for itty bitty packages for fly fishermen, so I tried raffia and found some at the gift wrapping stores of america. Here we go folks....Swiss Straw (listed as synthetic raffia); 100 yards at 3.75 a spool. Just perfect for plastic canvas! You can get matte or shiny and in pretty colors. And you can get it at Shopping Bag Warehouse. Or papermart.com

If you didn't want to do the whole project in the raffia material, you could do the drawer bottoms,sides and back only. this would allow the drawers to slide smoothly and easily while providing the look of the yarn on the parts that show.

The Pattern Syndrome...

While working on patterns my mind will wander and come up with more ideas sometimes. This time it was backdrops and props. And I was thinking that it would look very nice to have a chair with my backdrop (which is already made) and then pondered the problem of getting out to the garage ...no, this has to be somebody else to do that as the box of doll furniture is up on a high shelf. This means i will have to wait. Well, this is not exactly do-able. I did ask my granddaughter if she would look for my furniture but it will be a while before she can really get up there and dig around the boxes to find what I want. It has already ben 2 weeks so then my idea is to go get out the pattern and make another chair. It doesn't take that long i told my self ad this was a week ago.

Well i should know better....It is not finished and why? Well i got a better idea while working with this pattern and decided to do that. Well I also have to write down the changes made to the pattern so that i can do it again later. But, i did come up with an improvement to the chair and will do the settee next. Then I found that the pattern did not give the proper size for the arms on the chair so had to figure that out. And then from the time i made the pattern before, i couldn't remember what i did that was different form the arms in the pattern so i had to look around for the pattern i write for the arms.

So since i did that much I though i would share with you the changes. Because of copyright i cannot give the pattern out. you will have get your own copy from wherever you stored it or buy another. The major change to the arms was to work the increases at the center of the rows on the arms and cut out rows 4 & 5 and add them on to the end.But then i made a very big change to the back by making it longer and worked the 10 half rice stitches over white florist's covered wire. The last two are to be bent at right angles and serve as a foot to help balance the chair. Works very nicely. I also did just the outside of the chair and added in a row of single crochet to the last row before the shells and worked this in the black loops of the wicker stitch. Anyway before doing the skirt of the chair i did make a slit in the back from the chair by chaining 3 and slip stitched in the 4th st over and starting the skirt from that point and followed the pattern finishing that first row in the back lops of the chain stitches before joining.. Oh, yes; the arms for the chair should be 28 rows.

Now where did I put that chair cushion?.....