> I also like to sew. Rarely clothes. Mostly quilts, toys and stuff-stuff. I want to make hats, I want to make dolls. but lately I've done more of my own Batik. I have a batik entered in the state fair this year. It's my first juried show. I've only done exhibits so far. It seems so remote, you just mail your thing in and find out later if the judges placed it or not.
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> I've done lots of horse shows that are judged. That's different, you are in there, in real life, performing whatever it is, with your horse. Seems like more at stake.
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> The batik dyeing is hard on my back. I have to learn the ziplock bag method. That may be hard too.
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> My main companion is also eight. He does very well with serious questions. A common argument I hear is between Daddy and eight years old; he wants to watch the news, Daddy wants to watch Wheel Of Fortune.
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> Right now I have a big plastic tote bin, 25 gallons, I think, of scraps. All less than 4 inches in one dimension, though some are long strips. I am cutting them into 2 inch squares to make Irish chains. So far, I have hundreds of squares and no dent in the bin. I listen to audio books from the library.
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> I have a Juki that does 1500 stitches a minute, a Viking that I am not especially fond of, and a Juki serger that I have not learned to use in about 2 1/2 years. I bought it for doll clothes, which I have not gotten around to.
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> Cara

I have never batiked before, but I do have a small collectin of batiked table cloths and napkins, and a few pieces of clothing.

I was interested in natural dying a few years back, and had designed a wall hanging that I wanted to make. I was hoping to use a book that my grandmother had compiled of all the natural dyes in the area (complete with swatch), but unfortunately it was one of the items lost when our house flooded one Christmas. So, the project got sidelined, and I don't know if I'll ever have the time again to pick it up.

A quick, sad tale about sewing machines. The last fashion show I did was in California and I brought my sewing machine with me to do any last minute sewing (I hadn't actually seen the garments in real life, and you never know what extras they'll need). The people I drove down with went home before I did, and brought back my sewing machine for me. I flew home a few days later, and went to their house to pick up the machine. It was in the middle of the night (my flight was delayed) but I knew they were putting all my stuff. I found my plastic tubs full of purses etc, but not my sewing machine. I was trying to be quiet, but I guess I woke someone up. She came down to talk to me, and said my sewing machine had fallen out of the car, and was now at the dealers and that she'd call me when she knew something. It's been a month and a half now. All I know is that the dealer had to ship it somewhere else. Fortunately, I borrowed my mothers much older Bernina (about 40 years older than mine) and I have SOMETHING to sew with. Unfortunately, while Destiny (the eight year old I nanny) and I were hauling it into the house, she dropped the presser foot and it shattered. However, we taped it together with duct tape and it works pretty well. It's been about a month, so it's not as effective as before, I think I need to rip the duct tape off and think of something else. But, atleast I have a sewing machine.

A note on the serger, it only takes about 20 minutes to learn, and it's very very easy. The only difficult part is learning how to thread it, and that's not even difficult, it's just time consuming. The first day you use your machine, you'll probably thread it about 20 times, becoming very frustrated. But, once you get the hang of it, you'll probably re-thread it when you break a needle, or something uncommon like that. It's a great time saving machine, the rolled hem feature is just brilliant. I usually like doing fancy finishes on things, but some things you don't want to spend that time on. I.e. table cloths and coordinating napkins. I'm sure you know all about this though :)

One last thing, have you ever taken a look at Quilting Arts Magazine? It is the most wonderful magazine. I've only ever made a crazy quilt (still in blocks waiting to be assembled) and this corduroy mess I'm working on. It makes me want to drop all my hobbies and take up the wearable art art-form. The issue before last had hand dyed clothing with extravagent applique, beadwork, and other such interesting things. It was amazing, looks like the current issue has info on batiking!

Tess