Yes, Folks it is time for the 2007 Bloggies again! So, if you have the time and inclination go and vote for your favourite blogs before January 10, just two days.

Onehourcraft is eligible for the Best Australian Blog category and for the Best Craft Blog category. Please remember us and vote for us!

Click here to nominate…. If you are so kind to nominate us please use http://onehourcraft.wordpress.com (not this address as it was not running in 2006) for our url.

Big kisses for your support,

xxxxxx

Mia

Remember the great interview we did with Ismoyo?We have another great interview for you… I would like to introduce to you a long-time craft blogger and all-round super crafty person, Megan of Not Martha *Megan enters the stage to raucous applause and cheering*.

Mia: Hey Megan, it is great to meet you. Your craft blog Not Martha, was the first craft blog I ever started reading,over three years ago. Actually your marble magnets tutorial was the first craft tutorial I followed on the Net. I made a whole heap and gave them to friends and family – my sister Em still has them on her fridge.

Megan: They are very addictive, I hope everybody got a lot of use out of them. I’m still using the ones I show on the page. Thanks so much
for taking the time to ask me some questions.

Mia: Firstly I would like to ask some personal questions, like, where do you live? and what is your day job?

Megan: I live in Seattle and I make knitting needle cases as The Organized Knitter.

Mia: Well, I have been reading your site for ages, what year did you start the site?

Megan: Not Martha was started in 2001, I think that makes the site 20 in Internet years.

Mia: Why did you start the site? What were your goals? and what were your inspirations?

Megan: I started the site as a place to keep notes on the things I was making, at the time it was lip balm, and I included a weblog as a way to keep interesting links and inspirations. I didn’t have any goals beyond that but I really enjoy keeping the site.

Mia: You include so many cool tutorials to make some really interesting things, which tutorial is your favourite?

Megan: I’m a little embarrassed to admit this but I haven’t gone back and visited many tutorials in a while. It’s hard to have a favorite as lots of them are a few years old. I enjoyed making the Tiny Pinatas most of all, they were from a Martha Stewart project and a lot of messy fun.

(Tiny Pinata Tutorial photos from Not Martha)

Mia:  What is your favourite craft?

Megan: It’s difficult for me to say, I enjoy knitting, but I know a lot more about sewing. I have avoided getting into making cards, I think the amount of papers and decorations would be overwhelming.

Mia: Can you describe for us your studio or craft space?

Megan: I have a small room with shelves on three walls, and shelves in the closet. I use it mainly to run The Organized Knitter so I’m surrounded by rolls of fabrics and bolts of interfacing. A cutting table, sewing machine and ironing board dominate the room. I also have a collection of magazines and bins of yarn on the shelves. It’s a bit disorganized but colorful.

Mia:  Yeah, this sounds a lot like my studio, a  small room that is kind of chaotic but really colourful.

Mia:  What are the things which inspire you the most?

Megan: I seem to want something specific first, then set out to make it, so inspirations come along as I’m doing research. I tend to admire things which are clever or functional in some way. Lately, I’ve been admiring confections and items for celebrations – clever advent calendars, Christmas crackers and Humbugs.

Mia:  What is your favourite magazine?

Megan: Right now I think it’s Imbible, a magazine about spirits, beer,wine, coffee and the culture of those worlds. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I am surrounded by people who are very connected with their coffee and beer, and living in a good food town, I’m around lots of great wine.

Mia:  Do you have any future goals for your site?  What are they?

Megan: I hope to update most of the early tutorials, so much more information exists on-line now since I made the lip balm and bath-bombs, for example. And I really would like to redo the tutorial about turning jeans into a skirt.

Mia:  Apart from inspiring all of us, what do you hope to be doing in five years time?

Megan: I hope to continue to learn to cook, maybe I’ll have mastered a stew or creme brulee by then. Cooking is something that is certainly not innate for me, I find it difficult and mess up a lot of food.   But that challenge makes it fun as well.

Mia:  Anything else you would like us to know?
Megan: I truly appreciate the Internet community and how much information is freely shared, and how much support is given. It’s been great.

Mia:  Well thanks so much for letting us interview you.

Megan: Thank you for the interest.

Hope you enjoyed meeting Megan!

Don’t forget to visit…

Mia

We are so excited. We are now onehourcraft.com. Please visit and tell your friends to visit.

We will have loads of new treats and features for you in 2007. So visit as often as you can and tell your friends to visit.

I will have all the files from this site moved in the next few days and we will be updating with heaps more tutorials.

And we will be announcing our one hour craft January Challenge in the next few days!

Mia

Hello Happy Crafters!

Welcome to our new site. We are big kids with our very own domain now! Check back soon, all our tutorials will be here!

We have so many new treats and features coming your way in 2007! So keep coming back and tell your friends to visit as well.

Yay!

Mia

Happy New Year everybody!

Well, I have been dying to show my little girl ( who has just turned seven) to sew. She has keenly watched me sew around Australia more than a few times (I mean in mileage). So, I took my enthusiasm and a LOT of time (used my teaching skills to write a lesson plan) and finally gave Milly her first sewing lesson. It was so fun! She loved it. All you mums, aunts and grandmas with sons, don’t worry, I’m sure that little boys will be just as keen to learn!

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did… Let’s learn to sew..

You will need:

• A sewing machine
• Thread (that contrasts with the fabric you use). I used metallic embroidery thread because little girls love shining things.
• Colourful felt square or two
• Ruler
• Texta/felt-tipped pen in contrasting colour to the felt
• Ribbon/ decorative rick-rack (this is for lesson two)

Preparation

1. Take your child shopping for the supplies. Tell her what you are going to be making and get her interested. Once at the shop be very patient about her choices and the time she takes. I set aside a good half hour to buy such a few supplies. But it was fun.
2. When you arrive home set aside between half an hour to an hour to do the activity. Make sure that there are no major distractions.
3. Set up the child at the machine so that her arms are at a right angle (I put her on the chair and placed a thick phone directory underneath her bottom).
4. Make sure that the foot pedal is at a comfortable height for her. I have a wooden stool which was perfect for this (see photo above).

How To Teach Your Child to Sew: Lesson Number One

1. Remove the needle and bobbin from the machine.
2. Show the child all the different parts of the machine, one by one. Show her the foot pedal, the place where the thread goes at the top, the needle. Explain in simple language how these different parts work.
3. You sit down and demonstrate for her how to feed the fabric with your hands, while pushing down on the foot pedal. Turn on the machine, press down the foot pedal and guide the felt from the top to the bottom, in a straight line. When you get to the bottom, switch the machine off.
4. Set the child up at the machine. Make sure that she is comfortable before she begins. Now, show her how to use the lever to lift the foot up and put it back down. Let her play with it a few times. Now give her the piece of felt, ask her to lift the lever and then place the felt under the lever, with the foot in the middle of the fabric. Ask her to place her hands on either side of the foot and explain that she will be guiding the fabric through with her hands. Now tell her to push the foot pedal down softly and move the fabric from the top to the bottom in a line. When she gets to the bottom, a little cheer for her.
5. Now we start THE SEWING GAME. Tell her to put felt in the top again. Tell her that you will be giving her the instructions ’start’, ’stop’, ’slow’, ‘faster’ and she must do them (for goodness’ sake, don’t bark them at the poor child). Let her go from the top to the bottom of the felt a number of times, playing this game. Keep going until she has a feel for how hard to press on the foot pedal to move at a medium pace. Turn the machine off again.
6. Take the piece of felt out of the machine. With a texta and a ruler draw some straight lines on the felt. In our first lesson we didn’t use the lines on the edge, they will be for lesson two.
7. Put the felt with the lines back onto the sewing machine. Show her where to feed the fabric through so that she sews exactly on the line. Let her do this a few times (note: still no thread or needle in the machine).
8. Now is time for real sewing. Thread up the machine and put the bobbin in. Sit down at the machine with the felt and slowly demonstrate. Sew a straight line parallell to the line down the middle of the felt. Point out exactly where your hands and feet her and talk her through it. Turn the machine off before you get up.
9. Now comes the fun part!!!! Sit her down at the machine and get her comfy again. Tell her to do exactly what she did before and follow the line. Tell her to sew slowly, from the top to the bottom. Watch her sew her first line of stitching (absolutely priceless! This, for me, was like watching her walk for the first time).
10. When she has finished give her some praise and watch her beaming smile. Teach her how to snip the thread with little scissors and let her examine it.
11. Give her the texta and ask her to draw some more straight lines on the felt.
12. We ended up with a cross pattern.
13. Watch and guide her as she sews on these lines.

And the finished product….

Remember it is not about the finished product – just yet! You are teaching your chiild a life long skill. You have no idea how happy Milly is with her sewing! I got a big, fat kiss and she has gone out with grandad today and taken it with her.

Lesson Two I will teach her to sew edges and Lesson Three, we will be making a simple bag for her to keep.

And of course, I will be posting the tutorials here.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE:

• I would not recommend this tutorial for children under the age of six or seven. I know that Milly would not have been ready for it even last year.
• Remember to be patient and calm. If you get tense, she will pick up on this and get tense herself. It is supposed to be fun!
• If your child has had enough at a certain point, don’t push it. In the middle of this tutorial, Milly went and jumped on her trampoline for a few minutes.
• Enjoy! If she doesn’t get it perfect, who cares? Not me!
• PLEASE DON’T LEAVE THE ROOM OR TAKE YOUR EYES OFF YOUR CHILD FOR A SECOND. A SEWING MACHINE CAN BE A VERY DANGEROUS TOOL!

Enjoy!

Mia