Planet Nice Crafts

Hello Everyone. We are working overtime in the current situation – that has been the biggest change here. One of the outcomes of this tremendous activity is that we have a LOT to share. As I think it is normal when an organization gets going, there was a plethora of chatter about individuals sewing masks as the ILMasksNow effort. While that was settling into a system, Planet Nice Crafts decided to go ahead and finish the oven mitt last mentioned in January. Remember? The hand sewing portion was finally finished and the main part of the mitt was machine quilted with a grid, that worked out nicely. The last step was to put all of it together with a bias binding. My first bias binding attempt was not successful because it was not wide enough to contain all the fabric layers. So I made the second attempt really chunky which I thought was fine for an oven mitt. Here is the elaborate pinning job. Even with the extra width, it was still a challenge on the curves. I...

Hello Everyone, It is January 18th but recovery from the holidays is still ongoing. The recovery will need to wrap up very soon as next Tuesday a new semester begins. I wanted to get a post in before I am completely caught up with other tasks. Some crafting activity has been ongoing due to holiday gifting. A little bit of everything has been the order the last month or so with sketching, framing/matting, vinyl cutting, and sewing. The first project I would like to share with you is the creation of a few polar bear stickers. As with the best of projects, it started with putting pencil to paper with sketches: The ideas that spawned the sketches are not completely original, as I looked at others from searches, but with the reworking, I feel they are original now. The sketches were then sketched in Adobe Illustrator into files that were friendly to the Silhouette Portrait 2 vinyl cutter at The Workshop of the Cook Memorial Library. Here is the final produc...

Welcome to the Planet Nice Crafts blog. Since this is the first blog post, pardon any construction dust. Just like any other planet, its evolving. I adore craft kits. A great photograph of the anticipated final product, all or nearly all supplies neatly packaged, and directions to inevitable success – what could be better. They could be simple or more advanced projects, the main objective is for the crafter to have enough fun so that they purchase more kits and spread the word to their friends. For this blog post, I did a quick search on the history of needlecraft kits, but was unable to find anything so I reached out to and received information from the kit brand Bucilla (owned by the Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation and directed by Plaid Enterprises). Bucilla made the transition from the once-popular instructional and pattern books to the kit format in the late 1960s to meet changing consumer demand. As a child of the 1980s, visiting Frank’s Nursery and Crafts was a highlight...