SYNTRYZ Stitches

   I must be getting old! (or I've always been) Because even though I love the whole YouTube movement where we can practically learn anything just by watching a video, I still like following a crochet pattern.     I've been questioned by my friends: how do you read one? It doesn't make sense. And it got me thinking that I couldn't always read crochet patterns; I needed someone to help me.  Free PDF Printable below! How to read a crochet pattern printable guide, page 1 Image Preview    Thankfully I had my mother to help me from an early age. She never sat down without her fingers wrapped around a crochet hook and it's been said by ones who knew that my little baby fingers would imitate her hand movements as I watched her. I do remember growing up and always seeing her with a paper in her lap that she was reading. As I learned how to read regular writing I would start to pick these papers up and wonder: What is this? Some secret code, a mystery lang...

Juki HZL-29Z Sewing Machine sews in reverse  What to do when... You have scheduled your day so you can fulfill your many sewing orders but for some odd reason a pin pops from behind your feed-dog (I did not run over a pin!) falls down into your machine and now your sewing machine only sews in reverse.  Do you ... A. Get behind your machine and sew backwards. B. Take all the screws out of the machine and try to take it apart. C. Shake it like mad and hope the pin falls out. Last Friday this was the predicament I was in. I would have probably been a lot more mad if I hadn't been so tired. I worked more than 2 hours trying to fix my machine. Don't get me wrong, I love my little Juki machine and even though it's just a basic machine, with the few special stitches it has, I can get a lot done with it instead of having to use multiple machines, for instance it has overcasting which I use when I make my tiny dog sweaters since they are too small to go on the serger...

History of making this Crochet Dog Sweater Pattern Okay, so let me tell you the story of this dog sweater pattern. From the first year that I started selling dog sweaters on Etsy, I received requests for my pattern. Now mind you I had never written any patterns before so I had to respond that I didn't have one yet, it was just in my head. Well 100's of dog sweaters later I still have it memorized and have made changes to it over the years but it got me to thinking that I probably should write this down, just in case I forgot, or if I need to get someone to help me make them, or if some of my friends or customers would like to make their own. I've intended every year to get this written and published for fall time and here I find myself again in the month of September and I still do not have the final draft ready. But I thought why not post it here and let you try it out for me? I'm hoping the final product will be as simple on paper as it is in my head. If yo...

Dad has been faithfully working on updating our sewing room for us. I haven't been able to help as much as I've wanted since I got sick and then Mom had to go into the hospital. But we did get our accent wall done. I love how it came out, we used carpet tile samples bought at Habitat for Humanity for the 'quilt-look'. I still have extra so I'm going to make a carpet out of some of them. Stay tuned as we finish each area and I'll post more photos.

We started remodeling our sewing room. It's been over a year in planning and gathering materials but we've finally started clearing the room out. The ceiling and new lights will be first. Stay tuned.