Meet Sarah

The Fairy Tale Knits Team

I couldn’t do all I do without help. This week you’re going to meet the newest team member, Sarah. Sarah will be writing most of the blog posts you’ll find here. We’ve been friends for over a decade and I’m so happy to have her joinging!

:waves enthusiastically:

My name is Sarah I’m excited to be joining the Fairy Tale Knits team! A little bit about me: I am a jack-of-all-trades Creative Soul. I have a BFA in Fine Art specialized in sculpture and currently teach sewing and crochet at a little shop in San Antonio, Texas. What qualities made Dawn invite me to her team? I’m a practitioner of many fiber related crafts and a bona fide Geek. We can discuss the merits of wool to silk ratio in a yarn base one minute and whether or not new Spock is living up to the standard set by old Spock the next. As I write this my music channel selection is set to “movie soundtrack”, it just shifted from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars. I first sat at a sewing machine at age five (on my mothers’ lap), I’ve crocheted for close to fifteen years and knitted for a bit less than that. I’ve taught theater and art at the high school level. I love costuming and am fairly knowledgeable in the history of fashion. I’ve thrown clay pots, dyed fabric, used power chisels on limestone, made paper, created batiks, built whole building following the legal guidelines for my area, fixed my car and still have a long list of things I would love to learn how to do. And, as you can tell, I like to blather on and can do so on many subjects

What’s on my docket?

Teaching

At work, we are gearing up for the new round of ‘boot camps’ which I have taught many times. I love these classes! We take people from “I’ve never touched a sewing machine” to “I made this! And I’m wearing it! It fits!”

My younger daughter is progressing in her own sewing skill and has a classic sheath dress she wants to work on. Far and away my most difficult student…
I added a Crochet 103 to our offerings in the shop, it’s “how to work in the round (Granny Squares)”. Personally, I don’t much care for granny squares, but people want to learn how to do them so I’m accommodating that chunk of the population

Sewing

I’m learning free motion quilting. I’ve got two baby-sized quilts in progress with different stitching styles planned. Neither has a deadline or a recipient, they are really just practice. If they turn out okay they will get donated to Project Linus.

Also, One Act Play season is just beginning, I may get some commission work from the local high schools again this year. (I keep hoping someone does a Regency era play. I’ve been itching to do some of that kind of costuming).

Knitting

In great hopes that by the time this is published I will be done with the Slytherin house scarf for my older daughter. It’s a Christmas present so… not sure what will be next on the needles. I’ve got some lovely yarns begging to be summer weight tops, but no patterns to go with them just yet. I’m really only an intermediate knitter, it’s the most recently added skill to my repertoire (about 5 years or so) and have a short list of specific techniques I still need to work on.

Crochet

I’m half-way through a simple triangle shawl in a lovely fine yarn in a slightly mottled purple with some grey stripes added for interest. The lacy border will have some grey as well. This is a stash buster project and I intend to try and use up all the yarn as it’s a colorway that was ended several years ago. This is for myself, so it’s my ‘in between other things’ project. It’s been on the hook for about seven months so far.

Other Arts & Crafts

I’ve been noodling around with bookbinding techniques. The husband is planning a garden again. He has not accepted the fact that I have a black thumb.

And if you haven’t guessed by now, my creative space is a MESS! One cannot have that many tabs open in the Brain Browser without it getting messy…