More random crafty "wisdom"
Aug. 10th, 2004 09:32 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
rhiannontherose.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
craftgrrlI don't remember if some of these have made it into my posts before, but in any case, I was recently shopping at the store I work in, and noticed a string of customers going to customer service with disgruntled expressions and merchandise from my department...so I thought it time for another post of random crafty warnings and information (with WalMart in mind).
1) If you have the inclination to buy something wooden from WalMart that will be used for decorative or play purposes on behalf of your child, please keep something in mind. Nearly everything wooden sold in WalMart, especially in the Fabrics & Crafts Department, is made from very cheap pine. Yes, pine is inexpensive, so whatever is made from it is, therefore, less expensive. Yes, it is fairly light-weight, and yes, because it is a very soft wood, it is very easy to make, or find made, a large variety of things from it.
On the same account, that it is a very soft, light-weight wood means something else....IT BREAKS REALLY EASILY! You wouldn't believe how few pieces of pine crafty merchandise put into a cart with a child actually make it out of the store in one piece. I don't want to believe the number of large wooden splinters I've watched administered with screams from the child and grumbles from the parents about how, "it was made from wood, so I thought it would hold up."
2) Fabric dye loves to run (move around in its distribution on the fabric you're trying to or have dyed) and bleed (leave the fabric that was intentionally dyed, and end up coloring the fabric you had no intention of dying). RIT dye (sold not in Fabrics & Crafts, which has only Tie-Dying kits, but in Paper Goods & Chemicals by the laundry detergent), the most commonly found at-home fabric dye that comes in a large variety of colors (as well as basic, useful things like black), is especially renowned for running and bleeding. Dye a shirt red, and nine times out of 10, even after several careful solitary washes, that red shirt will go into the wash and it, and half the other laundry, will come out pink. All colors will do this, but I've found black, red and purple to be the worst culprits.
In any case, there is something of a remedy, and while I can't swear by it, and highly recommend discretion and testing, especially if something you can't bear to think of ruined is involved (after all, fabric and dyes do vary in how they react to things) it does usually work wonders both for DYI dying jobs and for preserving new store-bought clothes or bathing suits that you'd like to retain their original colors. This remedy is pretty simple, and fairly cheap. When dying something, follow the directions on the dye package right through letting the reently dyed fabric air-dry completely. (If you've bought the article of clothing, and just was to color-fast it, then you're already at this stage.) But, before you run through a wash, put the item in a sink/bucket/recepticle of choice, completely covered by a mixture of cheap, plain, boring, supermarket white vinegar, and enough tap water to dilute it so it doesn't reek. Yes, that's right...white vinegar. For some reason, white vinegar seems to color-fast most dyes to most fabrics...a but of European housewife wisdom I picked up from my French grandmother.
Leave the dyed item soaking in that diluted vinegar for a few hours to overnight...the darker the dye, or the more a "culprit" color, the longer it needs to sit there to work. I do recommend checking it now and again, to make sure there doesn't seem to be any fabric damage developing, but I've never personally run into any such problems. Once you think the time is up, take it to another sink, squeeze out as much of the vinegar-and-bled-dye water as seems reasonable, and run fresh tap water over the item, squeezing a bit at first, at the same time, to help get the last of the old water out. When you can run fresh tap water over/though the dyed fabric, into a closed sink, without the water tinting...you've color-fast the dye to the fabric. Didn't work yet? Stick it back in the vinegar for a little longer. Start over with a fresh vinegar-water solution for faster results. I have heard that hot water soaks, salt water soaks, hot salt water soaks, or heat-setting dye by ironing over it, also are all techniques for color-fasting dye...but I haven't tried them.
3) Results lead me to believe that rubbing a recently-dried, modge-podged item with wax paper keeps the modge-podge from remaining/getting tacky. Parchment paper seems to work somewhat, but not necessarily as well.
4) Maybe not all WalMart Fabric & Crafts Departments have this, and certainly not all get as much as my store does....but we, in any case, get 2000 yards of $1/yd material every single week. This isn't regularly-carried fabric that is being clearanced...it comes to us at that price. All widths, all materials, all colors, all solids and patterns and designs and materials and qualities...there's no rule, and we don't know where it comes from before it got to our warehouses/vendors, before it gets to us. It is rare that we get popular character prints, but then again, last week I sold a bolt of $1/yd. Blues Clues flannel. It is rare we get 100% cotton, but it does happen. I would never expect silk or linen or wool...we don't even sell that at "normal" prices. But, then again, I once myself bought an entire 17-yard bolt of rich, thick, excellent quality velvet that by all means *should* have been at least $8/yd.
We never know what's coming, so when we tell you that we really don't know if/when we'll be getting in some butter yellow sheers, we're not being lazy or ignorant or untrained...we just don't know and can't, and won't until we get a new shipment and look at what's inside. We also rarely get the same thing twice, which is why we will often, especially depending on how sure of yourself you seem to be or what you claim the fabric is intended for, question you on if you're quite certain that you have enough, recommend that you get a bit extra just in case, or discourage you leaving to think about it, with the plans of finding the same thing in a few days if you decide you want it. Many entire bolts will sell within half an hour of when they are priced and put out on the sales floor. We cannot tell you with any certainty beyond our best guess, what the fiber content is or what the washing requirements are, because the bolts don't tell us. The seemingly standard bolt for shipping $1/yd. material on says "Bottom Weight" or claims cotton content, even if it is quite obviously polyester of the quality of thin tablecloth plastic. Nor do we have any way to order the same thing, or the same thing in another color, so we're not being stubborn or lazy or difficult or argumentative when we tell you so.
Likewise, there is a little fabric-seller rule that most WalMarts enforce upon their associates if not always on the customers, which is that if the fabric is $2/yd. or less, we are not allowed to cut around defects in the material. Discount material will often come to us at discount prices because it is somehow irregular or defective. We are not supposed to unwind the bolt and start at the other end, either, although if there are no other customers waiting (this goes for "custom cutting" too) and no management looking, some of us will play nice and do it anyway. We can sometimes get away with beginning your cut of fabric past a defect if it is very close to the beginning of the loose end of the fabric, and if it is quite obviously something that could never be worked around...like a huge inkstain in the middle, or a seam that runs up the entire thing...and if it isn't a defect repeated throughout the bolt. On the same account, if it is fabric that is above $2/yd., you have the right to demand that we cut around defects in the material, or skip the improperly-cut panel and give you the next one on the bolt.
5) Many WalMarts are now also carrying apholstery-weight material, a great deal of which, (at least where I've looked in the Chicagoland and central NY areas) seems to come via a company called Dukane International. These bolts are usually 54-60" wide, and are $3.77/yd. Rarely do we get a bolt in that has more than 9-12 yards on it, to begin with. Some have come to us with less than 2 yards on them, to begin with. What is misleading about these bolts is that, while they are not what even for WalMart is discount material -- the stuff that comes at the price of $1 or $2 per yard to begin with -- we cannot re-order a specific style. Dukane, I imagine, is a company that itself collects remnants of fabrics from other companies. For whatever reason, they seem to give all their fabric styles within a given group (tapestry fabric, apholstery velour, vynl, heavyweight cotton-y prints) the same UPC number...that number which identifies an item in all computer and otherwise merchandise-cataloguing systems. We can try to order another moss-green, spiral-embossed bolt of apholstery velour, and instead we will be sent 10 completely random bolts of apholstery velour. The good news is that many times, although sometimes over a space of months, we will get repeats. The bad news is that we cannot guarantee it, or how much will come on the bolt when we do.
6) Many seasonal/holiday items only come in once. No matter how many times we try to re-order upon selling out, we cannot get some of those items back in. If you have fallen in love with a seasonal item, grab it as soon as you can. Yes, if anything is left after its "season" has passed, it will eventually and slowly be clearanced. Rarely is anything left.
7) Sewing machines with an original price under $100 are almost always cruddy. Manufacturing defects abound, they break down easily, they have few stitches and more importantly few features that make sewing easier for you, and they rarely sew consistantly between fabrics of different weights and textures. Yes, there is a warranty, but how many times do you want to take something back to the store, only to get another version of the same thing? Sometimes people get lucky, or sometimes their sewing needs are met. But if you are really interested in sewing, do it all the time, want to do more than basic hems on smooth cotton sheeting, and by all means if you sew for your income, please consider the wisdom in investing in a machine that will meet your needs for more than a week.
8) If you have small children or pets, but you want to use fake florals to decorate your home, please consider taking the time to glue the flower heads and other "joints" in place. They pull off/apart very easily, and there are exposed, jagged little wires inside that can do some serious damage.
9) If you do anything with fabric, Fiskars scizzors are your friends. From ittybitty scizzors to child safety scizzors to pinking shears to rotary cutters to righty or lefty pairs to pricy-but-worth-it titanium blades that are like the Ginsu of scizzors, to angled-head blades to....Fiskars is the brand I recommend. (Actually, they make paper-craft blades and cutters as well, but I can only assume those are fabulous compared with most of the competition, because I haven't tried them yet.) They are comfortable to use, and veryvery good, sharp blades that stay that way very nicely if you remember not to use fabric scizzors on anything else, or paper-craft scizzors to cut off your dog's leather collor or glue up with duct-tape. Even better, invest $2 in a little orange Fiskars scizzor sharpener...a little plastic doohicky with an angled sharpening rod (no way to hurt yourself on it) inside meant for scizzor blades...insert scizzors, lower blade in the larger slot, make a cutting motion a few times to run the blades over the sharpener, and viola! - freshly sharpened blades. Start with a new pair of scizzors and give a run or three through the sharpener after every time you've cut something..especially if it was thick or tough material...and you won't have to buy new scizzors again. You can use the sharpener on most old scizzors as well, but like laundry you took three years to get around to washing..it'll improve, but never be like new again. O...Fiskars also sells blade-covers for extra safety if you have little ones.
10) Do not bother providing most small children with oil paints. They are (compared with acrylic or tempera or watercolor) expensive, your child won't have any more fun with them than they will with other paints, at that (generalization here) stage, and they take bloody forever to dry.
11) Tempera paint is poster paint. It'll even say so on most of the packages. It will generally be more expensive than something labeled as poster paint, and will not as commonly be designed for use by children (washable, etc.)...but that's what it is...it's poster paint. Most back-to-school lists tell parents to get Tempera paint, however, not poster paint. Check with the teacher if you like, but chances are, if you grab that set of poster paints, it'll be OK.
12) Have you picked out a set of bedroom/bathroom/kitchen/living room decor in the Domestics Dep't, but they just don't have some specific item that matches the theme...kid's-print curtains being a common problem spot? Take heart...Fabrics & Crafts has a number of fabrics and trims designed to coordinate with many of the sets of merchandise in Domestics.
That's enough for now...don't want to feel like I'm AT work. ;-) I hope it was useful to someone...
1) If you have the inclination to buy something wooden from WalMart that will be used for decorative or play purposes on behalf of your child, please keep something in mind. Nearly everything wooden sold in WalMart, especially in the Fabrics & Crafts Department, is made from very cheap pine. Yes, pine is inexpensive, so whatever is made from it is, therefore, less expensive. Yes, it is fairly light-weight, and yes, because it is a very soft wood, it is very easy to make, or find made, a large variety of things from it.
On the same account, that it is a very soft, light-weight wood means something else....IT BREAKS REALLY EASILY! You wouldn't believe how few pieces of pine crafty merchandise put into a cart with a child actually make it out of the store in one piece. I don't want to believe the number of large wooden splinters I've watched administered with screams from the child and grumbles from the parents about how, "it was made from wood, so I thought it would hold up."
2) Fabric dye loves to run (move around in its distribution on the fabric you're trying to or have dyed) and bleed (leave the fabric that was intentionally dyed, and end up coloring the fabric you had no intention of dying). RIT dye (sold not in Fabrics & Crafts, which has only Tie-Dying kits, but in Paper Goods & Chemicals by the laundry detergent), the most commonly found at-home fabric dye that comes in a large variety of colors (as well as basic, useful things like black), is especially renowned for running and bleeding. Dye a shirt red, and nine times out of 10, even after several careful solitary washes, that red shirt will go into the wash and it, and half the other laundry, will come out pink. All colors will do this, but I've found black, red and purple to be the worst culprits.
In any case, there is something of a remedy, and while I can't swear by it, and highly recommend discretion and testing, especially if something you can't bear to think of ruined is involved (after all, fabric and dyes do vary in how they react to things) it does usually work wonders both for DYI dying jobs and for preserving new store-bought clothes or bathing suits that you'd like to retain their original colors. This remedy is pretty simple, and fairly cheap. When dying something, follow the directions on the dye package right through letting the reently dyed fabric air-dry completely. (If you've bought the article of clothing, and just was to color-fast it, then you're already at this stage.) But, before you run through a wash, put the item in a sink/bucket/recepticle of choice, completely covered by a mixture of cheap, plain, boring, supermarket white vinegar, and enough tap water to dilute it so it doesn't reek. Yes, that's right...white vinegar. For some reason, white vinegar seems to color-fast most dyes to most fabrics...a but of European housewife wisdom I picked up from my French grandmother.
Leave the dyed item soaking in that diluted vinegar for a few hours to overnight...the darker the dye, or the more a "culprit" color, the longer it needs to sit there to work. I do recommend checking it now and again, to make sure there doesn't seem to be any fabric damage developing, but I've never personally run into any such problems. Once you think the time is up, take it to another sink, squeeze out as much of the vinegar-and-bled-dye water as seems reasonable, and run fresh tap water over the item, squeezing a bit at first, at the same time, to help get the last of the old water out. When you can run fresh tap water over/though the dyed fabric, into a closed sink, without the water tinting...you've color-fast the dye to the fabric. Didn't work yet? Stick it back in the vinegar for a little longer. Start over with a fresh vinegar-water solution for faster results. I have heard that hot water soaks, salt water soaks, hot salt water soaks, or heat-setting dye by ironing over it, also are all techniques for color-fasting dye...but I haven't tried them.
3) Results lead me to believe that rubbing a recently-dried, modge-podged item with wax paper keeps the modge-podge from remaining/getting tacky. Parchment paper seems to work somewhat, but not necessarily as well.
4) Maybe not all WalMart Fabric & Crafts Departments have this, and certainly not all get as much as my store does....but we, in any case, get 2000 yards of $1/yd material every single week. This isn't regularly-carried fabric that is being clearanced...it comes to us at that price. All widths, all materials, all colors, all solids and patterns and designs and materials and qualities...there's no rule, and we don't know where it comes from before it got to our warehouses/vendors, before it gets to us. It is rare that we get popular character prints, but then again, last week I sold a bolt of $1/yd. Blues Clues flannel. It is rare we get 100% cotton, but it does happen. I would never expect silk or linen or wool...we don't even sell that at "normal" prices. But, then again, I once myself bought an entire 17-yard bolt of rich, thick, excellent quality velvet that by all means *should* have been at least $8/yd.
We never know what's coming, so when we tell you that we really don't know if/when we'll be getting in some butter yellow sheers, we're not being lazy or ignorant or untrained...we just don't know and can't, and won't until we get a new shipment and look at what's inside. We also rarely get the same thing twice, which is why we will often, especially depending on how sure of yourself you seem to be or what you claim the fabric is intended for, question you on if you're quite certain that you have enough, recommend that you get a bit extra just in case, or discourage you leaving to think about it, with the plans of finding the same thing in a few days if you decide you want it. Many entire bolts will sell within half an hour of when they are priced and put out on the sales floor. We cannot tell you with any certainty beyond our best guess, what the fiber content is or what the washing requirements are, because the bolts don't tell us. The seemingly standard bolt for shipping $1/yd. material on says "Bottom Weight" or claims cotton content, even if it is quite obviously polyester of the quality of thin tablecloth plastic. Nor do we have any way to order the same thing, or the same thing in another color, so we're not being stubborn or lazy or difficult or argumentative when we tell you so.
Likewise, there is a little fabric-seller rule that most WalMarts enforce upon their associates if not always on the customers, which is that if the fabric is $2/yd. or less, we are not allowed to cut around defects in the material. Discount material will often come to us at discount prices because it is somehow irregular or defective. We are not supposed to unwind the bolt and start at the other end, either, although if there are no other customers waiting (this goes for "custom cutting" too) and no management looking, some of us will play nice and do it anyway. We can sometimes get away with beginning your cut of fabric past a defect if it is very close to the beginning of the loose end of the fabric, and if it is quite obviously something that could never be worked around...like a huge inkstain in the middle, or a seam that runs up the entire thing...and if it isn't a defect repeated throughout the bolt. On the same account, if it is fabric that is above $2/yd., you have the right to demand that we cut around defects in the material, or skip the improperly-cut panel and give you the next one on the bolt.
5) Many WalMarts are now also carrying apholstery-weight material, a great deal of which, (at least where I've looked in the Chicagoland and central NY areas) seems to come via a company called Dukane International. These bolts are usually 54-60" wide, and are $3.77/yd. Rarely do we get a bolt in that has more than 9-12 yards on it, to begin with. Some have come to us with less than 2 yards on them, to begin with. What is misleading about these bolts is that, while they are not what even for WalMart is discount material -- the stuff that comes at the price of $1 or $2 per yard to begin with -- we cannot re-order a specific style. Dukane, I imagine, is a company that itself collects remnants of fabrics from other companies. For whatever reason, they seem to give all their fabric styles within a given group (tapestry fabric, apholstery velour, vynl, heavyweight cotton-y prints) the same UPC number...that number which identifies an item in all computer and otherwise merchandise-cataloguing systems. We can try to order another moss-green, spiral-embossed bolt of apholstery velour, and instead we will be sent 10 completely random bolts of apholstery velour. The good news is that many times, although sometimes over a space of months, we will get repeats. The bad news is that we cannot guarantee it, or how much will come on the bolt when we do.
6) Many seasonal/holiday items only come in once. No matter how many times we try to re-order upon selling out, we cannot get some of those items back in. If you have fallen in love with a seasonal item, grab it as soon as you can. Yes, if anything is left after its "season" has passed, it will eventually and slowly be clearanced. Rarely is anything left.
7) Sewing machines with an original price under $100 are almost always cruddy. Manufacturing defects abound, they break down easily, they have few stitches and more importantly few features that make sewing easier for you, and they rarely sew consistantly between fabrics of different weights and textures. Yes, there is a warranty, but how many times do you want to take something back to the store, only to get another version of the same thing? Sometimes people get lucky, or sometimes their sewing needs are met. But if you are really interested in sewing, do it all the time, want to do more than basic hems on smooth cotton sheeting, and by all means if you sew for your income, please consider the wisdom in investing in a machine that will meet your needs for more than a week.
8) If you have small children or pets, but you want to use fake florals to decorate your home, please consider taking the time to glue the flower heads and other "joints" in place. They pull off/apart very easily, and there are exposed, jagged little wires inside that can do some serious damage.
9) If you do anything with fabric, Fiskars scizzors are your friends. From ittybitty scizzors to child safety scizzors to pinking shears to rotary cutters to righty or lefty pairs to pricy-but-worth-it titanium blades that are like the Ginsu of scizzors, to angled-head blades to....Fiskars is the brand I recommend. (Actually, they make paper-craft blades and cutters as well, but I can only assume those are fabulous compared with most of the competition, because I haven't tried them yet.) They are comfortable to use, and veryvery good, sharp blades that stay that way very nicely if you remember not to use fabric scizzors on anything else, or paper-craft scizzors to cut off your dog's leather collor or glue up with duct-tape. Even better, invest $2 in a little orange Fiskars scizzor sharpener...a little plastic doohicky with an angled sharpening rod (no way to hurt yourself on it) inside meant for scizzor blades...insert scizzors, lower blade in the larger slot, make a cutting motion a few times to run the blades over the sharpener, and viola! - freshly sharpened blades. Start with a new pair of scizzors and give a run or three through the sharpener after every time you've cut something..especially if it was thick or tough material...and you won't have to buy new scizzors again. You can use the sharpener on most old scizzors as well, but like laundry you took three years to get around to washing..it'll improve, but never be like new again. O...Fiskars also sells blade-covers for extra safety if you have little ones.
10) Do not bother providing most small children with oil paints. They are (compared with acrylic or tempera or watercolor) expensive, your child won't have any more fun with them than they will with other paints, at that (generalization here) stage, and they take bloody forever to dry.
11) Tempera paint is poster paint. It'll even say so on most of the packages. It will generally be more expensive than something labeled as poster paint, and will not as commonly be designed for use by children (washable, etc.)...but that's what it is...it's poster paint. Most back-to-school lists tell parents to get Tempera paint, however, not poster paint. Check with the teacher if you like, but chances are, if you grab that set of poster paints, it'll be OK.
12) Have you picked out a set of bedroom/bathroom/kitchen/living room decor in the Domestics Dep't, but they just don't have some specific item that matches the theme...kid's-print curtains being a common problem spot? Take heart...Fabrics & Crafts has a number of fabrics and trims designed to coordinate with many of the sets of merchandise in Domestics.
That's enough for now...don't want to feel like I'm AT work. ;-) I hope it was useful to someone...
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