A 30 Year Search Finally Comes to Fruition

 Compared to kids nowadays, I had few toys as a child. I had a LOT of stuffed animals, and we had some family board games, and I had a couple dolls, but compared to what today's kids often have, it wasn't a lot. I'm glad my parents didn't save all my childhood toys, there was no need to do that. They did save the doll cradle my grandfather made me, which my girls played with, and now it's going through my granddaughters. That was worth saving.

There's only ever been one toy I wished I still had, and I've been looking for it it for 30 years or so. I wished I could have found it when my kids were young, because there's really nothing like it. So what was it? A set of stencils. I know, you're probably thinking you can get stencils everywhere, even a dollar store, and you can, but not like THESE stencils! 

These stencils don't look like anything, you can't always tell what you are going make. I've searched for them in thrift stores, antique shops and online, but the thing is, I couldn't remember the brand name. I used search terms like "turning stencils" or "stencils by the number". The other night I was up late, and I tried "vintage rotating stencils" AHA! that was it! The toy I was remembering went by Rotodraw in the USA, but Rotadraw in the UK. There were various versions of it as well. I saw Rototot, and Rotaword. Once I knew what they were called, finding them on ebay was a breeze.

I ended up buying a lot that had both the regular Rotadraw discs, and the Rotaword. I think I only had three or four discs as a child, maybe even five, but certainly no more than that. Now I've got plenty to share with my grandkids. There is still a Rotodraw set being made, but it's very simplified compared to these. These you have to turn the discs and line up marks multiple times, the version being sold new now only has four settings, and the crank moves the disc the right amount for you. I've always had a hard time explaining how to use these, but thanks to YouTube, Here's a link of how to do it.

https://youtu.be/blI1iSawb0A

This is a close up of the first one I did with these discs. I know stencils are a weird thing to long after from childhood, but I actually think it's the same reasoning behind why I love quilting. You take a bunch of seemingly random shapes, and you put them all together, and it makes something amazing! 

Speaking of amazing, I made it to my sister's craft fair, even with two of my grandsons in tow. 

She had worked hard for months making stuff for the craft fair. Unfortunately, it was raining the day of the fair, and people in southern Arizona aren't used to the rain, so not many people made it out. It was such a shame because she had some great stuff!

I finished pressing all of clue two of the Chilhowie Mystery quilt. I swapped the orange and purple placements from Bonnie's choice, and teal is my neutral. Other than the mystery quilt, everything I've been working on is for Christmas, so no pics of that! I'm not going to be accused of perfection on this quilt, there's a bit of wonkiness going on in these, but nothing so drastic I am going to redo them. They are just my leader/enders for my Christmas project, which takes precedence. I don't like doing knocked off corners as leaders/enders, I find I'm not as accurate as when I chain piece them. Still, I want to play along, and I've got deadlines on other things, so I'll take some imperfections. I'm good at fudging during assembly, so I think it will be fine. On the upside, I'm loving how my colors are are looking together! I've got a guess on what these units will be, but I'll keep my guesses to myself.