wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks for the advice, but my friend lives 4 hours away. I'm hoping it
won't resort to that. But thanks for wasting your time posting a
smart-alec message.


Before you go get your panties in a bunch, ANYBODY who is serious about
stealing ideas for projects has a tape measure with them all the time. I
carry both tape measures and calipers in all vehicles. If I see something in
a store (or elsewhere), I get out the tape measure, calipers and graph
paper. Or just use the paper in my shirt pocket. (Yep, I am a nerd. I carry
both paper and pen in my shirt pocket.) I can knock out a good drawing of
almost anything in about two or three minutes.

For me, it is almost like an act of shoplifting. I carefully move my body
about in a smooth and inconspicuous manner. I will even take a single
measurement, take a photo and extrapolate all the other measurements by
carefully measuring various parts of the piece in the photo.

And when all else fails, I sit down and design the piece based on memory.
You obviously haven't done this very much. It wasn't a smart aleck
suggestion. It was in fact a valid suggestion. And is in fact something that
woodworkers (and other creative craftfolks) do on a regular basis.

And if you can't take a sensible suggestion without getting all flustered,
maybe they have some room for you over on the cross stitching newsgroup.