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Sunday, January 30, 2011

50 for 2011: #5 - pink woven scarf

PINK SCARF
hooray!

it's 8/2 cotton, a test for my two heddle rigid heddle loom, that I started Christmas last year... um, 2009.   You'll notice that one side is all smooth, which comes from having been on the loom under tension for a year, not from any blocking on my part.

The most exciting bit, not that I'm not happy with it, since it's wide and long and pink and peach, so, who wouldn't be happy with it? is that this frees up the loom for new projects, so, yay!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

50 for 2011: #6 art for baby's room

Well, #6 was to be that pin-weaving nightmare I cast aside a few days back.  In its place, I made this:

altered puzzle
shiny!

It's an altered puzzle.  I am a great fan of Craftster.org, and on there they have many much more accomplished and interesting ones, but, well, no one is stepping up to make one for me, so I just had a go at it.

I didn't look into how other people did theirs, but here's what I did: I bought a 24 piecer at the thrift shop, assembled it, flipped it over and numbered the backs.  Then I sanded the finish off, then glued stuff to them, then trimmed them with an exact knife.  Glued it to a piece of cardboard, went over it with Modpodge, and then glued shiny bits to it.

Some ingredients:

4 books - two about fossils, one about oceans, and one copy of "The Little Engine that Could"

4 pieces of my handmade paper

3 items cut out of my old sketchbooks (cat, snail, and the clothes the goose is wearing)

One purpose carved jellyfish stamp, because I got to the last piece and thought, what this puzzle really needs is jellyfish.

A lot of the rest is wrapping paper, things cut from magazines, and tissue paper...

I don't do a lot of paper  crafts, but I do hoard a lot of paper... I found this to be an extremely engrossing project, and worked on it with all my spare time for four days!

Monday, January 24, 2011

more shirts!

I'll put the exciting ones at the top:

four colors (two shades of yellow, one green, one blue*) batik, a somewhat sad attempt at shibori, and printed:

sun shirt
here comes... the sun!
three colors (yellow, green, and blue*), printed and batik - this one has a halo of wax because a lot of wax was involved - it will wash out over time-

square shirt
for Alligator's birthday, so... shhh!

And some single colored with batik only:

pink spots
I wish I could get pink to photograph

green spots
I like this one a lot.

* the blue over the yellow green just gave me dark green.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

50 for 2011: #15. decoupage boring spindles

I made these spindles years ago from wooden wheels from the craft store and dowel rods cut to size and made pointy at one end with a pencil sharpener.

before spindle
The before spindle

But after getting a gorgeous new spindle for Christmas, I thought I need all my tools to be prettier... so, what to do... but use ModPodge!

glittery spindle
ooh, shiny!

little one coated with glue and glitter, and then more glue to keep the glitter from getting everywhere.  It also has a little rhinestone star, but I took the picture from a bad angle and you can't really tell.

large spindle decoupaged with stamps
large spindle decoupaged with stamps

The stamps came from a friend of mine, intended for another project I haven't done yet...

Of course, now there is glitter everywhere.... I'd forgotten.  I've not used glitter since... I dunno, junior high?

Monday, January 17, 2011

End of the Road, UFO!

So, this thing has been hovering in my house for about a year now.

pin weaving
*shudders*
It is so classically me, to look at something and think, oh how neat, what would happen if I made it on a gigantic scale...

So, picture me, eight months pregnant, no longer able to reach the loom over my giant stomach and having given up spinning two months earlier for the same reason, so, I put this thing together, and it was intended when finished to be joined with some long warp weaving bits to be a large wall hanging for the baby's room. But once she was born, I had no time, and now that things are calming down, I have no desire to work on this... monstrosity.

Also, I've come to doubt that it will hold together when taken down.  Much like the Tower of Babel, it is so large, it is an affront to God.

Although it is an item on my 50 for 2011 list, this thing, this pointy thing, with a few hundred tiny pins stuck in it, has got to go.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

six imperfect hearts

Well, Valentine's Day is looming, and I'm thinking of entering a Valentine's Day crafting contest.

I've got fabric picked out and everything, but other things are looming (like birthdays!) and I'm not so sure it's going to happen. However. I made some screens for screen printing hearts. You know, in case I suddenly find myself with buckets of spare time.

Six, actually.

six hearts

Sigh. I know this is ugly. Red, black, and white is a color scheme I view with much abhorrence (also, apart from personal preferences, it's overused!), and this "design" is much too cluttered. But I was overeager to test out the screens and threw caution to the wind. Also, this is a shirt my daughter's outgrown and it was near to hand.

excuses! anyway, you'll see more of these, or you won't. Stay tuned!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

In lieu of a new hat

I've made an extension for my existing hat. Sort of a headband, but you wear a hat under it?

some knitting
wow, this is not a great picture, but man, the rest were worse.

Also a tube to sit around my neck under my scarf.

I have a confession to make: I'm not a fan of winter. I like tank tops and short skirts and not wearing shoes. I'm also from the Mason-Dixon line area, and man, we don't have the same sort of winter as those here in Michigan.

Also, I know it looks silly, but perhaps your life doesn't call for spending half an hour on the playground in the snow. :)

Basic 2/2 rib. The neck piece is 64 stitches in a bulky yarn worked in the round. The headband I knit flat, but I don't remember how many stitches I cast on.

Monday, January 3, 2011

50 for 2011: #11 (and some of #12)

prints made from screens
well, just the test runs, really.

I will go back and clean up some of those spots.  Or maybe I won't.  :P

The sun and moon (#11 on my list) are my own designs, and sadly, I couldn't figure out how to get the moon to wear a boot and top hat... so.  He's naked.

The red starrish thing is something my older daughter came up with while struggling with a stencil.  The other is just... something I threw together with MS Paint.

The tutorial I used to make my screens is this one.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Knitting Pattern: Baby Cupcake Hands


baby cupcake mittens
mmmmm.... cupcakes!
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure where this idea came from. Anyway, I made some cupcake/mittens for my daughter. The best thing about them (other than the double thickness of yarn making them quite warm) is that once they are outgrown, they can be moved right into the play food bin!

cupcake mittens
cupcakes!

Pattern:   For babies 3-6 months

Materials:

Yarn, two colors: one for the cake, the other for the icing; DK weight
Double Pointed Needles in size to achieve gauge
Stitch Marker
Tapestry Needle

Gauge: 6 stitches & 8 rows/inch

Inner mitten and cake:

Using one dpn, and cake color, CO 8 stitches, arrange evenly over three needles, with a stitch marker at the join.

Round 1: (k1, kfb) around  - 12 stitches

Round 2 (and all even rounds): knit all stitches

Round 3: (k1, kfb) around  - 18 stitches

Round 5: (k1, kfb) around  - 27 stitches

Round 7: k1, m1, k26

Knit until mitten reaches 3 inches long.

Work a 2/2 rib for 1 inch.

Knit one round.

Next round: (k4, m1) 6 times, k4 - 34stitches

Work a 1/1 rib for 2 inches.

Break yarn, and leave stitches on needles.

mitten and cake
you now have this

Icing:

With two dpns held together, CO 48 stitches with icing color, then arrange evenly over three needles, with a stitch marker at the join.

Rounds 1 & 2: knit.

Round 3: (k2 tog, k2) to end - 36 stitches

** tricky bit **

Fold the 1/1 ribbing of the cake up.

mitten and cake
folding up cuff/cake

Bring your icing ruff up over the bottom of the cupcake, until it is laying next to the live cake stitches.

cupcake with icing at bottom
align icing with live cake stitches

Knit a cake and an icing stitch together with the icing yarn, all the way around. (You will be going backwards over the cake stitches... it's weird, but you will survive it!)

first stitch connecting the two
first stitch
the fourth stitch

NB - there are two more icing stitches than cake stitches; m1 stitch twice on the cake side over the course of the round.

Round 5-8: purl.

Round 9: (p2, p2tog) 9 times  - 27 sts

Round 10-12: purl.

Round 13: p1, p2tog (p2, p2tog) 6 times - 20 sts

Round 14: purl.

Round 15: (p2tog, p1) 6 times, p2tog - 13 sts

Round 16: purl.

Round 17: p1, (p2tog) 6 times - 7 sts

Break yarn, run needle through loops, and pull the top of the cupcake closed.

Weave in ends.

You can download this pattern as a pdf from Craftsy, although it doesn't spell out the tricky bit.
 

Saturday, January 1, 2011

#13 of 50 for 2011

#13:

scarf-thing for baby
pic links to Ravelry page...
actually, started and finished it yesterday....