-->

Friday, February 25, 2011

One more side zippered pouch

After showing off my business card holder, a friend asked me to explain how it was made. I tried, and failed, and so I made another, with a tutorial.

piggie pouch
pigs!

However, having just written out the tutorial on crafster.org, I prefer to link to it, rather than write it over again. So, it's here.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

apparently, I am a follower of trends

But first of all:

birthday cookie cake
it's my birthday! I made this cookie cake!

I love cookie cakes and usually, that's what I have for my birthday - when we lived in Central IL, I would pick one up at a cookie store down the street from where I worked, but I'm not sure they even have cookie stores here, but anyway the grocery store was out this weekend, and then we had a large snowfall, so I made one with a recipe from teh internets. Hopefully it's good...

As for the trend: mug rugs. another craftster.org obsession. I am not sure about them - I can see myself never using it, but a small quilting project (they are generally 6x8 inches) appealed to me, and I had an idea for a pattern, so I made one. Cutting and everything, I did this in two evenings.

mug rug front
front!

mug rug back
back!

Mostly, it's strips of fabric sewn into blocks, then those are cut and pieced back together, three pink fabrics on the front, three dark fabrics on the back. I cheated on the binding, cause I don't know what I'm doing. The machine quilting is awkward, cause I don't practice, and frankly, I find it somewhat stressful. Otherwise, I'm fairly pleased. The blocks on the back don't line up as well as could be wished, but the front does okay.

The screen print was adapted from a drawing by my elder daughter. I gave the mug rug to her, actually, as a memento of her current love of spooky things. She thinks I should make one for everyone in the family.  Well, maybe....

Monday, February 21, 2011

Teesha Moore style bag

I made this for a birthday present. There is a bit of a rage for them at craftster.org, where I stumbled on to them.

bag
happy birthday!
This one has some screen printed elements, hand dyed fabric, hand woven fabric and one square was cut from a sweater.

I'm feeling lazy, so I think I'll just link to stuff now:
the bag - craftster.org post
the craftster Teesha Moore stitch-along (fun to scroll through - there's a show images only button to speed up the scrolling)
Teesha Moore YouTube tutorial(s)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

putting it out in the open

Here it is: enough to fill a full sized guest bed.

my fiber stash
let's just call this "before"

Let me walk you through this. The left front is silks, behind is mohair and alpaca, then assorted sheepy painted rovings (about half done by me) then solid and blended rovings, then carded batts across the back (all but one done by me). The middle is mostly rovings waiting to be overdyed, the far right is more solid colors or blended rovings, and the front right are my veggie fibers - the ingeo, tencil, viscose (unless they're the same?) and a little bit of banana fiber, and whatever they call the stuff made from plastic bottles.

And this isn't everything. I didn't include four rovings I've set out for spinning, or the roving set aside for the roving rug. And a box full of carded cormo batts. Also not included: a fleece and a half waiting to be processed and a bag of lincoln locks. But I think that is it?

And then I reorganized, and pulled out some things I'm most excited about to queue for working on.

I'm making March all about spinning. I need to work through some of this stash before it buries me...

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Winter Fleece Fair

I went to the Winter Fleece Fair at the Spinner's Flock spinning guild today. Well, I should say, I worked the Fleece Fair. I had some things for sale, but not much, I really wasn't planning on doing this sale, except two weeks ago, I said, well, really, why not? and just threw some things together.

small woven lady
I made this for the doorprize basket.
They say the more you have for sale, the more you sell, and I guess I proved that when you don't have much you don't sell much. ;)
But enough about sales! It was a blast! Not only did I hang out with people I knew were cool, I met a lot of people equally awesome (many who urged me to buy fiber animals! I would if I could, guys!) and compared notes on dyeing and spinning and children... well. And I talked with some friends who came to shop, and I met some people who I hadn't seen in forever, and I demonstrated drop spindling for people, who hopefully I will meet again in the future. And there were cookies!

And there was so much to look at. If you haven't been to this sale, and you're in the area, it is a treat. It is sooooooooooo much roving. It is a junior high school cafeteria filled 3/4 full of roving, and the rest yarn and felt making supplies.

And then I spent a lot of money. I bought roving: 8 oz of dark green, 4 oz of grey, and 8 oz of a mohair/wool mix in white (for dyeing), and an ounce of pink, and 4 oz of light gold, and a gorgeous hand painted roving from Happy Fuzzy Yarn. I didn't buy yarn, though I wanted to because I remembered my resolution. I probably should expand my resolution to include roving, though, because, buying that much at once is kind of sticker shock inducing.

I did make a resolution, though, looking at all that wonderful yarn. That I need to be a more daring spinner. I need to mix my rovings! I need to ply more dangerously! I need to add silk and sparkle and locks to things! I need to live on the spindle's edge!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

50 for 2011: #34. pouch for business cards

This turned out more elaborate than intended.  I was going to make a mug rug (a small 6x8" quilt for a glass and a small snack) but I ended up sewing things together with a different seam width than I'd planned when writing up the pattern, so nothing lined up.

Rather than throwing it out, I cut out the horrible bit, and, using some scraps from cutting out the pieces I had, I fashioned it into the pouch you see below.

pouch from the front
with salmon pink lining

pouch from the back
+ circles printed with fabric paint

I didn't want the button to be lonely, but I didn't want the pouch to be covered in buttons either. Screen printing to the rescue!

pouch in action
action shot!

It's a bit big (to accommodate the zipper), but that's better than my current business card pouch, which is too small.

Now the only question is: what fabrics do I use on the mug rug? I don't want them to be a matched set... that would seem a bit... odd.

I used this tutorial although it is for a top zipper. I managed to think my way through putting the zipper on the side, and I don't think I could explain it without illustrations. Perhaps I'd better make my own tutorial?

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

50 for 2011: #1 pink sock yarn

pink yarn
well, pink and red and orange and purple, really

100g superwash merino with some nylon in one ply.

A bit over spun, but fairly even in width, so I'm pretty pleased.

I saw a few unhappy things while skeining it up, but my approach is to excise them during knitting.  No one will know! (apart from all you people I just mentioned it to on the internet!  The perfect crime!)

(For the sake of accurate record keeping, I should add that this is spun from my own hand-dyed roving... one ply is pink nylon roving blended with purple superwash merino, the other is red, purple, orange, and pink superwash merino roving.)