In this week’s craft video I show you how to crochet three different centres on your flowers. This is a brand new technique to Knitting-and.com that I haven’t shown before 🙂
I’ve started a series of hairpin lace tutorials.
To begin: Casting on and working the basic stitch
Apologies for my continuing absence. I’ve been napping a lot in between crafting, visiting the midwives clinic and having all those fun (not) tests that are inflicted upon pregnant women.
Speaking of crafting, since that’s what you’re here for, I thought I’d write a few posts about what I have been making for my 15 year old daughter and son-in-progress. I’ll post all out of order and start with the things I have made for my daughter.
First of all is the Texture Shawl Collar Jacket from Patons Australia, booklet #1264, Inca Fashion Knits. I actually received the pattern as a freebee from Stitches magazine so I don’t have the whole booklet.
Here’s a pic:
(oops, the pic seems to have been lost during a website update. Sorry)
It looks quite baggy in this photo but in reality it fits very well. Slouchy teens, what can you do 😉
I really enjoyed knitting this jacket. The stitch pattern is easy to remember but changes enough to keep it interesting and it works up really fast. I really like the Patons pattern books as Brittany likes many of the designs and many them are written in sizes small enough for her.
I knit the small size and made the whole thing 4.5cm shorter because Brit is so tiny (for our family, lol) and used 2.5 balls of yarn less because of the shortening.
I would keep this particular yarn for special garments. It’s loosely spun so it wouldn’t stand up to a lot of wear and tear, but for a special garment I find it really nice and would definitely use it again. The buttons are (I assume lasercut) coconut shell which I bought at Spotlight for $5 each. Actually, the hardest part of this jacket was finding the buttons!
Next up is a Hello Kitty Mini-Tote that I crocheted for Brittany’s birthday last week.
I used the face pattern from a backpack and made two granny squares for the purse section. It’s made from Cleckheaton Country 8 ply (dk weight) wool and lined with some red cotton. The eyes are felt stuck on with washable craft glue. I’ve been crafting from patterns a lot lately and it was nice to make up a pattern on the fly for a change.
Speaking of things that are different, this is Gary the evil sock monkey.
Front:
and back (so you can see his wings):
Gary is a basic sock monkey with quilted wings.
To make the wings I drew a basic wing shape on a piece of paper. Then I cut 2 out of black homespun cotton and one from a medium weight quilt batting.
I stitched the batting and fabric together with the two layers of fabric on the bottom and batting on top, leaving a gap for turning. I then trimmed the batting from the seam allowance, turned it right side out and hand stitched the gap closed. Finally I finished off by stitching the triangles inside the wings to create the detail. It’s a lot easier than it sounds, I swear 🙂
Of course all evil flying sock monkeys need a best friend, so when I saw this pattern featured on the Craft: magazine blog, I had to make one!
That’s all of my crafting for teens at the moment. Tomorrow: baby blankets!
Ok, technically there is neither a splat nor a crunch, bet hey! Artistic license and all that 🙂
Three or so weeks ago I promised I would upload photos of other projects I had made the next day. Then there was Christmas and New Year’s and swimming and shopping and destashing and…
Let’s just face facts, shall we? This is as fast as I get 🙂
I still don’t have a photo of one of them, but here are the rest.
I finished these wristicuffs for Miss Brittany last night.
They’re made from some of my very, very early handspun. It’s lumpy and bumpy and dyed with Kool-Aid. It’s also incredibly soft and Brittany asked me to make her something out of it while we were sorting out the garage stash. I wanted to destash it but there you go…
Techy specs – Yarn: lumpy handspun 2 ply merino, approximately aran weight. Spun by me about 10 or 11 (maybe 12) years ago.
Pattern: K1, p1 rib on 4mm needles. 1 inch smaller than wrist circumference (unstretched).
3 inches long
The next projects are quite picture heavy so bear with me. Two Una-na dolls made from the Japanese book by Mimiwn. I love making these dolls. I can see myself becoming quite addicted to making them little clothes and accessories. I had to stop myself buying a little toy kitchen dresser at the op shop the other day because it was the right size for them. (If I had my own, much larger, house I would have bought it).
The black haired one is called Pansy Dollington (Brittany’s) and the brown haired one is mine. Her name is Florence Dollington. Unfortunately Florence has developed a tendency to swear like a sailor when least expected (but definitely *not* when my Dad is around, haha). I suspect she’s got a little bit of a dolly “drinky drinky” problem to tell the truth…
I still need to finish sewing Florence’s shirt and skirt. I had to take my sewing machine apart halfway through to clean it, and then everything got put away for Christmas and I haven’t been back to it yet.
This first picture shows her wearing the first unsuccessful wrist warmer as a shoulder warmer type thing. I’m going to put a little felt & button flower on it.
Here she is wearing an early Spring… let’s call it a “ponchette”. (I love that word. It’s so pretentious).
And finally here she is wearing a ponchette from the same pattern, but in thicker yarn.
Technical details:
The book is unfortunately out of print (Una-na dolls by mimiwn)
The red and beige yarns are discontinued dk weight commercial yarns, and the bright blue is some of my hand dyed handspun yarn with (I think) mohair, angelina fibre and possibly something else thrown in. The blue is 2 ply and a bit finer than fingering weight.
Next is a quickie that I knit at the doctor’s the other day.
The mysterious pattern was posted on Cosymakes a few days ago. Since I had just finished all my simple knitting and I had to leave quite soon, I scribbled out the pattern, grabbed needles and yarn and had a go. I just can’t resist small vintage patterns that don’t have pictures 🙂
I love this little stocking boot so much that I’m thinking of making a bunch of them during the year in whatever scraps I still have lying around after my major destash (I’ll get to that BTW).
Techy details: I used thinner yarn and smaller needles than the pattern calls for, but only slightly. The pattern calls for 5mm needles and (I guess) a worsted weight yarn. I used 4mm needles and dk weight. The green is some of my handspun, the purpley red is Jo Sharp DK wool.
Well I think that’s enough for today! I have more projects to share with you but I think I’ll leave them and the story of the destash until tomorrow. I’ve already taken the photos, so you won’t have to wait another three weeks, I swear!
I’m a bit allover the place with my needlework projects at the moment so I thought I’d give a quick pictorial update as to what I’ve been up to. My keyboard is also dying, which is beginning to make typing difficult (half the top row of keys won’t work and the shift and control keys seem to have a life of their own!)
I received this in the mail this week (I love the ring-only edging on the cover):
and have decided to use this motif out of it for the doily I wanted to make, instead of the one from Modern Priscilla which I had decided on before. I prefer this one because it’s a bit more complex than the one I was originally going to use, which will make it a bit more challenging.
I’ve been working hairpin lace samples for a couple of articles, plus about half of the first strip for my shawl (the white thing at the top)
I’ve been learning to use the Singercraft tool to make pile fabrics
and finally, I started a piece of teneriffe lace on my Koppo cushion
The cream thread is size 40 and the “random kingfisher” is size 20. If anyone knows where I can find more random kingfisher in any size thread please let me know! I bought one ball at an op shop so it’s probably vintage but it’s my favourite colour and I’d like to stock up on some more.