Dabbling Wednesday

This is going to be my last Dabbling Wednesday until the new year. I have too much to do, and don't expect to have enough time to ... dabble.

So I thought this week I'd do a bit of cross-stitch. I wanted to do something I could keep by my crafting corner. Something short, something relevant, something that would inspire me and motivate me.

And this is what I came up with:


Let's see how effective it is :)

Dabbling Wednesday

Apparently today was cupcake day at my house! If there isn't already a national cupcake day, there really should be one.

The other day I saw these individual silicone cupcake molds at Pound Land (and for my American friends who are wondering - yes, it really is called Pound Land). I haven't made cupcakes in ages. Or at least I don't remember making them. I do oddly enough remember having cupcake liners at one point, but I don't actually remember making them. Perhaps I didn't make them with icing (why would I bother to remember naked cupcakes?) ...

In any case, I poo-poohed any concerns I had about getting cancer from baking in 99 pence silicone and made some cupcakes this evening!

Apparently mixing coco powder and green food coloring in your butter icing produces yoda cupcakes! (cupcakes I like)
As you can see I was too eager to consume it to actually apply the icing in a neat and pleasing manner. Tasted good though.

And then I made a little pincushion, one with considerably neater icing. And sprinkles. And it's full of fibre. And I don't have to actively ignore it's fat content (or lack thereof).
(it will be on sale on etsy tomorrow).

Dabbling Wednesday

The crafting narrative that I've formed about myself has, up until today, started with a latch rug kit around the age of 10.

But today's dabbling made me realize that wasn't correct.

Before the latch rug I must have started with a knitting spool.

And I can vaguely remember what it looks like too - a mushroom with a white stem and red top.

I got this little spool at a charity shop on Tuesday, and after 5 minutes of the normal thing you do with these (I was surprised that it really was knitting! but with metal loops instead of knitting needles, which, you know, makes sense since it's called a knitting spool ...) I decided it might be a little more interesting to try and knit around one of my felted cords with sewing thread.

I'm not sure what I expected, but this isn't it:

Hmmm. Looks a little like some worm from another planet.

But I suppose you never know until you try!

Dabbling Wednesday

Today's dabbling Wednesday project was taken from the book 100 applique motifs by Deborah 'Ismoyo' Green. There's lots of really cute fabric applique ideas in there. I picked a little cat design because it didn't require sewing with a machine (as you can see why in the next picture).

You're supposed to trace the template, then enlarge it but since I didn't know what I'd be doing with the end product I just kept the cat design super small.

Here's the cat pattern cut out, and the background square machine-sewn (I'll get that sewing in a straight line thing down some day :)

Then I pinned down the cat figure, and hand-sewed it in place.
I still haven't figured out what I'll do about the eyes. The book has the cat with little Xs for the eyes, but it just made the cat look like it expired. Maybe I'll do French Knots?

In any case I think I'll have another go at sewing that square...

Dabbling Wednesday

Dabbling Wednesday very nearly didn't happen this week! I don't really have internet connection at home (more on that another day). So I really wasn't sure what I'd make.

This morning I remembered seeing on our bookshelves a library book about paper crafts, Paper Celebrations by Jane Alford to be exact.

Now me, paper, glue and tape are not the best of friends. And except for a brief time making collages as a teenager I've stuck to textile arts, probably because it doesn't involve glue (though I'd like to think it's just because I don't have the proper glue). In fact, now that I think about it sewing is the textile art that I find the most annoying, often because it involves doing cutting and measuring in straight lines. Yes another skill I should have mastered in kindergarten...

Back to the actual dabbling... Although the book had cute little hobby ACTS (including a bit of knitting on toothpicks!) I decided to go with the more practical pyramid box. Here's the box cut out using the template in the book (I made it out of a cereal box, which admittedly was not the easiest or best materials to work with, but it's free), and the tools I had used thus far. That white thing is a wonderful tool, a bone folder (belongs to J).

Unfortunately I didn't have a hole punch to make proper holes in the top of the box. I thought I was being brilliant when I remembered the unopened eyelet kit I bought a few months ago in a moment of weakness (no idea why I bought that since I don't sew). Turns out the cardboard was too thick for that to work :(
So the main lesson I learned today is that I really should go and buy a hole punch...

Dabbling Wednesday

Today I did some simple weaving. I had found this YouTube video from Craft about weaving using wool and index cards:



It was very simple, and as you can probably see from the pic I learned a lot.



For the first few inches I was just passing the weft yarn (green one) back and forth, only tightening it every few rows (are they called rows in weaving?). Then I realized it looked much better after pushing down and tightening the stitches after every row. I also found out that the piece will get wider if the index card that's holding the warp stitches is left stationary, so I started to move the index card back after each inch or so for a more even width. I also found out that the stitches looked funky if the warp yarn wasn't kept very taut.

The yarn I used is some nice Artesano alpaca yarn called inca cloud. I'm very curious to see what it looks like felted... But that will have to wait for another day. It's too late to run the washing machine now, plus it feels like I might be getting a cold! So I should get an early night's rest. Night night.

Dabbling Wednesday

This week I decided to do some macrame. I wanted something simple, something that I could do on a train (more on that tomorrow). Fortunately I saw this video:



There's also a much easier to understand non-video explanation.

I made mine with wool:

I'm planning on felting it, hoping that it will make an interesting sturdy cord and not some weird twisted red thing.

Something they didn't really get into in the video is the length of the string. My laniard ended up being 8 inches long but started off as two pieces of 52 inch yarn.

The two side pieces of string are almost used up, while the two center pieces still have about 17 inches left.

Here's my late-night attempt at math:

So the next time I do one of these (I think I'm going to try incorporating some beads next time) I'm going to find out the desired length, multiple that number by 3.5, then add the length again to get the final length of each piece of string (When tying it on I'll make the center two sections only a little longer than the end desired length).

I hope that's right. And I hope that's useful to you if you decide to make one.

As for me, I've had a long day and I'm going to bed!

Dabbling Wednesday

I don't often crochet, I don't often work with wire, and I don't often work with beads, so today I did all three!

I used a simple pattern Nezumi World, and read some helpful tips on working with wire over at seafore.com.

I used a 28 gauge wire and a 3.5 metal crochet hook.

I strung 35 beads, but only ended up using 22

Left a long tail as I was going to have to attach it to a clasp later.

Here I am using the tail from the the slip knot to tie around the spring clasp.
I tweaked the bead placement so they hung at one side instead of in the middle.
It was surprisingly easy. The only tip I have is that it's difficult to undo stitches, so make sure the loop on the needle is a good size before you start the yo process.

Dabbling Wednesday

A few months ago I felted some charity shop (thrift store) sweaters and had intended on making bags out of them. Except when I thought about it a little more I became a little paranoid that the thick felt would break my cheap sewing machine. So the sweaters have been sitting around the house in a bag, waiting.

I hadn't done any planning for this week's Dabbling Wednesday, but fortunately I remembered the sweaters when the time came around for me to start crafting. I looked online for some inspiration, and then saw some felted coasters on Magic Bean and decided to modify the idea with some needle felting.



I even like the way the back looks:

Apparently I couldn't stop at just one, so I made another one.


Sadly I had to stop there, but thank goodness I didn't start these in morning, or I might not have gotten anything done today.

Dabbling Wednesday

Last week I did a little dabbling with some fabric. This week I was intending on using some plastic canvas I got at a scrap shop recently... and then I saw a book in the local library called Spellbinding Bead Jewellery (can you tell I'm in the UK?). Normally I'm not impressed by craft books in the library. Most of them seem to be from the late 80s/early 90s and are not, how do I put this lightly... in a style that appeals to me. This book has some interesting things in it though (and it was published in 2008, coincidence?). So I decided to make one of the easiest things in the book, a three stranded Fern Earrings, and make them even easier by just doing one strand.

Kind of interesting isn't it?

Dabbling Wednesday

I dabble. Or at least I used to. Have I ever mentioned that I spent a few evenings whittling when I was 12?

It all kind of ended when we started the yarn store. I became a one-craft woman and shut the plastic canvas in the closet. But then when the yarn store and I parted company I basically stopped knitting, and by extension stopped crafting.

To get to the point, I'm a wanna-be Renaissance woman, and I'm ready to start dabbling again. Needle felting has taken over my crafting life, so I'm I'm going to make an effort to try a new craft or new technique each week and share it on the blog.
So to start it off I've made a fabric flower using a tutorial by V and Co.
It was pretty simple, it used materials I had in the house already, and there's a decent chance that J might actually wear it. Woohoo!

I have no idea what next week's project will be, but I'm looking forward to it.