Like Winter in July...
Following my moderately successful attendance on a knitting course, I've been going crazy buying books and kits so I can practise my new skills. Knitting seems like an odd pastime to start in the Summer but I am enjoying it, so hey...
One of the reasons I think the knitting course was so successful if that we were taught using 9mm needles and chunky wool. However, I was aware I needed some practise with smaller needles, so I started with a knitted flag project from Kids Learn to Knit by Lucinda Guy and Francois Hall. These are simple garter stitch squares on 4mm needles. I embellished them with lots of fancy buttons from my stash to hide the dodgy knitting.
I then moved on to my first attempt at felting. I bought the fab Easy Peasy Purse Kit from Sheepfold, which specialises in British wool. The purse is knitted in all garter stitch with 5.5mm needles and aran wool. I decided to dispense with the plaited strap, partly because I didn't think it was necessary and partly because I have no faith in my plaiting skills.
I felted the purse by washing it twice at 60 degrees. I had to dig out my washing machine's instruction manual as I'd never washed anything on such a high temptature before. Duly felted, I added the press stud fastener that came with the kit. The kit also included seven lovely buttons for embellishment, but I decided to add a few more from my extensive button collection. There are 17 on it now....
I was really pleased with the Sheepfold kit and I've just sent for one of their zipped pencil case kits.
Time for more chunky next. I got some wonderful Rowan Big Wool from Attica Yarns, which is based just near where I work. Using 15mm needles, I made a simple garter stitch scarf with 15 stitches. To finish off, I added some tassles, using instructions I found in Knitty Gritty: Knitting for the Absolute Beginner by Aneeta Patel. I think the scarf is lovely and I'm only sorry it will be about four months until I can wear it.
Next stage is practising purl. I was finding it a bit tough with the 4mm needles so am going to practise a bit with 8mm first...
Melx
Yummy...
I so love the kawaii food softies you see about on the web and I was wondering if I could make my own. Well, here's my attempt. I think it's a marshmallow but it could equally be a turkish delight or perhaps one of those rice-based sweets you get in Yo Sushi.
This little girl (for she has a ribbon) is made out of baby pink polar fleece. I often use felt for my little softies but I wanted a fluffier look this time. I got a whole metre of fleece for £3.99 on Ebay so have got enough to make a veritable army of marshmallows (I could quite fancy having my own marshmallow army...).
To start, I cut 6 x 3 inch squares using my trusty rotatary cutter and quilting ruler. I at least like to try to start out with everything the right size and shape.
I then machine sewed the sides together. The fleece took a little persuading to get going under my lightweight machine, but I managed. I used a quarter inch seam allowance, although this was probably variable notwithstanding I now have a quarter inch foot to guide me.
Next, I got the top of the marshmallow sewn on. I was a bit worried about this, but, as I wanted the corners to be quite round anyway, bodging it seemed to work adequately.
It was now time to do the face, which is kind of crucial for good Kawaii design. I used safety eyes for her peepholes, inserted by making a hole with sharp scissors first. The mouth took several attempts - wrong thickness of thread, wrong shape of mouth, wrong shade of thread etc. Finally, I added the bow, which is from one of the Papermania capsule collections.
I then went back to the machine to sew on the bottom, leaving a gap for turning. I tend to leave a tiny gap for turning as my hand finishing tends to be a bit dodgy. It might have been better if I had left the gap round the back. As it is, you can see a kink in the front where I handstitched the gap closed. My husband charitably says it looks like she has little feet.
The softie is stuffed with regular polyester toy filling. I could see at the end I was going to have a stability problem, so I put some plastic pellets at the bottom to level the base out. Again, a bigger gap for the stuffing would have helped. Pellets everywhere...
To finish, I glued on her pink cheeks, which are the centres of some felt flowers.
I think she's rather cute, so now for the rest of the army...
Melx
Make Jewellery Magazine July 2010
Firstly, I hope the photo of my new jewellery isn't too blurry. My husband was laughing and making me laugh at my attempts to get both the bracelet and the earrings (or one of them anyway) into the same shot. Apparently I look as if I've just remembered I've left the iron on...
So, this is my project from July's (aka late May's) Make Jewellery Magazine. The designer is Brenda Harvey and the theme is of course cherries.
The magazine included a necklace, bracelet, earrings and bag charm in the same theme, which I whittled down to just the earrings and bracelet. The "cherries" themselves are 20mm iridescent red plastic beads from Creative Beadcraft, who happily had the 10 I needed in stock.
Everything else came from stash, so as usual the finished product deviates a little from the magazine instructions. The bracelet is an ordinary ready-made silver-plated job with a lobster clasp. I put on an extender but I might take that off as there's enough dangle without.
The cherries are capped either side with 4mm black Swarovski bicones. I made the accompanying dangles from the same bicones with a green frosted round glass bead in the centre. I had to do those twice as the shade of green I used originally turned out not to match my leaves...
The magazine used silver plated leaf charms. I substituted green lucite leaves from The Bead Shop Manchester. I thought these were more colourful (and I already had some). You have to watch the brittleness of the lucite though - I snapped one leaf fiddling with its jump ring.
The earrings are very simply a cherry, a dangler and a leaf on an earring hook. In Brenda's design, they were hanging from long chains. However, I recently wore some fabulous Tarina Tarantino earrings in a similar design and they were massively annoying with the clanging into the side of your head. Hence, the chains got the chop.
I wore this set for the first time today and they were much admired. My piano teacher has even borrowed the mag so she can make the necklace for her sister.I think they're fab and fruity too.
Melx
Sew Hip Issue 18
I found it a bit tricky to find something to make from Sew Hip this month. As usual, I dismissed most of the clothes patterns as too hard for my remedial skills. I did fancy the tiered skirt, but didn't have three other skirts handy to make it from. The bags were a bit tricky and I questioned my need for further cushions or needle cases.
Liz Hawkridge's supercute whale brooch had caught my eye when it was featured on the back of Issue 17, but I hadn't quite motivated myself to get all the bits and pieces together for it. Imagine my joy, then, when perusing Folksy to find that Liz was offering a kit to make the brooch for only £4.95 The kit included all the bits and bobs you need, plus, best of all, pre-cut whale pieces. I wasted no time in ordering one up, which arrived the very next day.
It was supereasy to make the brooch from the kit, especially with those fabulous pre-cut whale pieces (did I mention that I liked those?). The only deviation I made from the instructions is that I still considered it too fiddly to join the pieces together with iron-on webbing and just glued them with fabric glue instead.
I think the finished product is quite lovely and very structurally robust.
Although I'm sure lots of Sew Hip readers could have made the brooch from stash, I found the kit really handy for a quick make. I think it was a great idea of Liz's to offer them on Folksy. I could have been even lazier and bought the brooch ready-made from Liz for £7.95. As it was, I settled for another of her fabulous whale creations:
Melx
Learning to Knit!
Last Saturday, I spent a most enjoyable three hours on a knitting course. I've attempted to teach myself to knit several times before but without an enormous amount of success. Hence, when I saw a poster for the Ministry of Craft's beginner's knitting course in Manchester, I signed up right away. I was particularly impressed that at the end of three hours, you would be able to produce a lovely knitted purse, although I was sceptical about my own ability to pull that off.
The course was held at the Fred Aldous Art Shop in Manchester and cost £30 including materials. The course was in the basement at the back of the shop's store room, which was perfect as it was a really hot day. The lighting and seating was great and there were hot and cold drinks for us. There were three other women on the course and our instructor was the lovely Rebecca. Although she looked terribly young to me, Rebecca had been teaching people to knit for years and even taught during her friend's jive classes, which sounded an interesting challenge.
The first thing that struck me when I looked the materials laid out on the table was the size of the needles and the wool. Huge. Well, 9mm needles and chunky yarn. This proved to be one of the keys to the kingdom - way easier to see what you're doing and to avoid the knitting getting too tight. I'd never seen a beginners kit like that, but now it seems really obvious. Rebecca was also able to sort out issues that had previously flummoxed me, like what to do when you create an extra stitch by mistake (knit two together - doh!).
Rebecca taught us to cast on and had us knitting away at our purses in no time. The tricky bit was creating the button hole, where you have to bind off some stitches and then cast back on, but Rebecca took us through it step-by-step. Once we had decreased our knitting to create the triangular flap of the purse, we finally learned how to cast off. We got our purses done in plenty of time to recap casting on, knitting and casting off and even to learn purl stitch.
I was completely thrilled with the course and my purse, but what next? I decided I needed to reinforce my learnings right away so I got some more chunky wool on the way home. I then made an identical purse, but this time in raspberry. It took me a couple of attempts and a look at a YouTube video Rebecca recommended to get the button hole right, but here we are:
For good measure, I did a little square purse too without the buttonhole and with a vecro fastening on the inside. I'm currently kniting another one that I might make a strap for (happily, I like purses).
Rebecca mentioned that it can be difficult to get started because easy patterns are quite hard to find. I've just bought First Knits by Luise Roberts, which looks really good and the initial instructions match what I learned on the course. The patterns progress from just knit stitch to cover knit with purl and then finally colours. I'm off to yarn shop tomorrow to get the materials for my first scarf!
Melx
Elastic Joy
This is the necklace I made with the second set of handmade lampwork beads I bought recently from the amazing By Keiara. As well as my fab Zombie Bears, I also got this set of five kookie little sun beads with googly eyes. Soooo Cute!!!
Like the Zombie Bear beads, the sun beads are lentils - flattish and drilled through the side. I wanted to do something a little different from the bracelet I'd made already, but what?
As it's been such a warm, sunny week, I eventually decided it would be fun to made a summery festival-type necklace, with my sun beads as the focals. An inspection of my bead stash revealed a box of small glass round beads in rainbow colours that I believe I bought from Beads Unlimited. I dropped the entire box on the floor before I started, but apart from that they were perfect for a posh hippy necklace as I like to think of it.
I spaced the sun beads with sky blue beads to match the eyes and then threaded the rest of the small beads at random (but not with two colours touching as that would bug me!). The necklace is strung on Beadalon Elasticity 1mm. This is quite a thick and a very strong elastic thread - more than enough for these glass beads. I simply don't see the point in faffing around with crimping and clasping when you're planning to slip the necklace on over your head anyway. I (or rather my husband I have to confess) fastens the elastic with a few knots and a dab of superglue and I've never had one come apart yet.
To get the length right, I just kept trying the necklace on until I was happy. The finished product is about 32" long and I'm very excited about wearing it this summer.
Melx
