Hair accessory frenzy
As I've mentioned before, I don't tend to enjoy making more than one of the same thing. That said, I do love a theme. Hence, ending up with these three headbands rather than one.
The starting point was Diane Grimshaw's Beautiful Bands Project in Simply Homemade Issue 17. My effort is a combination of the Knitting Pretty and Bobbles in Blue designs. All the headbands I've used are thin, plastic bands that I picked up in the Accessorize sale. For this version, you first had to knit a cover for the band using 5mm needles and DK. My hot pink yarn is Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk. You essentially knit a strip in moss stitch that you then oversew it onto the band. I was a bit sceptical that the knitting would be the right size for my band and indeed it took me two attempts to get it right. Once sewn on, I glued the strip to the ends of the headband for extra security.
The second part of the design was to wrap around some biased binding, secured to the knitted strip at each end with a few stitches. I used some rather posh Liberty biased binding from Clothkits. Finally, I glued on a couple of dense pom poms from my stash.
By this stage, I'd got to thinking that it would be easier to cover the headband in crochet as you would keep going until the headband was covered rather than needing to guess the size. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite work out how to double crochet over the headband. I took myself to YouTube and finally figured it out from watching this video many times over.
Having created a cover from black DK, I simply glued on a cute felt heart embellishment from Blooming Felt.
Flushed with success, I finished with this crochet tiara from a PDF pattern from Cheryl Cambras's Etsy Shop. The pattern began with the same double crochet covering and then used doubles, trebles and skipped stitches to create the tiara shape. I used some leftover Debbie Bliss Glen yarn and a size G (4.25mm) hook. I'm not sure my version is perfect, but in fact it's my favourite of the three. Unfortunately, my husband says I'm not allowed to wear the tiara outside the house...
So, there's my headband jag and I've a few plain headbands left for when inspiration next strikes.
Melx
Minimalist Me
I love to use decorated jam jars to store my crafty notions like buttons, pom poms and embellishments. I'd had a couple of empty jars languishing on the dish drainer for months when I re-read The Joy of Less by Francine Jay. The books includes a section on re-using food jars around the house, which spurred me on. However, I don't think Miss Minimalist would approve of the number of jars I have or what I keep in them...
First, the tedious job of cleaning the jars. I had already soaked them and disposed of the remnants of their original contents. However, I gave them another soak and scrubbed off the labels. I then used lighter fuel to remove the last of the glue.
For the jar covers, I used a simplified version of the storage jars pattern in Claire Montgomerie's Crochet for Children book. I know, it's coming to something when you have to simplify a pattern intended for kids and rated "easy" at that. The specific changes were that I used variegated yarn rather than stripes in multiple colours and I used continuous spiral thought rather than slip stitching at the end of the round.
First up was a former Tesco Finest Olives jar. I used a lovely purple aran yarn from stash with a 4.25mm hook. I crocheted a flat circle using a 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42 double crochet pattern. Once the circle was just a little smaller than the base of the jar, I worked even in rounds until the cosy reached the lid of the jar. You need the cosy to be a little smaller than the jar so it fits snugly around using the natural stretch of the yarn.
The second jar used to contain Jo Malone body creme, so it's good to get my money's worth from the jar. This time I used a lovely, soft, hand-dyed chunky, which I've lovingly christened "rainbow vomit", but in a good way. Same process but with a 5mm hook this time.
Normally, I decorate the lids of the jars only, so I can see the contents. Obviously, the cosies hide the contents, so I decided it would be sensible to decorate the lid with a sample of what's in there; plastic flower and heart buttons in the purple jar and wooden buttons in the rainbow jar.I simply glued the buttons onto the lids with Bostik All Purpose glue.
The cosies were very quick and satisfying to make and the pattern works with any size of jar as you just keep increasing by 6 stitches per round until you get the desired base diameter.
Well, I may be a crummy minimalist but my jar re-use is beyond reproach...
Melx
Simply Knitting Issue 94
Nothing in a knitting magazine attracts me more than a patterned labelled "Quick and Easy". In some cases, of course, this turns out to be an outrageous lie but happily not so with Louise Butt's study gifts set from June's Simply Knitting.
There were 6 patterns in total, but I narrowed it down to the knitted notebook cover and the felted crochet bowl.
First up, the A6 notebook cover, which I knitted using Paton's Fairytale Dreamtime DK in a vibrant shade of orange. The yarn is 100% wool, but quite smooth to knit with. The notebook cover is knitted in a single piece with 3.75mm needles. There is a simple garter stitch / stocking stitch section for the inner cover and then a 6 row pattern for the main section.
The making up entailed sewing the sections at each end of the cover to form pockets to wrap around the covers of the notebook. This is where the trouble started. It turns out that 2cm is not really enough to make the cover fit snugly around the notebook of its own accord. I think you'd need nearer 6cm to make it work. Also, the main body of the cover was curling up a bit and not reaching the edge of the notebook.
So, blocking time. I can count the number of times I've blocked anything on one hand, so I wasn't terribly confident. Nonetheless, I ironed the reverse side of the knitted fabric to fold over the edges and flatten the piece. Then I used 10 paperclips to fasten the cover in place on an old A6 notebook. I then sprayed the lot with water (hence the old notebook) and left for 24 hours.
Next day, the cover was behaving itself quite a bit more, so I transferred it to my new A6 notebook. For security, I glued the cover with Bostik All Purpose Glue to the inside covers of the notebook.
Finally, I sewed on a Miffy fabric covered button from my stash my way of embellishment.
The crochet bowl proved quite a bit easier. It is made using Rico Creative Filz, which is a 100% merino yarn, especially designed for felting. I happened to have a ball in stash, so set off with my 6mm hook.
The bowl is mainly constructed from treble crochet. As my crochet skills mostly stop at double, I had a quick read up to remind myself of how to treble.
The bowl crocheted up superfast and I finished it in one session. I sent it for a 50 degree rapid wash in the machine and it looked sufficiently felted whilst retaining some muted stitch definition. To dry, I stuffed the bowl with plastic bags to hold the shape.
Now, I don't often save magazine patterns once I've completed them, as I don't usually make anything twice, but I'm going to hang on to these two as they will make pretty gifts. Might add a few centimetres to each side of the notebook cover though...
Melx
Ode to Alpacas
I love alpacas. They are so cute. I saw some up close at last year's Woolfest and I now fantasise regularly about owning my own flock. In the meantime, I have to make do with knitting with alpaca yarn and where better to go than the fantastic Toft Alpaca Shop.
The Beginner's Blanket kit was advertised in an email. Not cheap at £80, but you get 800g of their lovely chunky alpaca / wool blend yarn and the printed pattern.I went for cream yarn on this occasion, as I knit far too much grey already.
The blanket is knitted using the yarn double on 20mm needles. The pattern suggested using circular needles due to the number of stitches and the weight of the yarn. However, I had a go with my 16" long 20mm straight needles, which were fine, albeit a little bit heavy as the blanket grew.
The pattern is simply 30 stitches in moss stitch until you run out of yarn and then you cast off. I finally learned that moss stitch with an even number of stitches is knit one, purl one on the first row and then purl one, knit one on the second row. Up until now, I've avoided even numbered moss stitch because I wasn't sure what to do. Durr!
The blanket knitted up really quickly. My husband said that I looked like a pixie knitting with my giant needles. After I cast off, I tried to take care with weaving in the ends as I've found they can work loose pretty easily in blankets, especially when you have two pet cats trying to pick the ends out with their claws :)
The finished product is a nice lap blanket; heavy and robust. I'm looking forward to my next alpaca-spotting session at Woolfest 2012 next month.
Melx
Who Needs Glue?
I love framed purses and bags and I would really like to be able to make them competently. I've tried both sewn and knitted purses where you glue the fabric into the purse frame. Glue everywhere. Really. Hence, I was very excited when I spotted a pattern advertised in one of my knitting magazines for a crochet sew-in frame purse from Cotton and Cloud.
On closer inspection of Cotton and Cloud's website, I discovered they had a kit for sale. Even better and I ordered it before you could say checkoutwithpaypal.
The £16.50 kit comes with two purse frames, two 25g balls of Jamiesons 100% Pure Shetland Wool in purple and pink and a 4mm crochet hook. I also paid the extra 75p for a printed instruction booklet, although you can get the PDF sent to you by email at no extra charge.
At first I was a bit flummoxed by the pattern. It is crocheted in the round, but rather crocheting in spirals, you go backwards and forwards as if crocheting flat. It made sense when I realised that this is to make the crochet fabric match when you get to the top and crochet the two sides separately to shape the purse.
So, I set off in faith with the pink yarn and produced something of approximately the right size and shape. The bit where I slip stitched to close each round looked a bit dodgy, but I pronounced it broadly okay.
Now for the sewing into the frame. The instructions helpfully directed me to a video tutorial that made it really clear what I needed to so. I then used a thinnish embroidery needle to sew the edge of the crochet fabric into the frame through the pre-drilled holes. The instructions also suggested you could crush the edges of the purse frames with pliers for further security, but I skipped that step as the fabric seemed tucked very firmly into the frame.
The final step was the embellishment. A pattern was provided for a two-colour flower, which I'm afraid I chickened out of. Instead, I made a rosette in the contrasting purple yarn using a flat circle made up of 4 rounds of 6 stitches, then 12, then 18 and then 24. I sewed a pretty ceramic button from my stash to the centre of the circle and then sewed the whole embellishment to my purse.
The purse isn't lined, but, as the instructions point out, the yarn provided makes a very firm fabric that I found gave the purse sufficient structural integrity by itself.
So, no more splotches of glue for me - it's sew-in frames all the way, starting with the second purse in this kit.
Melx
