craftlog: April 2004 Archives

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April 29, 2004

kool aid dyeing

I came across this page about dyeing yarn with kool aid. I've heard about this all over, including the Stitch 'n' Bitch book, but this page has pictures of all her experiments. I like the red one and the malachite one the best.

Posted under Knitting at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)

oilcloth

I'm up in Boston for the weekend, visiting old haunts and finding new places. On the recommendation of someone over at Craftster, I went by Otro Lado in Cambridge. They have all sorts of neat stuff, including oilcloth bags and pockets and placemats of all sorts. They also had oilcloth by the yard, so I bought myself some. Martha's got a few neat oilcloth crafts, like:

Where to start? I might do the eyeglass case since I just got some new ones.

You can also get oilcloth on the web from Oilcloth International, including the pattern I now own half a yard of, Sweden.

Posted under Sewing/Fabric Crafts at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2004

cool scarves

Good find on Craftster today: cool scarves from Lulette. I'm not entirely sure how to go about making one by hand. (She does them on a knitting machine.) When I was little, I made a friendship bracelet with my name in it, so maybe it's the same idea. Actually, a scarf with my name on it would be kind of cool. Good gift idea, too.

Posted under Inspiration at 11:23 PM

April 14, 2004

hot glue

My craftlog's been going for a year now. Here's a really geeky craft for all you loyal readers. (Do I have loyal readers? I do not know.) I broke my glasses the other day. They're like 5 years old, and I mistreat them terribly. It's a miracle they lasted this long. Anyway, the frame snapped right where it meets the left earpiece. Now, I really am going to go get some new ones eventually, but in the meantime, Mark and I patched them up with a big glob of hot glue. I am ashamed to say that I've been wearing these for 2 weeks now with the hot glue fix. Hot glue is cool, though. It worked really well. Much better than the horror show I wore in high school: clear packing tape. With burn marks where I tried to melt it back together. Oh lord.

Posted under Random at 12:39 AM | Comments (1)

April 11, 2004

vinyl embroidery

Another great embroidery idea, this time from Down By Vinyl. She makes all sorts of cool stuff out of embroidered vinyl and eyelets. I love the designs.

Posted under Inspiration at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2004

Sweater

I started working on my first sweater last night. It's made of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in cranberry, which is a cheap, but not totally ghetto, wool/acrylic blend. I figure I shouldn't go all out with nice Manos del Uraguay or something on my first try in case it's a total disaster. I'm using the Weekend Warrior pattern from the Yarn Girls book (see my review). We'll see how it goes.

Posted under Knitting at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)

April 08, 2004

3D embroidery

I love this idea. Red Lipstick did an embroidered picture in red and blue like those old school 3D pictures.

Posted under Inspiration at 10:57 PM | Comments (4)

April 07, 2004

Dub & Sam freebies

Dub and Sam posted some new projects today. There's a pattern for matchbook notebooks. (See previous post for another instruction site.) There's also a way to use hot glue to make wax seals! I'm definitely going to try this.

Posted under Crafty Links at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2004

Tulip Quilt

I've been working on this quilt for somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years. I got my mom to pick out the kit for me from the Keepsake Quilting catalog. It doesn't look like they sell the kit any more. I pieced the blocks by hand, back when I didn't have a sewing machine. They weren't square At All, so I figured it was hopeless. I let it sit for a few years and tried piecing the blocks by machine once I got one. The first one I tried still wasn't square, so I decided to just sew them all together (by machine) and see what happened. I was amazed. It looks like an honest-to-god quilt. Some of the corners didn't come out exactly, but still. The quilting I did by hand, too. Quilting pretty much sucks. You can't see the quilting in the picture, unfortunately, but there are little quilted tulips in the white squares. They took a loooong time and made my fingers hurt. They look pretty, though. I didn't bother to quilt the border, as recommended by the directions. Next quilt I do is going to be machine quilted. Binding the thing was a bit of a disaster. The directions said I was going to have to hand-sew the back edge down, and there was pretty much no way I was going to do that. I came up with a seemingly brilliant trick to bind it all by machine, and it worked, but I now understand why they want you to do it the other way. I'm going to make another post describing the trick, because I couldn't find anything similar on the web. Anyway, then I washed it in the bathtub and let it dry on low in the drier with some (already dry) towels. It wrinkled up all nice and quilty where I quilted the little tulips. I wish I could blame it's trapezoidal shape completely on holding the camera crooked, but it's about an inch longer on one side than the other. I'm sending it to my mom for her 50th birthday.

Posted under Sewing/Fabric Crafts at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2004

pin cushion

I've been sewing lately and after the cat almost knocked over my tin of pins, I decided I need a pin cushion. The latest Martha Stewart Weddings came in the mail yesterday, and one of the Good Things was a little ring pillow trimmed with ribbon. I scaled it down for this pin cushion made of fabric I got at a Japanese quilting store. Cut 2 4-inch squares of fabric. Right sides together, sew a piece of wide ribbon around the perimeter of one of the squares, then around the other. You'll end up with a hole where the ribbon ends meet. Turn the cushion inside out through this hole. Stuff it with filling and sew the hole closed. Sew through the center and secure 2 buttons to tuft it.

Posted under Sewing/Fabric Crafts at 10:14 PM | Comments (5)

Artecy Cross Stitch

I've always been a fan of the free patterns at Artecy Cross Stitch. They have a bunch of patterns for sale too, via a subscription. They were having a sale last month, so I finally ponied up my $10 and joined. The site has a lot of neat vintage graphics and a bunch of paintings. They're pretty big, though, so I'm going to have to really consider which ones to do. Not that I don't already have 4 or 5 cross stitches in progress....

Posted under Crafty Links at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)