Making Workshop Event

Hi Everyone

We have a Making Workshop today. For new readers to the blog, Making Workshops happen every two weeks at our local High School (during term time). These workshops provide an opportunity for local adults to make things. We focus on a particular project for about 1-3 weeks and have a very relaxed but structured approach. Generally, we have a lovely time.This time we are preparing the Christmas Cards I mentioned yesterday. New skills in crochet and felting will feature alongside paper skills. By the end of the afternoon session I’m hoping we will have three cards, envelopes and gift tags per Maker. Here is a quick look at some of the samples :

                         

The little trees are dressed in polymer gems (from yesterday) and the tags has a cute little deleted star, finished with a polymer star. Hopefully, our Makers will come up with some interesting ways of a adding Christmas wishes. One of my samples (right hand sample) is using tape with Merry Christmas woven into the fabric, the other tiny tree card uses a paper ribbon, printed with Merry Christmas. The tag also uses the paper ribbon but this time has individual letters stamped to read out the Merry Christmas sentiment.

I’ll share a few images of the Workshop results over the next few days.

Thanks for calling in today.

Poly Gems

Hi Everyone

Today, I’m focused on making polymer gems for decorating mini Christmas Trees. These gems will be used in our next Making Workshop, on Tuesday. We are crocheting or felting mini trees for Christmas cards and the poly gems will decorate the trees.

                            

I’ve made the gems form tiny push cutter, usually used in cake decorating. The cutters allow a clean and delicate result and are perfect for the job. Some of the ‘gems’ are star shaped, some round or oval. We also have some bows and little square parcels with faux ribbon. Each card will have simple  a Christmas greeting so the little gems will be the star of the show.

The shapes have a tiny hole in the middle for sewing to the fibre trees and I’m going to experiment with contrast colours for the thread.

 I’m looking forward to seeing how our Makers use the poly gems, I’ll share our cards from the workshop, later in the week.

Thanks for calling in today.

Fibre Friday

Hi Everyone

It’s a bit of a mixed bag this week on the fibre front. I’ve had a couple of mini disasters ! and a little success. 

My Nuuk (read back last week for a look) is almost finished, I need to bind off half of the neckband and that’s it ! I probably need about an arms length of extra yarn and 5 mins knitting. I can’t quite believe it’s so close ! and I need an extra new hank of yarn. That’s the down side.  The positive is that I can knit with the remaining part of the yarn (most of it) on another project and I’ve decided on that next knit. I did think about ripping out the bottom of the Nuuk and loosing a row of the body to complete the neck band but I’m Ok with my decision and this is my next project :

                           

The new project is to be this lovely sweater by Caitlin Hunter. I love all her designs and this has been on my radar for a while. I especially like the swingy poncho style but with arms. Wonderful. I’m hoping I can knit the whole thing in various colours of Dovestone DK. I will use the extra from the Nuuk, as previously mentioned and all the other bits of Dovestone in my stash. The Dovestone in my stash is leftovers from lots of projects and I’m hoping I can find a way to incorporate all the bits, I may need to purchase extra but my starting point will be using up what I’ve got - love this idea.

Other news, I’ve started the Garland sweater, again look back last week for more on this design. I made the basic error of twisting the stitches when ‘joining in the round’ on the bottom rib. I didn’t realise, although I had thought I’d checked several times, until 3.5cms of rib had been completed. The bottom has around 300 stitches, so quite a bit of work ! My image shows the progress before ripping out ! However, I don’t feel so bad because I think, I started knitting the wrong size. The sweater does has huge positive ease but I’ve decided to bring down the size a little. I’m back on track and loving the project so far.

                    

My other news is the mini spin. This will be yarn for adding to a cardigan, eventually. I want to knit a basic cardigan, not sure exactly which pattern to use ? I’m considering adapting a Nuuk, 3/4 sleeves and a steeked front ? - ambitious, I know ! The spin worked well and I’ve got about 10gm so far. This was a test spin so will plan my spinning in 10 gm stages. I find this a doable, session spin. I’m hoping I can prepare the yarn alongside my other projects so I need to be disciplined. The BIG sweater spin (read back over the last few weeks for more) has suffered this week, again I need to be disciplined. I’ll try harder next week !

Also, I didn’t get the Polworth socks on the needles. I’ve been talking about doing this for quite a few weeks. You can see the pattern here. I do like the socks and am simply not organised re my knitting projects. I think, I tend to knit on one chosen project for a whole week and I’d like to spread around my time on different projects so will give some thinking time to this next week. I’ve always had a pair of socks ‘on the go’ but somehow I’ve not organised my time lately.

That’s it for fibre this week. 

Thanks for calling in today. Have a great weekend.

I’ll be back on Monday.

Christmas Card Sewing

Hi Everyone

I’m sharing an update on the appliqué Christmas sewing project today. My aim is to produce a range of cards for Christmas, using fabric appliqué techniques and free style machine sewing. I should have completed the main part of the project yesterday, however, my sewing machine let me down. I managed to attach the appliqué shapes on four cards and then, after lots of time wasting trying to fix my machine tension, I ran out of time ! It seems the tension unit needs replacing. I did have an idea that this may happen, the tension has been a bit of a problem for some time.

However, I have four cards with my hand printed fabric shapes sewn in place. Next, I need to finish the ends and add various embellishments. I’m not entirely sure how things will develop but I’ll experiment with inks and some kind of bling.

                          

I had planned additional designs using freestyle machine embroidery and started experimenting when the sewing machine tension issues presented themselves. Hopefully, I can get the machine repaired as soon as possible (new tension unit on its way) so I can continue with the freestyle technique. 

The little experiment (bottom left image) was a bit of a disaster ! but I do like the technique effect and would like to experiment more.

Today, I’m concentrating on finding ways of adding words to the cards. I’m thinking about printing, stamping and embossing techniques. Hopefully, I will have my finished sample cards by the end of the day.

Thanks for calling in today.

Christmas Cards - under construction.

Hi Everyone

It’s Day 2 of my Christmas Card 2017 Project. I didn’t get too much done yesterday - other jobs intervened! Go back to yesterday’s post for more details. I did manage to sketch out some little templates for my cards, this task has sized my shapes for the card dimensions and I’m ready to go.

                       

I’ve created a few tree shapes and a Robin. I’ve also thought about a few little oblong/square boxes, as wrapped gifts with ribbons or string. I’d like to replicate the shapes so have created paper templates. I’ve decided to use a pencil to trace around each shape, this gives a clear line for cutting and seems to be the most efficient technique.

Having prepped the card blanks and will experiment with sewing today. I’m hoping to attach the shapes with a machine stitch, using a contrasting thread colour. I will also try some freestyle machine sewing for the greetings words but also have some printed and stamped words too. I’ll see which works best, before deciding on the final card design. I’m thinking a combination of free machining and printing will work best for this project. I’m hoping to make an initial batch of 20 so will aim for the most efficient techniques.

Call in, for another update tomorrow. 

Thanks for visiting today.