Misi Makers for Monday

Here are some of the items that have caught my eye on Misi lately. There are some very talented people selling there. I love Lydia Meiying's gorgeous card designs - aren't these owls really sweet? I think this would make a great Mother's Day card - well, I'm a mother and I'd love it! The combination of colours in this granny square scarf by Squeaky Elliot are very striking (love the bench too!). And I do like a granny square... Because it's cotton it would be great for spring time. It was hard to decide what to include from Bonbi Forest - I like the t-shirts and the scarves especially. So I decided to keep with the owl/scarf theme and include this fabulous green hand printed scarf: Isn't it lovely? I really love hand printed fabric. I'd love to have a go myself but I don't feel at all confident in my artistic ability - so in the mean time I'll just have to admire other people's work.

A Couple of Crochet Projects

I realised recently that I've never crocheted anything much bigger than my tawashi pot scrubbers, so I've been feeling ambitious to work on something a bit larger - whilst feeling a bit concerned that following a complicated pattern might be a bit outside my comfort zone right now. I am not up to complicated at the moment! I decided to have a go at creating a wrap / stole /scarf (I'm not sure how big it's going to be yet!) made up of smaller motifs which I would join together.

So here's what I've been working on...

I'm using yarn that was an impulse buy on my last Saturday trip to the Co-op (why is Cucumber Patch right next door??). It's made by Araucania yarns (from Chile) and is called Ranco Multi - the shade is 301, which I gather is now discontinued. It's hand painted in a beautiful combination of sea green, pale raspberry and very muted orange. Lovely to work with and it's very nice to see the way that the colours work in the flower pattern. I'm really enjoying making it, although darning in the ends is extremely tedious.

For a bit of a change, and now that I feel a bit more up to the challenge, I decided to have a go at following someone else's pattern. Mostly I make up my own designs so I am still a real beginner at following crochet pattern instructions - especially those without a helpful diagram. I picked up a copy of Rowan Classic Babies (Book 4) at one of our local charity shops recently. Mostly I got it for the designs and ideas, because I don't really knit, but flicking through it I realised that the bootee pattern was actually crochet, so I thought I'd have a go. I've only made one so far, I need to have another daytime session of crochet to do the other one (I can't do complicated in the evening!). It doesn't look too bad (please bear in mind I haven't blocked it yet) - I've used a Sublime Organic DK Wool in a shade called, bizarrely, asparagus.

How did that happen?

I have no idea how we managed to get to January 4th already! Christmas was so busy with lots of family and friends visiting, that although I've been doing little bits and pieces of crafting when I've had the chance, I haven't had a moment to blog. I am delighted to see that I now have 8 followers (!!) and lots of lovely people have left comments even though I haven't had chance to get on here much. I hope everyone who pops round here regularly had a wonderful Christmas and I wish everyone a very happy new year.

I also see that lots of the blogs I look at regularly have been updated loads over the last few weeks & I feel very disorganised & slack in comparison! Must get my act together now that the holiday time is over.

The boys and I did lots of crafting together - mostly of the glitter paint variety - and it will be very sad to take all their homemade Christmas decorations down tomorrow. But how fab it will be to get them out again next year! And I wonder what we will be making then? This year I am determined to teach them to sew and maybe knit too...

Since Christmas I've been pleased to put away my needle and thread for a bit and turn back to my crochet hooks. I have another amigurumi octopus on the go - I think I have a couple more of the legs to do and then it just needs stuffing and sewing together (but, ugh, that's the bad bit!) and it will go straight on sale.

I've also just completed what I think of as a tippet, but I think is more accurately called a neckwarmer! My oh-so-charming husband calls it a snood, but that's his early 80s upbringing and lack of fashion knowledge for you.

This mini-scarf is crocheted with RYC Soft Tweed yarn in a shade called, rather sweetly, 'Twig'. I guess that's quite an appropriate colour for this very leafless time of year. The pattern is my design and I'm delighted with the way it's turned out (I'm always amazed when an on paper idea translates reasonably accurately to reality). I'm also very pleased that I have been able to use a lovely huge button from Vin Papa at Etsy that I have been hording for a special purpose for some time now.

The piece needs to be blocked so that it tidies up a bit, but I couldn't resist posting about it now. What I didn't appreciate as I crocheted it was that the design would turn out to be pleasingly versatile. Here's a picture of headless me (probably for the best just at the moment) wearing it with the button at the front. This is now I had envisaged it being worn when I was working on it. But as I was trying it on, I tweaked it round a bit and realised that it also looked great (perhaps even better) with the button worn on the shoulder. So here's another pic (with rather scary post-Xmas/NY head this time) with the neckwarmer worn at an angle. Now I've got to decide whether to keep it for myself or shove it on Etsy. As my shop is looking frighteningly empty now I've taken all the Christmas stuff out (man am I glad to see the back of Christmas stockings until next year) I shall no doubt put it on sale. And probably make another one if I can find another good yarn in my stash.

Looking at the pics (other than thinking I really do need to lose the pasty look) makes me realise that I really need to work hard on getting some good photographs of stuff for sale this year. There is a real disparity between the colours in the 3 photos here - just being in a room with better light can make such a huge difference. There's some fab tutorials and other info out there so I am definitely going to make it one of my resolutions for 2009 to get working on improving my product photos.

I pricked and pounced!

I've been personalising Christmas stockings full time for the last few days it seems. Because the stockings are made with quite rough textured felt it is a real problem getting the lettering on to the fabric so that I can embroider the names. I have been using a charcoal pencil, but that is rather unsatisfactory because drawing on the felt is difficult, smudgy, and the pencil gets very clogged up with wool. Yuck.

So, today, I had a bit of an inspiration when I remembered reading about the 'prick and pounce' method of transferring pattern to fabric in Diana Springall's book Embroidery. So I tried my own version of it.

First I drew my design on thick tracing paper.










Then I pricked along the lines of the tracing with a chunky needle (sorry, rubbish at knowing about needle sizes) - you might be able to see in the photo below that I missed the dot on the letter 'i'!













Then I laid the tracing on the felt stocking I'm working on at the moment. Holding it firmly in place I then scraped a bit of tailors' chalk dust on to the tracing paper & rubbed it in a bit with my finger. If you were doing prick and pounce properly then you would use pouncing powder - ground up cuttlefish - & a brush so I don't think you would need to rub it in.

















Then I lifted up the tracing paper and - tada! - it worked perfectly! I then pressed the chalk in a bit with my finger so it didn't just brush off.














People have been using this method of transferring pattern to fabric for centuries. I think the next step is to join up the dots with paint, otherwise the pattern would soon be rubbed off. Fortunately, the chalk I used lasted for long enough for me to finish the embroidery.













I've just read that it's also traditional to use ground cinnamon for pouncing. That sounds infintely preferable to using ground cuttlefish... And wouldn't it make Christmas stockings smell nice and Christmassy?

I feel the need to record how hard I've been working these last few days. So - we've got the embroidery above...

This very sweet little blue elephant:


















Some crochet brooches (er, not quite finished):














Finished a scarf using the stunning beautiful Colinette prism in Autumn Leaves:














No wonder I'm cream-crackered...