crafts

Another project

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

I have just added sensory bands to my list of things to make.

Apparently they help people with severe dementia find a bit of comfort and distraction.  Dementia is probably my biggest fear. I dread the possibility of growing old and confused.  Not knowing what’s going on or what I’m doing, being constantly lost and unable to communicate. I can’t imagine anything I’d hate more.  Anything that helps people in that condition find a few moments of peace has to be a good thing.

Normally I’d wait to post until I’ve at least started a project, but this is a new appeal and they need more people to join in, so please, if you knit think about giving this a try.  Actually, I’m sure crochet versions would be just as good so if you crochet maybe you could consider it too. It’s super easy – just a tube with random bits of stuff attached.

Sensory-band-pattern

You can find full details of the appeal online at http://icenipost.com/knitters-wanted-an-urgent-call-to-help-dementia-patients/

Craft course

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

i just realised I forgot to post after the course this week. I’ve had a migraine since that morning so haven’t really been doing much. I hate migraine!

Anyway, now that I’ve remembered I may as well post the update. The course was actually quite disappointing this time, only half the people showed up and the leader has decided to skim over all the business stuff because most of the people there are only interested in the social side and actually making stuff. Trust me to be different!

We had a very quick look at design specifications and the 6 Rs of being environment friendly then it was back to cutting up bits of paper and gluing them together. Only this time instead of little squares we made a mood board.


It was actually quite helpful and will definitely be a good inspiration if I ever do craft fairs etc

Project crochet

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

My mission for this year is to learn how to crochet.  I have a vague idea how it works, my friend Pam tried to teach me at an alt.fan.pratchett meet some years back.  I was sort of getting there, but I didn’t really try again after that couple of days in a field so I never really got the hang of it.

I’ve got loads of wool and I’ve managed to find a couple of crochet hooks in amongst the knitting needles I’ve picked up at car boot sales etc so I should be all kitted out.

Next step – watch some how to videos on youtube and see if I can find a really easy project to start with.

Course week three

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

Today we looked at mood boards and the design cycle.  Now comes the hard part – before next week we have to come up with our own product and collect together some mood board ideas for it.  I really don’t have the faintest idea what to go with.

I want something that will fit with the things other people are making, so nothing too nerdy/weird. I’m really not sure though.

We got to make a few more of the little collages to round off the session

Blue necklace

~ DMWCarol ~ 1 Comment

Now that she has it, I can share a pic of the necklace I made for Chris’s birthday present.  It’s my first experiment with adding ribbon to chainmaille and I think it worked pretty nicely.


It’s just a simple band of European 4:1 with a few beads added and a matching ribbon woven through

Another dice bag

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

Not sure why I didn’t post this a couple of days ago when I made it

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It’s a chainmail dice bag, made in the same way as I’d start a coif with an increasing hexagon, then there’s a few standard rows and a picot edging so it closes tight (there’s an instructable that explains the coif technique here)

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I like that it opens out flat so you can have a good rummage through the dice.  It holds plenty of dice too

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This one is going to Contraption at the weekend as a donation for the raffle.  The dice are staying with me 🙂

Monsters molished

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

Huzzah! It worked 🙂

Monster Dice Bag

With a working sewing machine these were actually pretty straightforward.  So much so that I thought I’d have my first attempt at a tutorial 🙂  My methods are kind of vague but that’s okay as all monsters are different.

Start with matching rectangles of fur and lining material (I used red felt). You’ll also want some triangles of white felt and a pair of safety eyes.

First you need to stitch together the different layers at the top edge – fur, lining and teeth – the fur needs to face inwards with the teeth between the fur side and the lining.

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Then once that’s all nicely stitched together

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Open it out flat – and smooth down the seam

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Fold the rectangle down the centre and sew into a tube with one end the lining and the other the fur

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Make sure you leave a gap in the fur for the drawstring – It wants to be close to the top but far enough back that it won’t stop you inserting the eyes.  Two to three inches should do it.

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Flatten out the tube and sew up the fur end.  I put the seam in the middle because I liked it that way but you could leave it to one side just as easily.

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Then you need to add in your eyes – they want to be about an inch or so apart and close to the teeth edge.  I added circles of felt around mine as they looked a bit too small.  I forgot to take a photo of this part, bu you can see the placement on the finished bags.

Then all you need to do is sew up the bottom edge of the lining and sew a couple of channels for the drawstring to go in (lined up with the gap you left in the seam in the fur)

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The rows of stitching should be either side of the gap you left in the fur – just poke a finger through to see where it starts and finishes.  Thread some cord through and if you want to, add knots or toggles to stop it coming back out again.

And that’s it – one monster ready to eat your dice 🙂  I also made a tongue shaped pouch to hold pencils which attaches inside with a piece of stick on velcro but that’s completely optional.

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I’ve ordered some different colours of fur so I can make more of these, they’re such fun!

Let me know if you give it a try.

Week two of the crafts course

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

This morning was a lot more fun – no paperwork!  Thank the gods!

The glue is now dry on my notebook so I picked that up.  It’s very shiny which means it doesn’t photo very well.

Notebook

We started this season off looking at colour theory and talking about harmonising colours and contrasting colours.  Then we got to play with the fancy papers again to make mini collages that will eventually be turned into magnets.

I made four.  I can’t decide which I like most.  The picture isn’t great as it was taken on my mobile, but it should at least give an idea of what I’ve been doing

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Next time we’re supposed to bring in something we make at home that we’d like to sell so I need to get out the links and put together some chainmail jewellery as I think that’s my most likely ‘product’

Monster Misadventure

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

Oh dear.  My attempts at making the monster dice bag have so far been disastrous.

It started ok – I worked out my plan of attack, found fur fabric and red and white felt, cut them to the appropriate sizes, got some googly eyes I’d purchased from ebay and was all set to go.  It should be a fairly straight forward make, just sandwich white felt teeth between the fur and the red felt lining. Sew that together then seam the whole lot into a tube, close the fur end and most of the felt end, turn right side out and add in the eyes and a tube for the drawstring – should be done in half an hour.  I’d even worked out plans for a removable tongue that would double as a mini pouch for pencils or special dice.  Looking good.

Gary dug out the sewing machine for me from where it had been stashed when we moved here over a year ago (How can it have been so long?) and that’s where the problems started.

First step should have been to wind a bobbin of appropriately coloured thread – but when I removed the housing there was no bobbin in the machine.  And of course the box of accessories was nowhere to be found.  So we jumped in the car and drove to the nearest haberdashery which had exactly one pack of bobbins on sale.  So I bought those, some velcro, some snap fasteners and some cord and toggles and we came home again – only to find that the bobbins were the wrong size so we hadn’t solved the problem at all.

I then tried plan B which was to try and borrow one.  Dawn had a couple lurking in the depths of her sewing box which turned out to be a reasonable fit so all was looking good – until I’d threaded the damn machine at which point I realised the foot was missing so it wouldn’t work anyway. Gah!

I’ve ordered replacement bobbins and foot from ebay – hopefully they will be here in a day or two and we can try again.  For now though I’m just making chainmail

Latest makes

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been doing a bit of knitting.

dolls

They’re based on the Rufus the Leprechaun pattern which I found online.  I changed the colours, lost the beard and added a skirt, wings and hair for the fairy and big ears and a pointy hat for the elf.

I had a terrible time with the scalloped edging to the fairy skirt, but I got there in the end by mingling together various different patterns I’d seen online.  It sort of works if you don’t look too closely.

Anyway, they are off to their new owners tonight (a young brother and sister I know through my part time job) so hopefully they will get lots of loving and no picking over the details.