Week 8

Here is last weeks craft. I’ve been seeing Sharpie mugs and even plates all over Pintrest and StumbleUpon. It is always black sharpie on a white mug. I really liked the look of those and wanted to take it a little farther. See I have a bit of a love affair with Sharpie in all its forms. (It’s ok. Mr Eclectic doesn’t mind). I have a wide range of Sharpie’s in various colors and sizes. I wanted to use more than standard black for this project.

I work closely with the Norse Goddess Sigyn. Her primary symbol is the bowl she uses to catch the poison otherwise dripping into her Husband’s face. I have a wooden bowl I made a few years ago as a devotional piece that is covered in her kennings (titles). At the store the other day I found a set of six 5oz bowls that I couldn’t pass up. I decided to make a few into small devotional bowls for Sigyn and the others into offering bowls. A couple hours later and much debate on color I had all six decorated. Then they went into the cold oven for 30 min at 350 F.

I learned several things in this process. One is that the stroke marks will show on pretty much all colors. You can either work with it or give up on filling in the color. There are certain colors that work better than others, this is a matter of trial and error. I also discovered that some colors do not come out of the oven the same color they went in to the oven.

This orange color started the project as a bright yellow. I am also planning on getting a clear glaze to seal the project on. I am going to try painting that section bright yellow before sealing it and hope it stays. I am not trying to make these into usable everyday dishes, but rather devotional pieces. If you are planning on eating or drinking out of these containers please keep the decorations away from any surface that will come into contact with food/drink or your mouth.

While drawing if you make a mistake water will remove the sharpie no problem. After baking the finish will hold up to water and gentle washing. I haven’t tried to scrub it with anything abrasive yet so I can’t say how it will hold up to that. I did find out by accident that nail polish remover will still strip the decoration after the time in the oven. I have a few more experiments to perform in terms of durability. If I discover anything interesting I’ll let you know.

 

Week 5

I am so happy with this week’s project.  It is a blanket for the new baby. This is also probably the largest crochet project I’ve finished yet. I was amazed at how quickly it worked up too.  I was able to finish this after work or weekends in just under 2 weeks. We are keeping everything earth tones for now. So here is my granny square baby blanket.

Week Three

I am going to be teaching a children’s class in a few weeks about a few sun myths and creating sun-catchers with the children. This week I have been testing a few techniques to see which ones to use. I want to have a few different options for them to choose from and to keep interest in the class.

One I am doing is the classic tissue paper and contact paper. The participants (I don’t think all of them are going to be children) will be able to use construction paper to create an outline of a design. One side will have a sheet of contact paper applied and the holes in the outline will be covered with tissue paper. Depending an the skill, interest  or whim of the creator they could also just apply tissue paper directly to contact paper without an outline.

Another method I am going to offer as long as I can find sturdy enough plastic for cheap is sharpie coloring on clear plastic. This is a fairly simple method, but can be very effective.

I’m considering offering pierced paper sun-catchers for the older participants, but I’m not sure.

There were two new techniques that I wanted try this week. One involved pouring school glue onto aluminum foil or into cookie cutters and coloring with food coloring. The problem is that this takes around 24 hours to dry and the class only lasts 90 min. I want to see if I can speed the process along with a hair dryer, but mine has yet to resurface since the move. Once I find where it went I will see if I can decrease the drying time and leave the art intact.

The other involved melting old crayons into thin sheets with an iron and then cutting out the desired shape. This did not work well for me in that the sheets were very thin and I couldn’t get them to peel off the wax paper without breaking. I was able to salvage this by simply leaving the waxed paper attached and cutting out the desired shape.

Here are two photos of the finished project. Unfortunately neither are using the sun since work and winter conspire to make me see very little of that right now. hopefully that will be changing soon.

Week 2

I had a few projects I was working on this week. The one I’m sharing today is a quick and easy journal. Just a warning, I have a lot of photos for this one.

First I gathered my supplies.

I’m using metallic origami paper, a grungebook pack from idea-ology, electrical tape, plain card stock, and red star sequins (not in the photo). You’ll also need glue, scissors, and a hole punch.

Next I used the electrical tape to attach one of the pieces of origami paper to my cover. I didn’t worry about the holes yet. I’ll fix them later.

Then I cut designs into a second piece of origami paper. I used the same technique for cutting snowflakes. After the design was cut out I drew a few designs on the back of the paper. Because of the type of paper those drawings will appear as a raised design on the finished project. Once I was happy with the look I glued it down.

It looked at little unfinished so I applied another layer of tape to act as a frame. Then I added one more finishing touch, the star sequins. Not sure how well those details will show up in the picture, but I like the subtle effect they give.

After that I had to assemble the pages and back cover. I didn’t want to use the grungeboard pages as the whole interior because I have another project in mind for those. I cut plain white card stock to size for the interior. This is going to be a sketchbook/ journal and I wanted to be free to create anything in the pages. I did use one for the back cover. I left it blank because I really like the texture of the grunge board.

This us the point where I used my hole punch to put the holes in the cover and pages at once. Then I assembled it using the binder rings from the kit.

There are a few things I’d like to do different next time but not bad for a quick and easy little book.

Week One

I finally finished one!

I am so proud of myself right now. I have a bad habit of starting projects and never finishing them. A couple months ago I talked about all the crochet projects I had planned. Well it’s the beginning of a new year and I completed one project finally. I have a couple more that are almost done, but this one is a wrap.

Not only is it the first I’ve finished in a while, but it is also my first infinity scarf. When I first started seeing these I didn’t really like them. Then a friend lent me hers and I started seeing the draw. I think what I like best is the versatility. It can be worn in one loop or two, as a shawl, around your head and probably more I’ve yet to see.

 Here are a couple of shots of the finished product. Once I got the pattern down it didn’t take me very long to finish. I tried to simply make a regular scarf and join the ends but had two problems. The first was that I hadn’t bought enough yarn so it was too short for anything. The other problem was that I was working on it while doing other things and messed up my counts so the row lengths were widely different in some places.

So for take two I found a fairly easy pattern and tried to follow that.  I don’t know what happened there but it started off pretty small and just kept getting smaller. So the second attempt got scrapped.

For take three I tried winging it again and it actually worked. I’m putting the basic pattern below. It’s easy to alter for size, color, and yarn type. This is the first time I’ve written a pattern so please send any questions or suggestions to improve.

Row 1 chain 200 (or as many needed to achieve desired length. I wanted mine to be about 5ft long so I had the length to loop it.) Join chain together. Try to avoid twisting the chain.

Row 2 chain 4. Dch in second chain. Chain One. Repeat to end of round. Join with ss.

Row 3 change color. Chain 4. (Dch in second stitch. Chain 1.) Repeat till end of round. Join with ss

Row 4 change color. Chain 4. Dch chain 1 in second stitch. Repeat. Join

Row 5 Chain 5. (Trch chain one) in second stich. repeat till end of row and join with ss.

Row 6 Change colors and complete as row 4

Row 7 Repeat instructions for row 5

Row 8-12 Chain 5. (Trch chain one) in second stich till end of row. Join with ss.

Row 13-17 Change color. Chain 5. (Trch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 18 Change color. Chain 5. (Trch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 19 Chain 4 (Dch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 20 Change color. Chain 5. (Trch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 21 Chain 4 (Dch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 22 Change color. (Dch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 23 Change color. (Dch chain one) in second stich till end of row and join with ss.

Row 24 Change color. Sch till end of row and join with ss.

Yarn mania

I’m not sure what it is about fall that makes me crave yarn. I’ve  been crocheting, especially granny squares, like made lately. I just bought $25 worth of yarn this morning. I’m making floor pillows, scarves for the whole family, and maybe even some toys just for giggles. I also found a fun pattern for wrist warmers.  I’ll post photos of the projects as I finish them. This is shaping up to be a really busy fall. I can’t wait!

Kids, crochet, and granny squares

It is intriguing to me that some things which were once necessary or highly valued are now nothing more than hobbies or eccentricities. I’m an after school teacher. Right now we’re doing a workshop about yarn and all the things you do with it. Yesterday we were talking about finger knitting. I brought in my knitting and crochet to show them as well. They thought it was cool. When we tried to finger knit I had boys and girls of multiple ages who were interested. I think that we need to at least introduce kids to these old-fashioned crafts to keep them alive and used. These are not a piece of the past I want to forget.
In honor of my students’ new skills I’m posting a link to probably the easiest to understand pattern for a granny square I have found.

http://crochet-mania.blogspot.com/2008/01/chain-4-join.html