Month: May 2012

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

I thought I‑cords are always made with those I‑cord mak­ers, did­n’t know that it could be knit­ted on nee­dles. Eliz­a­beth’s Zim­mer­man­n’s I‑cord tuto­r­i­al, from the Purl Bee.

 

Chil­dren’s scrib­bles made styl­ish by the mag­ic of shrink plas­tic, from Michelle Dupuis at Rust & Sun­shine. (I espe­cial­ly love the awe­some neck­lace in the post)

 

More shrink plas­tic good­ness — this is so very cute! From Ishtar Oliv­era.

 

Did you know that wire can be made out of pop bot­tles? How fas­ci­nat­ing. Saw this on Wik­i­How.

 

Awe­some wire tuto­r­i­al (along with many oth­er basic wire tuto­ri­als too — I’ve always want­ed to learn wire­work skills!). So gen­er­ous­ly shared by Eat Breath Design.   

 

Love the idea of a mem­o­ry bank. Can be made out of any pig­gy bank. One could even make a pig­gy bank. Instead of mon­ey, it saves items with emo­tion­al val­ues like love notes and tick­et stubs. Spot­ted on Swiss­miss.

 

We need to make this, Mike! Book cov­er for wire­less router, from Apart­ment Ther­a­py.

 

Looks pret­ty straight for­ward and I like the pock­ets. Might be a good step up from my square blous­es and square skirts. From Crafter­hours.

 

Ooooh. Très chic. Very sim­ple mate­r­i­al too. From Elisa McLaugh­lin Design.

 

Have a won­der­ful Wednes­day, everyone!

 

 

 

 

3 times a sweater…

Posted on by trish

This is the third time I’ve tak­en some­thing apart to reuse this yarn. I used it to make this jack­et (too clunky) and this sweater (too big). The yarn is get­ting all fuzzy and split­ty with all the unraveling. 

Hope­ful­ly this is the last time. This IS the last time. I’m in fact quite hap­py with how the lat­est sweater turned out. It fits well. (using a new pho­to back­ground too, you see :D)

 

I like how the rows of mesh line up on the bodice and sleeves. Kind of a geo­met­ric feel.

 

The pat­tern is from the May/June 2012 issue of Cro­chet Today magazine. 

Now I just have to wait until fall to wear it :D

Hap­py Tuesday! 

 

 

 

treasures from the yardage sale

Posted on by trish

Vis­it­ed a yardage sale at the Tex­tile Muse­um this week! 

 

I did­n’t take this pic­ture, was too busy dig­ging into the piles of fab­ric. I found the pic­ture from Strand News, prob­a­bly from last year’s yardage sale? It’s just as crowd­ed, if not more crowd­ed, this year! There were line­ups going into the mul­ti­ple tents and once inside it was shoul­der-to-shoul­der from one end of the tent to the other. 

At the end I brought home these small pieces. I thought they’d make good fab­ric-cov­ered but­tons (note the chick­en in a pot piece! Not sure what to do with it yet but it’s so awe­some-look­ing I had to bring it home).

 

Tiny straw­ber­ries, isn’t it so sweet?

 

This is a larg­er piece, enough to make a dress. I like the tiny splash­es of bright colours in it.

 

Think­ing about using it to make this dress in particular…

 

From the book I Am Cute Dress (got the pic­ture from the Crafty­pod review). Not sure if you can see it in the pic­ture but the front but­ton pan­el shifts down­ward, cre­at­ing some inter­est­ing-look­ing folds.

It requires draw­ing a pat­tern, so I’ll have to wait until sum­mer school is over…

But a neck­lace! A neck­lace I can make in half an hour or so! :D

 

From the yardage sale I bought these bright red glass beads (about 10 mm in diam­e­ter). I strung them togeth­er on a teal piece of yarn with dou­ble knots in between :D

I did­n’t have clasps. So I made my own with some wire.

 

I made the top a cou­ple of weeks ago. Bought the fab­ric when I was in high school and made a peas­ant shirt with it. I wore that shirt a lot, I liked how soft the fab­ric was. It got paint on it and the elas­tics were all loose, so I had to retire it. But I recent­ly found the left­over fab­ric at my par­ents’, just enough to make a square top :D

 

Have a great week everyone!

 

 

 

another cubby update

Posted on by trish

 

Good news! The rings and ear­rings sold well, so I spent the past week­end mak­ing more :D

Amongst the new things that I tried, my favourite is the nest ring. A friend gave me a large bag of scrap yarn and I found this lush green yarn in it. Thought it would make a nice cozy spring nest.

 

Reminds me of the green nest in this game that Mike has been play­ing, called Tiny Wings.

And then there was the coral ring, with a spark­ly but­ton in the centre.

 

These aren’t for the shop, I made them for my broth­er and sis­ter-in-law because they moved to a new home :D and they love wear­ing buttons.

 

But they inspired the idea for this ocean love necklace.

 

The updat­ed cub­by! :D

 

On a cro­chet-relat­ed note, I start­ed on this pullover from Vogue Cro­chet! (I was so excit­ed when the issue came out :D)

 

Ah, kind of a small pic­ture, but if you click on it it will bring you to the page where you can view a larg­er image. 

I got con­fused by stitch count for the first pat­tern row because I was watch­ing an espe­cial­ly excit­ing episode of Grimm at the same time, so I’ll have to start over. But isn’t it beau­ti­ful? I like it.

 

Have a hap­py Thursday!

 

 

owls!

Posted on by trish

Been work­ing on a cou­ple of owl projects lately. I can show them to you now that they’ve safe­ly arrived at their new homes :D

Knit­ted this cup sleeve for a friend who loves owls and caramel mac­chi­a­to. From a pat­tern I found on Rav­el­ry (there are sev­er­al if you search “owl cup sleeve”, and I can’t remem­ber which one I used…).

 

It’s my first time knit­ting in the round since I was a teenag­er! Def­i­nite­ly don’t remem­ber how to do it any­more, good thing a knit­ter friend helped me start the first few rows (I got so con­fused :S). I thought the owls looked real­ly smart with their orange eyes. It also works as a wrist warmer :D

 

Then I cro­cheted these owls for anoth­er friend while watch­ing The Owls of Ga’hoole :D

The pink one’s a pin, the yel­low one’s a mag­net, and the white one’s an orna­ment — I took the pic­ture before stitch­ing the rib­bon to the top of his head.

They were inspired by this cro­chet owl pat­tern.

Have a great start to the week, every­one! :D

 

 

cubby update!

Posted on by trish

 

Mak­ing more stuff for my friend Jes­si­ca’s shop. This sim­ple ring was my favourite out of the batch. I called it the robin’s egg.

Love the red and teal togeth­er. The but­ton is iri­des­cent. Even used a metal­lic thread to sew on the but­ton for a bit of sparkle. Was tempt­ed to keep it but I don’t real­ly wear rings oth­er than my wed­ding band.

 

On anoth­er thought, I think I will bring it home if it does­n’t get sold by the end of the month :P

Some cher­ry blos­som rings.

 

Made ring stands for them out of an old birth­day card I received. 

 

Tried some­thing new and made fab­ric cov­ered but­tons. My friend who is the shop own­er said that ear­rings are pop­u­lar. Have been want­i­ng to try mak­ing fab­ric cov­ered but­tons for a while, but haven’t found a trust­wor­thy glue to attach but­tons to ear­ring posts. When I told my friend that she said, “mak­ing dan­gling ones!“ 

Great idea, Jess! :D

 

The ear­ring wires came with plain met­al beads, which I swapped out for oth­er kinds of beads to go with the fabric.

I also don’t have a fab­ric but­ton mak­er, so I cov­ered the back of the but­ton with some hand sewing, with a wire hoop sewn in for dangling.

 

It’s quite a pleas­ant med­i­ta­tive process actu­al­ly. I’m hop­ing to make more. Now when­ev­er I look at fab­rics my mind would think: how would that look on a button?

The spring gar­den brooches were sold out! :D (I only made two, but still.) So I restocked with moon flower brooches. 

 

I made up that name, moon flower, but I lat­er looked it up and they do exist! I’ve seen them in a park before and called them origa­mi flow­ers because of the way the petals are fold­ed togeth­er. Here’s a video doc­u­ment­ing how it unfolds at night­time. It’s quite magical.

Alto­geth­er now :D

 

Real­ly hav­ing fun with this new ven­ture. So grate­ful for the opportunity! 

Have a hap­py Wednesday!

 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Posted on by trish

 

Com­fy floor poufs pat­tern from Pick­les.

 

Make a bunch and we can have a deep sea jel­ly fish parade! :D Plas­tic bag jel­ly fish by Casa Haus. 

 

These have made their rounds on pin boards and blogs but they’re so awe­some I have to post them again — pina­ta cook­ies! Recipe on She Knows.

 

Pret­ty self explana­to­ry. By Aunt Peach­es.

 

Not that I have the skills to make them but these are gor­geous! Suc­cu­lent cup­cakes on Pix­el Whisk.

 

Love this sim­ple wal­let. By The Purl Bee.

 

Also from The Purl Bee, a cap sleeve lat­tice top that maybe I can knit!

 

A wood­en fence glow­ing with colour­ful mar­bles. By Gar­den Dra­ma.

 

This is pret­ty crazy. Pan­cake art spot­ted on Cur­bly.

 

Have an awe­some start to the week!

 

 

 

rice of all shapes and sizes

Posted on by trish

 

My friend post­ed a pic­ture of her lunch box on face­book one day, with oni­giri (Japan­ese rice ball) in it. I asked if she could teach me how to make them when we get togeth­er next time, but we both have busy sched­ules and it was going to be a while before we could get togeth­er, so she sent me this video. 

It seemed doable. So Mike and I set out to make it. We got salt­ed her­ring and avo­ca­do for fill­ing. As you can see, they did­n’t turn out per­fect­ly tri­an­gu­lar as the video has shown, and the salt­ed her­ring was real­ly salty, while the rice sur­round­ing it was rather bland. But they were cute! :D

 

They actu­al­ly did­n’t taste too bad. But I tried to think of ways to improve them. So I boiled the her­ring and pat­ted them dry before­hand. I also sprin­kled salt on my hand while form­ing the oni­giri (I skipped this step in my first attempt even though it was part of the video instruc­tion, because my hands are per­pet­u­al­ly dry with occa­sion­al tiny cuts and the thought of sprin­kling salt on my hands just made me wince… but it was­n’t too bad when I actu­al­ly did it). And I put a bit more fill­ing into each one. Also, I fig­ured out how to make them “per­fect­ly tri­an­gu­lar” like the Misa said in the video — I just need­ed to put more rice in my hand! 

So, the sec­ond attempt!

 

I brought them to school the oth­er day :D Can’t real­ly see them because they’re wrapped, but they are more tri­an­gu­lar! And they tast­ed much bet­ter with the her­ring being less salty.

Will be mak­ing more of them, I’m sure. They’re actu­al­ly real­ly fill­ing. Per­fect for an evening class that stretch­es over din­ner time.

On a sep­a­rate note, had a love­ly evening last night get­ting togeth­er with a friend I haven’t seen for a long time, with a pink vel­vet cup­cake! It was so pret­ty, I have to share a pho­to :D

 

Have an awe­some week­end, every­one! :D

 

summer sewing, episode skirt shirt

Posted on by trish

 

I made this from an old skirt that was passed on to me :D

It’s invert­ed — the hem made the shoulder/neck, and the waist is still the waist.

Actu­al­ly, the band of fab­ric around the waist was­n’t in the orig­i­nal skirt. I cut too far below the orig­i­nal waist to avoid the zip­per, but that made the shirt too short. So I lat­er sewed on extra fab­ric to extend its length.

Have a sweet evening!Â