tentative van flower functional

Like the title?  You can thank Gedeo.  It's a bit more interesting that the working title this post had which was "cowl".  Descriptive, yes, boring, yes.

On with the cowl!  I had pinned this free pattern from Annaboo's House ages ago.  I bought the yarn.  I'm afraid I've since lost the label as it was one of those that ripped and fell off as soon as I put it in my crochet basket, but it's a super chunky.  Or mega chunky.  Something like that!

 

The cowl is crocheted with a huge 10mm hook and uses a single 100gram ball of yarn.  I started this in the car going down to visit my nephew last weekend.

 

 

 

I finished it about 40 minutes later!  This is a REALLY quick make. 

 

It looks like a giant headband here!  It's for me, it's about time I made something for myself and is still much needed.  Even though it's March we had some snow this morning.  Not the proper kind of snow they get in Canada or Poland, just some flakes, but it's bloody freezing. 

 

Today is Mother's Day in the UK.  I don't generally take mum out on Mother's Day as you end up in a crowded restaurant where the menu is twice as expensive as usual and invariably a set menu with little choice.  I take her out another day instead.  We were supposed to have a day out yesterday but we both caught this cold from Jacob so I went round for about an hour before I collapsed on her table and had to go home to bed!  I have now developed a barking cough which my colleagues are going to love tomorrow. 

Oh, and I got new slippers.

soft book

Good morning ladies.  I'm home from work ill today.  I've got a cold, but it is one hell of a cold, my entire face hurts... sympathy please!  I was too uncomfortable in bed so I thought I'd sit on the sofa and watch the Craftsy QuiltCon lectures... hmmm, not exactly exciting are they!

Onwards!  Remember this panel I bought?

One day a couple of weeks ago I was overcome with the NEED to make a soft book for my nephew, I have no idea where this urge came from but you have to listen to yourself when it comes to gratuitous shopping, don't you?  There was a surprising lack of book panels, but I finally found this one.

I picked out all the squares that had "what sound does the XXX make" and laid them out as if they were a book.  I then sewed them all together completely wrong as the pages that were supposed to be next to each other, I sewed together!  I could also have done with leaving myself a bit more room round the edges of the squares.

I cut squares of wadding and stuffed each page.  I knew I needed to quilt them to keep the wadding in place but clearly I hadn't thought this through - I should have quilted each page individually before sewing them together.  Ah well, I went with a simple zig zag around the edges of each central panel - or thereabouts as they didn't line up very well front-back!

I zigzagged the inner edge of each page to stop them fraying too badly, then all that remained was to sew some kind of spine on. 

No, I don't have a photo of the finished book.  Being Mrs Last-minute, I sewed the spine on at 10pm in our B&B room the day before Jacob's birthday!

Here, however, is a picture of the spine before I sewed the binding on.

And here is the book.  Jacob loves books, he immediately put this one in his mouth - that means it's a success in the eyes of a 1 year old, doesn't it?

Right, I'm going to see if Jeremy Kyle is on, clearly I'm not a real quilter as I'd rather watch trash TV that this stultifying video...

fused glass monster aliens

Monster aliens or alien monsters, I'm not really sure which.

A couple of weeks ago I had a transport issue - I have to take Mr CA's car to glass class as a window just does not fit in the boot of a mini (not much does!).  Unfortunately, he was parked on the next street, his boot was full and I was late. 

Result?

Alien monsters.   It was good timing as I didn't have a birthday present for my brother and so thought I'd make him something.  Yes, he will be 38.  Yes, he'll love these alien monsters!

This is fused glass.  It's a specific type of glass with a certain melting point.  I cut the pieces out individually and placed them on clear glass.  They went in the kiln and the following week they were ready.  They are dimensional and very tactile.

I sketched each one and then just started cutting.  It was fun as it makes a change from the precise work I'm doing with the window, the edges can be rough as they just melt anyway and flow into the glass below.

One thing I haven't missed whilst working on the window and using the bandsaw and grinder is cutting myself.  My hands were like ribbons when I left.  At one point I got a small shard in my finger, I could see it sticking out but could do nothing about it as I nearly passed out.  Yep, I'm a wimp and no, I have never given birth!  My teacher and one of my friends had to rescue me.

It was an uncomfortable drive home, a tiny shard had fallen down my top and was sticking in my stomach!

maggie's farm

I don't know if you remember that I was embroidering some animals?  If not, then you should be paying attention, there will be a test! 

Want to see what happened to them?

I sewed them up and stuffed them to make little softies!  The rooster is about 4" high if that gives you an idea of size.  I tried to do a variety of embroidery stitches for a bit of interest and texture for little hands.  I used a FQ I had for the back.

I won the pattern for this little farm from Charlotte Lyons as part of the Handcrafted Holiday Stitch Along.  I couldn't remember the name of that -along so went through my old posts (it's this one), I have 19 posts with the tag "giveaway wins" and most of them have more than one win on them - I'm incredibly lucky!

When I went over to get the link for Charlotte's Etsy shop, I saw she has loads of new patterns, if you like to embroider, go and have a look.

The last piece was this little barn.  Now, this pattern is called "Maggie's Farm" and is for little girls, but I think imaginative play is important for little boys too so this is Jacob's farm (yep, it was a first birthday present for my beautiful nephew) and the two little figures are both boys.

I had a tough time choosing fabric for the lining - not helped by the fact I was sewing this in my pajamas at 10:30 on Saturday morning when we were supposed to be setting off at 12!  I didn't want to use any blue as I'm saving it for the Skill Builder quilt, so I chose this homespun fat quarter which is not pink though it does look like it in this photo!  It's actually purple.

Here's the farm scene.  Figures are not to scale, though my bunny Tiff might get bigger than me if she keeps eating the way she does...  I had a bit of an "incident" when I came to sew the bag up.  Yep, the roof/flap and strap were inside, between the outer and the lining.  That's what happens when you half follow the instructions and half do your own thing without engaging your brain.

The animals can all be stuffed into the farm.

And Jacob can carry it round by the strap.  Or rather, and what actually happened, is Jacob will take all the animals out, wait for you to put them back in, then take them out again!

more mould making

Good morning!  I had intended to get a post up yesterday, but I didn't get home in time on Sunday night to write one.  We went down South for my nephew's first birthday party.  He's full of cold so it was a snotty one, but wonderful to see him.

I wrote about a mould making class I did a few weeks ago, and promised a follow up post to show you the items I'd made in the class and the moulding compound itself.  I can't seem to get this photo to load, but maybe you can see it?

If you can, that's moulding compound.  If you can't, it's a pot of blue and a pot of white putty like substance.  You take equal measures of each (by eye, scales not necessary) and mix them together.  You then have about 5 minutes to cast something before it sets.  When it's set it's still flexible, making it easy to pop the item out.

These are the two moulds I made in the class.  Below each mould (the blue thing) is the polymer clay version and below that is the resin version.  Clearly the blue button on the left looks like a blob, but it does have the pattern in it.  I much prefer the effect of the polymer clay though.

I had a good old dig in my button jar and made some more moulds, it's a bit addictive looking to see what you can cast!  Here is each mould next to it's buttony friend.  I haven't got round to moulding anything using these ones yet, for some reason I got sidetracked trying to make a skinner blend (unsuccessfully...)

I discovered that the wooden shapes I have cast very well and was able to make these two clay bunnies.  You can see on the mould where I pushed it in too far and didn't shape the sides, that involved a bit of trimming when I got the clay out of the mould.  I need to finish these bunnies off!


Related posts

mould making class

Glass update week 7

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that there was no glass class update for week 6... No, no-one noticed?  Not one of you has a spreadsheet of my activities or a folder full of photos of me taken through a telescopic lens?

OK, fair enough, I'm not very exciting.  On with the update.  Here's where I was...

I finished the right hand side of the design on Wednesday night, I know how terrible my photos of this project are, this time I took a photo and the flash was on... I think it shows the colours better and certainly captures the sparkle of the glass.

Here it is without flash:

See what I mean.  This is the edge I worked on.  The square was already fused, back at the beginning of the life of this window so I just had to slot the straight pieces in.  Clearly they'd been cut by a blind woman with only one functional arm (or maybe by me) as I had to grind, cut or bandsaw every single one of these pieces!  I got them all in and...  the fused square was too large!  Back to the grinder.

I just have to finish the top and right hand side border now.  That involves cutting a precise semi-circle out of each end of each of the clear glass strips.  If I get that done next week, that gives me 2 weeks to get the soldering and cementing done before the end of term.  Yeah, it's not going to happen.  It didn't help that my table-buddy was flicking through a pattern book and I had to join in ooohing and aaaahing over the fabric designs and a whole chapter of Japanese designs that would be perfect for Sashiko...  so easily distracted!


Related posts

fused glass elements
glass cutting complete
beginning the leading
leading the nuggets
more leading
leading the rose and stem
main panel complete

Skill Builder BOM

What my title lacks in imagination, it makes up for in information.  My excuse, I'm sticking to it! 

The Skill Builder BOM I'm referring to is hosted by Pile O Fabric.  It's a year long BOM with 2 blocks each month using a variety of techniques to make a full quilt.  I bought some fabric especially for the Skill Builder, thinking I'd do the block in solids.

Incidentally, UK readers, these fabrics came from The Village Haberdashery where Kona solids (which these are) are just £1.75 a fat quarter!  Bargain.  I bought a selection of blues, Sand for the background and some orange. 

To cut a long story short, I bought fabric based on requirements for the wrong BOM and do not have nearly enough.  I've decided to add in whatever solid blues I have hanging around and some blue prints to bulk it out.  With it being a year-long BOM, I can buy some more fabric later in the year if I need it. 

This is lesson 1 which were January's blocks.  Yes, I'm behind, already.

This is the Soundwave block.  It's improv-piecing - well the strips are all a certain width, but the lengths were improv'd. 

And this is the Magnum block.  Anyone who's participating in the BOM will see that this block is wrong.  The blue strip in the top left corner shouldn't be there, but I had a small measuring "incident".  I may remake that part of the block.

The quilt is Quilt-As-You-Go with FMQ.  These blocks should be done already and February's pieced.  Ah well, I've got a year to catch up!

As I'll be QAYGing, I want blue prints on the reverse, finding very few in my stash prompted a bit of a shopping spree.  First up are my goodies from Prints to Polka Dots (affiliate link).  Yes, I know that Daisy Cottage doesn't fit the blue theme.  Nor do the red prints, but I was lacking in red to and they were having a sale!

These little lovelies were also bargains, this time from Threads and Patches where I also bought the crewel wool I mentioned earlier this week.

I also bought this panel which is currently being made into a book for my lovely little nephew.  These kind of panels to make soft books are in real short supply.

Well that's all for today, enjoy your Friday!