A Year of Stitches Day 1: Running stitch

I've put down my first stitches and I've made a mistake already! I forgot to put in starting stitches to hold the end of the thread in place when I cut off the knot. Ooops. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to sew over the thread on the back. I'm going to try to do a new stitch each day so we'll see how long that lasts.

Today's stitch

I'm starting out with the most basic of stitches, that is, running stitch. I'm using two strands from a six stranded cotton embroidery thread. It's by "Designs for the Needle", made in Mexico with no colour number. It's a nice bright yellow. I've done a wiggle line of 16 stitches.

A Year of Stitches

I've wanted to do Victorian crazy patchwork for several years. It involves loads of embroidery so when I saw "A year of stitches" I thought this might be a step towards my goal of the patchwork. I've got set up and so I'm ready to start.

I was going to do it zentangle style, with a squiggly line and then fill in the spaces but I'm probably just going to freestyle it and do what I feel like each day. I originally thought I was going to stitch to black and white and maybe grey, but I think I'm going bright and cheerful instead with oranges and yellows and who knows what else? We'll just have to wait and see.

Lussekatter

Lussekatter are Swedish saffron buns. They're traditionally eaten for Lucia which is tomorrow. The recipe I used called for quark but I haven't got any so I used Greek yoghurt instead. The dough became very lose and so I had to add more flour. Somehow I don't think I'll be winning The Great British Bake Off any time soon! They looked ok when I made them but then they rose, popped out the currants, which should have been raisins, and went all blobby. They taste ok, although I would have liked more saffron.

Crafternoon

I went to a crafternoon in aid of Mind today. It was held at Cafe Ceramica. It was to make a decopatch ornament. You start off with a cardboard base, and paste small pieces of ripped up tissue paper on, giving them a coat of glue once they are pasted on.

I decorated two hearts as hearts are a common decoration in the Swedish Christmas tradition.

This is my first attempt, where I randomly pasted on red, white and gold patterned tissue.

For my second heart, I decided to try something more ordered, placing a motif in the middle of each side and then surrounding it with gold and white tissue.

I enjoyed doing them and would like to do some more another time. For once, I didn't buy supplies to do some more as I have such a backlog of projects to do at the moment!

Free Form Crochet

I've been looking longingly at free form crochet for a while now. There is a course of craftsy which I may try but haven't quite made up my mind yet. I think I'm going to crochet a few bits and try joining them to make a small bag. We'll see if it becomes a reality.

My first Scrumble

I found some instructions on how to make a scrumble on YouTube. A scrumble is an element in free form crochet which is joined with other scrumbles to make the finished design. The video is in Dutch, which made it a bit difficult to follow. I haven't followed the instructions precisely, but then it's free form so I'm looking for ideas and to be creative instead of just copying to the letter. I like the idea of making wavy parts so that it doesn't lie flat.

A Crochet Flower

In another video on scrumbles, I saw this flower from Sheru Knitting. It was fun to make and a lot easier than I was expecting.

Although this particular flower is going to be part of a bag, I think joining lots in a row would make an interesting scarf.

Norwegian Knitting

I found some knitting on Netflix. It's a multiple hour long program of people knitting and talking about knitting. It didn't sound too interesting but it was! It was informative and relaxing to watch. After watching it, I decided to try the Norwegian knitting style. Knitting was nice and easy but purling took a bit more effort for me to catch on.

Unlike British knitting, the wool is held in the left hand for a right handed knitter.

Purling requires inserting the needle, twisting the stitch and then grabbing the wool from behind. For the first few rows I didn't grab the wool corrected so I ended up getting a twisted stitch. I quite like the effect but it wasn't what I was going for.

For the twisted stitch I pretty much just placed the wool over the needle like this:

instead of placing the needle over the wool and sort of hooking it under as shown below.

Christmas Wreath

I went to a wreath class at Kingsbury Water Park today. I've never done wreaths with natural materials so it was interesting to learn how to do it. I'm happy with my first attempt at a wreath.

The base of the wreath was made from wisteria, bent into a circle.

I use lots of natural string, ribbon, a huge pine cone, holly with berries, ivy with berries, scotts pine, and leylandii. The pine left resin all over my hands which then got coated with dirt. Lovely! It refused to wash off using soap and water so I had to resort to Swarfega.

I made about 15 small bundles of greenery, tied together with string, which I then attached to the base, again with string.

The huge pine cone maybe doesn't fit too well but it was so magnificent I just had to use it!

Cracked Black Pepper and Figgy Bread

We ended up with rather a lot of dried figs so I decided to make some bread using them. I used a BBC Good Food recipe but with a slight variation. I used 2 teaspoons of yeast, reduced the salt to 1 tsp, and added 1 tsp of sugar. I found it quite difficult to incorporate the figs into the dough.

Felted Baubles

The wool I ordered for felting arrived yesterday. So beautiful. It's hard to use it when it's so soft and lovely to just hold and touch. I was thrilled with my mixed bag of lap waste. Lots of Christmas colours.

I also ordered some red and green for making baubles, like the one I did at Kedlestone Hall, and a needle felting kit.

Materials and Equipment

I used creamy white felt from the big bag in the top image, and some red and green shown in the image above.

Last week I got some polystyrene baubles (£2 for 10) to use as a base to felt around. I wasn't sure whether it would work ok with the loop for hanging them or if I'd have to cut it off. It worked fine with it.

I worked on a pink children's play mat as it has a rough surface which helps with the felting process.

To wet the felt I used hot water in bowl, and I also used diluted washing up liquid in a spray bottle. It's really easy to apply too much so diluting in and using a spray bottle helps to spread it around without applying loads.

Steps

1. First two pieces of wool are pulled out, as shown above. The first bunch of fibres is wrapped around the polystyrene ball.

2. Next some red fibres were laid on the white fibres. This is an organic process, and the final result will depend on how the wool felts rather than the exact position of the red fibres.

3. and then wrapped around the fibres and ball from the first step, making sure the fibres at at right angles to the first bunch of fibres, and the red fibres on the outside.

4. Now it's time to wet the ball of fibres. To wet the ball, dunk it gently into a bowl of warm water, then spray on some washing up liquid. It will become a squishy mess. Be careful not to squish it as this can lead to breaks in the finished bauble. I made this mistake with the bauble and acorn I made at the class.

5. Gently roll the bauble in your hands. It will feel quite sloppy but keep going, very gently, until the wool shrinks around the polystyrene ball. Once it was a little firmer, I mixed rolled it in my hands and on the mat. I could have rolled it on bubble wrap instead.

6. Once it's firm, give it an extra few minutes and then it's ready to dry.

These are the ones I made today, mixing red and green fibres with a white fibre base.

More Mandela Madness

I love learning. It gives me quite a buzz. I've just completed round 6 of the Mandela Madness. I'm not entirely happy with the centre, but otherwise I think it's quite delightful.

Techniques

There is so much packed into this mandala.

• Magic Ring: I've done these before but sometimes I've had problems with them.
• Standing Stitches: I've come across standing stitches before but haven't practice much. I can see that I'm going to get lots of practice with them.
• Popcorn Stitches: I'd forgotten how to do these so it was a good reminder. The six bright pink blobs are the popcorn stitches.
• Picots: I've always been a bit unsure where to insert the hook to complete the stitch. Now I know! The pale pink centre is made from picots as are the points of the dark purple.
• Overlay Crochet: This is completely new for me.

Drinks Mat

I've just got a nice new adjustable standing/sitting table. I don't want to damage it so I made a mat for my giant mug. The mug has an 11 cm diameter, and the mat about 12.5 cm.

Materials

The clips on my internet cable broke, so instead of throwing it away, I decided to use it to make a mat. It seemed appropriate as it will be used on my computer table. I used Hoooked Ribbon XL in bright yellow to crochet over it.

Tools

The cable was quite tough to cut so I brought out the heavy duty metal cutters! I used a 10 mm hook, along with my trusty scissors and darning needle.

Pattern

The pattern is worked in a spiral, so rounds are not joined.

Round 1: 6 dc into a magic ring. (6 stitches)

Round 2: Lay the cable over the round below, 3 dc in each dc. (18 stitched)

Round 3: 1 dc in each dc. (18 stitches)

Round 4: (1 dc, 2dc)* repeat (27 stitches)

Cut off cable at an angle, 1 dc in next stitch without the cable inside, then 1 slip stitch in the next stitch. Finish off.

Mandela Madness

Having been a member of the Official CCC Social Group on facebook for several months, seeing everyone's beautiful work, I've decided to try the Mandela Madness. It uses a lot of techniques that I've not tried before so it presents a great learning opportunity. Furthermore, there are videos which are very thorough in explaining every detail. Although my mother taught me to crochet initially, I'm mostly self-taught and make things up as I go so I'm not sure exactly where I'm supposed to put the hook for some stitches. I hope that I'll be able to improve my technique and produce better finished items.

Materials

I'm using the Scheepjes Colour Crafter Purple Passion pack which I bought from Wool Warehouse. They send your order in lovely bags so it's a delight to open them and a nice way to store the yarn. This isn't my favourite colour palette but I'm treating this as a challenge and way to improve rather than thinking about the finished product. I don't want to use expensive yarn on something that I will probably look at when I'm done and say "I could do better now".

Tools

For the moment, all I need is a crochet hook, scissors, and a darning needle. I'm using my favourite KnitPro Symfonie hook. They're silky smooth and lovely to work with, as well as being pretty to look at with bands of colour. The scissors I'm using are some that were going to be thrown in the bin at the hospital as they are single use only scissor. They're very sharp and convenient. They have a cardboard sleeve so they don't stab me when I take them out and about with my crochet or knitting.

And we're off …

The Mandala Madness is now on the hook. After frogging 3 times, I now have the first two rows done. Why did I frog it? The first time because the initial chain was too big, the second because I miscounted the stitches, and the third because I ended up with a loose stitch on the first round. I'm not completely satisfied by the version I have now as the tension is a bit off on the first couple of stitches of the first row but I hope it will be ok. We'll see.

Wet Felting

On Saturday I went to a one hour wet felting class at Kedlestone Hall. They are decorating the hall using wet felted baubles and acorns, using a blue and gold colour scheme to match some of the rooms there. I made one of each of these although I can't say I did a particularly good job!

Materials

For the acorn, I used carded wool in a yellowish colour. This wasn't a good choice as it is too close to the colour of the acorn cup it was to go in. The acorn cups had been sprayed gold.

The bauble was make with red and green carded wool, a polystyrene ball, fine glitter, and a bauble top.

Warm water and soap were also used, as well as some netting and bubble wrap, although the netting and bubble wrap are optional.

Technique

For the acorn, a small amount of wool was rolled up and then another piece the same size was placed with the fibres in the opposite direction. The whole thing was soaked in warm water, and then some washing up liquid applied. If you put too much washing up liquid on, the suds go everywhere! Once the wool blob is wet and soaped, you roll it in your hands, like rolling Plasticine into a ball. You keep doing this forever. Well ok, not forever but for maybe 20 minutes or so, until the piece is firm and much smaller. Once it's firm, you shape it into an acorn shape, let it dry and attach an acorn cup with PVA glue.

I'd asked if I could use two colours for the acorn, but was advised not to. The reason for this is that the first bunch of fibres is not visible so using a different colour wouldn't achieve anything. However, for the bauble, I used some green strands to create a swirly pattern on the ball. I did actually lay them straight on the red fibres but when I rolled the ball in my hands to felt it, they swirled around. I was quite pleased with the effect.

To make the bauble, I laid fibres in one direction to enclose the polystyrene ball, and then overlaid those with another layer of red wool with the fibres in the opposite direction. The green fibres were then laid at right angles again to the top layer of red fibres. I then applied a load of glitter and used the same technique of rolling the wet soapy mess in my hands. For this item, I did however also wrap netting around the ball and
roll it on the table. This seemed to speed up the felting process.

Once the ball was felted, a bauble top has to be inserted through the felt so it pops into the polystyrene. This is quite tricky to do but is made easier by poking one arm of the bauble top in first and then the other.

Tips

I had a problem with the finished acorn having a big crack in it. This is probably because I pressed too hard initially when I started to roll the ball of fibres in my hands. This could be disguised by added some extra fibres over the top and re-rolling the ball.

If when the item dries, part of it sticks up, this is because it hasn't been fully felted. To fix this you can just re-wet it and get rolling.

Cellini Spiral Weave Necklace

Using another kit from Beads Direct, I made this sparkling purple necklace. The spiral is a tube, so the ribbon and cord is just threaded through.

Materials

The project uses beads of varying sizes: size 6, 8, and 11 seed beads with some bicones, and some beading thread. The ribbon and cord necklace it's threaded on came ready made as part of a grab bag of goodies.

Tools

The only tools needed were a needle and a pair of scissors.

Method

I followed the instructions in the video linked at Beads Direct. I enjoyed making this necklace but it did take some time. Sometimes it was hard to pull the work tight enough so there were no gaps between the beads.

Keyring

I made a few of these cubic weave pendants a while ago. My husband was using one on his key ring. The ring of the key ring frayed the thread so I used wire instead.

Materials

I started making these using a kit, and then bought some extra beads to make more: 4 mm pearls, size 15 seed beads, beading thread, eye pins, jump rings, key ring ring.

Tools

For the pendant itself, I used just a beading needle. For the wire work at the top, I used round nose and flat nose pliers.

Method

I followed the video from Beads Direct's Take a Make Break Cubic Weave Pendant to make the pendant, and then used eye pins to form the wire loops attaching it to the key ring.

Other

The kit also contained some bicones which I've combined with the pearls in this pendant.

I had some beads left over from another kit and wondered if these irregularly sized beads would also work. I was quite pleased with the contrast of the order of the cubic weave and the randomness of the colour and size of the beads. I will need to reinforce the bail on this one so the keyring doesn't fray it. Since the beads in the bail are bigger than the size 15 seed beads I used on the other pendants, I can probably use fine wire to replace the thread.

Matte Fire Polish Bracelet, Necklace and Earrings

I started making the Beads Direct Take-A-Make-Break Matte Fire Polish Bracelet a few weeks ago. I had to stop because I had a problem with my shoulder. I enjoyed making the bracelet and so as there were plenty of beads left over in the kit, I made a necklace instead of making a second bracelet. I also made some matching earrings, taking a small segment of the bracelet./

The necklace and bracelet can be combined to make a longer necklace.

Materials

I used a kit from Beads Direct which contained Preciosa Czech Fire Polish 4mm Bead, Preciosa Czech Fire Polish 8mm Beads, Toho Size 11 Round Seed Beads, Toho Size 15 Round Seed Beads, 2 Rose Gold Plated Magnetic Ball Clasps, Nymo Beading Thread. I also used a pair of rose gold plated earring hooks.

Tools

Just a beading needle and scissors to cut the thread. I didn't need any pliers for this project as the beads are attached directly to the earring ring hook loop and the magnetic clasps using thread.

Technique

Although there was a project sheet included with the kit from Beads Direct, I followed the video showing how to make the bracelet. I was particularly interested in making the daisy-like flowers between the beads. First a triangle is made, then it's made into a cross and finally into a flower.

Grey Hat

All the commercial hats my husband has bought or tried on have been too small so I decided to make one for him. I finished it today.

Materials

I used 100% acrylic yarn from B&M. It came in a 300g ball and I used around 60-65g. The ball of yarn cost £3.99, so the hat cost around 80p to make.

Tools

Circular needles, double ended needles, a darning needle and an emergency crochet hook.

I used circular needles until the last few rows where I had to switch to double pointed needles. I haven't used double pointed needles before, and did have a little bit of trouble with them. I dropped a stitch and couldn't see it until I'd finished off the hat. Fortunately I have crochet hooks lying all over the place so they came to the rescue to pick up the dropped stitch.

Pattern

I used a pattern I found on ravelry. It's Ribbed Watchman's Hat by Channah Koppel.

Rag Rug Hooking

A few years ago I saw someone demonstrating rag rugging. I decided back then that I'd like to try. Well, on Saturday, at The National Trust Back-to-Backs in Birmingham, I got the opportunity to try at a two hour class in the front room of one of the houses. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being in the setting and learning a traditional technique. For some totally unknown reason I decided to draw my poppy with three petals instead of four. Oh well, I'm more interested in learning a technique than in what I made.

Materials

The base material used was common 10 ounce hessian. This is the hessian used for upholstery.Cheap hessian is too loose, and other hessian can be too stiff. Originally, old sacks were used.

The red and black material is t-shirt fabric, cut into long thin strips (approximately 1.5-2 cm wide and as long as possible).

Tools

We used a very sturdy crochet hook like tool which has a sharpened tip for bodging through the hessian. Originally something like half a sharpened dolly peg would have been used. I don't know how that would work without having the hook to pull the fabric through the material.

Technique

Following a pattern drawn onto the hessian, you work on the right side of the design, pulling loops through from the reverse of the fabric. The reverse of the piece is tight, the front is loopy. On the back of my piece you can see there are the ends of the strips where I ran out and needed to use another piece, and also in some places where the fabric was cut a bit wide/rough in places.