fiber arts and handicrafts

[Sunsilver]

WOW! Yeah, those are REALLY nice tokens!

[elengil]

WOW! Yeah, those are REALLY nice tokens!

You should see what we're gonna do with the left-overs! (Man, that feast was goooood!)

No, seriously, though, unfortunately we didn't have a full house this year so we have a fair number of napkins left, so we're going to turn them into largesse, some we'll leave as napkins, some we'll turn into waxed cup covers and some might become little bags.

[Maria]

I really like those!

[Inanna]

Those are really cool. And pretty.

[elengil]

Thank you both! Will get pictures of how it all turns out.

But being the somewhat ADD crafter that I am, last night I was making plaid fleece mittens. lol

[elengil]

OKAY. Mittens are PAIN IN THE

I'm sure there are easier patterns out there, but I am trying to copy a specific medieval pattern and I've never had to *make* my own pattern before like this, so I could see the shape of the pieces but it wasn't to scale so I really had to make my own pattern and after several botched attempts

We'll see if I can successfully transfer this pattern to the actual material I intend to use. Thoughts and prayers would be appropriate at this time

[Frelga]

You can do it! You have tools that medieval craftspeople could only dream of.

Also, I should probably finish the last ten or so rows of my mini shawl and maybe make my son a winter hat.

[Maria]

Good luck! I've never made mittens before. If I do, I'll probably make them huge out of wool and then shrink the heck out of them to make them felt and be windproof. I did that with a purse once, but it turned out too weird to use because I did some sections with crochet stitches and others with knitting. They shrank at different rates, of course.

[Impenitent]

Good luck! I've never made mittens before. If I do, I'll probably make them huge out of wool and then shrink the heck out of them to make them felt and be windproof. I did that with a purse once, but it turned out too weird to use because I did some sections with crochet stitches and others with knitting. They shrank at different rates, of course.

That is quite a brilliant idea!

Elengil, best of luck with the project! Most of what I do has no pattern; I have a brain-blast idea and then try to figure out how to make it so (or sew, hehe!). I invariably have to make 2 or 3 runs at it before I achieve anything close to what I want.

Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.

[elengil]

Elengil, best of luck with the project! Most of what I do has no pattern; I have a brain-blast idea and then try to figure out how to make it so (or sew, hehe!). I invariably have to make 2 or 3 runs at it before I achieve anything close to what I want.

Yeah, I've gone through about 6 trials and I think I have a functional pattern for sm, med/lg, and lg/xl - not necessarily the best outcomes from it, but hey... they're mittens. Most of what I do doesn't need to really be fitted so I don't have to get quite as close as I do with a pair of mittens that really cannot be too small but you also really don't want them too big and floppy, either.

I do love sewing, mostly I sew by hand as I have much more control over what I'm doing, I always feel like the machine is getting away from me. I'm not necessarily good at sewing... but I love doing it. I need someone who knows what they're doing hanging over me when I do something new. lol

[Impenitent]

Takes more patience than I can claim to sew anything substantive by hand!

On the other hand, I'm also really lazy, so sometimes I decide that it will take less effort to do something by hand than to clear the dining table, get out the sewing machine, thread spools and sewing kit and set it all up...and then put it all away again, nice and neat.

That means I dedicated an hour this week to hand-stitch darts into the back of two uniform shirts for my daughter, a task that would have taken 15 minutes by machine even with set up time.

*shrugs*

Lazy.

Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.

[elengil]

I recently was amazingly lucky to find a beautiful old fashioned vanity at the thrift store. It looks something like this:



Mine has the lift-up mirror in the middle, three small drawers on one side, a little cabinet on the other (that looks like another three drawers), and then a small drawer on either side of the top so the top surface has a valley in it where the mirror lays down and that's where I put the machine. The drawers hold my threads and bobbins and sewing bits, and I have enough room for a small lamp for good light, then there's just enough room for a small chair for me to sit!

It's perfect because it's small enough that it tucks into the corner, there isn't enough room to collect too much junk on the surface, so it's always ready if I need to sew with a minute's notice! I finally have a dedicated sewing table where the machine can live.

I still prefer hand sewing though. lol I've sewn myself two medieval dresses by hand, but they were easy, except for the neck line they were all straight lines, and nothing tricky to fit together.

Incidentally, here are the mitten prototypes



The red one was hand sewn, but that thumb is tricky as

The white one is a much easier pattern. I'll end up making both.

[elengil]

First two pair of mittens done! Fully lined, hand finished seams, and I'm so freakin proud of myself! First pair is wool with a flannel lining, second pair is wool with linen lining. I am *almost* done with the third pair also, did the decorative stitch over the seams of the first but didn't quite finish the second, but the linings are both done and ready to go in the second that stitching is done so like 2 3/4 pair done this weekend!

I can confidently say I have conquered that thumb! I did do another bit of fussing with it and figured out how to pin it so I can sew that curve without completely screwing the whole thing up (only took three tries!) But now I can make that pattern much more easily which is good because I really love the final look!

I briefly considered doing fingerless gloves but about three seconds into scraping frost off my windows this morning I decided t'hell with that!

[Maria]

It looks great!

[Frelga]

It looks fabulous! And very comfy.

[Impenitent]

Very cosy, pretty mittens. I like the purple thread topstitch.

Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.

[elengil]

Thank you thank you thank you

They are quite cozy (the flannel really helps!) and the top-stitching I think really finishes it off nicely!

So nicely, in fact, that the structural engineer at work saw them and got all excited and immediately ordered 4 pair And since I simply can't say 'no' to Arthur, he's getting 4 pair (him, wife, daughter, and son). So I actually got a bit of funds out of the deal

Got all 4 pair/linings cut out this morning and stacked on the table ready to sew up! (Wait, was I supposed to be cooking? oops! ) The sewing itself should be done in less than a day, but the finishing stitching will take a bit longer, glad there is "plenty" of time ( ) till Christmas. But I got 3 pair fully finished in less than a week (one dedicated weekend and a few bits of stitching before and after work) so I should be able to get these 4 done without any problems.

I did manage to take that pattern and enlarge it to fit my sweetie's hands, which I'm very happy about. Now that I've got the hang of this pattern down, it seems much easier to manipulate it. This is really quite a fun adventure I've gotten myself swept away on!

[Maria]

I tried leather tooling this weekend. It turns out that the 15 year old bits of leather I had stashed away were not appropriate for tooling. One type was too thin. And the other was so water resistant I had trouble getting it wet enough to work. And it still didn't hold an impression very well. *pout*

What I wanted to do was make a saddle bag style purse and tool this design onto the front flap.

leather tree sm.jpg (291.67 KiB) Viewed 7029 times

What do you think, Sunny? I'm pretty unhappy with the quality so far, but I don't know how much of the flaws are due to rookie mistakes in tooling techniques and how much is just the impossibility of using non veggie tanned leather.

It looked so ragged after I got done with it, that I tried putting brown dye all over it, hoping the lighter colored cuts would darken more than the tree.... but it just colored everything brown except for the cuts. And eliminated what little color variation that had been instilled by the tooling in the first place.

After the dye was dry, I tried erasing the dye over the tree itself with a pencil eraser- and that lightened it up enough to actually see and take a picture of.

I really expected the tooling to stand out more, though. Higher, I mean. There's only a very slight height variation between the part that is supposed to stand out and the back ground.

I'm going to try again after I get some tooling leather. Unfortunately, there's no leather shop nearby, so I'll have to mail order or make a round trip of several hundred miles. This is the kind of thing I'd like to do in person, though. So maybe a St. Louis trip is in order soon. Maybe. I hate long drives.

[elengil]

Maria, execution aside, that is a beautiful design!! Maybe it's the picture, it doesn't look terrible to me at all, I like the 'shading' tooling around the edges. I think the only thing I would even blink at is the repetitiveness of the leaf, but not enough to even bother me, just noticeable.

This layman thinks it's a lovely design

[Maria]

The drawing I traced to make this design had simple, single leaves instead of the multi- lobed stamp I used. I probably should have stuck with that, but there was this little leaf stamp available..... and I couldn't resist using it. The stamp seemed OK before I erased the dye and made them stand out so much. They are kind of overwhelming, aren't they?