Thing-a-day.com

More cards…and there’s even one for YOU, Ranjit!

I picked up a pretty but definitely used knit top at Goodwill awhile back, intending to use the material for upholstering the miniature 60s and 70s furniture I make. It occurred to me that the sleeves could be turned into…cute arm warmers! Here are some WAY easy instructions (it took longer to assemble this information than to make the arm warmers!) for making your own:

1. Procure a sweater or knit top that has sleeves you are willing to sacrifice to this project (and that will look good as arm warmers)

2. Cut the sleeves off clear up at the shoulder-join…you’re going to need all that fabric.

3. If you’re using a knit that unravels, take time now to secure all those ends, either by machine or hand-sewing.

4. Put your arm down on a large piece of paper and trace (or have a friend trace) outline of your arm…most importantly the area from the widest part of your palm, the wrist region, and the fattest part of your forearm, then cut it out as you would any pattern (i.e. with seam allowances). When you’re finished, your pattern should look something like this (dotted lines are seam allowance):

5. Turn the two sleeves inside out, so the seam is on the outside, then pin the pattern to the sleeve and cut.

After cutting and stitching

6. Stitch the two sides, turn rightside out and slip on for the final fitting.

8. With the sleeve on and pulled down to just below the knuckles, spread your hand as wide as it will go and mark (I pinned the two parts together) the point comfortably close to the fingers…away from the thumb.

9. Slip it off and stitch the two sides together at your mark. Be sure to make this a strong closure by plenty of stitches.

10. Reverse the sleeve and slip it on…voila! A hand warmer!

I sewed a piece of knitted scrap into a flower-ring shape, added needlefelted details, some delicata and bugle beads, needle felted a stem and then a flower pod/bud, against adding further details by needlefelting, then sewed a pin back on.  The camera doesn’t capture the dew-like sparkle of the many clear beads on the flower.  The entire process took about three hours, start to finish, but that was using a piece of pre-knitted scrap I had in the box.  I’m fast, but not THAT fast.

Here’s the back - see the gold pinback in the center of the flower?

And another angle, showing the overall composition

 So whadd’ya think?  I enjoyed myself, so of course it was worth the time and effort involved.

I wrote an entire description and uploaded photos and all simply disappeared in the process of publishing, so I’m just gonna make this a shorter version…but with more photos, so THERE! Notice that yesterday’s dangler ended up the anchor for a built-in bookmar. Fabrics are sage green ultrasuede and a marvelous scrap of upholstery material, and of course a embroidered medallion that just pulls it all together. I’m pretty happy with it, and I hope my friend is, too, but if not she can just send it back for me to use and enjoy! Yeah, right, FAT chance of THAT…

So here’s the deal… I had this idea for a gift, due on my buddy’s Jan 20 birthday. Yeah, I know, I’m a tad late. She and I have a pact, though, and she’s cool with my tardy behaviour.

Anyway. The pressie is a book cover that she needs for a much-read and beloved book. Her husband secretly sent me the book’s dimensions, then I rummaged through my painfully huge fabric stash, and finally I cut out the pieces I would need to assemble the thing. Of course at this point, creeping elegance entered the story. Which trim to use? Should I line it? What about embellishments? *sigh* So many choices, but I finally (no such word in my vocabulary when it comes to projects) settled on a basic set of stuff to use. Well, okay, so I had definitely chosen a colour set. I began assembly, and then everything went haywire. Next thing I knew, her birthday was gone and I was tearing out the stitching on this miserable thing for the 3rd time! GRRRRRR! Sometimes you just have to back away from a bad situation, and this I did, in spades. Only yesterday (after a call from that friend asking “You haven’t finished it yet, HAVE you!?!”) did I finally muster the focus to pull the bits and pieces out and start anew. This time I only had to tear the beast asunder twice before figuring out an entirely different approach to the design. So this morning I faced an ALmost complete book cover with the anticipation I could finish by supper. WRONG! I dove down a rathole this morning and ended up creating a beautiful little end piece for what WILL be an attached bookmark. I am quite pleased with this piece and how it works with the rest of the cover.

Bead materials are brass spacers throughout, papier mache’, African wood diverter, square wood - painted gold, goldstone, faceted peridot, picasso jasper, red coral, a mother of pearl and a abalone carved bird fetish, and finally a couple of brass leaf beads.

The Mad Hatter and the matching hatband to yesterday’s scarf! There’s another version with a berry between every leaf, but it looks more like Christmas and less like Washington’s Birthday, so I have put it away until December. These leaves and berries were no brainers. For individual leaves I chained about 14, then loosely did the following; sl, sc, dc, tc, dc, sc, sl…then I rounded the corner and did the same back again, ending by slipping the last stitch through the three loops rather than the usual two. Cut the yarn, pull through and tighten. When I made the chain of leaves, I just started the process over each time without cutting the yard or pulling through until the very last stitch. The berries were even easier. Chain about 7 , then start single or double crocheting everything together. When you’re finished the berry looks like a little purse, with two yarn ends that you simply tie snugly together, drawing the pouch into a roundish shape. I tied the berries to the leaves and the scarf, then wove the ends back into the piece of that colour (i.e. green into leaves, red into berries). That’s it…as I said, a no brainer. Here’re two close-ups in different light.

I decided today to finish a scarf I started last month.  Two skeins of blue and grey chenille knitted and purled into an eight-foot long scarf simply cried out for embellishment.  So I whipped out some green chenille and some red wool, a crochet hook, and set to work on inventing some leaves and berries.  Here’s the result:

 
Tomorrow, a matching hat band!  Stay tuned…

Finished a few ATCs and got them sent… The swap theme was Ravens and Crows.  The media used were water and oil based paints, pencil, and pen and ink, all applied to the reverse of my business card.

Patti Smith soulfully emanating from the speakers this morning as from my window I watch black birds feed on the bread dropped in the snow.

In an as-yet unsuccessful attempt to jar myself out of The Winter Blues, I have pressed myself to participate in a number of projects that require thought and action IRL rather than just my intellect interacting cyberspace. I am part of four different ATC swaps at the moment; Crows and Ravens, Birds of Prey, Point

ellism, and Cryptozoology. The Crows and Ravens cards flowed swimmingly from my creative source, and I quickly created not the required three cards, but a full eight! All warm and toasty in myself-satisfaction, I immediately started down the Birds of Prey path. The first card was easy, the second not so much, and the third, though finished, definitely wasn’t my best work. The slowing of the aforementioned creative source had me a little worried, but my ego was still certain I was MORE than up to the task at hand, so I launched directly into the cards requiring itty-bitty dots, something I have done very successfully on prior occasions. Of the six cards attempted, I managed one I really like, one that’s incredibly so-so, one that I rather loath, and two that are perfectly dreadful! *sigh* Motoring on, I began the now-arduous task of creating at least three cards with a theme of mythical beasts. As I am a Water Dragon, I was clear that dragons were on the slate for creation, but my brain was a bleak grey blank! So I copped out and reached for the rubber stamps. One fairly ho-hum dragon card later, I was more than a little worried about this whole ATC swap thing.

All that happened three days ago. The clock is ticking, and I’m out of creative lubricant! The lovely thing about that lubricant-free grinding sensation, though, is that often something VERY interesting emerges from the ruin of the machine. So today I shall press forward, knowing that soon I shall be required to start down the Thing-A-Day creative path…

The idea of creating something, every day, has acted on my inner beast as do the first flowers of spring. It has moved from its place by the fire to the cave entrance, and can now be seen sitting there, soaking in the sunlight, getting ready to venture forth. The blood has begun to stir, the sap to rise as my mind and spirit awake from their winter slumber. It has begun…