Ladyynara's Crafts

Disaster

2010-08-25T09:01:00.002-04:00

So, I finished the circular shrug. Annnnnd....ugh. It looks terrible on! It's way too wide, and not long enough. I'm not sure how I managed to screw it up so badly, but I have. It's not wearable. And then to make it worse when I tried to unpick the seams I'd sewed on the arm holes, I snipped the wrong thread and then had to do a big repair job so the whole thing didn't unravel. I'd have to take back the whole stupid thing and redo it. But I'm not going to. I'm thinking of making it into a weird blanket or something if I extend it all around the edges. Argh.

Little Lamb Sock Critter, As Seen on Knitting Daily TV Episodes 504, 505, 506, and 507 - Knitting Daily

2010-08-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

Little Lamb Sock Critter, As Seen on Knitting Daily TV Episodes 504, 505, 506, and 507 - Knitting Daily

This is the Knit-along I'm going to be trying!

Saxon Braid

2010-07-26T14:40:00.001-04:00

IMG_2118
Originally uploaded by Ynara

This is the cable Saxon Braid I'm doing for the back of the circular shrug. This is one and almost a half repeat, I'm thinking I will need at least 3 probably 4 repeats to make the back long enough.

All change

2010-07-21T20:24:00.003-04:00

I decided to revamp the look of this blog but I can't decide if I just didn't like the old one better. It may undergo some changes over the next few days.

I added a twitter feed too. I've had a twitter account FOREVER, before it became all popular. But I don't use it much except to read other people's updates. Maybe if I had a phone service that did fancy stuff like texting and posting pictures etc I would use it more. Anyway, I thought I would make one just craft themed to keep it separate.

In other news, I'm working on a circular shrug for myself. It's in acrylic because I figure with 3 kids I will probably end up washing it often, and it's in navy blue...mainly because I couldn't find purple like I wanted. I've done the ribbing and now I'm on to the decreasing and starting the main body, and here's where I'm stumped. I can't say I liked doing the mock rib on Abby's one, and I want to put something more interesting on the back. Only I can't decide what. I'm thinking maybe a saxon braid up the back?

I'm thinking about making my first shawl too. In the evenings there is one side of the couch that I usually end up sitting on that is right in the path of two AC vents and an overhead fan, and it is freezing, but if we turn them off the rest of the house gets hot. Any suggestions on shawl patterns? This is Florida so it doesn't need to be too heavy.

Circular Shrug

2010-07-03T15:00:00.001-04:00

IMG_1685
Originally uploaded by Ynara

A circular shrug for my daughter. Honestly it came out a lot smaller than I'd hoped, but at least I know what I'm doing for next time. She likes it anyway and it's fine for the weather here. I'd like to make myself one, but for the size I'd need I could see it being very boring and no doubt I'd get too bored half way through. I might put some sort of cable pattern on the back of mine to make it more interesting, maybe a saxon braid.

Sock

2010-07-03T14:57:00.001-04:00

IMG_1689
Originally uploaded by Ynara

My first sock! It's for my mother in law (she has big feet). Pleased with this. Need to do the other one....

Falling Water Lace Scarf

2010-07-03T14:55:00.001-04:00

IMG_1696
Originally uploaded by Ynara

Falling Water scarf. My first attempt at lace, I think it will be pretty whenever I get around to finishing it (so, in time for me to retire probably). I don't find lace very easy, I'm too distracted by the children I think.

2010-06-12T20:12:00.005-04:00

I woke up with an idea this morning, realising it was the World Cup football match between England and USA and I, as an expat Brit living in America had no England attire to wear for it. Not that I am all that interested in football to be honest with you, but I still like to show some solidarity. I have some union jack stuff, but nothing just England. So I needed something quick and easy that I could get done before the match, and here it is, an England wristband.

I used fingering weight knit picks palette, and doubled the strands because that's all I had in the right colours. I think you could use up to worsted without much problem, but you might have to play around with the size, the first one I made was far too small to get over my big hands so I gave it to my daughter.

Pull off small amounts of the yarn to use or you will get them in a tangle.

Materials:
Size US5 straight needles
White yarn
Red yarn

For XL size CO 40 stitches (decrease by increments of 4 for smaller sizes), using the long tail method (I did not do this and that cast on could do with a bit more give) in white yarn.

Row 1: K1 P1 across in white
Row 2: K1 P1 across to rib in white.
Row 3: K 19 in white, K2 in red, K19 in white
Row 4: P19 in white, P2 in red, P19 in white
Row 5: Repeat row 3
Row 6: Repeat row 4
Row 7: K across in red
Row 8: P across in red
Row 9-13: Repeat rows 3-6
Row 14-15: repeat rows 1-2
Bind off loosely

Stitch two ends together to form a tube
.

2010-06-02T21:33:00.002-04:00

Even worse than before about updating this! Not that anyone is reading anyway.

The winter was spent knitting a lot, mainly hats and gloves for everyone because it was COLD. We had a million snowstorms in Kentucky.

I also started making Abby some dresses and tops for the summer, with the mission being to make them as cheaply as possible. I snapped up a few patterns when they were on sale, and scoured the remnants bucket for fabrics. I now have a massive tub full of fabric. So far I have completed one dress, almost completed another, made a top and I did make one other dress but I was not happy how it came out, so it's now a rather nice nightdress for her.

These things will be especially useful now, as we spent the spring moving down to Tampa, Florida. So I guess the pair of gloves I spent a long time knitting this winter (and have almost finished) will not be a whole lot of use down here....ah well, maybe the union jack handwarmers will be.

2009-10-31T09:34:00.003-04:00

I am hopeless at updating this. I'm also hopeless at updating my personal blog at the moment too, so at least I'm not discriminating.

I actually have a lot of crafts on the go at the moment, just not many pictures to show. I've been knitting lots, have completed hats for Abby and Alex, and have another hat going for Andrew. It's not been cold enough for hats yet really (Alex has worn his a few times much to his dislike) so I still have some time to finish it. Abby and Alex's hats were really fun and taught me some new techniques which was good. It's shaped so it fits snug over the head and covers the ears and looks like a little pixie hat. I decided Andrew being in Kindergarten and a boy might not appreciate the pixie look, so I'm doing him a ribbed hat, but it's so boring I keep putting off finishing it.

I have knitted a couple of calimatories as well, the first one was for me and I followed the pattern, but it is ridiculously big, and I will have to rip it back. I made my mother in law one and adjusted the pattern and it came out much better. I still want one so I will have another go for me.

I started knitting a union jack out of some el cheapo worsted weight yarn and a free chart I found online. It has become a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, as it has so many colours and I didn't want to have lots of loopy yarn carried over in the back, so I first tried having lots of small balls on homemade bobbins, but ended up with a tangled mess. So now I'm doing it with a few yards of each colour into little ziplock bags which seems to be working better. My needles are also quite short which is making it a bit more difficult, but still workable I think. Not sure what I will do with it when it's done to be honest, maybe add blocks to it for a blanket or something. Really I just wanted to try using lots of colours and anything union jack related to an expat is like a moth to a flame.

I am also making a quilt. A massive one, to fit our bed. I've made two quilts before, one I started in 2002 and still have not finished. It's a single bed sized quilt, and was very ambitious considering I'd never even used a sewing machine before. It taught me a lot though and perhaps I will get it finished someday so one of the kids can use it. The other one was just a little simple winnie the pooh baby one in eye watering colours. All three kids have used it now, so I have got my charity shop money's worth out of the material :)
The one I am making will be blue and white and I am doing a snail trail pattern. I liked the pattern because it reminded me of MC Escher, my favourite artist. I haven't done that much yet, just a couple of blocks. Silly me thought once the kids started school I would have more time, but that has not been the case!

I have plans to make Christmas cards too, so need to do that this month. I know what I want to do and it shouldn't take too much I hope.

That's it I think. I will post pictures when I have some!

Bottlecap Pincushions

2009-06-23T16:54:00.005-04:00

I saw these on another site and decided to have a go myself for a particular group I'm a part of. They're made out of bottle caps (like from soft drink bottles), felt and stuffing and stitched/decorated with embroidery thread.

The crown I'm very happy with, took me a couple of prototypes but I'm happy with the result. One of the cool things about these is they are small enough to fit in a square of a craft organiser box! The ladybird/bug needs a bit more work I think.

I'm going to work on a few others.

Longies #1

2009-05-06T13:58:00.005-04:00

I finished the longies for Alex, yay! Not too bad for a first attempt, learned a ton of techniques so all good. I am going to make another (hopefully improved) pair definitely. I also want to knit some purple handwarmers for myself sometime.

2009-04-28T10:38:00.002-04:00

I'm close to finishing my first pair of longies for Alex...one thing that is anadvantage to knitting your own baby trousers is that you an make them as long as you want. I breed short legged babies so this is a good thing, as trousers are usually way too long on them. I've got one leg done and started on the other so if I really got on with it I should defintiely have it done this week for sure. I've leant loads from doing this pattern, how to do eyelets for a drawstring, how to do short rows for bum room, how to do kitchener stitch for grafting (although I'd probably still have to look at the youtube video for next time), how to knit on circular needles and how to knit on double-pointed needles. I already have yarn for another pair to do after. I also want to knit myself some handwarmers for next winter sometime too, maybe in a fancy stitch. And in purple.

Photos to come on the longies once they're finished!

2009-04-16T12:50:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks I have been sewing! With a small baby who likes to be held ALL THE TIME (like right now when trying to type this...), a sling or baby carrier really makes sense. I had a pouch kind with my first baby, I borrowed a Baby Bjorn with my second and then with this one I had very kind donations of a pouch and ring sling kinds. With both of them though I was having trouble getting comfortable with them. Alex mainly likes being upright, and I felt like I wanted his weight distributed across both my shoulders. I started reading about Mei Tai slings and wanted to try one, but didn't want to shell out loads of money! So I found some patterns online and sent about cobbling elements from several different ones to make my own. My first attempt I made in denim with purple accents.

The end result was good, but it's awfully heavy (about the weight of a pair of jeans) and a bit too big for my small baby. It will be good during the winter though.

So then I sent about making another with some design changes, overall smaller body lighter weight material, changing the position on the bottom straps. This one came out much better as it fits him well and he still has room to grow as in the photo it's actually folded up at the bottom.

I'm very pleased with the results. It's very comfortable (although takes a few minutes to put on, it's one ot use when baby is going to be in there a while, not popping in and out), has a roomy pocket on the front, and a flap to put up when he's sleeping for head support and keep the light off him. Eventually I might be able to carry him on my back, but we're not ready for that yet. If I were to make another one, I'd change one more thing that I ended up changing on this one but had to fudge it as it was too late really. Not bad for a novice sewer I think.

I'm also still knitting, making some longies for him...will update on those when I've done a bit more!

kool aid soaker

2009-03-26T14:48:00.001-04:00

kool aid soaker
Originally uploaded by Ynara

Finished!

Kool aid dying mini-guide.

2009-03-17T21:58:00.007-04:00

Ok, here is my mini step by step guide to the way I did my kool aid wool dying. It is by no means the only way to do it, but I find this way easy and I like the blended results. I was a bit rubbish at remembering to take photos for every single step though, but hopefully took enough for the basic idea.

I did two lots yesterday so I'll show you both of them.

Here's what I started with, a selection of kool aid packages (need to be the unsweetened kind), and some 100% wool which happened to be a cream colour. You can use wool that is already dyed, but you will obviously get different results, a darker grey for example might give you more heathery colours. The kool aid colours are pretty neon, I have to say, I did not do a lot of experimentation in mixing colours yet, just wanted to get a feel for the process and see what I could come up with.

Next, I unravelled some of the wool from the ball around some chairs to make it into long pieces I could twist into chunks. Bear in mind that the amount of wool vs. amount of kool aid affects the result. I did fairly small pieces, as I didn't know how it would come out.

After that, I put the wool on to soak in some warm water with a very small squidge of dish soap in it to clean the wool. Here, my wool is fairly spread out, you can keep it more tied together if you wish, just don't tie it too tight or it will be like tie dye and those bits would dye well (unless you want that effect!).

Some guides said to add vinegar to the water, some said you didn't have to as the kool aid was acidic anyway. I did to the first batch I dyed, but after that didn't bother and it seems to have worked fine. While that is soaking for about half an hour, you can make up your kool aid mixes. Obviously use more packets for a more intense colour, although some of them are pretty intense anyway, such as the Blue colour.
I mainly used two packets of the powder, with not too much water, just a few inches at most. Bear in mind that the powder has the colouring on, and as I found out, it is VERY easy to get the powder on your fingers when opening the packets and if you don't wear gloves, your fingers will get dyed.

Here's the two lots I did, on the left is 2 packets of Grape and 2 of Black Cherry, and on the right 2 packets of Orange and 2 of Cherry.

Once the 30 mins is up, you can drain almost all the water from the wool, just leave it swimming in a bit. If you're going to use the same dish to soak and dye in, make sure it is a microwave safe dish.
Now the fun part. Set you dish somewhere where you can work that is right near the microwave, the less you have to jostle the dish to get it in the microwave, the better. Starting with the lightest colour first, pour in one corner. You can go slow and make sure half the wool is well covered with the dye. I liked to concentrate the colour into one corner. If it hasn't covered quite half you can get a plastic spoon and poke the wool into the coloured liquid a bit to make sure the wool gets dyed.
Here is me having put the Orange side in first.
Then put the other side in, again I concentrated in one corner, and let the two colours mingle in the middle. At this stage I did minimal poking as I didn't want to colours to mix beyond what was naturally happening, I only poked to make sure the wool got covered in the liquid. Here's the Orange and Cherry together, and then the Grape and Black Cherry.

Slowly and carefully, put the dish in the microwave. Cook for 2 minutes, let sit for several minutes, cook 2 minutes etc until the water around the wool is pretty clear, so that the wool has absorbed all the colour. On this one you can still see a bit of colour in the water, but it is still quite clear compared to how it was. Be careful to let your wool sit and cool a bit between bursts in the microwave, and that there is enough water in there, you don't want to be scorching your wool.

Let your wool sit for a few minutes as it will be very hot. Run your hot tap, and when the wool is cool enough to handle, rinse your wool. If you shock the wool with cold water, apparently it will felt.
Squeeze as much water as you can out first with just hands gently, and then roll in a towel and press to squeeze more of the water out. Hang up to dry and voila! You should have dyed wool. It is supposed to be colourfast, but a friend has said that hers did bleed a bit in the wash. I'll probably hand wash my stuff anyway.
Here's the wet versions of the two I made here, and then the dry versions.

Update!

2009-03-16T10:06:00.003-04:00

I've not been updating this blog! I'm terrible at keeping up with it. I have a personal journal on Livejournal that I jot thoughts on every day things on, and can just about keep up with that. I should update with a couple of craft related items though....

For christmas I decided I wanted to make an advent stocking set. The idea being we could put treats and toys in for the kids and they could open one each day to see what was in it. Of course I decided to do this at the beginning of November, which didn't give me a lot of time to get it finished, but I managed it with some help from my mother-in-law, Sandy. I made them out of felt and some of them turned out better than others...I may revise some of the designs next year, but overall I was very pleased with the outcome. Here's some pictures.

Shortly after Christmas, on January 16th, I gave birth to our third (and last!) child, Alexander. He's now 8 weeks old and I am starting to use cloth nappies/diapers on him. I used cloth with our first child full time for about 18 months at which point I had our second child and with the two of them, I just couldn't get the hang of doing it all the time, I was too far behind on laundry. I did do it part time on and off with both of them, but eventually it went by the way side.
This time I'm having another go, as I only have one in nappies again, but it's going to take a while to build up a decent stash of nappies, at the moment I'm having to wash the very few we have all the time which is not only a pain in the bum, but quite wasteful on water too. One thing I decided I'd like to do it knit Alex some clothes that will serve two purposes, one I can knit things that will fit over the cloth nappies as most clothes are cut in mind for disposables without extra room, and another purpose can be served in that wool can be used as a water resistant wrap over the nappies to prevent leaks.

I'm very much a beginner at knitting, but I managed to knit a little pair of shorts for him in about 3 or 4 days. I just used a spare ball of wool I happened to have, and a pattern from Tiny Birds Organics, which can be found here. It's for an older baby, so in order for it to fit 8 week old Alex, I decided to go down two sizes in needle, and it fits him perfectly!

In fact, at the rate he's growing it probably won't fit him very long, so I'm going to be making more for him but a bit bigger since it'll be getting warmer outside soon. I'm planning to try and make him some longies too, which will be interesting...I've never used circular or double pointed needles before and I think I will need to! All a learning experience.

With more knitting in mind, I heard about dying wool with kool aid. It sounded like fun, and relatively easy to do, and I'd be able to make things with the wool after.
This is my first two attempts. I got some 100% wool in a cream colour, and different packages of kool aid, which is a vile drink over here...it's super sweet when you get the sweetened type and really bright colours. Different flavours give you different colours. I'm going to be doing a step-by-step account of the way I did it for the next tries, and I'll upload it here.
For the blue green one I used Lemonade for the yellow and Berry Blue for the blue on the other side with the fact it would mingle into green in the middle in mind. However, the blue overpowered the yellow a bit too much, so the colours came out more green than I intended, but I still like the result. The orange one is orange and lemonade for the yellow. I was more careful with trying to keep the orange from overpowering the yellow this time, but I did have some spots that were too tight together and didn't dye, but since the wool was a cream colour originally it actually blends well together.
Here they are wet, and then dry.

Ok, that's it for now. I will try and update more often. Promise.

2008-11-18T16:27:00.002-05:00

I have actually been doing a project! Just haven't posted about it. Will try and get to it later, with pictures!

2008-09-29T08:41:00.001-04:00

After a blitz of knitting frenzy I now haven't done any in a week. Been playing a video game instead, ahem. Hopefully will do some this week.

Scrapbooking

2008-09-18T14:24:00.004-04:00

I found a layout I liked for this blog this morning so have spent some time fiddling with it and with a Flickr slideshow on the side, which seems to be working the way I want...it should just be showing a slideshow of pictures of craft stuff I have done. I need to take a lot of pictures though to add to it, ones of my cross stitch (I used to have pictures somewhere but not sure if they still exist), pictures of the quilts I've done - or half done as the case may be, my artwork and other stuff.

I do have some pictures of some scrapbooking I've done though. I started scrapbooking in the summer of 2006 in the UK when my mother-in-law was visiting from the US. She had tried to get me into it before, by sending me a kit of scrapbooking supplies (although to be honest a lot of the stuff in it was not my taste), but with two kids 17 months apart I didn't really have a lot of time. So while she was visiting I decided to give it a go. I loved it, and made a few pages, joined UKScrappers and made a local friend and with her started going to a crop. Life took over in mid-2007 which was then taken over even more by our impending move back to the US and all the immigration work that went with it, so in the last year I have hardly done any sadly. I brought all my best equipment with me though so hopefully I can restart it sometime, and now mother-in-law actually lives with me I can do it with her, and she has loads of supplies.

This was the first page I made, and I still quite like it. I tend to go for clean, simple designs, but occasionally I experiment with making things more fluid, usually in circle journals for other people. Other pages I've done for me and for circle journals (and a couple of other projects like a christmas ornament and an exloding pyramid) are all in pictures on the Flickr slideshow to the right. If it works the way I hope it does, you should be able to click on them to see the photos bigger.

No electricity = productivity

2008-09-17T19:36:00.005-04:00

We've just spent the last 3 days without electricity due to the remnants of Hurricane Ike thundering through. We weren't even in the direct path, just on the edge!

Anyway, a few days without electricity gave me some opportunity to finish the kids scarves I promised them. I'm glad I got chunky wool and big needles as they knitted up really fast, Abby's I finished in one day.

Now that I have finished them I am hoping to continue on with making a baby blanket for the new baby (I am doing it in squares of light blue, darker blues and white and sewing them together...not quite sure on the sewing part yet!), and I am also hoping to make at least one hat and possibly a jacket for the baby as well, although I've not done either before!

Here is Abby's scarf, the flash has made it a lot pinker than it is though, it's more a rose sort of colour really. And then Andrew's scarf in his favourite colour, green (the flash has messed up that colour too, it's more of a forest green than the photo).

New Blog!

2008-09-14T11:39:00.001-04:00

Another attempt at a craft blog! I've had several over the years. Basically I like doing lots of crafts, but to be honest have very little staying power to actually complete projects! Over the years I have done lace-making, knitting, crochet, quilting, sewing, cross-stitch, scrap-booking. I also used to draw and paint, but haven't done any of that in some time. I also no longer do lacemaking as I left all my equipment with my mum back in 1997.

I still enjoy cross-stitch, scrapbooking and quilting...I have a quilt I started in 2001 that I still have not finished though! Recently I have taken up knitting again, although I am still very much a novice. Perhaps I will do separate posts for the separate crafts, and upload some photos for each. Or more likely, I will forget about this blog all together...