Dear Jane,
I’m sorry I haven’t started your quilt yet but I discovered that the special ruler Brenda Manges Papadakis designed makes a great tumbler template
Until next time
The Crafty Yak
Category: Uncategorized
Mini Design Board Tutorial
I had to make this when I was trying to decide the layout of the little fans for ‘Fanfare’. The pieces are so small that a design wall would be ridiculous. Putting them on my drawing board was ok until a breeze blew half of them on the floor, so I had to come up with an alternative and a lightweight mini design board was the answer
- Take a piece of polystyrene around 60 x 40 x 2 or 3 cms (or whatever size you want) to use as the core of the board. I was lucky as I had a piece of polystyrene packing in the garage measuring 59cms x 39cms x 2cms.
- Draw round it on a piece of scrap cardboard box twice and make a sandwich for extra strength using PVA or white craft glue, as shown in the photo. Weigh it down with heavy books
- Once the glue has dried cover with batting which will need to be bigger than the board by about 12cms so that it can wrap around to the back. Use PVA or white craft glue again and spread out evenly. I made a spreader with an offcut of cardboard – it went soggy with use but lasted long enough to finish the board.
- You could use different size scraps of polystyrene as long as they are the same thickness as they will be held together by the cardboard. The same applies to the batting, any scraps can be stuck to the cardboard so all those strips cut off after basting can be put to good use – Re-use is better than recycling!
It works fine with EPP projects too when you can’t decide which way round your fussy cut hexagons look best, or which centre to use in your flowers. Looking at the orange flower I decided I need more fabric to make them both!
I also find it useful when I am pressing multiple sections of more than one block when chain piecing. Sometimes they can get mixed up but using the board you can press and replace in the appropriate block with no problems
Hello Crochet World!
I don’t know what I like best; the beautifully modelled dress, the rocking chair or the crochet drawer handles! Plus I never knew there was International Diploma in Crochet
Well I’ve finally done it!
After many months of consideration and ‘shall I, shan’t I thoughts’, today I posted off my enrolment form for the International Diploma in Crochet from Crochet Design http://www.crochet.co.uk/
I have crocheted on and off for many years and it’s not just crochet- I have a love for all things crafty! But crochet is what I want to focus on and I have a desire to take it to the next level.
I love crochet! I love how it looks, I love its versatility and more than anything I love to actually do crochet!
A craft I can take anywhere with me and the joy of gradually seeing each stitch transform the yarn in my hands into something beautiful.
A craft I can take anywhere with me and the joy of gradually seeing each stitch transform the yarn in my hands into something beautiful.
I can follow patterns and one of my proudest crochet creations was a dress for my daughter on her First Holy Communion celebration last year . A wonderful pattern from…
View original post 317 more words
RSC15
What does; Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain and Every hunter Wishes To Know Where The Pheasant Sits have in common?
All will be revealed later…
Fabric8 closing down
You have until the 29th September to grab a bargain – 30% off. Unfortunately the quilting fabric has gone already but there are dress making and furnishing fabrics plus haberdashery still available
The Global Quilting Project
I have been a part of The Global Quilting Project for the last eight months. It has been a long process as it was more than the usual block swap where everyone exchanges a known block. For this we had to design our own.
I won’t go through all the steps as the teaching programme belongs to Kim Andrews who organised the whole massive project, what I can say is; that it stretched the capabilities of all involved. Many dropped by the wayside when they realised that it wasn’t a basic block swap. Others dropped out due to family problems, lack of time or lack of confidence in their designs. The ladies in my group – The Balkan Puzzle Group – have been very supportive but we dropped from twelve to eight members. I wish they hadn’t chosen the most difficult (for me anyway) design to make ha ha. I shouldn’t have given them a choice of four
This is basically wedges but cut into a curved design and hand appliqued. I need to pick which colour Suffolk Puff looks best and attach them. Next remove the basting stitches and parcel them up for posting and waited with for the others to arrive from around the World!
End date to make a quilt from the blocks is December – so watch this space
Now I am off to see what everyone else at http://www.kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/ is up to for Slow Sunday Stitching
Another Challenge!
I am adding a third challenge to the other two – my own self-imposed “Quilting from Little Things”, and the “Farmer’s Wife 1930s” QAL at the Quilting Board here
The third challenge is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler (RSC15) by Angela over at Soscrappy complete with button to add to your blog. The block is based around a sawtooth star with a different inner block for each star. The colour for August is indigo – a colour I love but actually have very little of. Some blues look indigo until you put them next to each other and some then appear to have a greenish hue.
I couldn’t use Soscrappy’s method of making flying geese as I don’t have the appropriate ruler so I used the second method from Connecting Threads here
They went together easilyand I set to work on the inner square which is the Road to California, which also went together well. The problems arose when I went to join them all – the inner block was bigger than the geese! Measuring the seams of the inner block showed that they were smaller than a quarter inch, hence the block was bigger. A close inspection of my quarter inch piecing foot showed that it was slightly bent inwards! How annoying as I can’t do anything about it until Monday. The foot came with my new sewing machine from Franklins in Colchester so not too far to travel to get a replacement.
I will just have to make notes for the previous squares as the challenge started in January so I have a lot of catching up to do. As I don’t have any completed blocks you can see what they should look like courtesy of Kat Scribner who has a very useful list showing all the blocks completed so far on her blog Scrapbox Quilts
Slow Stitching Sunday
The Slow Stitching Movement has been steadily gaining ground recently and is a reaction against the tendency to rush the creative process; to produce something, anything, rather than enjoy the process itself. Formally launched by Mark Lipinski and modelled after the Slow Food Movement they believe that;
” … speed can kill creativity and the enjoyment of our creative pursuits. Maybe what we really need to do is slow down, enjoy the process, and create fiber art that we’re really proud of.”
They are not the only advocates slow stitching, there are many others with a quiet passion for this way of working. At the moment Kathy is hosting a link up for Slow Sunday Stitching which you can find here. Why not grab her button like I did and join in.
My contribution at the moment is a grandmother’s flower garden. Started before I heard of The Slow Stitching Movement or Kathy’s’ blog, it is good to know that there is a growing appreciation, once again, for hand-stitched work. That doesn’t mean that machined quilts, chain piecing and easy blocks don’t have a place any more -they do, and I enjoy these too but in a different way.
The sewing machine ties us to the workbench, the noise inhibits conversation and drowns out music from the radio. Slow stitching is more sociable. I can sit and stitch with my other half while he relaxes watching a film, or I can join a group to stitch in park, pub or home.
Slowness is the important part here, not that it is by hand as Lucie Dutton writes in her piece as a guest blogger for slowstitching.com. I recommend this as a cautionary tale about losing sight of what the movement means and what happens when you don’t slow down
The Holy Grail of Beginner Crochet Projects
A lovely pattern that is good for beginners and would make a lovely present too
Pegboard
Pegboard! How could I have forgotten this stuff exists! It is great for keeping tools you use all the time readily to hand. I have some craft tools hanging on hooks and nails (nails…very bad) why did I not think of getting some pegboard and this article from Houzz has some great ideas
Some of the old ideas are the best!
thecraftyyak 