Decoupage on fabric

I love decoupage. I wish I was a good painter, but I'm not. Decoupage lets me make beautiful decoration without being able to make pretty flowers by hand. Love it!

If you're not familiar with decoupage, it's a technique where you use a glue/varnish to stick the top layer of a paper napkin on a surface. Like on this canvas. The text is my making, but the flowers are decoupage.

I have used decoupage on multiple objects, but now also on fabric. It opens a world full of possibilities! I have made pillow cases for the couch (I made a green painting and the pillows didn't match) and decided to try decoupage when I ran out of green fabric.

I used one motif with stars and one with flowers, the one I used on the canvas. It turned out great! The glue feels a little plastic when it dries, but that's fine.

I tested to use the napkin as it was on one pillow.

Then I cut out the flowers and formed a bouquet on the front of the next pillow...

 ... and on the back I just spread them out.

I also made a new lamp shade for the window. It is a piece of fabric glued with hot glue to the wire frame. I love that I now have a matching canvas, lamp and pillows in this room!

Extreme lamp make-over

Being the second child often means you inherit things. Everything is bought new for the first child, and the younger gets what is already in the family but nobody uses. So with my daughter. Or at least, so with the lamp in my daughter's room. An old thing with Garfield (the cat) from the time before marriage even. But not anymore!

I went on a hunt in our local secondhand shop, and I found this beauty.


Well, I saw some potential there. Proud that I remembered the before-picture by the way. Usually I'm to eager to get started. I went through our paint tins and found some white in the bottom of one. Great! But I really hate paint that has to dry 16 hours before you can add the second layer. 15 minutes is more my cup of tea. At least that gave me some time to work with the shades. Dug around in my boxes and found glass beads and some pale blue paint. This is how it ended up.


Strings of beads and a pretty bulb along with a little paint. That's it!


The new owner seems to like it. But we have to change the bulbs, they light up the room so much you need sun glasses in there! B-)

Now, run off and get yourself a lamp to remake! It's so much fun!

Jewelry from trash

I am not as tired as last time I talked to you, and apparently in a creative mood. I love looking through Pinterest, searching for inspiration. Especially remaking clothes, both small changes and making something completely different. Today I tried a few things from one of my boards. I have made myself  a necklace and a pair of bracelets from old t-shirts. I have mountains of old clothes saved for creative days, and I love it! I love using something "useless" instead of buying new materials all the time.

I know I don't deliver neat pictures, I'm sorry. I don't find the energy to run around with my camera, looking for a clean background and the best light. I simply put it on a blanket or a cushion and snap a shot with my tablet. And it doesn't even have a flash... But it is better than no picture at all, right? :) At least I hope so.

I'll see if I can get you the links if you want to try these too....Here's the necklace, and here are the bracelets. Have some fun!

Sparkling hat, pattern

Oh my, I really didn't plan to be quiet this long... Time flies, it seems. Well, now that I am here, I thought I would write down a little pattern of mine. It is nothing special, honestly, but this seems to be the best place to keep patterns I might want to use again. I never seem to find the right paper or notebook in my creative mess off-line. :)

This is the latest hat I've made for my sweet girl. A friend of hers had a pink hat with sequins, and she wanted me to buy her one too. But crocheting and knitting people don't like to buy hats, right? We like to make hats. So when we found this sparkling yarn with sequins in our fav yarn shop, the kid got to choose colors and mum got her needles and off we went.

The yarn wasn't great to work with, because of the sequins. It was meant to be knitted with 8 mm needles, and I used 3,5 mm... A bit tight sometimes, and many sequins are hidden inside the hat. But if you use the right size, I bet it is great to work with. Soft and with a luxurious feeling to it. I mostly knitted stripes, but also tried a little zig-zag. It didn't work at all... :) You can't even tell what it is supposed to look like, it just looks blurry. Well, well...

I wanted generous earflaps to keep soft cheeks warm, and she wanted a ballon top. Of course, since the frind's hat has a ball... :) I made braids on the earflaps, to weigh them down. Both the ball and the braids are partly made from a bulkier wool yarn. I decided at an early stage that I would line the hat. The original plan was to knit with two threads, the sequin yarn and this bulky wool. But the sequins and the sparkles got lost in the wool so I had to think again. And so I decided to go with only sparkles and then line. I simply used an old t-shirt for lining.

The lining was easy to make. I put the hat on a piece of paper, folded double in front and back, and drew around it. Cut it out and transferred it to the shirt. Sewed a zig-zag seam all around the two identical parts, and attached the parts with a straight seam over the head.

I actually made a staight seam around the remaining edges too, to make the mounting easier. As I would fold the edges of the t-shirt a little, to hide them inside the hat, there was a high risk that it would all turn out crooked. So I made a straight seam around the edge, right where I was meaning to fold it. This way I could keep a track of where I should be whipping it together with the hat, not folding too much or to little away. One of my brighter moments, if I may say so! ;)

Well then, it's about time I write down the actual pattern now...

I used a yarn called Paljett from Svarta Fåret (www.svartafaret.se). I had two balls of 50 g (=132m), and I didn't even use half of it. I used 3,5 mm circular needles, and my gauge was approx. 17 st and 25 rows for 10 cm. The size I aimed at was to fit an 8 year-old with a big head, she is 56 cm around the head.

I started with the earflaps.

Right earflap:
Cast on 8 st. Start knitting, stockinette. Increase 1 st on each side, every second row until you have 22 st. Increase only on the right side (the side closest to the face) on every second row, 4 times. Now you have 26 st. Cut thread. You can leave it on the needles if you like.

Left earflap:
Like the right earflap, but keep increasing only on the left side when you reach 22 st. Cut thread when you have 26 st.

Neck:
Cast on 20 st, knit the left earflap. Cut thread.

Forehead:
Cast on 24 st, knit the right earflap. Knit the neck and keep knitting in the round. Each round now begins after the right earflap, you could place a marker if you like. Each round now has 96 st. Keep knitting until the work is about 10 cm from neck and forehead. Now, start decreasing.

Decrease:
Dec 1: Decrease every 8th st (= knit 6, knit 2 together). You now have 84 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 2: Dec every 7th st (=knit 5, knit 2 together). 72 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 3: Dec every 6th st. 60 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 4: Dec every 5th st. 48 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 5: Dec every 4th st. 36 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 6: Dec every 3rd st. 24 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Dec 7: Dec every 2nd st. 12 st.
Knit 4 rounds.
Cut yarn, and thread it through the remaining stitches. Fasten all ends.

Cut pieces of yarn and braid them around the lowest part of each earflap. Make the ball. I attached it after the lining, and secured the top of the lining to the hat as I fastened the ball. Finished!

I have no pictures of the knitting process, since I wasn't planning to make any kind of tutorial. As I said, this is mostly for me and my lousy nemory. :) But if you are giving it a try, feel free to ask. There are no stupid questions!

I did not make any kind of ribbing, since I thought the lining would keep the edges from rolling up. It seems to be working. You get a lot of ends to fasten, casting on each part separately as I did. If you know a better way, or a way to cast on nicely from right to left, please tell me!

Slippers

I am up late tonight. Trying to get tired wnough to aleep well, in spite of the ache. There is snow in the air, and it hurts. No use to try to fall asleep then... So sincee I am getting pretty bored from lying on the couch doing nothing useful, I thought I could show you what I have been up to this week.

My daughter reealized that she had no slippers, they were all too small. She didn't seem too  keen on letting me knit her a pair, and not crochwt either. So I thought maybe I could sew her a pair or two. So I did.

The first pair (or really the second pair I made) ismade in felted wool. They used to be a cardigan that actually used to fit me a long time ago. It didn't anymore, so I threw it in the washer and felted it, and kept it for the right project. Since black and grey is not what young girls dream about, I tried to spice them up a bit by stitching them with sparkling silver yarn and adding some sequins. I think I succeeded, since she even agreed tomake them her school slippers. (As you might know,kids in swedish schools do not wear shoes inside, but it does get rather cold and wet on the floors this time of the year.)

The first pair I made was also made from clothes. A fleece sweater my daughter used to wear. And I am happy to say that I only had to use the arms, so I have most of it left. These are a lot softer than the thick, sturdy felt slippers above, but I think they are perfect for lazy days under a blanket on the couch, or after an evening shower before bedtime. 

Both pairs have leather soles, made from a bag of scrap leather I bought on a market a few years ago. The pattern is from marthastewart.com, but I will tell you more once I sit down by the computer for a while. Have some pictures from when I made the first pair.

It is getting seriously late now, so I think I better get to bed now. Hopefully to get a good nights sleep. I hope you will too, once it is your bedtime! :) Good night!

Something old, something new

When I bought my mobile I got an extra shell. White didn't really feel like my thing, so I have used the black. Some time ago I saw a handpainted shell on Pinterest, and I really wanted to make something like that. But since my black shell doesn't have a flat surface to give a good grip, I simply couldn't. And then a few days ago I was looking for something and found my white, shiny flat shell. I could paint!

I used regular permanent markers. It looks like I had a lot of colours, but that is only half the truth. I bought markers recently. Thin ones in black, blue, green and red. At home, we had some huge markers, in the same colours (plus purple). But when I tested them today, they were much paler than the new ones. So the red looks pink... Happy me, dark blue and red flowers only would have looked dull.

I practised a little, and then took a deep breath and started decorating my shell. Permanent is a scary thing... But it turned out alright and I finished it off with a dot with my permanent silver pen in the middle of each flower. I am now seriously in love with my mobile. :) I think my daughter is too, since she keeps touching the flowers and barely could take her eyes of the back when she borrowed it to play a game. :) You really should try this, it was so much fun! Wish I had more shells...

Edit: Help, the colour is coming off! I better get some clear nail polish or something to make it stick to the shell. :-/ I guess permanent isn't always that permanent after all...

I love needlecases

After a period of pain, work, house tending and almost no crafting at all, I'm happy to be back again. I was meaning to share the joy over my new crochet books with you, and also the circles (becoming a bag for my kid) made from patterns in one of the books. But there was either no time or I was simply too tired... Guess you'll see less of me now, when work takes some of my time.

But now, I have something to share. I've spent the last two days organizing my (almost non-existent) needle work. Namely my beloved baskets, containing my ongoing projects.

I have made myself three more needle cases. Oh, how I love making these little things! I love choosing among my felted sheets (bought in a cheap store, no quality to speak of but sooo cheap). I love going through my box with embroidery threads, leftovers from old table cloths and tapestries. 

I start with no plan at all, letting one colour give the other, and one stitch lead the way to the next. It is ever so exiting to see the finished result. And I fall in love with them.

I love filling them up with needles of all sorts from my sewing box.

And I love forcing my family to tell which one is their favorite and why. :) Even though I can't make up my own mind. I never thought I could love a needle case more than I loved my light blue one with lilies of the valley. Now it stands between the purple and the brown. But I think I am even more in love with how different they all are. But enough bragging! ;)

I also love to organize my beautiful baskets. Each one is now supposed to have a pair of scissors, pen and note pad, needle case, measuring tape and a little jar for cut ends. Not to be removed! (Yeah right, that's just a matter of time...)

I have also made project bags. My baskets used to keep a lot of yarn from old, finished or abandoned, projects. All in a mess, entangled in each other. The plan is that I from now on don't have to carry around the entire basket when I feel like switching to another needle work, I just bring the bag to the place where I want to sit. I have placed one basket in strategic places where I usually sit. So hopefully this will be less messy, and I will always have a pair of scissors and a measuring tape at hand. Not all in one place or mysteriously missing...

I have to show you this one. The other bags were made from pillow cases, a piece of a curtain and a shirt sleeve :), but this one is more precious. I found this embroidery sample among my mother-in-laws things. I thought that I could make something of it, and so I did. I just added a back and a little canal on top for the ribbon to go through. Isn't it beautiful?

So now everything is neat and organized. All I need is some inspiration to go on with my actual projects, tucked down in my pretty baskets... Maybe my kids will help me with this. My embroidery got them inspired, so they are planning to do some of their own after school. And what could be more inspiring than to sit down and create together?

Girly-fying

My kids are really growing like weed right now, both of them. So the pile of outgrown clothes is growing steadily... Sometimes my girl take over something her brother used to have, but more often his clothes are too boyish for her. Or rather, not girly enough... Two pairs of short pants were obviously too dull for her taste, so I promised to make them a little more girly.

Bored as I was the other day, I thought I would try to make some embroidery. I wasn't sure that my hands would find it such a splendid idea, but they surprised me. It worked just fine, and today I fastened the last strand.

I chose to focus on the pockets, since the threads on the back could impossibly itch that way. 

Nothing more fancy than a few simple flowers on each pocket. I tend to overdo things, guess I don't know when to stop... So I tried hard to make it just enough.

I used some left over thread from old embroidery kits, you know, with fabric, pattern and pre-cut thread. I love the idea of using what I have at hand, and left overs are perfect!

I tried a new thing I saw in a book. You can see the red flowers below, kind of looking like tulips. The stitch used is blanket stitch (langettsöm). Instead of making a straight line, you make a quarter of a circle, I think I made 3-4 stitches. 

Well, it was fun making all these little flowers, and now the pants are accepted by my almost eight year old. So everybody's happy, and one less item to go shopping for! And one more pair to go... :)

In use already

Didn't I tell you? The first day after I finished it, she wanted to wear it! :) She is very pleased with it, but she is even more pleased with the fake hair... Haha!

And the ruffle is perfect for dancing!

Shirt + curtain = dress?

My hands and arms have been complaining a little lately. So I thought, maybe I should do something else, not just crochet or knit all the time? Perhaps my hands would like that? So I did. My husband had a few shirts with worn out collars, but apart from that in very good shape. I took one, cut off arms and collar and got going!

This is quite an easy project, once I get started. I'm just so nervous about using the scissors, so I have been thinking long and hard about what to make of this shirt. The only thing I knew was that I wanted it to be different from the last one I made.

But I never thought I would do this... :) Inspiration, I guess. I dug out this old curtain. I bought it in a second hand shop some time ago. You might recognize it from my needle case.

 A little curtain around the neck and arms, a piece of elastic around the neck too...

A little more curtain for the pockets, and pieces of one of the arms... I was thinking about making the entire pockets in the curtain fabric, but I didn't have enough. But you take what you have and make the most of it!

 And a little ruffle at the bottom. I think that's about it. No, that's right. Since the elastic around the neck would make the buttons useless (or at least impossible to open up all the way) I sewed it shut.

So here it is, in all its glory, my second shirt-dress! All summery and airy, and I know a girl who is eager to wear it, even though she refused to try it on when it was finished. :) I guess she's tired after a full week in school, and chose the TV before mum's business... 

But when she does wear it, I will surely let you see! I hope it fits her well (I'm pretty sure of it, since she's been trying it on along the way) and that she will use it a lot. I love when the things I make are put to use! And I really do love to recycle fabrics like this, starting out with a shirt really gets my inspiration going! And the good thing is, there is a second shirt just waiting to become a dress! Yippee!

Loose ends

 Haven't done much today. Done some laundry. Sat down on the bed to weave in some loose ends on some crochet I've made.

They're part of a plan, a plan to get some color on my window sills without spending a fortune on plants with bright flowers, that will just last a few days and then die on me. They always do. My plan is to make bright pots instead, and fill them with green plants of that kind that don't usually die on me. And not to spend a fortune, since I'm planning to let my already existing plants become parents. I'll get back to that.

 I was planning to get some felt and some pots out and be creative, but my back was so sour after weaving in those ends that I had to take it easy for a while. Thought about this body of mine, it's lacking some in strength, endurance and health, that's for sure. Which sometimes limits my life. That's why I don't work. That's why I don't get as much done as I would like to sometimes. Don't get me wrong here, I don't want to complain and I don't want anybody to pity me. I'm doing OK most of the time, and I do have a good life. It's just that I sometimes feel that I want more of life, that I want to make a difference. Even the slightest difference.

So I grabbed my notebook and started to think. (I didn't have fun, colored pens at hand, so I compensated that by writing fun, ornate letters.:) Worked just as well!) What matters in life? What kind of difference can I make with what I have at hand right now, like my crafting? In general and specifically? I don't know if I had any new thoughts, but it felt good to spell it out and to see that I can actually make something good with this. No big changes, just being a little bit more aware of what I do and why, and maybe a little change in focus. Being more positive for instance. More encouraging. Trying to inspire more, and encourage others to be more creative. Maybe teach someone how to be creative. I know it brings me a lot of joy, and I want to share that feeling with others, who might think they can't. Be creative, I mean. To take what you have and make something of it.

Well, I had some good thoughts, and I guess only time will show if they will make a difference. I hope it will shine through, both here on the web and in real life. I started this blog as a tool to find out what I'm good at, what I like to do and what I want in life. Now that I've found a hobby that I really love, and become more creative than I thought I ever could be, I want to use it in the best way I can. And it actually feels a little like weaving in another loose end... :)

A purse for the purse?

The language can be so confusing sometimes, especially when it's not your mother tongue. All the nuances and different meanings of the words... I try my best to find the right words for things, so feel free to correct me when I'm wrong or not making any sense! They didn't talk much about knitting and crochet in my English classes in school...

I want to show you this little thing today, it's a little purse. Not for money (I think) but for those little things you keep in your handbag and never seem to find when you need them. A purse for the purse, so to say... (What would you call that??)

This is the one I crocheted after trying to felt a knitted one to the size I wanted. I only felted this by hand, to have more control over the process. That's why you can still see the stitches. 

The lady who ordered this one from me really liked the cerise flowers on the gray background on the one I have, so I pulled out my ribbons to try to create the same feeling on this one. I hope she will like the result, I am quite pleased with it if I may say so. Some trouble in paradise though, the ribbon embroidery created a mess on the inside, so I realized I would have to line it to stop the future content of the purse to get tangled up in the ribbons.

I can honestly say I feel more at home with my hooks and knitting needles now, than I do with my sewing needles. And she wanted a zipper too. There is no other time then now when I have inspiration for something, so I dug through my fabrics and actually found something suitable in the right color. It used to be the body lining on a girl's dress and I managed to cut out a piece that was (almost) big enough. One inch more would have been lovely, but it was close enough for me. I used my sewing machine to attach the zipper to the lining, and then I hand stitched it to the purse. I liked that method, and it gave a neater result than I had hoped for. So now I will present this purse for my lady friend and hope she likes it!

What a waste!

 I've heard about a married couple here in Sweden who doesn't want a garbage can. Simply because they rarely throw something away. As I remember it, their total waste during an entire year was easily fitted into one little plastic bag. What they did with the rest of their stuff`? Well, they composted and recycled what they could, and fixed what was broken. I wish I was more like that. We would have a much cleaner and prettier environment if we all did like them!

Well, at least I have made a small contribution. Can you see what this is? It's the broken upper part of a shoehorn. The part that has a hole that makes it possible to hang it somewhere, and thus keep track of it. But ours is broken. And hard to find, since we have nowhere to put it! Besides, it has some really sharp edges up there too. I was just about ready to throw it away to get a new one, but then the crochet-part of my brain started ticking. Maybe it could be fixed...

And of course it could! Maybe not the most stylish crochet you ever saw, but it's certainly doing its job! I had to glue it to the shoehorn to keep it from sliding off, but you see no sharp edges and now I can hang it. Yay! And it is prettier now than when it was unbroken. At least I think so. And it works as a soft handle too. Perfect!

See! Now we will always find it. And my husband will hopefully stop putting it in my wellington boot 'cause that's where he found it... We played that game for a while. Someone thought my boot was the perfect place for it, I slightly disagreed since I used my boots almost every day and it got a bit annoying to always find the shoehorn there. So I put it leaning on the shoe rack, then someone used it and put it back in my boot "where it should be". Annoying! 

Well, maybe not a huge contribution to the environment, but we take one step at a time, don't we? And it got me thinking twice about throwing things away that actually can be fixed.