Knitted pineapple tea cosy

It's finally finished! Yay! I handed in an assignment on Friday, another today, *and* I've finished the knitted pineapple tea cosy. Gosh, I'm pretty pleased with myself right now! ~___^

If you'd like to make your own, you can find the link to the pattern on this page or if you manage to find a copy of Nick-Nacks C41, then it's in there too! ^____^

 

I am not a very skilled knitter, so if you can knit and purl, then you too can make this cosy! ^___^ The body of the cosy is made from two rectangles which are then sewn together on the corners and the bobble pattern is made by repeating four rows until the rectangles are high enough. I didn't block my cosy, but it nonetheless turned out fairly similar to the picture included with the original pattern.

Well, similar aside from the colours and obviously my teapot isn't nearly as retro! ~___^

 

My leaves also are not as floppy as the original image would suggest they would be, but I think it looks more pineapple-eque to have them standing up, wouldn't you agree? ^___^ The leaves are pretty easy to do, but I don't really like how they are all connected together. If I would do it again, I would do each of them separately, the same way I did the leaves for the crochet version. I think this would make them a lot easier to sew to the cosy!

The base of my tea cosy is a little wavy, which I think means I need to learn how to do a new cast on (I often have this problem!). I think it could be fixed by threading some elastic through the cosy, but since this cosy is destined for a friend's teapot, I don't want to customise it too much for my teapot.

 

I'm very pleased to have finally cast off on this project, and after I hand in my final, final assignment on Monday (!) I will be on break! I'm so very excited, I'm working on (well, planning on working on ...) a cosplay for Supanova, and then I've got many, many embroideries to do! ^___^ 

Wish me luck!

- Lisa xx

Vintage style monogram brooch, hanky tissue case, and Ninni WIPs

Hey! How have you been? I have been lazy. Very, very lazy. Even though I am *finally* getting over this flu thing all I want to do is read and eat cherries. Neither of which are bad things, of course, but I was *meant* to be finishing a pair of gloves for my Nana's Christmas present.

As you've probably guessed, I haven't done that. >_< So, because I'm seeing her (and the rest of my family) tomorrow for the gift exchange, and there is no way I was going to finish the gloves in one day, I made her some other gifts. *Fast* gifts!

First up: a pretty vintage style brooch made entirely with stash components.  I love it when my hoarding tendencies actually come in useful! ~_^

Here's how I made it:

1. I drew a fancy "A" (for "Alma" in this instance) onto a piece of calico, making sure that it was going to be small enough to fit into the ... setting? (I'm not really sure of the proper term. It is meant to be used as a pendant, once a cameo or something similar is attached to the middle of it, but I turned it upside down for this project.)

2. Using tiny stitches and only one strand of DMC, I embroidered the A. 

3. As mentioned before, I used a necklace setting (if anyone knows the proper term, please tell me!) turned upside down; I attached a bead and pearl teardrop where a jump ring would normally be attached. The bead and pearl teardrop are from an old earring. See what I mean about hoarding? ~_^

4. I had some epoxy stickers which I hadn't used before; I stuck one over the embroidery and then trimmed the edges. I was pretty nervous that it would ruin the stitches, but it turned out fine and also magnifies the image somewhat. To give you an idea of how small this is, the epoxy stickers are about 1.5 cm high.

5. Then I used E6000 to glue the embroidery into the setting. This had the added bonus of ensuring my stitches will never come loose ~_^

6. To finish, I used the E6000 again, this time to add a brooch clasp to the back of the setting.

Hurray! One present done!

For the second present, I was inspired by this tutorial, but I wanted to make it smaller to fit those little packs of travel tissues and thus make this more of a "keep in your handbag" kinda gift.

To make this, I used one handkerchief, cut into quarters (cutting it was the scariest part for me, and this isn't even a real vintage hanky, it just looks like one). I used fray-stop on the raw edges, then I just stitched the ends closed. Very easy, but check out the link if you want to see more detailed instructions.

It fits a travel sized pack of tissues perfectly, and is pretty cute too ^_^

I used a piece of baker's twine to make it look a little more fancy; it is a gift after all ^_^ 

Now, with Nana's gifts ready for tomorrow, I can get back to the *other* project I've been procrastinating on ... making Ninni Monsters! ^_^

I hope you had a great weekend! Have you been making any Christmas gifts?

- Lisa x

Faux letterpress blocks

Hey! I think letterpress blocks look super cool, and I've seen so many great ways of adding them to your home decor. But because they're so popular, they can be hard to get your hands on. So, I decided to make my own! And now you can too! ^_^ 

I didn't take any photos of the process, but it is so easy that I don't think you will really need any ^_^

Step 1. Buy some craft letters. I got mine from Spotlight and they were $2 each; you should be able to find them at any craft or hobby store.

Step 2. Get some blocks that are just big enough to fit the letters on them. My blocks are balsa wood and I brought them pre-cut in a pack of six from the craft store. Balsa wood is great for this project because it absorbs paint really well, but you can use anything that you have access to.

Step 3. Glue the letters to the blocks. If you use hot-glue, like I did, be careful not to use too much because if it leaks out from under the letters you will find it difficult to paint afterwards. Also, make sure you glue your letters on backwards! I kept forgetting and putting them on the right way >_<

Step 4. Distress your blocks a bit. I sanded the edges so they didn't have such perfect corners, hit the blocks with the edges of a hammer to leave indents, and made some scores with a blunt knife.

Step 5. Paint your blocks and letters with wood stain. I used a cedar stain. The instructions on the tin will tell you how many layers to do; mine said to do two.

Step 6. Make a wash with black acrylic paint and water. You only need to use a tiny bit of paint for this; I just got a little bit of paint on my brush and then swished it into a couple of teaspoons of water, like you would do if you were cleaning it. 

Step 7. Paint the letters and blocks with the wash. The wash will make the indents and knife marks darker than other parts, which will add to the vintage look.

Step 8. Wait for your blocks to dry and then have fun arranging them in your home ^_^

I am so pleased with how they turned out, I want to make more! My blocks came in at under $4 each, and if you already have wood stain then yours will be even cheaper! 

Do you like them? If you made your own, which words would you do? ^_^

- Lisa x

Crafterweekend!

Hey, hey! I'm back! ^_^ I recently took six days off work and headed down south for a crafterweekend with Bec and Pip. It was really great! Aside from just not being at work (which I think everyone will agree is nice), we had great fun visiting markets, op-shopping, eating epic breakfasts, chatting a lot, and crafting a bit. I don't think I took a single photo the whole time (because I'm just that clever) but I did a bit of a photo shoot today with my creations and goodies so I can show them to you ^_^

First up: Mocha angels. Yup, they're a bit weird. I made them because I decided to start making tree decorations for the end of the year, and after brainstorming a few themes Scott and I decided on the broad category of "things we like". Scott really likes Mocha. Like, a lot. I'm not really sure how to convey just how much he likes this drink. I think he would have it for every meal if he could, and I'm not convinced that he didn't do just that while I was away.

Anyway, I think they are rather sweet ^_^ I made a template for a regular milk carton then scanned it into Photoshop (all I had access to over the crafterweekend) and added the front colours. Then I printed it out, put it together, and added wings cut from glittery silver card stock and a halo from a silver pipe cleaner.

 

With these expressions I feel like they should be constantly singing arias ~_^

Next: results from my op-shopping expedition. Isn't this little tablecloth cute? It's black gingham with purple and white embroidery and I think it will look great on my coffee table ^_^ 

I also found this sweet little cot blanket. The yarn is so soft and the colours are lovely and vibrant ^_^ This one's going to be saved for the distant future when Scott and I might have kids ...

 

I found this gorgeous teapot at the markets. Isn't it lovely? I am so darn pleased because although I have a stack of vintage cups, saucers, plates, bowls, and jugs, this is my first vintage teapot!

All my vintage china is mismatched, but I try to keep it to a broad theme of flowers and/ or gold trim. This teapot fits both! Yay! ^_^ I am going to have to have a tea party very soon!

Also from the markets; a headband featuring measuring tape ribbon, an awesome pen that looks like a giant pencil, and a plate of Italian biscotti (not shown because we ate them all!).

Going back to the crafting, I finally finished my last computer key cushion! This has been in my WIP box for a really long time! But now that the embroidery is done on this one, I can stuff it and add it to my day bed ^_^

 I also made some ridicuously simple earrings. All I did for these was put charms onto earring hooks. But they are really cute so I thought I'd show you anyway ^_^

 

If I wear one cup and saucer earring and one scissor earring, I can have a tea and craft earring set ~_^

 

These shrinky-dink Harry Potter characters are a little bit of a craft fail. They were meant to be ornaments for my tree but I didn't do the maths and they came out much too small. That's ok though! I'm going to add some badge backs to them and have a collection of wizarding pins ^_^

I've only made Harry, Dumbledore, Draco, and Voldemort so far because Ron's head snapped off (0_0) and I didn't have a brown permanent marker to colour in Hermione's/Neville's/Hagrid's hair. I'll do some more later and share with you the results ^_^

I also made a whole heap of wool and crochet hook baubles. They are really hard to photograph! This was the best image I had after taking about 20 photos >_< Still, you can see the basic guist of them, and I'm sure they'll look good on the tree.

And, lastly, this is what I've been doing yesterday and today! ^_^ I read Bitterblue yesterday and totally loved it - I love it when sequels just make your favourite worlds more awesome and the characters even more fleshed-out. I finished Cursed today and thought it held up really well; I can't wait for the next book! And this afternoon (after I force myself to do some housework ~_^) I'm going to get stuck in to The Invaders. I'm sure it will be great - John Flanagan is a great author. ^_^

What are you up to this weekend?

- Lisa x