Felted passport case

I should be packing for our trip, but I wanted to show you the wet-felted passport case I just finished up:



Didn't that turn out fun? It is flat and flexible, with a 20" shoulder strap. That makes it comfortable and secure tucked under the arm for travel. This one is a commission piece that I worked up for a friend, but I think I'm going to have to make some more of these. When I get back from vacation, that is.

Back to packing!

Triloom weaving with Sensations "Sumptuous" yarn

A friend of mine put in a request for one of my triangle loom shawls. She wanted a warm blanket weight, in earthy greens and white, in a yarn that had no wool in it. I hunted around for a bit, and came upon Joann's store brand, Sensations 'Sumptuous' yarn. The pegs on my loom are set rather far apart, so I was going for the bulkiest yarn I could get my hands on. This yarn bills itself as 'Super soft and bulky acrylic yarn', and they had the colors I wanted. They were on sale too! However, the store was sold out. The nice ladies kindly put in a special order for me. I asked for two skeins of green, one of variegated green, and bought the skein of white that they had on hand.

A few weeks later, my yarn came in. I trotted over to the store to pick it up...and noticed that the variegated green skein looked kind of puny. Sure enough, though the price was same, the yardage for variegated was less than for solid colors. I grumbled, and got another skein to be sure I had enough. Then I went home and started weaving.

The yarn was in fact soft to the touch, quite bulky, and kind of spongy. Lovely! But I soon found that it was really just bit too thick for easy weaving on my loom. And the bouncy spongy texture made it a bear to try to beat into place. It took some extra care and fiddling, but I eventually got the body of the shawl done. (I'm glad this wasn't my first attempt at weaving on a triloom, though! I might have given up on a fun hobby if this was my first impression.)

When I went to measure out the yarn for the fringe, I realized that I didn't have enough yarn left over from the weaving process. I looked...and sure enough, though the skeins look bigger than the skeins of yarn I usually use (Lion brand Homespun, or Wool-Ease), there is less yardage on each skein. I had to go back to Joann's and pick up another skein of white, and another of green. Luckily, they had them in stock this time. Tip to the wise: know how much you need before you start! Don't assume a skein is a skein is a skein.

Once I had enough materials, the fringing process went pretty easily. I usually double the fringe when I'm using Homespun yarn, but this yarn is thick enough that that wasn't necessary. The shawl is now off the loom, and waiting to go into the wash for wet finishing. And it is, in fact, a blanket weight fabric that is soft to the touch. This will definitely keep her shoulders warm on cool autumn nights!

However, I don't think I'll use this yarn on my loom again soon. The bulk and texture make for difficult weaving, and the relatively small yardage on each skein means I had to spend more in materials than I had intended.

I could see that this yarn would knit or crochet quickly into nice chunky scarves or lap robes, though, and they would feel great against the skin. If I take up those crafts, I'll revisit this yarn.

4th of July, and knitting on the circular sock machine

For those of you who live in the US, I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July celebration this past weekend! We had a lovely time here in Arizona. My family went to my folks' place for the afternoon and early evening, for brats and potato salad and jello and chips, with strawberry shortcake and icecream for dessert. They usually cook much more gourmet food, but for the 4th we went with classic picnic fare. Then we followed that up with a couple of hands of cards, killing time until it cooled off enough to go outside. When the sun went down, we headed on over to the ball park, and enjoyed live music and a great fireworks display. I love the 4th--it is one of the few times that the whole community comes together for a celebration.







For the rest of the weekend, I've been cranking on my Creelman Brothers circular sock knitting machine. I've got four new pairs of socks up in the Etsy shop already. Three more pairs are currently on the drying rack, waiting for their turn in front of the camera. I'm using Regia 'Galaxy' sock yarn for the most part. I really love the swirl patterns that it is giving me! I bought enough for 12 pairs of socks when it was on sale several weeks ago, hoping that it would work in my machine. It knits beautifully! And at 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, it makes hard wearing and machine washable socks.





My goal for the week is to keep on cranking away. I'd like to fill out the sock section in the Etsy shop before I head out for my upcoming road trip to Ontario. This weekend I'll be putting the shop in vacation mode for the rest of July. It will open again at the end of July/beginning of August. Around here, that is just in time for Back to School buying, so I'd like to have a selection of socks ready for that. I'll tell you what though, it seems very strange to be making wool school socks when it is over 100F outside!

Tutorial: Peyote stitched slide bead

I finished up this copper Viking wire woven necklace today. A friend asked me if I had a tutorial for the peyote stitched slide beads that I make to go with the wire weaving, and I didn't. But I took pictures as I was working today, so hopefully this will help. I found it was hard to take good pictures of such tiny beads!

First, I gathered my materials. I used 2 colors of Miyuke glass Delica beads. These are cylindrical in shape, and very regular. I put them in a watercolor dish while I was working. Scissors, a beading needle, and some Nymo thread rounded out the materials.



I put an even number of beads on my needle. I wanted just enough to go snugly around the wire chain of the necklace. In this case, that was 12 beads.






I ran my thread back through the beads again...











...and continued on through one more bead around.











When I pulled the resulting loop tight, it made a nice circle around the wire weaving. I left a 4-6 inch tail of thread, to weave in at the end of the project. Oh, I probably had a yard of thread that I was working with, so I didn't have to start a new thread part way through the project. The trade off in working with a long length of thread was that I had to deal with the working thread tangling. Running the thread over a chunk of bees wax helped.


Ok. I put one bead on my needle. I skipped one bead in the circle, and ran my needle through the next bead.










With a little convincing, the bead that I just added hopped on top of a bead in the previous row. I continued around the circle of beads in this way. Skip a bead, go through a bead. Skip a bead, go through a bead.









When I got back around to the beginning of the row, I had to 'step up'. I went through the last bead in the row below me, and then also through the first bead of the row I just finished. This is probably the hardest row in the whole project to complete.








The next row around cinches everything into place. Again, skip a bead, and go through a bead. When you get back to the beginning...










...your work should look something like this.










Now, I wanted to start the spiral pattern. Every other bead that I added in this next row was white instead of bronze.









In the next row, again every other bead was white.











After a few rows, I had a nice spiral developing.












I continued on with this spiral pattern until I had the slide bead just about as long as I wanted it, and switched back to all one color of beads. A couple of rows of solid color finished off the project.










I wove the remaining tail of thread back down and around into the beadwork, making tiny half hitches around the working threads. I tugged the knots into the beads to hide them. Then I went back and did the same to the tail end of thread that I had left at the other end.









And there I had it! A beaded bead.



I have used this same technique to make an entire necklace of beadwork, without the wire core. It makes a colorful, light weight, and flexible necklace.

Wet felted purse, and an inkle woven band

I took some time today and finished up the red and black felt containers that my son and I made the other day. Well, yesterday he sewed the button and loop on his own, stuck his camera in it, and put it in his pocket. I think it has been there since, except when he is proudly showing it off. But I did the other two today.

The middle sized one is a great size for a blackberry. I sewed a fingerloop braid on it, and it will be going to its new owner tomorrow.

The big one, pictured above, took some thinking. I decided that it would make a good size for a casual little purse. The interior is 3" x 1" x 4 3/4", which is just the right size for some keys, money, ID, and a few other necessities. But I had to figure out what I wanted to do for a strap. I like my purses to hang over the shoulder and reach about to my waist. I haven't figure out how to do a finger loop braid quite that long. (I'll do a tutorial on finger loop braiding in a while, when I can get someone else to take pictures of my hands.)

My first thought was to weave an inkle band for the strap. So I grabbed some red and black cotton thread, made up a pattern, and warped up my loom. I'm liking how the band is turning out!



But...it is taking several hours to create the band. Longer than the body of the purse took, actually. If I were making this for myself, I might continue on. But I'd like to put this in the Etsy shop, and I'm thinking that nobody is going to want to more than double the price of the purse in order to have a hand woven strap. (If I'm wrong, I'd happily take custom orders!) So instead, I spun up some two ply yarn out of the same roving that I did the felting with, and then cabled three strands of it together. That did the trick. I hand sewed the cord onto the purse. It hangs 16" down from knot to purse, which puts it at just the right length for me.

I'll still finish up the inkle band, but I'll end up either using it for a different project (trim on a historical costume?), or I might list it in the Etsy shop on its own. I'll see how it turns out.

'This is America' Etsy Treasury

Treasury time! One of my felted camera cases was included in the 'This is America' Etsy treasury: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c24be4d3c6e6d91a2dbcada/this-is-america#4c24bf2bf9e08eefe32c3222 . This one is a great grouping of Americana, including several beautiful native pieces.

I always am inspired and amazed at the breadth of talent that is showcased in these treasuries.

Tutorial: Wet felted cell phone cases

I've been making wet felted camera, Blackberry, and cell phone cases recently. Today, I added a large size, that will be a good size for an evening purse. Here's the three different sizes:



My son wanted a case for his cell phone, so I taught him to make his own today. His is the smallest one in the picture above. And here's how he did it:

First, he took three sections of red wool roving, and pulled them open to spread them out.











Then he wrapped them around a river rock that was about a quarter again bigger than he wanted his finished product to be. The first layer wrapped longways, the second sideways, and the third longways again. He moved the fibers around so there were no bare spots, then put wisps of black wool roving around the outside for decoration.

Then I helped him wrap the rock and wool bundle into the cut off leg of a pair of nylons.











We went outside for the messy part. We got two bowls of hot water, and put a squirt of dish soap into one of them. He soaked his bundle in the soapy water.










Then he threw the bundle back and forth between his hands until the fibers started to migrate through the nylons. At that point, he carefully peeled the nylons off. The surface of the felt had started to hold together.






He put a squirt of soap on his hands to keep the fibers from sticking to them, and started carefully throwing the felt back and forth between his hands. Gradually, he could use more force. Eventually, much of the 'squish' had disappeared, and the felt was holding together and shrinking down around the rock.


At this point, he decided which way was up, and which was the front of his case. He cut halfway around the rock in a straight line, about 2/3 of the way up the front of his case.







He slipped the rock out...













...and put in a smaller piece of slate that was the size that he wanted the inside of the finished case to be. (I also use blocks of wood cut to the right size.)










Then he dunked the case in hot soapy water again, and molded the felt to the slate with his hands. Once things were in place, it was time for the final felting. He threw the case back and forth between his hands for some of it.








Rubbing the case up and down a washboard helped to shrink and form the felt as well.













And after an hour or so of work, he had a case!


At this point, it is sitting in the window drying. Tomorrow we can add a button and loop closure.

I'm experimenting with straps, and with clips for the back, so these can be used as purses or belt pouches. But I have one that I made several years ago, that has been living in my front pocket as a digital camera case ever since. They wear like iron!

Congratulations, Kevin! Nice job.