craftiness

Herewith my second round of finished projects!

The colour work blanket had originally been intended to be one for our bed, but I chose the wrong yarn. The acrylic might be cheap and cheerful, but each square rolls up into a tube which is just far too annoying. So I downgraded it to a little blankie for the kitties, and finished it up with an i-cord join between squares and an i-cord edging.

The blanket is currently on Kevin’s grandma’s rocking chair.

I then ran out of knitting to do, which was tragic, so I whipped up a pair of cuffs for next winter. The pair I have, in baby alpaca, got a lot of wear last winter, keeping that bit between my coat sleeve and my gloves warm, so I wanted a second, slightly longer pair with a slit for my thumb.

I have to say that I really like them, and they’ll be great for cooler days when full gloves aren’t necessary.

Since my last update, I have also made progress on two picture frames and the chest of drawers, all of which only have minor things left to do on them. And I restarted work on the Knight & Snail embroidery, which I’m hoping to finish by July when I want to take it to the UK to give to my friend.

It feels very good to get two projects finished, and four more progressed!

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First round of finished projects

by Suw on April 7, 2019

Back in December, I decided that my main crafting aim for this year would be to finish as many projects as I can. And I’m happy that I have finished three planned projects and a fourth unplanned one.

I was a bit late on some of my Christmas crafting projects this year, but I did manage to finish this year’s, or rather last year’s, tree decorations. I will admit that I’ve slightly fallen out of love with crochet since I’ve learnt to knit, but I was quite pleased with how these came out. A good press, and sufficient starch, and you have some quite pretty little decorations.

I also finished this year’s addition to my nisse army. I’m trying to build up a collection of variously sized nisse, and this one is to hang on the tree. They’re ridiculously easy to make, I just didn’t have much time in the run-up to Christmas.

The biggie, though, was Kevin’s scarf, which I started about 18 months or so ago. It’s knitted in rick-rack stitch, which is a bit fiddly, in a fingering weight alpaca yarn, which made it even more fiddly. I’d been putting it off, but once I really got into it, it turned out to be quite soothing to knit. It’s now one of his favourites, so I’m glad I put the effort in.

And finally, I needed a knitting project to take with me to the UK in March. The only yarn I had going spare was some sock yarn that I had been planning to crochet into a table runner, but I had found that project to be really tedious and unenjoyable. So I frogged it, and knitted a pair of socks for Kevin. These are my first socks, and I’m really quite pleased with them! I have, of course, bought a second ball of the same yarn, so that I can make two more identical socks, so that Kevin has two matching pairs!

 

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A year of finishing things

by Suw on December 27, 2018

2017 was a year (well, nearly) of trying new arts and crafts, of learning and of expanding my creative horizons. It was awesome. My ulterior motive was to get my creative juices flowing so that I would once again feel the urge to write, and it worked very well. After a hiatus around Ada Lovelace Day, I started writing on a new book that I’d been researching for a couple of years, and continued working on that through November and December.

2018 was supposed to be a year of writing and finishing off my craft projects, but after a productive January, things all went a bit to pot when Kevin got a new job in the February and all my time went into moving house, travel to the UK, unpacking, and then Ada Lovelace Day came round once again. I didn’t write much at all, or do much more than knit basic things.

So for 2019 I have two goals: Keep writing, maybe even to the point of finishing up a first draft, and start finishing off my craft projects. I have so many works in progress that just need to be polished off, it’s ridiculous. To aid my resolve in this latter goal, here’s my list of half-finished projects in no particular order (completed projects are struck through):

  • Knitted scarf for Kevin
  • Knitted blanket for the cats
  • Small picture frame that needs restoring and gilding, and a tintype going into it – in progress
  • Very badly broken plaster mirror that I need to finish mending and gilding
  • Sister mirror to the above that will need refinishing and gilding to match
  • Large mirror that needs restoring and gilding
  • Medium sized picture frame that needs possibly refinishing, but certainly needs a picture going into it – in progress
  • Knight and snail embroidery that needs finishing off, for my friend Steph (I’m very delayed on this!) – in progress
  • Large frame that needs restoring and then I need to decide wtf to do with it. Might put a mirror in it.
  • Nisse (Christmas gnome) army needs expanding
  • This year’s Christmas decorations – crocheted snowflakes – need doing (quite behind on this given Christmas is soon to be over)
  • Refurbish an old chest of drawers – nearly finished

In addition to this, I need or want to:

  • Hang our art, plates and mirrors
  • Get two pieces of artwork framed (been putting this off for about 3  years)
  • Get two new mats for two pieces of artwork that are framed, but not neatly enough for my sensibilities
  • Hang a rug
  • Hang a Malaysian wall hanging (both of the rug and the hanging need to be somewhere out of direct sunlight, which is hard in this house)
  • Find another chest of drawers to refurbish as we don’t have enough drawer space
  • Knit a cardigan
  • Steek two jumpers that were gifts, that I don’t wear because I don’t really like jumpers (steeking is to cut knitting, eg to insert a zip or fastenings)
  • Do some embroidery for a half dozen frames that I bought from Ikea a couple of years ago for some artwork that turned out to be too big for them. Oops
  • Paint the dining room
  • Sew some curtains for the bedroom

I shall report back on every success, starting, I hope, with finishing Kevin’s scarf!

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C17: Day 142 – Knitting ftw

by Suw on May 22, 2017

First few rows of knitting! And I haven’t yet dropped or added any random stitches!

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You know what they say, resistance is futile. I have been resisting knitting ever since my mum attempted to teach me when I was a kid. It didn’t go well. I’m left-handed, she’s right-handed, and I really struggled. I did manage to make a jumper, a black and red striped jobbie in the style of Robert Smith*, but the arms were too short. I didn’t do any yarn arts at all for years and years after that, preferring to sew instead, until I picked up crochet relatively recently.

But the problem with crochet is that it produces a very stiff fabric without the softness (drape) needed to look good as a garment. A lot of crocheted cardigans look awful, and it’s hard to find a lacy design that doesn’t look like you’re wearing a tablecloth. Now, you can find some fairly open, lacy designs for tops designed to go over other things, but crochet is very limited with respect to clothing. Makes for great amigurumi, and even scarves, but pretty shitty clothes.

So the time has now come to learn to knit. Thankfully, I have a friend who, having watched me crochet, realised that I would do better learning the continental style rather than the English style. When I crochet, I control the yarn in my left hand, even though that’s how right-handed people crochet. (The difference is that I’m generally moving the yarn around the hook as much as moving the hook around the yarn, so whilst it’s technically right-handed, I’ve left-hand-ified my technique.)

Continental knitting also allows me to control the yarn with my left hand, in a way very similar to crochet, so it feels less alien than I thought it would. And, as a bonus, my friend taught me how to do a purl row in the opposite direction to the knit row.

For those of you unfamiliar with knitting, you usually do a row by transferring stitches from the left-hand needle to the right-hand needle. When you get to the end of the row, you turn the piece round and start again, moving stitches left to right again. You also have two stitches, knit and purl, which together give you that classic knitted look of lots of Vs stacked together (stocking stitch).

I’m not sure what the technical term really is, but my friend’s ‘reverse purl’ stitch actually allows you to knit right to left, so you’re basically just transferring the stitches back to where they came from. This means that you always keep the front of the fabric facing you. You knit in one direction and purl in the other. It’s genius. No continual turning of the piece, no getting your yarn tangled up, just knit… and purl… and knit… and purl…

So, now I need to practice, and maybe soon I’ll be good enough to whip up a lovely cardi, because it’s impossible to find ones that fit in the shops.

*I have no evidence Robert Smith ever wore a black and red jumper, but I remember seeing it on TV so it must be true.

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Restoring a plaster frame

by Suw on January 19, 2016

Back in 2011, I bought a plaster mirror off eBay for £26. It was badly packed by the seller, however, and arrive with several cracks and chips. I was gutted, but kept it anyway. In 2013, it got shipped over to the US, during which process our moving company broke it even further. When I looked at it, I wasn’t really sure it could ever be saved: Too many chunks and chips broken off, and five major fractures. I kept it anyway, just in case.

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Last August, I decided to see what I could do to save it. All I had to do was glue it all back together, fill the holes and paint it, right?

I read around about what sort of glue to use, and one recommendation was Fabri-Tac, a fabric glue, which dries relatively quickly but stays workable for long enough to allow positioning. It also works well with plaster, forming a thin layer which doesn’t make the joint thicker than it should be. Gluing all the little bits and chips back was actually a lot of fun, a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. 

So that would work for gluing on the bits that had broken off, but there were five fractures that would need a little bit more strength than I thought Fabri-Tac could provide. However, there’s also a metal hoop that is set into the plaster, so I couldn’t move the broken sections apart to get the glue in between them. The only thing I could think of was using a fast-drying (5-minute) epoxy to glue a metal bars to the back to act as a brace, and if I could, dribble some Fabri-Tac down the fracture to provide extra strength. 

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Once everything was put back together, barring the few chips in the middle of the above photo that I couldn’t find the home for, it was time to fill in the cracks and gaps. At first I thought it would be easiest to use filler, or what Americans call spackle, but it turned out to be a major error – whilst the filler went on easily, it dried soft, not hard. Turned out to be a vinyl filler that was entirely not suitable for this project. Instead, I bought proper plaster of paris, which will dry hard. 

Now, plaster of paris is a really squirly material to work with, and it took me ages to figure out how best to use it. Mixing it thick and then trying to smear it on like filler totally did not work as it didn’t even begin to adhere to the bare plaster. Instead, I mixed it really thin, and then painted it on in layers using a small brush. It thickens very quickly, though, but a little extra water in the mix keeps it workable. You do have to clean the brush off regularly though, otherwise you end up with a stick with a blob of plaster on the end. 

Eventually, I got everything filled, and then I sanded it down with fine sandpaper. 

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Next, it was time to paint. This is where my impatience really got the better of me. Instead of doing research, I just bought a couple of ‘metallic gold’ acrylic paints, picked a shade I liked and got to painting.

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The result was plasticky, to say the least. Although it looked half-decent when not in direct light, the colour deepened by the shadows, in bright sunlight it looked awful.

I had bought some gold-coloured metallic powder for another project, so thought I’d mix some of that into some clear acrylic gloss varnish to get a richer finish. It was… ok. I tried again, but added some burnt sienna to give it a slightly darker colour, and see if that worked better. It sort of did, but it still looked more like plastic than gold leaf. It was tolerable, I guess, but not really what I wanted. 

After a break, due to Christmas and the like, I decided this weekend to have a go at antiquing it, to see if that would save it. Mixing burnt sienna with burnt umber in a 1:2 ratio gave a nice, reddish-brown colour, which I painted into the recesses with a small paintbrush, then took most of it off again with a stiff-bristled brush, and wiped the excess off the highlight areas with a cloth. That made a huge difference, giving the frame much more depth. 

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In the top photos, the top part of the frame has been antiqued, and in the bottom photo, the bottom part has been done.

The antiquing certainly helped, but it still wasn’t quite right. Luckily, for Christmas I was given some Liquid Leaf, which gets the best reviews for of any of the metallic paints. Whist it doesn’t give a finish as smooth as real leaf, it does do a good job. I decided to add that to the highlights. Finally, that gave a finish I was happy with.

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And once the mirror was in and it was hung on the wall at the bottom of the stairs, Grabbity could sit on the newel post to admire herself:

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The finish is quite a bit lighter in tone than the original, but I prefer that. Overall, I’m really pleased about how it came out, though in retrospect I’d do things a bit differently with the painting. What I should have done was:

  1. Seal the bare plaster with an acrylic sealant.
  2. Paint the whole thing with Liquid Leaf.
  3. Seal with gloss acrylic sealant (I haven’t been able to seal this frame, because of the order I did it all in, so the Liquid Leaf may tarnish over time)
  4. Antique with the acrylic burnt sienna/umber mix, but water it down a bit and make sure not to get it on the highlights. If necessary, do it in layers rather than try to do it all at once. (Also, mix enough for the whole frame, otherwise you might have issues matching the colour.)

That said, I have a totally different plan for my next mirror, which is much smaller, but needs just as much love.

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The double-edged sword of mechanisation

by Suw on January 16, 2014

Via Mary Corbet’s Needle ‘n Thread blog I discovered this fantastic video about embroiderers in Appenzell in Switzerland and how their way of life was destroyed by mechanisation.

The documentary paints a fascinating picture of the rural families that earnt a living through incredibly delicate embroidery, supplementing what would have been a meagre income from fairly unproductive small-holdings. The woman of the household would pass on her skills to her children, boys and girls alike. They would all embroider from dawn til dusk and on into the night by candlelight. The school-age children would attend classes, but would still be expected to do significant amounts of embroidery in the evenings. The children who weren’t good with a needle worked at the household chores, often taking on many of the tasks that a mother would normally do so that she could embroider more.

The particular embroidery type that Appenzellers made was called whitework, and this still from the video show just how delicate it can be. (Sorry I couldn’t find a better picture that was also CC licensed!)

Appenzell whitework

Of course, fashions moved on which, along with mechanisation, put many embroiderers out of business. Those changes cannot have been easy for the rural families who depended on embroidery to make ends meet, and who didn’t have many, or any, other reliable income. But the life of an embroiderer would not have been easy either, working all hours and earning relatively little for very demanding work. One mistake would result in money being docked, and they weren’t being paid much in the first place.

Whilst mechanisation freed whole families from gruelling work, (although they may not have seen it like that whilst they were figuring out what else to do), it also likely resulted in the loss of many skills. The story is the same across the crafts. As mass produced materials superseded the hand-crafted, the knowledge that allowed those items to be made, that had been passed down from mother to daughter and father to son, was lost, if not in total then in major part.

The economics of hand-made items were never good. Time-consuming processes require either low-paid workers or very high prices that only a few can afford. The craft industry these days relies on both models, not just because of sweatshops in the developing world, but also Western hobbyist (or, in some cases, subsistence) crafters who sell their work for the cost of the materials rather than including time and other overheads because it’s hard to sell anything otherwise.

The results of this are, I fear, a gradual loss of skill and, worse, a loss of interest in those skills. That’s why I love blogs such as Mary Corbet’s, and why they are so fundamentally important. Although there are institutions such as the Royal School of Needlework who do a great job of preserving and passing on knowledge, craft blogs allow anyone to not only be inspired by the beautiful work on display, but to also learn a little about how it’s done. It is because of Mary’s blog that I’ve picked up an embroidery needle, with the intention of doing something more interesting than just a few French knots.

Argleton embroidered cover

But this is also why I like including aspects of crafting in my work, both my books and my writing. The Argleton project included a hand-embroidered silk-covered edition, and The Lacemaker, well, obviously, makes reference to the making of bobbin lace. I love learning about new crafts, as much as I love learning about engineering and physics – indeed, embroidery involves quite a bit of materials science, with different threads and fabrics behaving in different ways.

As the subtitle to my blog implies, I find it easy to nerd out over almost anything, and in that I don’t think I’m alone. There’s currently a boom in interest in knitting, which I hope will be followed by a revival of all sorts of other crafts, including embroidery and bobbin lace. Of course, if anything I write or create helps inspire anyone else to look into our rich crafting heritage, that’s great, but it’s people like Mary we should be looking to, and supporting, as they share their expertise in the crafts for all our benefit.

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