Walpurgis night is here! While most people are downtown celebrating with alcohol, alcohol and more alcohol we are at home with a couple of friends, handcrafting. And drinking a bit of alcohol, yes...
So if you looked in through our window right now you would see two ladies hand-sewing medieval dresses, a bearded man sawing rings from a bronze coil, and me doing embroidery (except for right now when i am blogging). The rest drinking, chatting and being generally good company... Happy Walpurgis Night to you all!
The sweater is coming along nicely, as I've finished the main body and I'm now working on the arms. Or well, I WAS working on the arms until I ran out of yarn just a few minutes ago. I felt so frustrated that I had to write this short blog post! Darn... I gotta go downtown some day soon to get some more of that lovely purple yarn. And then I'll be able to finish the sweater, yay!
Project sweater is coming along nicely! When it is finished you can look forward not only to pictures of the finished product, but also a guide I've been working on with instructions on how to needlebind a sweater. It will be illustrated with pics from my current project, so make sure you check it out in a few weeks or so! So far I've gotten to the lower part of the shoulders, so it is actually already wearable! =)
While waiting for the sweater pics I thought I'd show you some more old needlebound things of mine. These socks and mittens I made this autumn, using an incredibly soft and fluffy yarn. Not my best work but still pretty ok, or what do you think?
(See the cat in the lower right corner of the last pic? That's Trix, a beautiful kitty found just across the road from our house, seriously mistreated and almost dead. She now resides at my mother's place, living happily ever after. =) Mjau!)
Some time ago I mentioned that I had never learned how to crochet, and that I'd decided to learn. And here it is, my first attempt at crocheting: a kettle-holder in purple and pink.
It is a bit crooked, but for a first attempt I think it's perfectly respectable. Or what do you think?
Since the dawn of time I, and my beloved husband, have been tormented by a constant clutter of hair toys... They were in the bathroom, in the bedroom, in the livingroom... everywhere! Without casting blame on anyone in particular (eehhm) I decided to do something about it. And here it is, the NEW and REVLUTIONARY HAIR TOY HANGER!
I made it from some leftover fabric (very sturdy dark blue cotton), with a piece of cardboard enclosed for stability. It has five separate horizontal hangers as well as three pouches (one for scrunchies, one for hair sticks and one for stuff that won't fit anywhere else!).
Hopefully this will put an end to the terror of bobby pins gone astray, scrunchies popping up everywhere and the generally bathroom mess! Hurray!
(Perhaps the future will bring an equally new and revolutionary trinket holder for all non-expensive jewlery... Hmm... I just gotta figure out where to hang it!)
... I thought I'd show you some old pics from when I worked as a Viking shoemaker in a Norwegian museum. These are some of the shoes I made...
After sewing shoes for two summers (and quite a lot in between) I found myself absolutely loathing shoes and leatherworking. It was a shoe-making overdose! I wonder if I will ever feel like sewing shoes again...
It is time for stitch B! This stitch is done inside out - in other words you have to turn the project inside out when it is finished. The surface looks like this...
Then how is it done? First, pass the needle right-to-left through the loop to the RIGHT of your last stitch. Then, find the tiny loop running at an opposite angle, half-eay hidden to the left of the loop you just passed through.
Yeah, lets repeat that last part, slowly...
Look to the LEFT of the loop you just passed the needle through. See the tiny loop, running in the other direction? Only halfway visible? Yeah, that's it. Pass the needle through it, from right (upper right) to left (lower left).
Next, pass the needle through the loop to the LEFT of your last stitch, from right to left. Then TWIST the needle so that you can pass the needle through your last stitch from the left. Pull the needle and yarn all the way through.
Sounds complicated? It's not as bad as it sounds, I promise! =) Here is a video of how it's done:
Hey everyone!
I thought I'd start documenting the stitches I use when needlebinding, for my own sake (I tend to forget) and for the sake of everyone who is trying to learn. I generally just come up with new stitches as I go, and therefore I don't know the "proper" names of the stitches I do... And since I don't use my thumb in the traditional way it looks a little bit different from what you might be used to. Anyways, this is what I choose to call Stitch A.
The finished surface looks like this...
And here is a short video showing how to do it! The needle first moves from the right to the left through the two loops on the RIGHT side, then from the left to the right through the two loops on the LEFT side.
