September 2006

whiplash – hat winners

by kath_red on September 30, 2006

in Whiplash

Tutorials:
1 Prize for tutorial category
mommo and her cheery rain hat tutorial

special mentions go to

KC Quilts headband tutorial

and sew-mad howdy stranger hat tutorial

Skill:
2 Prizes for skill category
Sarah + H with her nothing fancy kids hats

and
Brahdelt with her medieval Russian headdress

Special mention to Crafty Ginger with her La Femme Fedora


Design:
2 Prizes for design category
The fabled needle and her liette

and
mama cat fish and her tossed salad hat

Special mention to:

Crafty Cocktail and her cupcake hat.

Thank you to everyone who entered, to everyone who left a comment about their favourite, to the judges and to the great folk who donated prizes.

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Ceramics inspiration

by Abigail Percy on September 30, 2006

in Ceramics+Wood+Glass

Kathleen at cake & pie wrote a beautiful post about a ceramics course with guest teacher Toshiko Takaezu. Not to be missed!

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Whiptips – recycling spoons

by kath_red on September 29, 2006

in News+Letters

Whiptips – a crafts advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving comments. View the Whiptips archive here. You can submit questions, to whiptips@gmail.com. Please include photos with your questions!

Alison writes in asking on how to make a spoon into a ring. I have occasionally seen beautiful old silver cutlery bent and shaped into chimes, pendants and all sort of wonderful things – anyone know how to do this?

I recently found a really cool spoon at a thrift store, and I’m dying to make it into a ring. I was wondering if you could do a little write up with this kind of theme. I don’t even know if I’m capable of making this or not, but a little story about spoon rings [and those cool coin rings] would be super cool!

keep up the good work, whipup is my favorite website!

I am not sure about the story, but perhaps readers could help out with suggested websites, online tutorials or cool artists to feature.

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Tissue holder tutorial

by craftapalooza on September 28, 2006

in Sewing+Fabric, Whip Up Tutorials

Following is how I make holders, there are other ways and some of you may read this tutorial and snort to yourselves and mutter under your breath “THAT’s not how you make tissue holders”….well it’s how I make them :) so far no complaints.

My technique is the “Lazy Ass Bastard” method, or LAB™ for short.

First up, I’m all about templates for patterns, especially small crafty projects that I’ll make more than once. I love adhering patterns to strawboard, makes it so much easier to place your pattern onto the fabric, trace with your chalk and then cut out.

So, for my version of the tissue holder, I’ve cut a template that’s 6 inches x 7 inches. Why inches you Aussies ask? My cutting matt and quilt ruler work inches so it’s just easier to go with inches.

cutting the fabric

Pick your outer fabric, trace and cut out slightly larger than the template. I also like to use a midweight fabric, just a personal preference. I also like to make more than one at a time, it’s quicker.

Next up, I usually line my holders with a 100% linen in a cream colour. Don’t cut your lining just yet, grab yourself some double-sided fusible interfacing, place your outer fabric pieces onto this and iron them in place. Let the fabric cool and then place these outer pieces onto your inner lining fabric. Iron away. Make sure you iron the edges well.

fusing the fabric

Now, grab your template, pinking shears or your rotary blade and cut out the 6″ x 7″.

fused fabric ready to cut

Next up, add some trim to the 6″ long edges. Be creative. Or don’t add any trim at all, up to you. You can at this point place your trim so it hides the pinking shear edge, if you have pinking sheared. You don’t necessarily have to use pinking shears as the fabric is fused it shouldn’t fray too much, maybe a little at the beginning.

sewing the trim

trim sewn

Find the centre point on the 7inch edge and mark on the inside with chalk. Then fold in your 6inch edges to meet this point and pin in place.

pinning the holder

Sew across the short edges. I like to oversew the opening to strengthen the stitching.

sewing the holder

Trim any excess fabric from the seams and cut your corners at diagonals.

trim excess and corners

Turn out the tissue holder and push out the corners.

tissues for holder

finished holder

back of finished holder

Voila. Completed holder. Easy peasy. Photos tagged “tissue holder” at flickr.

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Going Natural

by admin on September 28, 2006

in Community + Creativity

Bugs, dirt, mud, sawdust, fermented plants… natural dyes can give you an entire spectrum of gorgeous, deep, rich and vibrant colours. Here’s proof:

Natural Dyes

I had always shyed away from natural dyeing because so much of what I had seen was muddy brown, muddy yellow and muddy moss green… nothing that I could get excited about. But this past weekend, I was incredibly lucky to be able to attend Maiwa’s Natural Dye workshop taught by Charllotte Kwon, owner and founder of Maiwa Handprints. Using a combination of ancient natural dyes — including cochineal, fustic, osage orange, madder, logwood, lac, cutch and indigo — and the addition of alum as a mordant and iron as a colour pointer, we were able to generate a full palette of colours on silk, wool, cotton, linen and cotton/silk/rayon blends.

Natural Dyes

The last afternoon of the workshop was dedicated to natural Indigo dyeing. Above is a study of successive dipping in indigo — from one single dip in the indigo vat to ten dips — the indigo; the fibre and deepens the colour of the fabric with each dip.

The photo above is a lock of mohair that was dipped in Indigo. The base colour of the mohair, a warm honey colour, turns the final colour a warmer blue. Similarly, overdying with Indigo will create an almost translucent glazed-look to your fabric or yarn… it’s like you can see the base colour underneath and then see the indigo. It’s not this colour and, yet, it’s not that colour… The final colour seems to "vibrate" between the two giving the feeling of movement, the feeling of being alive.

Natural Dyeing Resources

Need a place to start with Natural Dyes?

Wild Color by Jenny Dean

A Dyer’s Garden by Rita Buchanan

Koekboyoa by Harald Böhmer

Indigo by Jenny Balfour-Paul

Maiwa has full instructions and recipes for the use of natural dyes and indigo here: http://www.maiwa.com/stores/supply/instructions.html

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