October 2011

Guest blogger series | Gadget pouch tutorial

by contributor on October 13, 2011

in Guest blog series2 2011, Sewing+Fabric, Whip Up Tutorials

Guest blogger: Cam from CurlyPops

Well, hello there dear Whipup.net readers, my name is Cam and I have a little crafty blog named CurlyPops. I’m super chuffed to be guest blogging here today.

My sister recently bought me an e-Reader, and so I desperately need to make a padded pouch so that I can throw it in my handbag without worrying about it getting scratched or damaged. I thought that whipping up a little crafty project for myself presented the perfect opportunity for sharing a tutorial so that you can also make your own.

I’m currently testing out some samples from my new fabric range, and so I’m using my granny square fabric as a feature in this project. Enjoy!

Download the 4 page PDF tutorial here.

{ 7 comments }

Guest blogger series | It Ain’t Only About The Flies

by contributor on October 12, 2011

in Art+Design, Fibre+Needlework, Guest blog series2 2011

A crafty type and a lover of mischief, a whim, a ‘Why Not?’. Tania is also a mum of three, a wife, a graphic designer, a juggler extraordinaire (in training). You’ll find her over at Myrtle & Eunice, celebrating her crafty hits, confessing the misses and always bewildered by the pile of dirty washing.

It Ain’t Only About The Flies

It’s not that I’m obsessed with flies, cos I’m not. Certainly, if you happened to refer to the November page of this year’s Whipup calendar,  you’d turn to look at me all sideways and squinty and doubtful-like. But THAT fly – the one composed of a bazillion stitches, was really all about the obsessive joy in (finally!) mastering the french knot. THIS fly, the one above, was all about the sudden fascination with the crafty potential of fly screen.

I almost did my eyeballs in. Crafting with fly screen is like crafting blind. The grids of tiny squares appear to move and intersect, creating a moiré effect. Half the time you can’t tell which is shadow, or which is the surface you’re working on. And it’s a SHOCKER to photograph. Navigate the light, the shade, the shadows cast, the greying effect of the mesh, the disappearing into-backgrounds, then give up in a huff. Put away your camera, live it in real time.

In real time – and you’ll probably have to trust me on this – it is possible to appreciate the delicate intricacies of embroidered fly body hair.

As a crafty type who never knows when to leave well enough alone, I couldn’t help but try my hand at cross-stitching a flying fly…

…which in one fell swat, becomes a cross-stitched, well past-his-prime fly.

It struck me that flies were not the only obvious subject matter. Too busy losing focus to fly screen, to notice teetering laundry piles, a disaster kitchen, and an impressive spider web population inhabiting window frames, it finally dawned upon me. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

While the bug lovin’ middle kid is chuffed to bits with his fly-eating, window-inhabiting spider,

I have been forced to concede to the Mr’s long-held theory: not one part of this house is safe from the craft.

{ 26 comments }

Guest blogger series | Crocheting through life’s seasons

by contributor on October 11, 2011

in Beauty+Health, Guest blog series2 2011, knitting+crochet+yarn

Francesca has been steadily and passionately crocheting through life’s seasons since then. She blogs at FuoriBorgo from a little village in northern Italy where she lives with her husband and three children. She writes about family life, sustainable living, her vegetable garden, family-style Italian cooking and the things she makes. She is a co-author at the Simple, Green and Frugal and Co-op, a contributor to Getty Images, and contributed to the upcoming ‘Mend it Better’ by Kristin Roach. You can see her most recent crochet work on Ravelry here or browse her crochet set on Flickr here.

I stopped knitting the day I gave birth to my first stillborn baby. At first, during the hours, days and weeks I spent lying in bed staring at the bare and wintry landscape outside, all I knew was that I’d now never finish the blue and white outfit I’d been making for my baby, with so much love and anticipation. Later, giving up knitting became a conscious decision. I collected all the knitting needles lying around in the house, put them in a bag, and stored them away at the back of my linen closet.

As the new spring leaves began to sprout on the trees outside, I found that I didn’t miss knitting at all, even though I’d never sat with idle hands before. Neither had my mother, my grandmothers, or the other women in my family – to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother just sit, without needle work, mending or knitting to keep her company.

By summertime, though, I’d begun to miss that company. I walked into a yarn store one day, and looked at the yarns. Nothing felt right. Then I noticed the crochet hooks. My grandmother had taught me crocheting as well as knitting when I was a child. I loved knitting from the start, but even though crocheting was my grandmother’s true passion, I could never really remember which of those many loops I was supposed to stick the hook through.

Now, though, things seemed different. I walked out of the store with a large size crochet hook, some white cotton, and a little booklet explaining the basic crochet stitches. To my surprise I didn’t need the booklet, because I still had those crocheting skills my grandmother had taught me: the crochet hook in my right hand, my work and the thread comfortably wrapped around my fingers in my left, felt right, just as they had when I learned crocheting as a child. Those loops finally began to make sense to me, as well as the puzzling charts, and I rapidly grew past the simple skills my grandmother had taught me. Soon I could chain, make slip stitches, do single, double and treble and reverse crochet stitches, and join these together in clusters and shells and puff stitches.

Counting loop after loop, stitch after stitch, motif after motif, before long I’d completed my first crochet piece. Winter came around again, and when I felt that familiar pang in my heart, I found that sitting and concentrating on this craft, quietly and slowly turning loops into motifs into finished pieces – the meditation of hand-crafting – helped to empty out my mind by engaging it fully, and to lighten my heart. A little.

{ 5 comments }

Guest blogger series | Corn maze marble run for kids

by contributor on October 10, 2011

in Guest blog series2 2011, Kids Crafts, Toys+Plush

Katie writes for Ohdeedoh, but her number one job is taking care of her 3 kids, an overworked husband, and an antique cat. She’s addicted to making stuff, and tries to share as often as she can at Ohdeedoh or at her personal blog, matsutakeblog.

Autumn is my favorite season, and here in Minnesota it’s especially beautiful. I started making this corn maze marble run for my kids, and ended up going totally overboard with the Fall details.

The marble starts in the farmer’s wagon (made of tiny raisin boxes) and you have to get it inside the barn (a small milk carton) by tilting the whole thing (a cardboard file box lid) in your hands.

Be careful to avoid the duck pond and the pig’s mud puddle. To make these obstacles, just cut a hole in the bottom of the box and glue a piece of cardstock on the bottom of the box to cover the hole.

Then you have to choose between going through the pumpkin patch or past the old apple tree to enter the cornfield. You can find a tutorial for making the tree at my blog. The little felt hay bales keep you from going straight into the barn yet.

Once you’re inside the cornfield, you have to avoid making wrong turns into a dead end. To make the corn, cut cotton swabs in half and paint them yellow.


Once you pass through the grain silo (a toilet paper tube) you can roll around to enter the barn. You’re done!


Be sure to glue all the parts down really well so that nothing flies off while the kids are playing.
Happy Autumn! Thank, Kathreen!

{ 7 comments }

For more kids craft, creative ideas and activities go to the Action Pack website

Guest blogger series | Clutch purse tutorial

by contributor on October 9, 2011

in Guest blog series2 2011, Jewellery+Accessories, Whip Up Tutorials

Jorth is written by Leisl, who lives in Melbourne and loves to knit, sew, cook, read and generally create whilst living a green life. You can visit her site at her blog Jorth.

Hi, my name is Leisl from Jorth, and I have created a super easy tutorial for a cute clutch purse. You can use it as a purse, as a make up bag, a travelling jewellery case – anything! They are quick to make, and make excellent gifts. Keep them in mind for Christmas and birthdays – or maybe just make up a whole bunch for yourself!

Things you will need:

  • One piece of fabric measuring 25 x 30cm (9 x 12 inches) (in this case a print from Ink and Spindle was used.
  • One piece of lining fabric measuring 25 x 30cm (9 x 12 inches)
  • One piece of medium weight iron-on fusing measuring 23 x 28cm (9 x 11 inches)
  • One metre/yard of ribbon
  • Threads, to match

Note: seam allowances are 1cm, unless otherwise specified.

Step 1: Cut out fabric according to dimensions, then fuse the iron-on fusing onto the wrong side of the lining fabric, leaving a 1cm (.4 inch) border around all edges. This border will be your seam allowance.

Step 2: Fold your outside fabric piece into in equal thirds at 9cm (3.5inches) from the top and 20cm (8inches) from the top. Press the fold lines.

Step 3: Place the centre of your ribbon into the centre of the middle outside fabric folded section. Stitch the ribbon to this section only, sewing as close to the ribbon edge as possible.

Step 4: Place the outside fabric and lining fabric together, right sides facing, carefully tucking in the ribbon so you don’t sew over it. Sew the side seams and top seam, clipping corners. Turn right side out, and press.

Step 5: Fold down the 1cm seam allowance of the bottom seam, so the seam allowance is hidden inside. Press, then sew the seam closed. Press.

Step 6: Fold the bottom section of the clutch so it meets the top fold. Starting from the bottom left hand corner, sew the sides of the clutch together, continuing along the top side and top edge of the clutch, then down along the right side, using a 0.7cm seam allowance.

 

Fold over the top flap of your clutch, tie your ribbon and voila! One finished clutch!

{ 5 comments }

Book: Blog tour: Granny Square Love

by KateG on October 8, 2011

in Home+Decor, knitting+crochet+yarn

Granny Square Love: A New Twist on a Crochet Classic for Your Home by Sarah London. North Light Books (September 2011).

With a riot of gorgeous colour, Sarah London’s book Granny Square Love is for anyone who loves crochet, and loves granny squares in every room of the house.  Welcome to the Whipup.net stop on the Granny Square Love blog tour!

Reviewed by Kate G

Quite often, when someone talks about crochet, they are talking about a granny square.  Granny squares are virtually the foundation of crochet motifs.  In Granny Square Love, Sarah London, a great lover of granny squares, shows how to take the most basic granny square, add fabulous colour combinations, and to add a granny square project to every room of the house.  I know so many people who love the rhythm of making granny squares, and who make them by the dozen.  Most of these squares are destined to be stitched together into afghans, and now crocheters have so many more options for their grannies.

Even if you have never picked up a crochet hook before, Sarah London’s clear instructions will get you started making chains and basic crochet stitches into granny squares in a few minutes.  The stitch illustrations are clear, and the photos of granny square construction are helpful, easy to follow and delightfully retro.

Each project has a clear description, details such as yarn, notions, hook size and measurements of the finished item, row by row written instructions for each round, tips for finishing each project off, and a colour commentary by Sarah London.  So often yarn projects are presented in a dictated colourway, and either the crocheter has to use those colours or figure out another colour scheme without any guidance from the designer.  I really like Sarah’s colour tips, and finding out her motivation for certain colour palettes, and her colour decision making processes.

Another fabulous part of every project is the large scale stitch chart.  For every crocheter that loves to use a stitch diagram, there is another that avoids a pattern with a diagram, with so many people never having had learned to read the symbols that make up a crochet chart.  Here Sarah provides clear diagrams, along with detailed row by row instructions, so that a crocheter of any experience level can follow along with the text and the diagrams at the same time, until reading a granny square crochet chart is second nature.  I personally love using crochet charts, and I’m excited about other crocheters learning to use charts, and doubling the number of patterns available for them to tackle.

The projects in Granny Square Love are divided into projects for each of the rooms in your home.  My favourite projects are the giant floor cushion (loungeroom), stool cover (kitchen), garland (dining room) and curtain (bathroom and laundry).

If anyone ever wanted to move away from the most simple granny squares used in Granny Square Love, to more complicated grannies or to other sizes or crochet motifs, then all of Sarah’s projects would be easy to adapt.  But I bet that anyone who loves granny squares will make these projects, at least once each, and surround themselves in every room with riotous coloured grannies.

About the reviewer: Kate is a busy mother of four with many craft projects on the go, including, but not limited to, crochet, knitting, sewing, dyeing, paper making, spinning, felting and bookbinding. Kate has challenges in the areas of finishing things, saying no and craft supplies storage. She also has a very very patient and tolerant husband.

DISCLOSURE: Sarah London PROVIDED WHIPUP.NET REVIEWER KATE WITH A FREE REVIEW COPY. THE AMAZON LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS.

Join in the rest of the blog tour:

{ 3 comments }

Guest blogger series | Creative suitcase tutorial

by contributor on October 8, 2011

in Guest blog series2 2011, Sewing+Fabric, Whip Up Tutorials

Guest blogger: Nat from ByNight

 

Hi everyone! I’m Nat from the blog ByNight.  I live in Belgium, a tiny, mini, little European country. I am a graphic designer during the day and a self-taught sewer at night and you have no idea how happy and honored I am to be here with you today as it is pretty much thanks to Whipup.net’s inspiring features, great tutorials or amazing guests that I learned how to sew a couple of years ago… It now seems totally natural that I, too, share a tutorial with you all.

A few weeks ago, my friend’s daughter had her 6th birthday and since every time I see her all she wants to do is draw, paint or make collages, I made her this creativity suitcase so she could carry her art supplies everywhere she goes. What I hadn’t expected is that many of my blog readers would kindly ask me how I did it as they wanted one for their kids or even themselves. I had no other choice to promise them to write a tutorial for it… whenever ;-) Kathreen’s invitation to be here today seemed like the perfect moment.

This Creative Suitcase fits an A4 (letter sized copy) paper block. It has many pockets for your markers and colored pencils. You can also slip in some scissors, a watercolor box, a smaller drawing book or some crayons. It also has a removable zippered pouch where you’ll want to put the supplies you just can’t live without…

Download the detailed 12 page tutorial and pattern as a pdf document here.
I hope this tutorial will help you all to feel artistic anywhere and any time…
Merci Kathreen, for having me over!

[Head on over to Nat's blog ByNight where she has a French version of this tutorial.]

{ 17 comments }

Guest blogger series | Crafting with friends – Start a craftalong

by contributor on October 7, 2011

in Community, Guest blog series2 2011

Carina is a 30-something Dane living in England. She is passionate about colour and pattern. Her grandmother (a crafty rockstar) taught her to cross stitch when she was very young and she likes to think that she would be happy to see her continuing the crafty tradition. Carina writes a blog, Carina’s Craftblog, about her crafty adventures in embroidery, crochet, sewing and more. Under the name Polka & Bloom, she designs colourful, free-form embroidery designs inspired by folk art and design of her native Denmark.

Image credits: MadameRenard & The Pickled Herring.

Crafting can sometimes be a bit solitary – we sit in our studios, livingrooms or bedrooms with a crafty project and a lot of the time we’re the only ones working on it or interested in it. If we’re lucky, our families don’t think we’re completely mad or boring because we want to make stuff.

I don’t mind the solitude of crafting, but sometimes it’s nice to share what you’re making and work on something with other people. It can be a bit difficult if you don’t have anyone around you who shares your passion for making – but that’s where (craft) blogging comes in handy!

Regardless of where we are in the world, in the big city or way out in the country-side where your mailbox is an hour drive from your home – if we’ve got internet we can find kindred spirits who enjoy making things too. I am sure you already know this; maybe you’ve experienced this and have become friends with some of the crafters and makers whose blogs you read. It’s quite amazing!

Image credits: Carina’s Craftblog & dreamfollow

These friends can really inspire you and your crafting projects. And you can do things together, even if you are on opposite sides of the globe. Recently, I co-hosted a craftalong with a bunch of lovely crafty ladies that was so much fun. As is the case with a lot of fun things, it came to be ‘by accident’ when an innocent email conversation turned into “let’s do a craftalong and get lots of other people to join in too!”

Which we did – and I can only recommend it. There’s a lot of fun to be had when you share a project with someone else. Different points of view which will inspire you and move your own crafting along.

I have always thought it would be so fun to give a group of crafters and artists a theme or a photograph and ask each of them to interpret it in their own way. I think the craftalong works exactly in that way. And I really do, as you know, get a huge kick out of seeing how others approach a project and add bits and pieces from their own muses.

[Source: Pam]

Our craftalong was all about making things inspired by the Dala Horse, and we called it a ‘craftalong’ because it was open to any type of crafting. Some collaborative crafting revolves around just one craft, so you may have heard terms such as stitchalong or crochetalong, but they are all basically the same thing: a group of people who work on a common project or theme and then share their progress, either on their blogs or Flickr or other places on the internet.

Image credits: Gingerbread Snowflakes & Golden Lilly Crafts

One of the best parts of being in a craftalong was the exposure to the constant enthusiasm of the other organizers, and then the joiners.

[Source: Hanna]

I really recommend organising, or just participating in, a craftalong of some sort, it’s really inspiring. You will discover new people who are making similar things to you – or maybe completely different things and that might actually be the most inspiring thing of all: seeing the different ways people interprete a particular theme.

It’s also just so much fun to be a part of an online community where people take the time out of their busy schedules to participate in something like this – such a great way to meet new, creative and fun people!

[Source: Kathryn]

Maybe you’re still physically working on the crafting alone, but being part of a craftalong like this will make you feel like you are part of a bigger picture; that what you’re making is important to others. It may also make you feel less likely to give up on your crafting endeavours, because you’re accountable to more than just yourself. You will be spurred on to keep at it! And you might just pick up a few new crafty friends as well…!

{ 4 comments }

Guest blogger series | Patchwork placemats

by contributor on October 6, 2011

in Guest blog series2 2011, Home+Decor

Di has been blogging at Clementine’s Shoes for quite some time. She started in 2004, and one husband, two children, and one house extension later, she’s still at it, writing about sewing, knitting and trying to lead a more sustainable life. You can also find her pinning all manner of inspirations at Pinterest. 

Whip up has been a regular source of inspiration for me for quite some time. Kathreen and her contributors gather together so many things to look at, links to such a variety of sites and ideas to explore. For me, blogging has always been about finding and sharing creative inspiration with others, so to be contributing here today is wonderful opportunity.

I’d like to share a recent project that has been all about gathering and consolidating: patchwork placemats for our family dinner table. As a young family of four, we always sit down at the dinner table together, and I felt we needed something to adorn our (easy clean) vinyl covered table, something to celebrate coming together to eat and to help instil some more grown up meal time manners (although we’ll be ignoring what the baby gets up to with her food for a few more years I know).

Being in a thrifty, make-do mood, I wanted to work from my fabric stash. It’s not a huge stash, but the box that holds my cotton prints is crammed to bursting. When I pulled the box out and started to muse on my options, I initially struggled. The colours and prints just didn’t seem to jump out as being every day dinner table companions – too dull, too precious to get smeared with tomato sauce, too matchy-matchy, not matchy enough, too small. So I had to play, and draw on some of the patchwork inspiration I’d been pinning, particularly the colourful patchwork of Rita of Red Pepper Quilts and anything featuring varied collections of scraps. I’ve always been drawn to scrap based patchwork, patchwork with a variety of prints and colours within an overall theme, tied together by some kind of overall structure or order.

For this project, I decided to work with strips. Easy to cut, easy to piece, easy to use up little scraps of favourite prints. Using dots as a unifying motif, I gathered all the spotted fabrics I had, weeded out a few colours that didn’t sit right, and cut a pile of 5cm (2 inch) and 10cm (4 inch) strips. I sewed them together end to end, selecting the pieces fairly randomly, to make one long strip for each width. I cut these into 45cm (18 inch) long pieces, and started to play with layouts. Each placement is made from five narrower strips and one wider strip, selected so that they have a gentle balanced disorder. Not too matchy, not too off balance, just comfortably varied.

I sewed them together with 5mm (1/4 inch) seams (I took time to press all the seams open to avoid big lumps in the finished placemats). I backed the tops with plain calico, also sewn with a 5mm (1/4 inch) seam so that the edge strips are the same finished size, and turned out through a 10cm (4 inch) opening.  After a thorough pressing, including pressing the opening edges in, I top stitched in a neutral thread 2mm (1/8 inch) from the edge, thereby closing the opening and giving a neat finished edge all round.

I was too lazy (or perhaps just too eager to put them to use) to bother with any additional quilting, although you could do if you wanted to. They have been in daily use since completion, for breakfast lunch and dinner for our family and visitors. Despite a slight hiccup (I hadn’t prewashed the calico, which shrank dramatically on the first wash, requiring unpicking and new backings) they have been a huge success. They’ve made a great addition to our 4 year old’s table setting ritual, a source of dinner conversation (who has more of the orange multi-coloured spots tonight?), and creatively satisfying too.

{ 1 comment }

Guest blogger series | A quilting challenge

by contributor on October 5, 2011

in Community, Guest blog series2 2011

Kelley has been addicted to quilting for 14 years and absolutely loves piecing and quilting by hand. She lives and works in Northeast Ohio with her wonderful husband and two spunky kids. You can visit her at her blog where she podcasts and records her quilting adventures.


It all started with my owl quilt. I made it for a woman in my guild who had challenged us each to make a child-size quilt for a local charity. Unfortunately through a series of misunderstandings, which were totally on my part, I thought that I had missed the deadline to turn it over. I still wanted it to remain in the spirit of giving so I re-dedicated my owl to a cause down under that benefited victims of the floods in Queensland. Later I learned that in fact the deadline had not passed. I also learned that another woman in my guild had announced that she was rising to the challenge by making a kid-size quilt per week instead of just one for the year. This made a definite impression on me. It was such an impression that I woke up in the night thinking about it. (Also, while I still felt terrific about what I did with the quilt I felt pretty bad about flubbing the challenge.)

Now I am a working mom and besides spending my spare time on quilting I take care of all after-school events and practices, supervise homework and reading time, keep the house (kind of) clean, make meals, pay the bills, etc. I’m a pretty busy gal, as most moms are. I manage to complete maybe two quilts a year. But this stuck in my head and I woke up that night excited with an idea. I couldn’t make a quilt every week, or even every month. But could I make one every other month? Since it was already February I decided for the rest of the year I would challenge myself to complete a kid-size quilt every other month. So five quilts in ten months.

To make my challenge more interesting and because I have a quilting blog, I further decided that my quilts would be documented on the blog and must be fun, interesting, and original. No nine-patches allowed! I have been writing up tutorial-style instructions for how I made each quilt, complete with photos, templates, and yardage requirements.

So far I have reached my goal. I haven’t always delivered exactly on time but I’ve delivered. I have two of my five quilts completed – Rainbows from the Heart and Pinwheels Aplenty.

It has been enormously satisfying to make these quilts. As a quilter I feel like I’m scratching every itch: buying new fun fabrics; using up stash fabric; knocking out something fast; trying things I haven’t tried and bringing my vision to life in fabric. But by far the best thing is the feeling that maybe these quilts will make a difference for a child somewhere. These quilts aren’t going to solve world problems. But they are going to (hopefully) give a hug to the heart of a little someone that needs it.

{ 1 comment }

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