As of 4/25/08 1:42 p.m. EST all swap slots have been taken. But don’t despair, we’ll have another one soon.

FYI, as of this morning there are three more slots left for the softie swap.

Some more tutorials:

Gecko Girl’s Cherry Amigurumi

Jhoanna’s very cute Ruby Doll

Darncat’s Pandy Bear

Announcing another Crafty Daisies Swap. After our successful Summer, Tea Towel, and Bookmark swaps, we continue with our tradition and introduce the Softie Swap. For this swap you are invited to fashion a softie. This can be an animal, a doll, or an item; you can knit it, sew it, crochet it, or felt it, in short it’s up to you.

Sign Up

To enter, email your full name, web or blog address (if you have one), shipping information, and whether you would ship internationally to craftydaisies@gmail.com.

Dates

The sign up closes on Wednesday, April 30th and is limited to the first 20 emails we receive. On May 1st we will notify you of your swap partner. Your softie has to be mailed by May 21st.

Important

If you sign up you must complete the swap or you will not be eligible for participation in future swaps. If you are unable to send your softie by May 21st, for whatever reason, you must contact your swap partner and the swap admin (Simone) as soon as possible. Please be mindful that this needs to be reciprocal - if you sign up, please follow through. Please note however, we at Crafty Daisies will not be responsible for items not shipped.

Inspiration

For ideas of what you might want to make, check out these sites:

• Softies Central, a blog devoted to softies
• Softies, of course there has to be a Flickr group for this sort of stuff

For tutorials follow these links:

• A scotty dog
• A teapot
• A Super Sock Pig
• A Sea Nettle

The Softie Flickr group also has a tutorial discussion thread.

Let the Swap Begin!

Lately, I’ve been lurking on German crafting blogs; maybe a little homesick, looking for some inspiration for the next great project. In my browsing I was impressed by the number of multi-lingual blogs out there offering glimpses into someone’s life who strickt, tricot, or het breien instead of knits.

Here is a very abbreviated list of some of the blogs I came across; there are many countries, cultures, and languages that will not be included and I apologize to anyone I left out. If you have other suggestions please add them in your comments. I think it would be exciting for all of us to learn about fellow crafters around the globe.

Germany

Okay, Simone started it all for me so she will be the first one in the line-up. I think I discovered her through a comment she left. She writes her blog www.seemownay.de in German and English and shares her family life and crafting explorations. She is especially known for her clever geese.

Next is Katharina. She recently started blogging in English as well as German and maintains a blog called Nähsucht (Sewing Addiction). She loves fabric. You have to check out her awesome Amy Butler Flower Bag.

Finland

Hanne writes in Finnish and English on Väkerrellen. Her motto is the “Thinner the Yarn, better the Knit.” Sadly, Wordpress recently ate her older posts, but you can check out her amazing yarn stash if you follow her links to her Flickr profile. (Note to self: always back up.)

Belgium

Isabel lives in Belgium and blogs at Tarte Tatin in: Dutch, French and English! She has great pictures of her projects, purchases, and just sundries around her house.

England

Florence blogs at Flossie Teacakes about her musings, projects, the Zebra Girl and Dinosaur-Boy. Reading her blog always makes me want to make myself a nice cup of tea to sip while I accompany her on her day.

Portugal

Manuela has this wonderful blog at Macati. She writes in Portuguese and English about her crafts, swaps, You Tube finds and other things that move her.

Australia

Di has been blogging at Clementine’s Shoes since September 2, 2004. How’s that for endurance. She’s a prolific knitter and seamstress and has some fun patterns to share. Right now she’s in the middle of a bathroom renovation project.

I hope you enjoyed this roundup. Maybe you rediscovered some old favorites or found some new talented people you’d like to read about. And please, if you have links to other international blogs share them with us.

Remember Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder? While I was making this afghan I was reminded of all the craft projects described in that book. I thought that this would be the sort of thing that Laura’s mother would put together for her girls as a Christmas present (except it wouldn’t be cashmere, and the sweaters wouldn’t have originated in China, and [fill in the blank]).

So, these are the steps I followed to put the blanket together:

Materials

• 3 sweaters — The final product measured 42″ x 52 1/2″. You could felt the sweaters, but I wanted to maintain the light, airy feel of the original knit.
• Bias tape or scrap fabric to make your own tape
• 8 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ template to cut out the squares. (Guess why it’s that size :))
• Lots of thread (zigzagging takes way more thread than I had anticipated)

Step One

Cut out 30 squares. I wanted to show off some of the details of the sweaters. Consequently, I included side seams, shoulder seams, ribbing, and pockets in the squares.

Also, don’t forget that the “wrong” side may end up being the “right side.

Step Two

Lay out your design.

Step Three

Sew. Using a zigzag stitch at the widest setting, sew together strips of 6 squares each abutting the edges. You could also overlap the edges, whatever technique you prefer.

Next, put the 5 strips together by first joining the “intersections” of the squares and then sewing down the length of the strip. You now have a 5 x 6 square blanket.

Step Four

Finish the edges. Originally, I intended to blanket stitch around the whole thing. Then I watched Amy Karol’s Bias Tape tutorial, read about this nifty tool on Alicia Paulson’s blog Posie gets Cozy and decided to make my own tape.

This is a 1/2″ tape maker. They come in different sizes, but this is the only one they had at my corner store. You cut up your fabric to the requisite width, feed it through the tape maker and it comes out perfectly folded on the other side. You then fold the tape in half and iron it flat.

Next, you open up your store bought or home made tape (see Amy’s tutorial for the finer points of sewing on store bought tape) and align the edge of the tape to the edge of the blanket. Sew along the line created by the fold closest to the edge.

For instructions on how to create mitered corners, follow Alicia’s tutorial.

Once you’ve attached the binding to the edge, flip the binding over to the other side and top stitch alongside the folded edge.

That’s it.

You can add an appliqué or two if you wish or just leave it as it is.

I’ve set up a Flickr group where you can share your creations at www.flickr.com/groups/sweaterblankets/.

Here are a couple of projects and works-in-progress currently pending at my household:

Cashmere Sweater Blanket

This is for my grandmother for her 90th birthday. Her birthday is on March 31th. Do you think I can finish and ship it by then?

Stenciled Baby Top

I’ve been wanting to follow Joy’s stenciling instructions for a year now. Here’s the perfect project: a tiny little shirt for my friend Vanessa who is due in April.

My daughter became inspired by the whole process, although she deemed the color choices lacking, she did manage to pull together a cool design.

Another Vest

There was a time when I actually finished an entire adult sweater, usually for the boy friend de jour. Then I started making children’s sweaters, again with collars and full length sleeves. Now I can’t even be bothered to start on sleeves and Elizabeth did not want a collar, which leaves me with another vest.

Elizabeth picked the colors and decided she liked stripes. I thought stripes alone were boring and went through some knitting books to try some new patterns. Now she has a stripy sampler just in time for spring.

So, what are you working on?

I love hardware stores! I like all the little doodads and tools and whatnots you never knew existed. So here is my homage to the humble hardware store, a wrapped washer.

Materials

For this pendant you need the following materials:

• 18 gage copper wire
• 3/4″ washer
• wire cutters
• round nose pliers
• chain nose pliers
• ruler

Instructions

1. Cut four pieces of 5 3/4″ long wire and two pieces of 4″ long wire. Use a soft cloth to straighten the wire.

 



2. Bundle three of the longer wires together and wrap the one remaining longer wire four times around the center of the bundle.



3. Wrap each shorter wire three times about a 3/4″ to the left and the right of the bundle’s center wrap.



4. Here’s the tricky part: center the washer on top of the center wrap and fit the wire bundle against the washer.
5. Then secure the washer as follows: use the round nose pliers and place them in between the bottom center and the side wraps. Coax one strand of wire out of the bundle and pull it toward the center to form a sort of cage that will prevent the washer from falling out. Repeat on the other side and the back of the pendant. You should have two pulled-out strands on the front and two on the back of the pendant.



6. Okay, don’t be intimidated by this picture! You’re almost there. Now on the top of the pendant, from the left and the right side, take a center wire from the bundle and tightly twist one wire around the other three times. Snip off the end of the wrapping wire only, not the stem wire.
7. With the remaining stem wire shape a wrapped loop. Use the chain nose pliers to form a 90 degree angle right above the wrapped stem.



Insert the tip of the round nose pliers in the bend, bring the wire over the top of the pliers, and shape a loop. Reposition the pliers to form a complete loop and wrap the wire around the bottom of the pliers. Using the chain nose pliers, hold the loop with your dominant hand and wrap the wire around the stem covering the end of the previously snipped off wire. (If you’re hopelessly lost, refer to Wigjig’s wrapped loop instructions.)



8. To finish off the remaining wires, use the round nose pliers and make a small loop with one of the wire ends. Continue shaping a spiral around the loop. Once the spiral is complete, press it against the center of the washer using the chain nose pliers. Repeat this with the other wires. Use your imagination to create shapes other than spirals.

Instead of a pendant you could also fashion some earrings. Here is the pair I completed for my 99 Earrings project.

Yes, Easter is upon us and with it our family tradition of dyeing eggs to decorate the house. We generally use blown out eggs.

My mother hangs them in the Forsythia trees in her garden. Eggs are quite hardy. On a recent visit last year’s eggs were still swaying in the breeze. I like to incorporate them into a wreath and hang the wreath on our front door.

This year, I wanted to try something new, so here we go:

Marbleized Eggs

Initially, I wanted to use the float-egg-on-glue-covered-with-paint method to marbleize the eggs. If someone is successful with that project, please let me know. Instead I used two different techniques:

Method 1: Nail Polish and Water

The pink and white egg was created with nail polish and water.

Fill a bowl with a couple of inches of water and add a few drops of nail polish on the water. The polish will swim on the surface and create a thin film.

String the blown out egg on a wire and carefully skim the egg over the surface. The polish film will cling to the egg and create this marbleized pattern.

Method 2: Egg Dye, Oil, and Water

This was easy. The yellow and purple egg acquired its shading with this method. First we dyed our usual batch of eggs with commercial Easter egg dye. This particular egg became a nice shade of yellow. When we were done, I added a tablespoon of vegetable oil to the purple dye and rolled the yellow egg around in that concoction. The oil prevented the dye from clinging to the egg creating a marbled pattern.

Papermache Eggs

For these eggs we used white glue and tissue paper for the yellow chick egg and newspaper for the wanna-be avantgarde egg.

Tear up your paper into specific shapes like my daughter did to create the chick, or just little pieces like I did with the newspaper.

Use your brush to apply a little glue to the egg. Position your paper on the egg and then brush glue on top of the paper. Continue until the egg is covered to your liking.

Once your egg is done, you can rest it on some pins pushed into the egg carton to dry.

How do you like to decorate your eggs?

When I was in elementary school my mother would extend the life of my jeans with a piece of jacquard trim. As an eight-year old I hated it, but now in the age of craft and retro design what could be cooler than a personalized pair of pants.

So, when my daughter began to outgrow her much loved khakis I began my hunt for some trim. Luckily our local notions store had a stack of it. I decided on three different kinds and bought a yard of each. The trim should be at least two inches wide to get a noticeable extension of length. To ensure my daughter’s buy-in, she decided which trim would go with which pants and we were on our way.

To attach the trim, you measure the perimeter of the leg bottoms and add two inches to that number. In my case the perimeter measured 13 6/8″ plus 2″ equals 15 6/8″. Cut two pieces of trim to this length.

To clean up the cut edges, fold over a half inch at each end and zigzag stitch across the width of the trim.

Then attach the trim along the line of the bottom leg hem allowing for an inch of overlap at the inner leg seam.

Once you’ve come full circle, sew together the overlapping ends of the trim.

Finish with a few stitches across the bottom of the trim overlap.

Should you have some leftover trim as we did, you can fashion a stylish and quick headband by attaching 1 inch wide braided elastic to each end of the trim.

At the beginning of the year, I set myself a goal of making 99 different pair of earrings this year. Here is Pair No. 3. Admittedly, progress has been a little slow lately, but it is only February. So in the spirit of the season here are the origami hearts.

To make them use your favorite origami heart folding technique and make four hearts. These were folded out of 5 x 5 cm paper scraps. Glue two hearts together, which leaves you with one pair. You can varnish the hearts to make them more sturdy. To suspend them, pierce the heart (very dramatic) with a pin and ease a jump ring through the hole. From there on out it’s up to your creativity: turn them into earrings, make a bunch for a charm bracelet, or skip the piercing and glue a pin back to the heart.

If you want to follow my progress with this endeavor, here is the 99Earrings project blog.

. . . a.k.a. Stencils

I bought a set of these stencils for a beach bag project and have gotten quite a bit of use out of them. Two years ago, we rented a beach house with two other families. In anticipation of the toys that would soon be all over the rental, I wrote each child’s name on a tote bag using the stencils and fabric markers hoping that it would make it easier to organize their stuff.

The organizational aspect of that project was a total failure, but the kids were excited about seeing their name “in print.”

Recently, I used the stencils for a treasure box a la Amy Karol for a special girl’s birthday present.

The letters are cut out of scrapbook paper, glued onto the box, and covered with several layers of varnish.

And here, finally a work-in-progress. When I visited my parents in Hamburg last summer, I saw all these army surplus canvas bags with lettering at different craft markets.

With my handy-dandy stencil set I traced a certain little girl’s name on fusible web, ironed it on some scrap fabric and fused the letters onto the bag. Now they just need some blanket stitching and other decorations and Elizabeth’s handful of Pokemons will have a fashionable and comfortable mode of transportation to Grandmother’s house.