My RoundTuit

A bit of a halt to the creative flow . . .

But there’s a really good distraction reason . . . 🙄

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Somewhere along the way in the last few months, I played with some beads. I can honestly say I don’t even remember when I squeezed these little gems in, except to say that they were quite separate and both of them took me way less time than I expected them to!

As usual – these were just little throw-away non-projects. Just little have-a-go type of things, so not many photos were taken 🙄 (must learn to take photos NO MATTER WHAT!!!).

Anyways . . . The ring is from a pattern called “Chaos Ring” by Nathalie Seyler that I have in a PDF form, and I cannot find it ANYWHERE to link to it and give this lady the credit she is due. So if anyone has heard of her and where she hangs out – please let me know and I’ll correct this immediately.

It is REAL cute!

As you can see, the ring is made up of beaded circles. The beauty of a ring like this, is that it fits whichever finger you feel like wearing it on, and it’s forgiving if it’s one of those hot sticky summer days on which everything swells! It also means it’s an easy ring to give as a gift – it’s not adjustable, it just fits a variety of sizes.

And as for the top of the ring – it’s just a mad riot of colour! Made of loops and loops and loops of coloured seed beads that just bust out all over the top of the ring, they add a bright, funky contrast to the darker ring band.

Then I created this bangle. It’s a stitch of some sort that works up really quickly, and once again I’m gutted that I didn’t keep tabs on the designer/pattern-maker for this one because:

I don’t have any future reference to make this again

I don’t have a link to refer you good people on to ☹️ and

I can’t give a fabulous designer/pattern-maker credit for a great design.

I can’t even remember the name of the blog article, or name that the designer called the piece. I do remember that there was actually a “bead” that the designer had created by stitching a further layer of beads over the top of the “bangle”.  That was a step too far for my lack of experience, so I just left it as it was. I reckon it looks pretty awesome like this don’t you?

The advantage of having a flexible bangle like this – it goes over your wrist a lot more easily than a solid, inflexible one. This one is also a little bit stretchy too. And, of course, this one matches my chaos ring perfectly!! If you’re interested in one or both – just click the link to find them on my Etsy Store 😊

By the way, in case you haven’t already, did you know you can: Follow my blog with Bloglovin?

So – a few months back I introduced you to one of my new favourite products  – Claytastic in this post. Since then I have been trawling eBay for fondant moulds like the feather one I featured in that post. Thank goodness for the all of the cooking and baking shows on tv that have made working with fondant so popular, and fondant moulds so cheap 🍰 🍮 🎂

The theory behind all of this madness is to provide myself with supplies for my mixed media play – which ideally would feature all sorts of “found objects” and other ephemera – if I could ever find the little bits and pieces at the rate at which I’d like to devour it.  I could buy those little packets of metal cogs and other bits and bobs of steampunkery – but I simply can’t afford to!

One of the many advantages of mass producing your own “found objects” using Claytastic and moulds is that the end product is super light, flexible, paintable, and using them on canvases doesn’t add the huge weight that the metal equivalents do (much less likely to pull a hook out of a wall).

So – back to the moulds, I have been amassing a few of them, and each new arrival has spurred a Claytastic flurry. The flowers are so detailed that the photos I’ve included just can’t do them justice! Layers and layers of petals, and because the silicon is so flexible you can manipulate the clay into every tiny nook and cranny of the mould. I have heard it told that you can use these silicon moulds in the oven with polymer clay – I’ve been a bit reluctant to try this myself, because I don’t really want to start snorting silicon fumes and some parts of these moulds seem really thin. If you’ve tried it I’d love to hear how you went?

The only trouble I’ve had making these gorgeous bits and bobs is having the patience to leave the larger ones in the moulds for long enough for them to cure properly so that I don’t mess them up trying to extricate them – they really do need a little longer than just overnight 😳!

Enjoy the gallery . . .

And I’ve also been hard at work trying to perfect the pattern for the tote in my last post and adding a shoulder strap version to the mix.

So here are the newer versions of the tote bag:

These three are now available for purchase on my Etsy Store. I still haven’t quite got the pattern as shiny as I’d like it, so I’m still polishing that one.

Now you may remember back a month or two ago, I posted about my remarkable restraint when faced with Caron Cakes in my local craft store? There was then a bit of an update about the fate of that particular Caron Cake. Well (fanfare please . . .) here’s the 🎉🎊 finished product 🎊🎉

I have to say that I’m rather a bit fond of the colours of this one. I was a little disappointed to discover that the Caron Cakes move from one colour to another quite abruptly – the Bouvardia that I mentioned in this post phases from one colour to the next beautifully (unless you come across one of the rather clumsy joins mid-skein), in fact I have to say all of the variegated yarn that I have used is the same (right down to the clumsy joins mid-skein)

Now I have a question for you about patterns. For those of you who scour the internet for patterns as I do – how do you use them? Do you print them out so you can cross off the bits that you’ve done as you go? Or do you stick a post-it note on the screen of your iPad to indicate the row you’re up to? I have a fabulous app called Evernote that I dump all of my patterns into – which then allows me to add a checkbox to the pattern wherever I need to in order to keep track of my progress as I go along.

So my actual question? If you could have a pattern in PDF form that had tickable check boxes (tickable on the screen) would that be of use to you? I’m fairly certain that it’s possible, and am looking into how to get it done for my patterns. Wish me luck 🍀

My first design (and how it’s different from other tote bags)

Single use plastic bags are on their way out in our state, and our local pharmacy has a middle-sized one that is great for those in-between loads. So I thought that before it disappeared – I’d better design myself a flexi-but-sturdy crochet version. I wanted it to have a really sturdy base and handles so I can load it up with things that shouldn’t fit, and of course – if you’re going to load up…

Just as an example – here’s a photo of the travel cups that survived our latest cupboard cull.

#NoHoardingHere

Well back in late 2016, as I was surfing kickstarter, I came across a solution to my issue.

The guys and gals at Pokito invented a fabulous travel cup that folds up! So there’s actually room in your handbag or glovebox for one or two to have a permanent home. (Or even a pocket – see graphic below).

So I signed up for two of these beauties. (Just so you know, I purchased these on my own dime – Pokito did not provide these to me!)

Kickstarter is not for the instant-gratification types (see my little blurb about Kickstarter below). You have to wait through several processes and just hang on the updates until you finally get the one that says “we’re shipping”!!  My smart little fold-up cups arrived in June of this year and they are brilliant! I keep one in the car – and the other in the kitchen (usually in the dishwasher between car trips). No matter which size you have the Pokito folded to – it fits in our car cup-holders.

Now, when I started to make my cup cozies, I never thought to put them together with my Pokitos. But check this out – they go so well!!

      They even work as a little carrying case! As you can see below, it fits the cup no matter which size you have it folded out to. And it wraps right around the cup when closed to keep the two together.

    Folded to Espresso

Expanded to Grande

    Pokito and cup cozy both folded “flat”

Here’s your cute little Pokito Pouch

All snugged up and ready to go

    Fully Extended and snugged up in its cozy.

So – Pokito have now hit the internet with a fantastic site where you can read their story, purchase your own Pokito (don’t forget to buy it a cozy too), and find out how to care for it. You can also see how it’s doing its part to save our environment from the crazy amounts of paper and polystyrene cups that fill up landfills every year.

        The way Kickstarter works – you sign up to “back” a project. If the project reaches the required amount of pledged funds, the backers get charged and the project receives the funding, and they go ahead and (in this particular case) take the product from concept to manufacture. They then send out the rewards that the backers have signed up for which is usually one or more of the product they’ve manufactured. This is a really simplistic example of how Kickstarter works – there are many other types of kickstarters, for films, books, if you can imagine it it’s probably on Kickstarter already – if not? Then sign up! You’ve probably got yourself a unique idea!                                                Back

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Hi, my name is Teresa, and I am only a few steps away from being a hoarder.  Well, in the case of craft supplies at any rate. I was having a hunt through my craft area in search of paperclips. I have a large document to post (yes – snail mail!! Who does that?) And it really needs to be clipped into sections prior to enveloping. So – where else would you look in a house like mine, than the craft…

I am fairly well addicted to coffee – and I love a skinny latté if I’m out somewhere, but I’ll always have to get it in a takeaway cup because it takes me so long to drink it. (In my defence – I will get it in a reusable travel cup if there’s one available). But I really miss the handle (whatever happened to those dodgy little paper handles they used to put on disposable cups in the good old days?) . . .

So I came up with this . . . a removable cup cozy with a handle! I find it is really useful in a number of ways.

Because I have a bit of nerve damage here and there – I often find that my coffee cup is too hot for me to hold onto for long. (And holding it around the lid isn’t really an option, it doesn’t really take much effort to crack or loosen those lids and then your coffee’s on the floor 😢) My cup cozy comes in handy here because I don’t have to feel like my fingertips are being burned through various skin layers.

Just FYI – it’s also great for those freezing cold frappés and smoothies for the same reason. (Pins and needles make no distinction between hot and cold – they both just hurt 😰) And they’ll catch the sweat off your cold cup too! No more puddles in your cup holder.

And on those days when your coffee is just too heavy to hold with your fingers – that’s where the handle comes into it’s own. Whether you’re a handle holder or mug hugger, the handle is tough enough to work both ways.

So has my shameless plug for my own product sold you yet? I have them for sale here in my Etsy Store. What do you think – should I hit up the Sharks for some mass-production funds?

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  Then I realised that if I rolled the curls up really tightly, they kind of look like flowers. I had a bit of a fiddle around with how that might work (sorry – no pictures. I had no idea I was going to like this so much!!) I still hadn’t quite finished off this ball of yarn so I hit my pattern stash again and found this one that I’ve used before for the full yummy wrist warmers. This time though, I wanted to have a “cuff” that would slip over a hand and sit on the wrist nicely – I thought the ribs in this pattern would create just the right amount of stretch.

The crocheted “cuff”

As it turns out – I had just exactly the right amount of yarn left to create the cuff and I just carried on with beginning the cuff from the end of the freeform and crocheted the ends of the cuff together when I had just about finished the yarn (I hate weaving in ends 😱).

Next step – attaching the freeform to the cuff so that it holds the shape I wanted: So I rolled each curly part up nice and tight, then stabbed through it with a yarn needle a couple of times then moved on to the next bit. (Again – sorry, no photos of the process).

So what do you think of the end result? I’m calling it a crochet corsage.

  Oh – and the Hideaway Hooded Scarf? Yeah, I didn’t love it so much. I definitely think I’d like to have another go with the yarn the designer intended!

Profile view of the hooded scarf. I’ve double-wrapped the cowl part around my neck. I love the yarn – and the pattern, but not together methinks.

To frog or not to frog, that is the question.

Life lessons, and the crochet that kept me ticking along . . .

Well these last couple of months have been an experience. Since my last post, I have discovered that not taking care of your teeth and gums can lead to a cerebral abscess. Yup – cerebral – as in brain. When I got the first phone call from the Doctor, it was either a tumour or an abscess, luckily my DH has a little bit of a flair for the unusual – so the tumour possibility never really entered my…

I am fascinated with colourful things! Give me bright, bold colours any day of the week and I’m just in love. When my local Spotlight store started to stock an amazing yarn called “Bouvardia” – I went a little nuts and bought up large (yes, that’s my initial purchase in the picture – sadly, not my last!). (She who dies with the biggest stash wins, right???)

While I love colour – there is nothing worse in my crafting life, than changing yarn colour mid-project! I hate all that faffing around with tying in a new colour, weaving in ends, etc etc etc. So discovering variegated yarns was like hearing about sliced bread for the first time. Changing colours without the hassle – Oh Yeah!

And this Bouvardia range of yarns comes in some of the most amazing colour mixes – Fluoresence (that I don’t appear to have captured in the photo above) goes from a neon/acid/lime green to a brilliant dark purple with a few other variants in between. Some of the colours are loud and proud like the afore-mentioned. Others are subtle – almost neutral like Embers, which flows from lightest grey (almost white) through a light brown range to a wine/faded red sort of colour – Embers was a later addition to the range which didn’t make the photo either.

Annoyingly – Spotlight seem to keep finding new additions to this range – the latest that I’ve discovered is Ocean Blues – which I’ve had in my stash now for a few months, but have finally made use of a ball or two!

       These are fairly generous skeins – I’m not sure what kind of rating they’d get as far as yarn weight and ply is concerned, but the 100g (3.5oz) stretches out to approximately 180m (197 yards). I made a cowl using a “single skein” pattern from the amazing Tamara Kelly over at moogly.com, doubled the width of it and still had some of the skein left over!

So just what have I been doing with this lovely stuff? Here’s the cowl I made using this pattern that I mentioned earlier:

    And here are a couple of beanies I have made using this pattern from the lovely Lauren over at Daisy Cottage Designs. I adapted her pattern a bit to create the beanie that didn’t have the hole for the messy bun.

                            Here’s another couple of previous makes in this yummy, scrummy yarn. Believe it or not, both the infinity scarf and the beanie pictured below are both made from the “Sunspot” colour – this stuff is just amazing, and a fantastic way to brighten up your winter if you’re in the chilly Southern Hemisphere as I am.

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Sweet Dreams Part Two

So now we’re all dry, fixed and you’re just dying to know how I made those awesome letters that spell out S-w-e-e-t-D-r-e-a-m-s aren’t you?? (If you missed Part One you can find it here)

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Sweet Dreams . . .

I’ve been playing with mixed media again. I always get really inspired after attending a craft show – so of course I want to put/use all of my new toys in one hit! So just for a change I remembered to take photos almost all the way through the process! If you’d like to see how/what I did – read on . . . (more…)