I found a tutorial featured over on Craftzine this morning that shows how to take a ratty paperback book and turn it into a really nice hardcover book. I think I’ll try it on a particularly sad copy of Watership Down that I’ve been reading to pieces since I was seven. All it takes is some stiff cardboard, fabric and a glue stick… too easy!

The more time I spend behind some sort of desk, the more time I have to dream up and research new crafty ventures. So, in appreciation of all the crafters who put up free tutorials and how-to’s on the internet, I’m going to start posting neat projects that I find so that you can marvel at all of the wonderful things we can make along with with me!

The First Tutorial -Knit Apple Cozy-

Once in a while, I’ll pop an apple into my bag and tote it around with me for a few days before I remember that it’s in there. By then the apple has been bruised, punctured and generally mauled. I still eat them, or feed them to Linus however I think it would be just dandy to slip them into a little knit apple jacket (say the words “apple jacket” and try to keep the smile on your face… bet you can’t!). I did a little poking around the grand thing we call the internets and found an etsy shop, Handamade that sells them and a free tutorial on how to make them over at the Vegan Lunchbox. I haven’t had a chance to make one yet but the tutorial looks pretty accurate and I’d love to see how the wee jacket turns out if anyone decides to knit one up!

Photo from Handamade

Apple Cozy

from Vegan Lunchbox

Materials:
100% cotton 4-ply worsted weight yarn, such as Sugar’n Cream or Lion
Brand Kitchen Cotton: one ball main color and a small amount of
contrasting color for the leaf.
One set of 4 double-pointed needles in size 7 (4.5 mm) or size to
obtain gauge.
Size H crochet hook.
One ½-inch (15 mm) button.
Gauge:
20 sts = 4 inches (10 cm) in stockinette
Size:
Designed to fit around a small (medium, large) apple.
Abbreviations:
K1: knit.
P1: purl.
M1: insert the working needle from front to back under the
horizontal strand between the stitch just worked and the next stitch;
place this strand on the holding needle and knit the resulting loop
through the back to make a new stitch.
K1f&b: knit one stitch through the front and back, making 2
stitches.
P2tog: purl two stitches together, making 1 stitch.
K2tog: knit two stitches together, making 1 stitch.
Sl1: slip one stitch knitwise onto the working needle without knitting.
PSSO: pass the slipped stitch over the next stitch.
Directions:
Cast on 9 (12, 12) stitches in main color. Divide evenly onto three needles
(3 (4, 4) stitches on each needle). Join in the round.
Round 1: Knit all stitches.
Round 2: On each needle, K1, M1, knit to last stitch, M1, K1.
Round 3: Knit all stitches.
Repeat these two rounds, increasing every other round and maintaining
stockinette stitch (knit all stitches) until you have 42 (48, 54) stitches total
(14 (16, 18) stitches on each needle).
Knit 2 (3, 4) rounds even.
Now it’s time to stop knitting in the round. Instead, turn the work and begin
knitting back and forth and decreasing:
Row 1 (wrong side): On each needle, P2tog, purl to end.
Row 2 (right side): On each needle, K2tog, knit to end.
Repeat these two rows until you have 15 stitches left (5 on each needle).
Cast off.
Make the Leaf:
Cast on 3 stitches in contrasting color.
Row 1 (right side): K all stitches.
Row 2 (wrong side): P all stitches.
Row 3: K1f&b, K1, K1f&b (5 stitches).
Row 4 – 6: P all stitches on wrong side, K on right side.
Row 7: K2tog, K1, K2tog.
Row 8: P all stitches.
Row 9: Sl1, K2tog, PSSO. Break yarn and BO final stitch.
Finishing:
Thread the tail yarn and use it to cinch up the bottom 12 stitches. Attach
the button near the top of the apple at one side of the opening. Use the
crochet hook to crochet a 10 (12, 12) st. single-chain loop and attach it
opposite the button. Attach the leaf along the top border. Weave in all
ends.
Pear Variation:
To make a Pear Cozy, follow the instructions above to the point where you
have 15 stitches left (5 on each needle). Add 4 (5, 6) extra rows of
stockinette (knit on the right side, purl on the wrong side). Cast off. Finish
as for apple.

I’ve been wracking my brains, trying to come up with an easy, fun and social dorm activity that everyone can do AND that results in a product that will leave the common spaces much, much prettier than they are right now. They’re rather barren and no fun to hang out in. Then I read about how to do batik with kids. Traditionally, batik is a method of dying fabric that utilizes hot wax on fabric to create a design that remains white once the fabric is dyed and the wax is removed. It’s a beautiful technique but hard to do because of the hot wax, hot dye and large amount of time and skill that is required…

Until you replace hot wax with washable Elmer’s glue and dye with watered down acrylic paint. Then it’s a fast, easy and immensely teachable technique! I got the idea from Craftzine who got the idea from the blog This Artist Woman. I got enough materials for everyone in the dorm (21 people) to make two murals, one per floor. At less than $20 this wound up being a really easy and inexpensive way to get everyone together. Now, we haven’t done it yet but I did do my own test swatch so that I have something to show everybody when we do start to roll up our sleeves and get cracking. This is the example of batik on Craftzine that caught my eye in the first place:

This is a really pretty example. All of the white lines were created by drawing that pattern out with glue on the fabric, letting it dry, painting acrylic paint on, letting that dry, washing the glue off and then voila! It’s done! So I gave it a try…

This is a small swatch of fabric, about five inches wide and two feet long. I’ve applied the glue and the paint here and I’m waiting for it to dry before I wash the glue out.

And here is the finished piece! The white areas really glow when the fabric is held up to the light and I think this would be a great way to make some curtains later on down the road.

I would really recommend this project and the tutorial over at The Artist Woman. It’s concise, easy to follow and the process is easy enough for school children to do. Plus the finished product looks so good, it’s hard not to get excited about the whole idea.

I can’t wait to see what the dorm winds up painting on their fabric murals. I’ll be posting pictures as soon as they get going!

I read a tutorial on dying yarn with a crockpot and kool-aid and thought “Well, why not?” So I skipped down to the village store, bought a packet of each flavor and spun up two spindles worth of yarn. I soaked the yarn as soon as I was done spinning it and then followed the directions in the tutorial. About an hour later I had a ton of yarn pretty bright orange and salmon yarn that smelled like hot juice. I wanted to make a yarn that went from yellow, to orange, to red then to blue and back through the colors again. Turns out the kool-aid in the blue pouch is NOT blue. No, it’s also red. The same red as the stuff in the red pouch. SNAP. I was hoping to work some purples and greens in with that blue pouch and instead I have something crossed between sherbert and construction site.

But, now it’s been two days and I’m getting over the initial peevishness. The colors are starting to grow on me, to the point where I’m even starting to think of some projects I can work it in to. Next time, it’s blue all the way baby. If I can find a wrapper that doesn’t lie, lie, LIE.

Oh, and it was a great tutorial, so if you’re interested in spending the minimum amount of time and money dying something, this is definitely the way to go.

You’re in for a bit of an experience with this video on how to make Mongolian wool felt.

Via: Craftster

I’ve wanted to keep bees since I took a beekeeping class at Evergreen last year. The proble, however, is that bee hives take a while to get going, are large, and I want to be around for a few years when I do it so that they have time to really get established. That’s for honey bees though.

I’ve been hearing rumblings about mason bees for a while and I decided to do some research. Mason bees are solitary little creatures. The female lays her eggs in existing wood holes and pollinates your garden. Apparently two or three mason bees can pollinate the equivalent of a mature apple tree each spring. Neither male or female bee is able to sting. While they don’t make honey they do pollinate your garden. Plus mason bee houses are super easy to build. All you have to do is find a thick block of untreated wood (between 4-6 inches) and drill 5/16″ holes as far into the wood as you can without drilling through the other side. Space the holes 3/4″ apart. Block should be erected in early spring and placed at least three feet above the ground.
Position block to face southeast, allowing it to get morning sun. That’s the basic house.
I found this sweet one over at Free Range Living where there’s a great explanation about mites and how to clean out your bee house. You can buy all manner of mason bee houses if you don’t want to spend time constructing one yourself.

This has a very sweet exterior… I can’t figure out how they deconstructed it to get to the insides (see below photo). I would LOVE to have a little bee house like this! It looks really easy to clean out and take care of (plus it’s home to leaf cutter bees as well!).

It might be a little too late to start this for this year, but it might not be. My garden is just starting to bloom so maybe some mason bees would move into my house if I made one this week. Maybe not. It’s on my list!

Wow, more changes! Subtle, but they’re there. A shop tab has been added. It shows everything I have up in the etsy shop and yes! You can totally buy them! More recently, I’ve added an “About” page right next to ye olde shoppe. You can read a little about m’self there. Take advantage of the new changes, explore a little, do whatever it is you do on this blog. Etc.

Dad sent me this link last night. It’s a nice little video that does a great job explaining evolution in basic terms. I like the analogies he’s using and the matter-of-fact way he does it.

The purlbee is featuring one of Mimi Kirchner’s felt doll patterns on their site… for free! I’ve loved her tattoo man-doll forever and now I can make one of her pretty ladies… for free!? Can you tell that I think this is insanely awesome!? You can download the pattern too, plus everything is handsewn so no need for you to have one of them fancy ma-chines to do the sewing for you.

The way she is constructed is lovely and simple… now I just have to get my hands on felt for her.

In other DIY/Handmade news, I found this Altoids tin candle tutorial that I think I might have a go at, over at Design Sponge. I like those tins so much but I’ve only ever been able to brainstorm up a collage to put in one. Candles are much better, I think. Plus this means that they’re portable… portable romance! Or Christmas. But that’s not as interesting.Go over and check out the tutorial. It’s fairly simple and straightforward… I think the most complicated part might be making the fancy paper cover for the tin, but I’ve leave it as it is, skip all the fuss.