Back by popular demand ;)

I haven't posted anything in the past month, because I literally had nothing to blog about. My craftiness has reached a stop.
It had to be sacrificed while I study for ... no idea what it's called - the exam you have to take after having worked in your field for a year. State exam? Expert exam? The exam that is sucking the life out of me and taking away precious time I could be spending crafting? Yeah, that one.

Anyway, no craftiness from me, at least nothing until Christmas.
But here are some random stuff I did ages ago, and never posted.

A crochet rectangle... thing. Just another reminder that I need to move past the damn single crochet, and learn how to work in the round, so that the stuff I crochet aren't flat rectangles, but cute toys. But at least I found a use for this thing. It goes really well with my couch.
See how amazingly useful a crochet rectangle can be? ;)


Next up - a wall decal I did to add some decoration to the wall above the couch. I cut it out of some self-adhesive wallpaper, just started cutting, with no plan whatsoever. Now that I look at it, it might need something else. But I have no idea what. A flower somewhere? More leaves? Random swirls? Or should I just leave it like it is?


The wall next to that one is still bare, I plan to add some framed art to it. When I find something I'd like to put there, that is.

And we're back to geometrical shapes. A potholder. Love the mushroom fabric. Of course, I managed to spill cocoa on it, the very first time I put it to use. Now it's a stained potholder. But you can admire it here in its fresh-off-the-sewing-machine stage.


OK, that's it from me for November. I'm going back to studying. Or banging my head against the table frustrated over the fact that nothing I read sinks in.

Stopping the cold

These past few days the temperature dropped almost 15 degrees Celsius.I literally went from wearing short sleeves one day, to pulling out my winter coat the next.
The heating in my apartment goes trough the heating plant, and they have this rule that they don't turn the heating on until the temperature is lower than 12 C in the evening for at least three days in a row.

Those were some pretty cold days in my little studio apartment. I could feel the cold breeze coming from outside trough my door and window. So I decided to make a draft stopper, to keep the cold outside.
Basically, I sewed a long tube, filled it with poly-fill (from an old pillow) and stitched it shut.


Of course, literally two hours after I did that, the heating got turned on. Not to mention that today is the most beautiful sunny fall day, it's almost hot in the sun.
But winter is coming, and I need to make at least two more of these, one for the window, the other for the front door. I'll probably try different filling for them - rice seems to be the popular choice.

100

Wow! I reached a milestone in my blogging career. 100 posts! I feel like I should bake a cake with the number 100 in chocolate frosting. How about a little retrospective on my crafting instead?

It all started some six years ago, when I stumbled onto Craftster. Amazed with all the projects that other people posted, I decided to try some of them out for myself. The very first thing I tried was sewing - there was a great tutorial for a Jordy Bag. I sewed mine by hand. From an old t-shirt and corduroy pants. It didn't look like much, but I was proud of the fact that I basically made something from otherwise useless stuff. That's a great feeling - the one you get when you finish a project. Practically the next day I went and bought a sewing machine.


The sewing bug had me for a while, but then I sort of abandoned the hobby when a new and shinier one presented itself.

So over the last 6 years, I've dabbled in almost every crafty activity there is. Here's a list, if you're interested : stenciling, bag sewing, jewelly making, Polymer clay, knitting, bookmaking and paper crafts, crochet (tried and failed miserably), embroidery, cross stitch. Lately everyday life kept me too busy to craft, but I feel the bug again. After all, I need to have something to blog about in the next 100 posts.

Thank you for reading! ;-)

My summer turns to fall sweater

Sometimes I like to knit, just for the sake of knitting. Just to do something with my hands, a simple motion, nothing too frustrating, no fancy pattern, just plain old stockinette. That is how this sweater came to be. I've had this cotton mix in my stash for at least year, don't even remember what I bought it for. Now it's this light, simple sweater. Perfect for the end of summer.

I used bigger needles than the yarn calls for, CO some random number of stitches for a wide neckline and knit in the round in stockinette. Increased for the sleeves with yarn overs and after a couple of weeks I had a simple, over-sized sweater that makes me feel like one of those 80's knitting magazine models.

Except, I can't really pose like those women. They have skills that I lack :) Sorry about the weird poses.

The yarn is Toptex Edita Glamour, which calls for 3-4 mm needles. I used 6 mm round needles and DPN's for the sleeves. I did one round of single crochet on the sleeves and the bottom to stop the rolling that stockinette loves to do.

Fabric CD Box

Ages ago I bought Amy Butler's In Stitches from Amazon. This CD Box is my first project from that book.

I would like to tell you it was a complete success, and it was going rather well, but then the crappy sewing on the top edge happened. I could blame my Toyota sewing machine, but let's face it, it's probably me.


I did do a very fine job on the bottom. Look at that crisp edge. Too bad you can't see the bottom when the box is doing what it's supposed to. Namely holding CDs.


This project calls for Timtex, a fancy schmancy interfacing that is not sold here. I used a cereal box instead to give it some shape. I also omitted the handles for the box, because I didn't want to cover the pretty red flowers.

The fabric is from Etsy. I only bought a half a meter. Should have gotten more when I had the chance. I could have made two boxes. I would have even been extra careful with the topstitching on the second one.