A Farewell to 2007

This is the project I've been hinting at for the past week or more. I made a box to hold my Dayplanner pages for last year. I am a compulsive list maker and my day planners tend to have a lot of information in them. I can't just toss it away! And for those who doubt, I have gone back to confirm a date in previous planners.

So, last year I decided that just stacking them on a shelf with rubber banding is not acceptable. I created my "annual" New Year's project. It counts as annual after the second one, doesn't it? I used a stiff interfacing like Vilene or Timtex and started with a piece of plain muslin this year. I stitched the letters with a piece of craft foam behind so they stand out just a little. Then I scattered snippets of fabric around the letters and covered with a piece of tulle. The fun part is all kinds of free motion stitching. Multiple times and colors! Once all six pieces were finished, I hand stitched them into a box using a buttonhole stitch. Last year's was assembled with the sewing machine which is definitely quicker! I used my braiding around all the edges and added some beads and there it is! Taking a decent picture was almost as much work as making the box in the first place! We had some bright sunshine this afternoon, so I took advantage of it!

Now that I've put 2007 to rest, I am ready to really get into this year's projects.

Lucet

What is a lucet? Well, it's a tool used to make a braid-like strand. What I've read about it says it was used a lot in the Middle Ages to make lacings. Buttons and zippers and velcro were rare and non-existant in those days. Apparently there's no proof that this tool was used before then, but it's quite simple to use - and you can even do the braid on two fingers - so I would not be surprised if the craft is MUCH older! It makes a nice strong lacing with just a little stretch to it. Beware, though. It takes a lot of thread/yarn. Exactly how much would depend on the nature of your thread, but I did one piece that came out one-tenth of the original length!


I bought my lucet from Patti Culea a couple of year's ago. I have practiced with it several times, but this week was the first time I made a braid that I have used on a piece (more on that tomorrow). To the right of the tool you can see the two balls of yarn I used and to the left is the braid that resulted.

You get different results depending on the character of the yarn you use. In this second picture you can see several samples I have. The top is from a tubular ribbon. The next two are from twisted perle cotton. I believe they are both from two strands of the cotton. The purple one in the center is actually three different yarns - a soft purple ribbon, the same blue whiskered yarn as in the first photo, and a lavender perle cotton. The yellow is from satin ribbon, and the bottom piece is plain old worsted weight yarn - probably more than one strand - I don't remember.

I now have a plan of action for my TIF project. Just need to get moving on the actual work! I know how it should look now, so it should go very quickly. Ha! So when has that ever happened in real life?