Soft statement bracelets- crochet and fabric tutorial

These bracelets are one of my new favorite projects. I like crocheted bracelets, Spoonflower fabric, and quotes.

The fabrics for these bracelets is available here- Bracelet Swatch Fabrics, a swatch is 5.00 USD and will make 5 bracelets, or you can use some of it as appliques. I'll be adding more quotes as time goes on. These are too much fun.

The first part is making your very own fabric.

You'll need a graphics program, a quote and an idea for how you want it to look. Remember that making it too busy makes it hard to read the quote. I love my 1st Amendment bracelet, but it's a lot of text on a rainbow background and very busy. Using a soft stroke outline on the text helps it stand out a bit.

Open an image 8 inches wide and 1.6 inches tall at 150 ppi minimum. Lay out your background and text, but remember it has to fit your wrist, so 6 inches wide and 1 inch tall for the text works well. Add graphics if you want, keeping them within the borders of what will fit your wrist when it's stitched into place.

Upload your design to Spoonflower. Set it up so the ppi matches the ppi of your design. Order a swatch. I used their woven cotton.

OR!! You can get really crafty and embroider your statement on fabric!

To make the bracelet:

You will need

• yarn
• appropriate sized hook
• button or buttons
• needle to weave in ends
• fabric
• pinking shears
• embroidery floss
• tapestry needle

Pick a yarn.

 This is Darn Good Yarn Lace Weight Silk Yarn in Exotic Rainbow. It's gorgeous with really short color changes so it's very colorful even on small scale projects. The hand is very soft.

This is a basic size 3 crochet cotton thread. More structure than the silk, and it's a heavier weight so it works up quicker.

Yes, you can use worsted weight, that will be chunkier, but that's a neat look too.

Both bracelets are made close to the same way. Chain approximately 1.5 inches, single crochet a few rows, then you make your button hole. The button hole is made by figuring how big the button you're using is, and how many stitches across that is, then you subtract that number from the number in your base row, and divide that number by 2. sc that many stitches, chain the number of stitches for your hole, skip those stitches, and then sc to the end. So for the cotton bracelet, it was 8 stitches wide, and my button would fit into a 4 stitch hole.
8-4=4
4/2=2
Sc in first 2 stitches, chain 4, skip 4 stitch, sc in last 2 stitches, turn.

Then continue working back and forth until it's long enough to fit around your wrist with a 1 inch overlap. Break off, weave in ends.

For the silk, I used a size 0 steel hook and 11 stitches. For the cotton, I used a size D hook and 8 stitches.

The fabric needs to be washed, but because it's just a very small piece, I hand washed it and laid it flat to dry. Use the pinking shears to cut the strip and cut off the ends to fit on your bracelet. Press the fabric. Again, tiny piece. Rather than set up an ironing board and iron, I just used my daughter's hair straightening iron!

Stitch the strip into place. I used a running stitch. Starting it, I made a knot at the end of the thread with a few inches tail. Pulled it up through the fabric alone, then went down into both the fabric and the crocheted bracelet, then stitched around the entire patch. When I got to the end, I tied the thread off to the tail in a firm knot, then buried the ends in the crochet.

The button on the 1st Amendment bracelet is one from my mom's button box. The buttons on the Nevertheless bracelet are stacked inexpensive plastic buttons because I love how the colors pop that way.

The No Censorship pinback is from the early 90s. My family was advocating against a local measure and I still have several of them.

Rainbow coloring page

So I designed this pattern for a Spoonflower contest. Out of over 400 designs, it was number 15!

Anyway, when I posted the tiled example, someone asked "OH! Will this be a coloring page?"
Of course! :) So if you want to color this poppy rainbow star design, click the images below for a larger version to print and color.

Small jpg version:

Large transparent png version:

Spoonflower test swatches

Buy this pattern on fabricAs wallpaper
As gift wrap

You can find this pattern on  a variety of products in my Redbubble store! 

Love coloring page

This typography love coloring page is for those really patient people who don't mind having a lot to color! I hope you all enjoy it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Click the images below for larger versions to color in. Print on landscape settings.

Small jpg version:

Large transparent png version:

Also I posted a bunch of new fabrics in my Spoonflower shop.

If you want to see all the new ones on one page and don't mind some naughty designs (language) click here.

Otherwise-

My alien collection of fabrics. (also available as wallpaper and giftwrap)

Small prints (also available as wallpaper and giftwrap)

And these skull prints are under Whimsies

Peace symbol printable box

I hope you enjoy today's printable box. It's a swirly peace symbol box in 2 colorways.

Click the images for larger versions, print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold, glue!

I also have new fabrics available in my Spoonflower shop!!

These are available in fabric, gift wrap and wallpaper.

Bees!

New Color This fabric!

Sewing Cubes and Tetrahedrons

Yay for Platonic solids! Platonic solids are polyhedral shapes made of regular, symmetrical shapes, and there are only 5 of them. If you play or love someone who plays tabletop RPGs, you're very familiar with them. They make up the dice for those games. Cubes and tetrahedrons are very easy to sew, especially if you start with a fabric that has tessellating squares or triangles. The above models were sewn using swatches from a new collection I have up at Spoonflower. Any square or triangle fabric will work, or you could do them in patchwork shapes pretty easily too with a few more seams.

I did these with hand stitching because of their size.
Sewing the tetrahedron- 
A tetrahedron is the shape you might know as a 4 sided die, 4 equilateral triangles that form an almost pyramid like shape. It's the shape used in pyramid tea bags as well.

If you're making a large one with various fabrics, you'll cut 4 triangles at the right size plus seam allowances. If you're handstitching a little one like me, you'll cut out your fabric like this-

First, find your 4 triangles, you want a multi-directional design if there is a design in them, and you'll be cutting out a strip with 60 degree angles on the sides.

Add your seam allowance. For me, it was about 1/3 of an inch since they are hand stitched. Chalk in that line, or use a permanent marker, they will be inside the seam so it won't show.

Cut out including seam allowance, trim the corners to reduce bulk.

See the arrow? That's where you start stitching. But you'll need to pin it first because the second seam can be kind of a pain. With the right sides facing each other, pin A to be, C to F and E to D on the corners and in the middle. It's going to look a bit screwy because of that odd direction seam, it will work though. Starting at the arrow, stitch the A-B seam, then the F-C seam, take out all the pins and turn it right side out. Stuff it as firmly as you prefer. I used polyfil to stuff mine. Then slip stitch that last seam to close. 

If you're using separate triangles, you'll make a strip as shown above, then stitch that final seam as described, leaving a gap for turning, then slip stitching that closed after stuffing. Tie knot in thread, and bury the thread end in the finished shape.

Sewing the Cube-

This is a lot easier, especially for anyone who is a regular reader of my blog! Because it goes together a lot like a box but with closed seams.

In my fabric, the knotwork squares are set up on a diagonal, so finding my base shape looked kind of like this-

Add seam allowances, cut out including seam allowances and clip corners.

Now it's time to stitch it. This will be done in a couple stages because you'll need to knot off the thread and start sewing from a different place.

So starting on the inside corner: A-B, C-J, D-E, which brings you to the bottom corner of D-E. Knot off thread and cut. Then from the inside corner, G-H, I-F, knot off thread and cut. From the inside corner, L-M- turn right side out and stuff, then slip stitch K-N to close. 

These can be used as ornaments, toys, a little bigger than my models, juggling balls. 

Spoonflower 2 for 1 Fat Quarter Sale, spoons and other things

There are only 2 days left of Spoonflower's 2 for 1 fat quarter sale, and my dishtowel calender IS available now. I ordered my sample calendar in linen-cotton canvas and a fat quarter of that is 18x27 inches. It's opaque and heavy, and because of their printing methods has enough of an edge to just turn that over and hem it. The top will have a couple repeats of the border strip and can be turned into a casing for a dowel hanger. I'm deciding if I just want to turn and hem the edges or use a black bias tape to bind the edges.  I'll get a photo later of the fabric to post. We ordered a fat quarter of a Doctor Who print for TG and fat quarters of some of my designs which I plan to use for jewelry projects.


We watched a video together last night on spoon carving. I'll be reviewing it soon, it was fun watching it with my husband and son, and talking to them about spoon designs. They are of course more enthused about working with axes, adzes and knives than about spoons. I'm pretty happy to think that they will be making me spoons for my kitchen soon.

Yesterday was also my eye exam and the medication is working. My optic nerves are getting back to normal now. Yay!

It's really cold here! We went out this weekend for some local Halloween events. TG was a fantastic Sherlock Holmes. I forgot my camera, but Michael brought his so there will be pictures later. One of the things about her costume that was just great is that she couldn't find a double breasted overcoat at a thrift store she liked, so she used the military surplus one from her Wygie costume a few years ago and converted the mock double breast into a double breast by adding hand stitched button holes in red and shifting buttons. Her scarf was knitted by her, and we ordered a deerstalker hat from England as the purchased item to go with her costume. Dad of course trick or treated at the events we went to. 64 year old man or not, the man is not giving up a chance for candy! It was lots of fun.

I have markers!

Years ago, I found a white and black patterned fabric that was incredibly busy. I loved it and bought a yard which became a purse that got used until it fell apart. Part of the fun of it was coloring it in with permanent markers while waiting for an appointment or at restaurants.

I still love the idea of it, and that purse inspired the design above which is available on Spoonflower here. The markers are Sharpie brush tips. Love them so much for fabric coloring because you can vary the angle you hold the pen at to do larger sections, then use the tip for the finer sections.

The tip isn't quite fine enough for a lot of my more involved coloring pages, but for the fabric designs they are perfect!

If you'd like to color the design, but don't want to buy the fabric, here's a coloring page. Click, print, color!

Here's a picture of another one of my fabric designs. A tiled design of a skull with a chef hat available in several colors here.

New Fabrics for Sale

I got my first set of Spoonflower swatches! I'm currently in the process of stitching up some of the toys before photographing everything, but I did post some of the new designs for sale. You can find all my Spoonflower fabrics that are for sale here.

I did 7 different colors of the Chef Skull design, and they all turned out very well. Here's an example of the colors. There will be photos later so you can see how they turned out printed.

One of my favorite is one of my knots in rainbow colors. I got it printed on silk just to see how it would look, and plan to order enough yardage to make a shawl with.

Now, back to stitching!

Ready Player Everyone 2x2 printable boxes

I hope you enjoy this tessellated design, it's inspired by my entry for limited palette Spoonflower geometry contest. The rules were to use the purple and green, and use only geometric shapes. I knew that I wanted the cross shaped tessellation with it's irregular offset and circles and triangles. While I was setting it up, I noticed it looks sort of like a game controller, so added the squares in circles.
ETA: You can vote for your favorite and see all the great entries here.
Here are 3 different colorways, including the original palette. Click on the images to download/print larger resolution versions. Print on card stock. Cut, score, fold, glue!

Snails, yarn and other things

This is my entry in the current Spoonflower contest, What is the new owl? What do you think the next animal to be as popular as owls is going to be? The page above can be enlarged and printed to use for paper crafting purposes. There are a lot of great entries if you want to go peek and vote here.

Other than that, Lion Brand is having a story contest, the instructions were to explain about the meaningful handmade gift you ever received or gave in 500 words or less. It was easy to choose mine.

Grandma's Coat Yarn

My family always made things. My grandmother knitted, painted, crocheted and beaded and a lot of my very favorite things are things she made.

The best handmade gift I ever got was from her.

My grandfather passed away in 1977. Before he died, he got Grandma yarn for a coat she wanted to make. He bought entirely too much yarn and after he passed, Grandma couldn’t stand to work with that yarn. It sat in her closet for years. A gift of love and memory.

She developed glaucoma and started losing her vision. Before it was too far gone, she decided to make my brother and I blankets with that yarn. She knit them gorgeously in a wave lace pattern. That blanket would be the best handmade gift except for what came next. 

When the blankets were done, there was a bit of yarn left. Then I found out I was pregnant with my son. 

The very last thing she knitted, before her vision was too bad to knit was a baby blanket, using the white yarn that was bought to use a trim on that coat that never got made. It’s incredibly precious, and it’s packed safely away now until I can give it to my grandchildren. The yarn from my grandfather, the blanket from my grandmother’s so talented hands. It’s a blanket full of love and family memories.

That contest is currently voting on Facebook here. You can vote daily and I would really appreciate your vote. The grand prize is 500 dollars to spend on the Lion Brand site, which would be used partly to make hats for the homeless this summer and partly just for fun by my daughter and I.

In other news, Michael has two job interviews and a job starting this week. Things are still pretty tight for us financially since he's been out of work for so long, but it's looking up!

Spoonflower Swatch Toys

Swatch toys! When I finished out my sampler, I made a few toys that fit on a swatch. A swatch is a sample of Spoonflower printing that is an 8x8 square and costs 5.00, these are best made with hand sewing on the quilting weight fabric.

The fox ornament includes two ornaments, one with a fox, the other with a deer. You can order it here.

The little onigiri toys fit two to a swatch. To sew them, you match up the nori strip and start sewing in the middle bottom with right sides facing, sew all the way to the top, then repeat on the other side. Flip it over and sew the back the same way leaving a gap for turning and stuffing.  I made the side piece a little long, so that will have to be trimmed after it's sewn.

The little moon mobile is a star and moon on a printed background. I used a little bit of that background to make the strips to hang it.

The cute little Illuminati pyramids are easier than they look. Start by sewing the two triangle sides together, then work around the bottom connecting the square base to the sides (right sides facing), leave the last side undone for turning and stuffing, then slip stitch it closed. Pink and blue on one swatch, and purple and green on another.

All the above designs are for sale from Spoonflower.

Swatch toys are fun! I think I'm going to wind up designing a set that will print on 2 swatches for juggling balls for my husband.

Yay! Thank you!

Thank you, to the people who helped me pay for a swatch sampler from Spoonflower so I could put more fabric up for sale.

The way swatch samplers work from them, if you want to design and sell your own fabric, is that they will print a bunch of 8x8 inch swatches on one larger piece of quilting weight fabric so you can proof them. Since swatches are usually 5 dollars each, this is the best way to do it. You put the swatches into a collection, and then from your design library, pick view collections, then a button on the top right corner gives you the option to print a swatch sampler.

The prices are set for ranges of numbers, so rather than printing 26 swatches, I filled out the swatch collection with 4 cut and sew swatch sized mini-toys, which should be a lot of fun.

Thank you so much!

Fox and Owl Coloring Pages

These were inspired by this design which I posted on Spoonflower.

Here are a pair of coloring pages, click on the images for bigger versions.

Product Review-The Button Factory

I was thinking of doing a gift guide of some of my favorite things that I've gotten and used in the last year. This will absolutely be on that list,The Button Factory: Everything You Need to Instantly Create 25 Fabric-Covered Pins!

The kit comes with the parts to make 25 pins, backs and tops. You cut out a circle of fabric and put it face down and centered into a soft rubbery feeling mold, then put in the button top, dome side down and fold the fabric into it, then the pin back and use a plastic piece to push the pin back into the pin top, trapping the fabric  edges neatly between the two and you have a fabric covered pin! You can embroider the fabric for a nice hand made detail, or stencil or stamp the fabric. 

I embroidered over prints in the purple and rose fabric above. Just tracing the elements in the fabric, then cutting out the circle and setting it in the pins. If you're a fabric addict, these can be made with very small scraps. A 2 inch square is all you'll need. 

Because these go together so easily, they are a wonderful project for parties. If you're so inclined, you and your friends, or your daughter and her friends can embroider small designs and set them in pins. If counted cross stitch is what you like best, these won't work with standard 14 count fabric, it's a little too thick, but I think they will work fine with even count linen. 

Also included in the kit are 2 strips of fabric with 2 small scale designs on each strip and a booklet with the template for cutting the fabric circles and ideas for making and packaging pins.

 Here's a photo with a penny for scale to see the button size.

You can get The Button Factory: Everything You Need to Instantly Create 25 Fabric-Covered Pins! directly from the publisher, Chronicle Books or by clicking the Amazon.com affiliate link below.

Amazon.com affiliate links don't affect your cost, and provide extra income to me personally, which helps support my book addiction.

You can get more information about my review policy here.

The Doctor Who fabric is Studio Fibonacci's Doctors, Monsters and Friends available on Spoonflower. The purple flower and the forget-me-not are from my own Spoonflower designs.

New fabric in my Spoonflower shop

Based on the Celestial Mandala that I drew at the beginning of the year. (coloring page, printable box and printable card) I had the swatch printed on the new cotton silk from Spoonflower to see if I'd like it for a fashion scarf. The answer is yes. It's got a gorgeous hand to it. Now I'm debating between a nice tasteful scarf or going all out and making myself a colorful shawl.

You can order this fabric or any of my other fabrics from my Spoonflower page. I do like the sun and moons on this one.

I also recolored the dolphin mandala I did yesterday just for fun. This is a pretty reduced version, but I was thinking of setting it up as 12 inch panels for throw pillows. 

Test edit.

Jelly Recipe Page

Spoonflower is getting ready to have their annual free swatch day on August 18th. Every year, they do this to help raise money for Heifer.org, they will mail you a swatch of fabric, but if you'd like to make a donation, the money goes the charity. 

The swatch I'm getting this year is this design, and after I get the swatch and approve it, the fabric will be for sale at Spoonflower.

Since I decided I really liked the layout, I made a printable recipe page using it. I hope you enjoy this.

Click on the image for the larger version. The dots are spaced approximately 1/3 of an inch apart for the lines. 

Lots more printable jelly things and recipes pages on Don't Eat the Paste.

Jelly and Jam Printable Labels

Printable Recipe Pages

Circus inspired printable box

An upcoming contest on Spoonflower is circus themed. I know there will be lots of absolutely brilliant designs and my plain little tessellation will probably fade next to what is sure to be absolute cuteness but I had fun putting together the design. You can see it on my Spoonflower profile by clicking designs.

Because stripe boxes are always popular, I put it on a 2x2 box. Hope you enjoy it. Click on the image for the full-sized version.

In other news, I love my new stapler. In a really big crafty geeky way. It's wonderful, a thing of beauty. I tore 3 sheets of paper into 16ths and made a 48 page mini scratch paper matchbook notebook with my stapler. It went through all the sheets and the card stock so easily. Now I have a bigger project in mind. I want to make myself a cookbook with your recipes. Yep. Do you have a favorite recipe that you wouldn't mind sharing with me? I'll do printable recipe sheets of some recipes but all of them will wind up in my personal cookbook which will be stapled together with my wonderful new stapler. If you have a recipe you'd like to share, I set up a special email account, recipes *at* donteatthepaste (dot) com

I'll be posting some specific projects using my new stapler soon. Because I love my new stapler and I'm making things like little matchbook notebooks with it. 

Butterfly box

300 dpi, click on the image to get the full sized version.

The Spoonflower limited palette butterfly contest is voting now! Make sure you're signed in to Spoonflower to vote. Obviously, I'd love your votes, love the chance to win 5 yards of custom printed fabric. There are a lot of great entries in this contest. 

There are coloring pages with the butterfly from this design here.

ETA: Thank you Kai and Liberty!

I'm getting a new camera that SHOULD be delivered tomorrow, this weekend we are driving out of town in the opposite direction, and if I'm not absolutely knackered from Bear Paw Festival, we might go a little further out so I can get coffee and photos. The coffee from the Coffee Roastery, Ron does an amazing job with his coffees and they are my current favorite roasts. Hopefully at some point this summer I'll be able to go out and do some custom roasting with him.  I'm just not sure what to name it! Whatever it is, it will be a dark roast. Those dark, oily roasts are my favorite. Any suggestions for names?

Butterfly coloring pages

Next month, one of the contests at Spoonflower is a palette restricted butterfly theme. This is my entry.
I hope you like the butterfly as well as I do!
EDIT: 7-7-11 Spoonflower's limited palette butterfly contest is voting now. Please vote!
These coloring pages are 100 dpi.

You can see the fabric designs I have for sale on Spoonflower currently here.