Handmade Christmas Ornaments

I have two scarves that I wove a long time ago, I love them but they are very short and very purple, but they are also very cute with lace butterflies.  I decided that it is time to do something else with them.

I have the idea to turn them into Christmas ornaments.  I tried to find some wood ornaments that I could cover but they were all too small.  The butterfly motif is 3 ½ by 3 ½.  So I decided that I cut my own shapes out of foam board and cover the back of the ornaments with decorative paper since I don’t have enough fabric to cover the whole ornament.

I used some cardboard to make some test pieces to see what size I wanted to make the ornaments.  Definitely the bottom one, the bigger the better!

I cut a test piece of foam board, then I cut a piece of test fabric from a scarf that just wasn’t woven well enough, my beat changed from really hard to just a gentle tap by the end of the warp!

First thing I learned was that my fabric was too short to go around the ornament.

So I cut off a ¼ of an inch.

I used school glue to attach the fabric to the foam board and I clipped the corners to reduce the bulk of the fabric.  I think that it worked out pretty well.  The glue attached the fabric well and it didn’t soak through the fabric.

I tried another ornament; I wanted to perfect the corners.  I made the foam board a little smaller and was more aggressive with cutting the corners.

The corners are definitely better on this one.  I think that they are cute, they look like little presents.

But I think that the ornaments don’t really suit the butterfly fabric.  So the new idea for the fabric is cards.  The pre folded card stock comes in three or four different sizes.  I used paper to see what size of window will work for the butterflies.

Today the card stock arrived!  Soon there will be butterfly cards.

Final Garden Picture is a Littleleaf Sage (Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips') it is still blooming even after a couple of frosty mornings.

Making My Knitting Christmas Angel

I had a hard time figuring out what to do for my project for the twenty fifth anniversary of the Qualicum Weavers and Spinners Guild.  The theme is glitz and the guild provided 20 grams of yarn.  Mum and I talked about ideas and we both wanted to do something different.  Mum came up with spool knitted necklace and I came up with doing a Christmas Tree Topper Angel.

The idea came about because a lady from my old guild in the Okanagan makes Christmas angels by crochet but I can’t crochet so I had to come up with a different way.

Plan A – The idea was to weave a body on a paper yarn cone, that I covered in plastic wrap using weaving wool.  After weaving the body I was going to Modge Podge the body and then slip it off the paper cone.  I placed some nails around the bottom and top to hold the thread.  Well, the nails were too short and the threads didn’t hold.  So I scraped the idea.

On to Plan B.  This one worked so here are the instructions.  I painted to the paper yarn cone silver.

I covered the body with the glitz yarn using a looping technique with a latch hook.

Push the latch hook up the centre of the cone.  Grabbing the thread in the hook and then pull it through the cone.

This creates a loop that you pass the ball of yarn through.  Then you snug up the loop tight to the cone.

You do this all the way around the cone.  I had to stop when I couldn’t fit the latch hook through the centre hole anymore.  So, if your cone has a small opening at the top you may want to enlarge it so you can get better coverage on the body.

The next step; I wanted to add more sparkle to the body and I also wanted to cover up the holes that I had made from Plan A!

I needle wove a band of silver thread along the bottom of the body of the angel.  Just in case you wanted to know it was a 2/6 reclining twill.  And I did eleven bands around the base.

I then used Modge Podge, which is basically white glue, on the inside of the cone.  It holds the outside threads in place and also protects the threads from the eventual Christmas tree branches.

For the head I wrapped a one inch Styrofoam in the same thread as the body.  It just looks like a ball of yarn!

For the wings I auditioned a couple of shapes cut out from a piece of paper.

Then I used the winning wing design to make a template, it is a little hard to see because I used a pencil when I traced it.  Then, I used galvanized wire from the gardening section of the dollar store to bend into wings and the halo.  Doesn't the wings look like a tooth?!

I used the same looping method from the body of the angel to cover the wings and the halo.  It took a surprisingly long time but it was something that can be done in front of the TV.

The wings needed to have more shine to them so I used silver thread.  I placed the silver thread on a sewing bobbin to keep things tidy and used the looping method from the body of the angel.  The wings were attached using hot glue to the body.  In the picture you can see the curve that was added to the wings so that they laid flat on the curved body of the angel.  The wings were attached in two places and had some hot glue showing so to cover the spots I placed two large rhinestones on top of the hot glue.  Sorry I don’t have a picture.

A last minute addition was to add arms and some knitting.  The arms were done the same way as the wings and the halo.  The knitting needles are toothpicks that I painted silver and added a bead to the end.  I can’t knit so Mum did the knitting for me, thanks Mum!  Again I don't have any progress photos, sorry.

To attach the last elements was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle.  The halo has a long stem that fit into the top of the cone and had a curve in it to go around the head.  The arms balanced on top of the cone with a dab of hot glue.  Then the head was attached on top of everything with a bit more hot glue.  Unfortunately some of the hot glue was showing around the neck area.  So the solution was to take some of the glitz thread and twizzle it making a round cord.  Then the cord was added with just a dab of Modge Podge around the neck to hold a bow; then the ends were encouraged to cascade down the body.  

She is quite cute and I am looking forward to having her on my Christmas tree this year!

Milk Kefir

 This has nothing to do with what I'm weaving and everything to do with what I'm eating!  I have recently been looking at making soft cheese at home and while I was doing my research I learned about milk kefir.  A search on Craigslist was all it took to start this journey.

Milk kefir may be one of the strangest things.  It is probiotic milk that you may have seen in your local supermarket.  But you can easily make it at home.

It starts with small cream colour lumps called milk kefir grains.

Place about 2 tablespoons of them in a glass jar with 2 cups of milk.  Lightly cover the jar with a piece of plastic.  And let sit on the counter for 24 hours.

After 24 hours the milk has slightly thickened to the texture of thick cream.  Pour the milk kefir through a plastic strainer to separate the kefir grains from the milk.  Use plastic as the kefir reacts with metal.  Then it is time to make a smoothie!

This smoothie is 2 cups milk kefir, ½ cup frozen peaches, ½ cup frozen blueberries and 2 tablespoons maple syrup.  Yummy!

The milk kefir grains can also be used in full fat cream and the end product is crème fraiche.  The milk kefir can also be used to make cheese, but I'll talk about that another time.

Blue Ivy Katazome Shawl

This second shawl sat around for a few weeks before I finally came up with a dye plan. The story about the weaving the two shawls can be found here on a previous post.  

My idea was to use a stencil to dye a pattern onto the shawl; but ...the problem is that we live in a small town on an island and I couldn’t source any dye thickeners locally that would work with the Procion MX.  I really didn’t want to drive three hours to Victoria or wait for an order from the internet or take an ocean voyage to go to the mainland; so the only course of action was to find a DIY alternative on the internet. 

I stumbled upon katazome which is a Japanese dye technique using a resist paste applied to the cloth.  The best part is that the resist paste is rice flour, and that I could find!  A little research later and I found that wheat flour can also be used ...even more awesome!

So here is how I did it for the first time – no sampling/testing just straight onto the shawl!  First I washed, dried, ironed and trimmed the threads from the shawl.  I left the fringe untwisted.

I made a table long enough to hold the shawl and the fringe.  I used a piece of firm insulation on top of some boxes to extend the sawhorse table!  Then I covered it with a large piece of plastic sheeting, like the stuff used for painting drop cloths.  I made sure that there was enough overlap to wrap the dyed shawl.

The next step is to make the paste.  I used ½ cup all-purpose flour and ¾ cup of water, adding more water to get the right consistency.  You want a mixture like thick cream, not too runny but not too thick.

I did a test run on the kitchen counter to make sure that it was able to hold the shape of the stencil and it looked good!

We (Mum and me), measured out the halfway point of the shawl, marking it with a pin.  We then figured out the placement of the stencil and found out that we would need to flip the stencil over so that the ends would match (having the end ivy pointing down to the edge on each side).  Then it is just a matter of glopping the paste down on the stencil and lightly pushing it around using a small offset spatula.

For the centre motif I didn't want to use the whole stencil so I just taped off the areas I didn't need with painters tape.

The shawl had to be left overnight so that paste could dry.  It was weird to see that when the paste dries it pulls and puckers the shawl. 

So the next day is dye day.  The first step is to make a solution of soda ash and water.  I used 2 teaspoons of Soda Ash with 8 cups of warm water.  I only needed about 1 cup for the shawl but we were able to use the rest of the dye to dye some silk yarn.  I sprayed the soda ash solution all over the shawl until it was wet but not soaking.  And I left it for 20 minutes, at about 10 minutes I gently pulled the shawl flat and made sure that there were no dry spots.  The soda ash is an important step to dyeing the Procion MX as it activates and sets the dye.

Mixing the dye comes next.  I choose Royal Blue in the Pale value.  The recipe is ½ teaspoon of dye, 2 teaspoons of salt, ½ teaspoon Urea and ½ cup warm water.  Mixed together the ingredients into a cup and then I poured mine into a sprayer.

I sprayed the dye from only one side of the shawl to make an ombré effect.  I only used maybe ¼ cup of dye water, it goes along way! 

When I was happy with the dye coverage we folded the plastic sheet over the shawl for the 24 hours needed for the dye to set.  While the shawl was batching I had mild panic over how I was going to rinse the dye and get rid of the resist paste!!

Thankfully the first and easiest method worked.  I took the shawl outside and used the garden hose to rinse off the resist paste and dye!  The flour paste easily rolled off the shawl and with the small amount of dye used in the shawl it quickly rinsed clear.

The shawl looks amazing!  I really can’t quite believe how well the flour paste resist worked.  I already am looking at the other shawl thinking that I’m going to dye it too!

The final photo shoot for the shop and the shawl looks wonderful.  I love the sky blue colour and the ivy motif is so pretty.  For Sale.

So that is how I do katazome dyeing – a little differently than the traditional technique – but it worked!

Family Tartan ~ New Project

Vacations are a wonderful thing….great to see the world, but also great to be home and to celebrate what you have!  Our month in the Cook Islands and New Zealand was exciting, but man, am I glad to be home and back at the loom!

While away I had plenty of time to think about what I wanted to put on the loom and what stash I wanted to bust… I made my mind up to weave our family tartan using the yarn I purchased made by Lochcarron Mills in 2007.  I know, about time......

 The Lynch family tartan is one of the original seven Irish tartans that were registered in the early 1900's and the colours are blue, scarlet and green.  I chose to weave this tartan using the Ancient colour palette; the only disappointing thing is that the ancient scarlet is quite rusty orange looking ~ not a fav, but authentic and against the soft blue and soft green it's surprisingly lovely.

It actually took me three sessions to make this warp ~ 1018 threads….yikes.  Although this is a 2/2 twill I had to extend it over all 12 shafts because of the number of heddles necessary.  After pulling the warp I noticed that I don’t seem to have as much blue yarn left over as I expected.  So an emergency yarn call to Susan down island who ordered this same yarn for our Canadian Master Weaver Tests ~ but she didn't have any of the colour I need….so if anyone out there has 2/16 worsted wool in ancient blue purchased from the Yarn Source in Ontario that you want to sell, email me please!

I’ve probably mentioned that I love, love, love to cook on this blog on more than one occasion.  Two years ago when we bought our house I put in this lovely appliance package and I’ve been bitching about it ever since.  I’m a really, really short gal, so the over the range microwave just didn’t work for me and frankly the fan just did not do the job.  The ceramic stove top is very pretty, but it cycles the heat and it made me crazy….Well, crazier anyway!

So we pulled them both out and sold them on Craigslist ~ I must have priced it too low because they went in hours!  I knew pretty much right away that I wanted a much stronger fan, so forward thinking gal that I am, yeah right!  I picked up a few tiles when I saw them last year just hoping that I'd get a chance to use them.

Ngaire and I tiled the bare patches of wall and added these great stainless steel button tiles for an accent.  Michael cut the tiles to fit and he made short work of installing the new fan without a scratch! Ahhh, team work!

For a full week we were without a range or microwave and this little hot plate worked really hard for us. My favourite recipe was this one from Martha Stewart, One-Pan Pasta, absolutely fool proof!

My new duel fuel cooker arrived last Thursday and the plumber came in on Good Friday morning to hook it up ~ I’m totally stoked!  No clock ~ no timer ~ no warming drawer ~ instant heat ~ priceless!