Posts tagged ‘yarn’

In the spirit of a new year & reflecting about Clever Nesting’s previous year of blogging, I thought I’d share my favorite 2009 tutorials that Devona’s written.

Do you ever find beautiful sweaters at the thrift store but realize they’re too stretched out or shrunken to wear?  In Knitting with an Old Sweater Devona shows how to unravel those sweaters and reuse the yarn for new projects, so that pretty yarn won’t be wasted.

In Throw Pillow with Piping Trim, Devona teaches how to use strips of cut t-shirts for the piping on a pillow.  You’ll save money on expensive piping and have a way to use those stained or stretched t-shirts besides for rags.

And here’s an idea reusing ties when the fabric’s great, but the men in your life will surely never wear them!  Devona teaches how to Make a Composition Cover from an Old Tie.

And finally, let me just say I’ve loved working with Devona on the Clever Nesting blog this past year!  She’s so innovative with her crafty reuse & recycling ideas.  She’s also a wealth of information about a variety of crafts & thrilled to learn more.  Plus she’s an idea queen…you should hear all her ambitious plans for the next few years!

Jennifer Doll of Landen Road Designs specializes in handmade ceramic buttons & knitted children’s items.  Not only has she set up shop at Etsy, but if you’re local to Akron, Ohio, she’s selling at the Hartville Fall Arts & Crafts Festival this Saturday and sells at Tween Diva in Hartville.  Stay tuned, because next week Landen Road Designs will be doing a ceramic buttons giveaway for our readers!  *Hint, they’re green & blue and you might spy them on her Flickr.

Anyone who thrifts regularly has noticed that all of the sweaters have come out of hiding for fall and are ready to be chopped up for crafting. I guess it is the same in regular retail stores, but you wouldn’t want to buy a brand new sweater just to dismember it, now would you? A few weeks ago Colleen posted about how to felt sweaters, and last week I posted about knitting with previously knit sweater yarn, but what if you want to take a sweater’s fabric and make it into something else that looks hand knit?

That’s what I did here with Elise’s new “rainbow dress” because the knit fabric was serged together and couldn’t be unraveled into yarn. In order to keep the fabric from unraveling I used two tricks which can come in handy anytime you are cutting up knitted yarn fabrics. First, I wanted the skirt of the dress to look finished, so I threaded a life line into the fabric (great tutorial here) before cutting the fabric and then used a crochet hook to simulate a bind off.

For sewing the bodice I used a zigzag stitch, which grabs a few rows of knit and binds it all together to prevent unraveling, and lined the sweater knit fabric with t-shirt weight knit fabric, stitching the right sides together. Then I turned the fabric and top stitched the edges to make it have a nice finished look. I bound the arms and straps with coordinating bias tape and connected the bodice to the skirt with a zigzag stitch and added some buttons for embellishment. Isn’t it cute?!

As you can tell I’ve been on a knitting kick. My temptation is to go get super wonderful, and expensive, yarn so that I can knit and knit and knit. But that’s not how I like to craft and honestly I can’t afford it. So I’ve been working on a way to do what I usually do: take apart things I have around and don’t use to make it into something I will use.

This tutorial will show you how to take an already knitted up sweater like the one shown and get it ready to be knit into something else. In this case, I’m planning on knitting a cotton sock which I will then dip dye after it is knitted.

Read more »

I finally stumbled into a realm of knitting that suits me. There are so many countless cast-on yet unfinished projects in a basket in my craft room that I have shied away from attempting anything more than a quick hat. But simple stockinette hats in the round get really boring, really fast so I rarely knit anything at all.

After watching my Mother-in-Law knit socks on a regular basis I decided to give it a go, planning an infant sock project to use up a ball of light weight alpaca/wool blend. It went so well that I bought a cheap ball of sock yarn from the local craft store and downloaded a toddler sock pattern by Needles and Wool and cast on. Everything in the pattern was similar enough to the first socks I’d knit that I was really flying through the pattern and getting excited watching the yarn self-pattern into bold stripes.

Then I made it to the last direction: “Kitchener the toe closed.” That about did me in. I have never even heard of that term, and my knitting book had a terrible explanation that left me with a large stiff knot on the toes.

I cast on the second sock and sent a questioning email to the ladies from Stitch N Bitch, and was sent to TECHknitting to find a better technique for the kitchener stitch, AKA a grafted toe. Success was mine in one attempt, so I pass this tutorial on to you at the beginning of knitting season. Make yourself some warm woolie socks, and if you follow this technique, even a beginner like me can make a seamless, comfy toe in no time (OK in about 15 to 30 minutes per sock).

I checked out this book by  Elisabeth Doherty from the library this week and started making some little yellow mice for the new baby.  I brought my work along with me to the Akron Stitch ‘n Bitch group that Colleen and I visited together on Wednesday night. I planned to try my hand at one of the smallest projects and hopefully have something to show for it before I left.

I’m very easily frustrated by yarn crafts. I am not good at following patterns, and I often get bored before I am finished with a project. I was hoping that a group setting would help me deal with those two barriers and help me finish up a project for once. And it really did help. The woman sitting next to me was very knowledgeable, and when I would get confused she advised me to “just keep going.” If nothing else it would make it clear that I was making a mistake.

This guy is what I finished up, although not until after group ended, and he  was actually fun to make. I had to tear him back to the nose once, but I figured out my mistake quickly because I had worked on him incorrectly long enough to see where I was confused. It was very confidence-building. I might even try to make one of the larger (but still Easy) projects after I finish up one or two more mice.

Devona and I went to the Akron Stitch ‘n Bitch group last night.  It was a fabulous time!  We met at someone’s house and worked on the back deck which was so relaxing.  We had nice conversation and some yummy food.  Overall the group has a great vibe and I can’t wait to go back.  I just need to coordinate babysitting.

I did get a little laughed at because of my current knitting project!

Last night I went to a knitting group at Barnes & Noble Bookstore.  There were about 15 people at a very large table, all drinking coffee & knitting.  It was very informal, but if you needed help, the facilitator or others were happy to help.

Besides knitting groups, my local store also has many book groups and a group for paper crafters.  So, perhaps you can find or even initiate a group at your local store.

I recently did some spring cleaning and even had a yard sale.  With everything that didn’t sell I’m wondering what can be repurposed and what needs donated.  I decided to salvage some old sheets & made them into yarn for knitting & crochet projects.  And I have a recycled yarn pillow in the works.

For this technique, you’ll be making one single strand of yarn from your sheet.

Here are the instructions. Read more »

I had been looking for a gift for my friend’s baby shower.  I considered making a words book but decided it would be better for a 1 year old.  After some brainstorming & crafty research, I settled on making crocheted flower clips.  

I typed “crochet flower pattern” into Google images and found lots of wonderful items!  But sometimes the pattern was really confusing and poorly written, and other times the pattern was written in UK crochet terms (and I’m not that tallented of a crocheter to dive into that!)  The flower & leaf pattern that worked best for my project is by Lucy at Attic 24.  I used embroidery floss, a size US 6/1.6mm crochet hook, kids hair clips, and a hot glue gun.  

Instructions:  

1.  Make the flower & leaf with the pattern from Attic 24.  I wanted smaller flowers for baby proportions, so I only crocheted the first layer of petals in the flower pattern, but to make a larger flower you can make the second layer as well.  

2.  Hot glue the flower & leaf to a kids hair clip.  I like the ribbon covered clips I found at Target, although they had ribbon bows on them that I had to remove.  I just pulled at the bows until the glue came off.