Welcome New Crafters!

A couple of new crafters have joined us recently. Welcome Mirna and Ellen!
Here they are with their cake creations on the evening of 1 September:

Food crafts galore!

Last Thursday night, we had a fun food-themed craft party as a send-off to Van and Megan who have moved away. We'll miss you guys- keep on craftin'!

Activities included: chocolate art, vegetable bugs & animals, cake decorating, and black bean brownies!


Kara made an amazing chocolate art, recreating a gorgeous photo in our Department calendar of a green violet-ear (a hummingbird) in delicious, edible chocolate!


Kaitlin decorated a chocolate cake for her boyfriend, complete with green FONDANT that she infused with edible glitter and shaped into leaves! Beautiful work!!!


Michelle made a complex, multi-layered confection, with a black bean brownie base, red food dye, vanilla icing, and then an edible mosaic top! The mosaic was made up of chocolate with red food dye that she'd melted and frozen beforehand, and then broken up, and also chocolate pebbles from Kara's stash of chocolate bits. Then she made this caddisfly larva, complete with brocco/flower case!



Jess melted down different colours of chocolate, and created this assortment of candy trees and random patterny things. I also made a few random veggie animals (loon, mouse, beetle).



Ellen grouted Van's mosaic tile from last week, and then made this awesome veggie Hexagenia (veggegenia?). It's even recognizable to species-level, for those who want to try! :D



Megan made a couple of veggie bugs too- she was an assistant on the veggegenia, and then made a snail and a mite!



Katya melted down truffles (sniff!) to create awesome swirly chocolate designs. These also made a nice decoration for the top of the black bean brownie mess. :)



Theo really didn't contribute much to the craft night... he sat on the floor and pined for chocolate. He also made a fun obstacle for people working in the kitchen.

Mosaic Tile Extravaganza

I took a basic Mosaic Tile class a couple of weeks ago, and ever since, I've been itching to try out the techniques I learned. On our last crafty get-together (last Thu night), I finally had a chance to play, and pass on the tricks to other members. Jess and Katya started out wanting to make their own tiles. Here's the gorgeous 12x12" piece that Jess created (work in progress; before grouting):


And here we all are, hard at work last Thursday night (right to left): Jess with her tiles, Katya with her oil paints, Van and little Kiri editing Van's thesis (no stitching for Van that night), and me behind the camera.



I so thoroughly enjoyed the tiling Thursday night, that I decided to play again the next day, and went to work covering as many different flat surfaces as I could think of (a small table, a wooden tray, and a tile-trivet).



My basement is well stocked (from house renovations a couple of years ago) with all the materials needed for tiling, so I expect we'll be playing some more, as more of us try out the techniques. Stay tuned to see the results!

Kitty Craft Night tonight

Tonight is a special Craft Night - my cat Theo has been introduced to Van's cat Kiri (Kiri is the visitor). Some of those who couldn't attend our meeting tonight have asked for a video of the meeting, but nothing interesting has happened yet (aside from some hissing). We still hope that the kitties will eventually become friends. For now, Theo is hiding under the futon, and Kiri exploring the new territory. Maybe one of these days they'll be able to sit and knit together, or at least play with the same ball of yarn!

It's taken me a while to sign on to this blog, but here I am. Some of my projects over the past couple of months have involved altering clothes (T-shirts, mainly). Below are some of the results.

Jess's latest crochet adventure

It was my sister's (cough 30th cough) birthday last week, and I haven't given her a crocheted gift before so... I resolved to make her a cute bag.



I started with a multicoloured yarn at the bottom, added white and deep blue stripes, then went back to the multicolour, then back to blue to finish it up to the straps. The bottom half is single crochet, with the top half sort of a mesh (interlocked short chains), and single crochet again on the straps. The meshyness of the top half inspired me to thread a white ribbon through it and tie a bow.

The end product is nothing fancy, but I figured it would make a good grocery or beach bag.

Verdict: my sister likes it! Yay! :)

Whisper Craft Fun!

So we Uwindsor Crafters have begun a whisper craft project, which is pretty much a game of telephone with crafts! One member is inspired by a photo, and then that person makes a craft, then passes the craft along to the next person, who will (hopefully) be inspired to make their own craft and so on. The name of the game is that no one knows what the first crafter was inspired by. In the end, you can see everyone's craft and see how much they deviated from the original photo.

the rules are: there are no rules! just be as crafty but you cannot tell anyone in the group about your craft or what inspired it. you just hand it over to the next person.

I was the first one in line. My craft has been made (after two weeks of struggle) and sent to the next person Jess, who will (hopefully) be inspired to make her own creation. I keep stressing hopefully because I have no idea if she went EUREKA or oh....what is this when she saw it lol.

Lots of suspense...keep posted!

FO: raggy quilt

I already posted this on a larger post on my own blog about my finished objects, but I thought it made sense to post it here, too. It's my first (and potentially last?) raggy quilt, which I made for my niece (who should be born any day now). Each square is under 4" so yeah, that's a tiny quilt. But I was having trouble cutting them since I don't have a nifty cutting mat or rotary cutter. Instead, I was using scissors!! Other mistakes I made: I didn't pre-wash my fabric, which I think has caused the wrinkly look; I didn't cut all the squares the same size, which means I had some squares come undone when I washed it - necessitating some emergency quilt mending; and I didn't know what to do about the border before I started making it and I therefore don't like it, especially the corners. I actually do have a lot more flannel around, and I'd like to experiment with modifying my own clothes, so I think that I would like to buy myself a cutting mat + rotary cutter. Michelle, any suggestions?