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?

CRAFT BOOK SUGGESTIONS!

Hi all. When I'm not busy running the Made in Windsor store my day job is working as a librarian at the downtown public library. One of the best parts of my job is that I get to order all the craft books! So if you ever come across a craft-related title that you'd like to buy but maybe can't afford or just prefer to spend your money on supplies rather than books send me the recommendation! I can't promise to purchase everything since my budget is rather limited but I'm always looking for suggestions. Thanks!
Christine

New finished project

This is what Jess finished tonight!
(A purse for my Mom for Mother's Day.)

This purse was crocheted from a pattern in a book called "Hooked Bags: 20 Easy Crochet Projects". It came out differently than I expected, possibly due to the use of different yarn or hook size than the pattern recommended. I used an acrylic yarn that I had lots of, and a 5.00 mm hook. It took about 5-7 hours of crocheting (purse, strap, pansies, sewing parts to other parts). I also bought buttons and stacked them for the centres of the flowers. The purse is also lined, which Michelle helped me do (sewing power!).

(From the book:) How to make a pansy: chain 4, then slip stitch back into the first stitch. Then, going into the centre of the loop, *sc once and chain 3, repeat from * five times (skeleton of 5 petals). Into the first 3-chain loop, slip stitch, ch1, then 5 dc. Ch 1 and slip stitch into next 3-chain loop, then repeat. Now you've made the bottom layer of the two big petals in the pansy. For the other three 3-ch loops, these will be small petals. sl st into the loop, then sc once, then 4 hdc. Repeat for these three small petal loops. Last step is to go back over the two large petals, adding two dc into each previous dc. Tie off- you're done! If you want to get fancy, you can use one yarn colour up to the end of the 3-chain steps, then tie in a different yarn colour to complete the flower.

Hello world!

Welcome to the UWindsor Crafters' blog! This is our first post, with more to come soon...