Colorful Lace

So colorful! I used this tutorial.



I hung it on a shrub outside to drip dry. I hope to use this to make a birthday banner for my daughter. We've decided to have a crafty themed birthday party. It'll be much later in the summer when we are less busy. Last year we did a star theme, and the year before that, we did rainbows

Dyed Yarn

This is my yarn stash of the hand dyed wool I use for my crochet flowers. I use a simple but messy process with Kool-aid packets, food coloring droplets, vinegar, and the microwave. Later on I use bleach to get the mess of stray color off the white counter top.


Isn't it yummy? I want to work on getting some very light pastels and lavender. Lavender is very hard to do and I haven't achieved it yet.

Pink is a little tricky. It wants to come out really bright like the one in the center. You have to add a little bit of watered down blue to get it toned down.


Brown is red and green mixed together with a little bit of blue too. I just wing it without a recipe. That large ball was too reddish, so I overdyed it yesterday and got a better shade. I haven't perfected orange, but it helps to use a little bit of blue to tone it down or it looks really like neon. That orange is my Chicago Bears orange. Red is really easy.


These make me feel happy. Green is easy. The yellow on the right is very very bright, I use a bit of pink to get a warmer color.


The turquoise is the easiest. (Would you call that cyan?) It's just the regular Kool-aid for blue or the regular blue food coloring droplets. Blue doesn't soak in as easily so it needs to cook longer. I use grape flavored Kool-Aid packets with blue and red food coloring to get the dark blue. The grape flavor is really dark, so it is trickier. I love the way the dark blue has all the rosy mottled effect.

More Die Cut Tests

I came home last night after seeng the play "Gees Bend" with my mom to a new comment on my die cutting adventures.

Crafty Chica said...
love them!!! i don't know why, but i've never gotten the hang of using a die cut machine, i always do something wrong. i'm a dork, i know! but you have inspired me to try again!!! your tags are just plain COOL!!

That's the Crafty Chica, Cathy Cano-Murillo, author and crafty rock star.

Then there was this question this morning:

Elaine said...
Do you think this machine would do thin plastic for stencils?

So here is a few more tests and clarifications.

I don't have any actual template plastic, but I did still have the packaging for my new dies so I took one apart to use as a test. This plastic is pretty much the same as the template stuff you buy at the store as "template plastic".


There is sort of a trick to die cutting. I guess I did so much in my teaching days that I forgot how we had to learn how to do it. We probably had a day long session about this, the laminator, and the ins-and-outs of the overhead projector in one of my teacher prep courses. This machine has a smaller presser than the commercial die cutters I've used before.

You layer the material, on top of the little cutting mat and center the die over them both so you'll have a die cut sandwich. I pressed three times moving the sandwich carefully, only touching the plastic cutting board base so the material wouldn't slip. You have to be sure to press the arm all the way down.



Yes! It cuts template plastic just as well as felt, fabric, and interfaced fabric!

Last night, however, I couldn't sleep, so I watched the second half of the Cricut infomercial. It's probably one of THESE.
It's very alluring and that thing is really popular. It really seems like papercrafting supplies are taking over and needle-and-thread fabric people like me are having a harder and harder time finding our stuff. I guess I don't help things by not buying tools and gadgets very often...

Here's a video of a different product, the Sizzix Big Kick. It's in French, but it's quick.

I think the advantage of this machine is that it doesn't have the big long arm, so it will stow away more easily. It will hold larger dies as well as the smaller ones, but that plastic handle looks flimsy and I don't like to do all that cranking.

Die Cutting Fabric and Felt

I did a quick test drive of my new die cutter yesterday. I have a gently used Sizzix brand "Original Sizzix Machine" made by the Ellison company.

My love affair with the magic of die cutters began back in my old classroom days. Many schools have at least one big die cutting machine made by Ellison and I know those school/commercial models to be true workhorses. The popular die cutter today seems to be the "Cricut". That thing is really expensive and only cuts paper and I don't know, probably vellum and the other supplies papercrafters are really familiar with. Another type is the Cuttlebug. Cuttlebug dies are cheaper, but very thin and I don't know if they can cut felt.

This machine can use many different brands of dies, but I found the type that go with this specific machine. I prefer simple shapes without lots of details, I got these cute tag dies, some flowers, and I have a circle die coming later this week from ebay.


Mom gave me some vintage yardage of pink polyester gingham so I used that for my first test cuts. First I did fabric without any backing or interfacing. It cut perfectly! See! By perfectly, I mean perfectly! Still, though... I need some sort of stiffener or fuseable webbing to use little gingham fabric tags, so I ironed some interfacing on and tried again:

\


Even better! I used one as an identification tag on my tea towel for my new swap going around.

Okay, my friends, now for the real test... felt.
I've been using some heavier duty punches. These are disaster with acrylic felt:

No amount of muscle makes these things go through acrylic or polyester felt.

They do make it through wool/rayon blend felt, but I have to clean up the fuzzies afterwards:


But the die cutter has no trouble with either type of felt:



These dies cost about $15 US at JoAnns, but they were on sale for about $9 when I got them. I'm a serious cheapskate, so even that is a bit pricey, but evenly shaped flower petals and perfect, consistent circles are really hard to cut with scissors, so this is worth it to me!

Supply Binge

During our recent family trip, I took a few hours to browse the brick-and-mortar warehouse of Hancock's of Pacucah. I'd heard tales of their remnant bin and let me tell you. It does exist! The fabrics are actually stacked on a table in what are pretty much one yard cuts for about $4.50 a yard, which is about half off the regular price for designer fabric.

I could have bought everything I saw, but I decided to narrow my purchases to Kaffe Fassett fabrics or ones that were very close to his style and color combinations. There weren't too many Amy Butler prints. Anna Maria Horner's Chocolate Lollipop hasn't made it to remnant status yet. Denyse Schmidt and Heather Bailey were other designers I wanted, but I decided to stick with one look.

Kaffe Fassett was featured at the Quilt Museum we'd just toured and my 7-year old daughter brought along her little sketch pad to record her inspirations. Too cute...

I also got these fabrics:


Today, It hit me like a bolt of lightning. I forgot about all the roving I purchased right before Christmas. I tucked it away in a drawer and it totally slipped my mind. This is why we have piles of our stuff projects left out in the house: out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
I got this gorgeous stuff from a seller on Etsy. It really soft and luxurious, but I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it.

If I knew how to spin, It would make some pretty terrific yarn. Our community college has a fiber spinning class that I'd like to take sometime...Hmmm....

Finally, here are the satin ribbons I bought in one of those surplus bags you see at the craft stores. This was from Hobby Lobby and was about $2 for the lot.

Work Areas

I can't possibly be the only person who is fascinated with the way that people organize their work areas.


This is my beside craft area. It was actually my husband's suggestion to get the basket shelving available at Ikea and use those in this area for storage. I like to work here, because it is really comfortable and the lighting is excellent during the day when I've got the house to myself. If you are highly motivated, you can click on the photo to see the version where I labeled all the areas and drawers.

I tuck my embroidery floss bin under the bed and have 2 drawers for wool/rayon blended felt, 3 drawers for yarns, organized by fiber type, and 2 drawers for miscellaneous storage of little patterns, beads, glues, google eyes and stuff like that. Acrylic felt is banished to a less convenient cabinet across the room. I'm trying to get my husband to agree that we should get a set of dressers for this room. We have plenty of closet space for our clothes, but think of the craft storage possibilities!


Here is the bin I use for my floss. It is organized by color in 2 organizer bins I found at Ikea. There is room on the bottom for my hoops and embroidery needle storage. I've tried them, but I don't like using those wind up bobbins. I prefer to keep my floss in their paper sleeves.


This is my sewing area, also known as the dining room. My husband has to shove aside my projects to use this area as his office if he gets home early from work. The lighting makes it look dreary, but really that is a pleasant window and the light is usually good. I didn't photograph it, but my 7-year old daughter also has a work table of her own in this area where she colors, cuts, and glues her special projects.

I didn't photograph the basement where I have all of my fabric stash. I'd prefer to have just one work area, but I guess this set up allows me to be part of the family instead of hidden away in a glorious craft studio.

Here is my wonderful, fantastic sewing machine. She's a Husqvarna Viking Lily 550 and is about 9 years old, I think. She has a bunch of computerized stitches I never use. She works like a dream!

We purchased her the one year that my husband got a really good bonus. The company wasn't used to people actually earning the bonuses, so they restructured the system and employees earned useless company shares instead of cash. We saved carefully and used the rest of the small windfall for my graduate school degree, and occupational and speech therapy for our toddler-aged son.

We've been flirting with the idea of purchasing a bigger house, but there really are many advantages of being a family in a smaller space. This house is bigger than our first house and WAY bigger than the 2 bedroom home where my grandparents raised 5 happy children. My dad and his 2 brothers had to get roll away beds out to sleep in their living room every night. Our children have their own rooms and we seem to negotiate our shared spaces well.

We decided to finish our basement, stay more organized, and spend some of the money we'll save keeping our current mortgage on a bi-weekly cleaning service and the kid's college fund.

Fresh Dyed Yarn

I've been making felted wool flowers and came to the point where I needed more colors. One 40% off coupon at JoAnns, a large skein of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, and several packets of Kool-Aid later and I have this fruity scented colored yarn. Yummy!

Here's the mess of dyeing supplies. Kool-Aid is a bit neon, so I toned down the colors a bit by splashing in diluted drops of complimentary colors. I also used vinegar and the microwave:


Dozens of people have already done this and blogged tutorials, so I'm not going to bother with that. This is a great thing to do with the kids, but my kids are at school and I still think it's pretty fun! Knitty did an article about the process HERE. Note that Kool Aid and food dyes only work on protein fibers like wool or silk. It will not dye acrylic or cotton. It will also dye your fingers, but not permanently.

Here's a pic of the stuff I recently used up:


I'm making flowers like these:


I never get tired of flowers! These are stitched to safety pins because I like those much better than jewelry pin backs. They will be for sale at a craft show right here in Chicagoland. Check it out HERE.

Felt stack

Felt stack, originally uploaded by IamSusie.

Jealous? I finally made an online order for felt. This is the delicious wool/rayon blended kind.

At my last visit to JoAnns, they told me it isn't spring yet (!?) So I gave up on them. The prices on these were the same as JoAnns anyway and I had a better selection.

I ordered from this source. My order arrived super quickly. Unfortunately, they don't have lavender. I love lavender and the purple color range, so maybe I'll dye my own.

My photo color is a little bit too red. The yellow in the center is a lovely lemony color in real life.