Su of Tangled Crafts has sent us all another great how to! How to make your own weaving needle from old gift cards. Here is what she says about it:

“My usual suggestion for a makeshift weaving needle is to use a hairclip.  But what if you don’t have a hairclip to hand?  If you don’t normally use them, you might as well go out & buy a pack of needles as a pack of hairclips (although the hairclips would be cheaper).  Where this idea came from I really don’t know, but for some reason it occurred to me yesterday that if you have an old, used-up store gift card, or an expired bank or credit card, you can make a collection of weaving needles very easily, for absolutely zero cost!”

What a great idea! I think really easily you could also make little bobbins for weaving or knitting – which are great when you are working with multiple colors.

I’ll see you all tomorrow with some rereleasing of patterns :)

Happy Crafting until then!
Kristin

I was delighted to receive Rejuvenated Jewels in my mail box about a week and a half ago. I was going to post about it right away, but I wanted to give the book a little time to ferment and get a real feel for it.

You can check in on the Author’s,Amy Hanna’s, blog here and also make sure to check out her etsy shop here.
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I saw this while looking for Knitting Baskets or some such thing (I’m actually not sure how I came across this at all now that I think of it), but anyway, I found this great tutorial on how to spin yarn from newspaper using a drop spindle. Excellent! I really want to give this a shot! I wonder if it would work on a wheel or if that would twist it too much? Hmm, something to try for sure. So check it out by heading over Green Upgrader – oh and this was posted almost a year ago, so if you have seen this before nevermind, but if you are like me and seeing it for the first time or it’s the first time you’ve thought about it in a year, you will love it.

I’m facing giving my knitting basket a face lift. Very similar to the story here on Vintage Knitting, my basket is old and broken down and it doesn’t stand up (I have it propped open between the couch and the side table, nice right?). But I really like it. It was my grandma’s. I want to keep it around a few years longer.
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I just checked my email and saw that Knitting Daily is offering up a set of 5 sock patterns. You can get it by clicking here. You just need to sign up for Knitting Daily – which often has a lot of good knitting tips as well as free patterns offered by Interweave.

I’ve been loving on socks lately so I was happy to see this and just wanted to share.

Kristin

I’ve been working this afternoon on a project I’m doing with some kiddos as part of the Spring Break Art Camp. I’ll be working with kids 5 and up so it has to be easy, solid, and the flexibility to be more complex.
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Su Mwamba of Tangled Crafts has provided me this great instruction set to share with you! I am so impressed by all of her productivity!
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Wowzers! I have been so happy and inspired all day by all the awesome ideas (and confessions) of storage solutions for needles. It sounds like some have it under control while the rest of us are just resolved to deal with it on a project by project basis. This morning I woke up to quite a few comments and it got me going right away. Read more →

A pressing thing – hooks and needles. I need a serious storage solution for sure, but I don’t have a lot to spend. I have a little wooden 4 drawer deal, but I think that my circulars would catch on the inside and it would turn into a huge headache.

I have hooks and needles everywhere. It’s bad. I have them in my little clutches. I have them in ziplock bags. I have them in rubbermaids. I have them in piles. I have them in random drawers. It’s bad.
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I make this pattern pretty often, both for the shop and for Molly as well as my friend’s cats’. I’m so happy to finally get this pattern into a pdf. It was one of those 2 page jpg deals, pain in the you know what. So now it’s all touched up, edited, typos fixed. Read more →