It’s official, Jason and I are getting married this fall. It’s the biggest craft project ever! Ha. There are many great things going into the works, but I the fear of feeling overwhelmed and a bit schizophrenic. So I’m going to focus on just one aspect, the wedding shawl.

{finished project from Ravelry, knit by rahardjo-knits, pattern by Jenny Johnson Johnen.}

I had actually drawn up a shawl design for my perfect wedding shawl. I loved it. And then I realized that I’m not really a lace knitter and it would take me just as long to work out the pattern as to knit the thing. And lace tends to cause a lot of swearing for me, so I finally relented and opted to go with a pattern.

I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted which can be a pretty dangerous thing. The main needs were that it was both elegant and warm. It’s an October wedding and the chance of snow is a real threat. But I didn’t want it to look casual or frumpy. So I kept that in mind while looking.

Lace knitting has a pretty long history and I felt confident that over the last 100+ years of publishing, someone, somewhere, knit the shawl I wanted. And they had.

In November 2009, Jenny Johnson Johnen typed up her first pattern ever, an amazing Estonian inspired design called the Echo Flower Shawl. And it’s free!

For warming reasons, I decided to go with a slightly fuzzy lace weight alpaca silk blend. This yarn is luxury plied. It’s a delight to knit with. I looked at every single incarnation of the shawl and then when I got it narrowed down to a few yarns, I looked at every project ever made with them. I opted for Silky Alpaca Lace by Classic Elite Yarns.

Now the colors. My wedding colors are burnt orange, a sort of sky blue, and silver. Do I go orange, blue or gray? My wedding dress is a simple tea length dress in ivory with a silver antique broach as an accent. After much ho humming and emails with my sister and best friend, blue was decided.

But oh the shade! This yarn has 3 lovely shades of blue. I called the only yarn shop in Central Iowa that sells it and they had exactly the amount I needed in Forget-Me-Not. Done.

Now to get started. I grabbed my Addi Turbos, a fist full of stitch markers, and got started. Knit knit knit. (#&#($*&@

Hmm, my count was off.

It was the most infuriating project and I was only 2 hours in. After 3 days of swearing and reworking stitches and whining to Jason about how my status as an expert knitter was being thwarted because a million knitters had successfully completed this project without a hitch. Then it finally clicked. Work the whole chart before the center, not just the repeat. So stupid. Now I was happily working along and my stitch count came out great.

And then I made the worst mistake ever. I took it to Creative Collision and worked on it while talking. Wow. Did I ever jack it up. Truth be told, I have no idea where I went so wrong as to be a whole 10 stitches short. Didn’t do a round of yarn overs? I don’t even care to figure it out. I’m calling “do over”. I messed up so bad I’m actually going to give it a huge rip and start from the beginning.

I wanted to show it to you first though:

Riiiiiiiiiiiip.

Riiiiip.

rip.

And that’s where I am on my wedding shawl. But hey, I have the pattern, the yarn, the needles, and a fist full of stitch markers. I have a good understanding of the pattern now, it should be easy peasy. Just no more talking, this is a high concentration project from here on out and I’m going to respect my own limitations.

What’s the most complex project you’ve ever made? What was your favorite wedding craft project?

Happy crafting!
Kristin

Thanks you Little Leftovers Note Cards

The littlest of leftovers are often the hardest to work with. What do you do with one foot of yarn? A single lone button? Well, I came across these two fun ideas and decided to join them together to make my own leftovers project that uses up those littlest of bits.

I still owe some family members thank you cards from my birthday in April so these will be going into the mail as soon as this post is up!

Make your stamps

What you’ll need:

• hot glue gun
• ink pads or acrylic paint + a stiff brush
• wine corks or scraps of wood or even better: both!
• Yarn scraps
• Buttons

First make your stamps. I got this idea from elsewhere, no, I’m not that brilliant, so go check it out at the source: making button stamps on Martha Stewart and making yarn stamps on PrintPattern – oh my, I do want the Print Workshop book so bad!

Here’s the quick and easy photo run through of how I made the stamps:

Make your cards

This is easy, fold any old piece of paper in half, cut it to a rectangle:

And write your notes.

And done! How fun is that! I love making stamps from little bits. It has me thinking, what other leftovers should I make into stamps?

Happy crafting!
Kristin

It’s finally here! The third issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly is in the shop along with the third edition of Leftover Christmas!

Get this month’s issue in the shop

• Print Edition of Volume 3: Issue 3
• E-to-P Edition of Volume 3: Issue 3
• Leftover Christmas Issue 3

This month’s issue is all about spring turning to summer–gardening, cleaning up, and allergies! I don’t know about you, but my nose is going nuts with all the pollen around here.

Learn how to

• Make a curtain out of peas
• Getting chicks for eggs and meat
• Building a compost bin
• Make an herb coil basket
• Use DIY cleaners – my 2 favorite recipes
• Collect and make tea from the most notorious weed – creeping charlie!
• And eat my most favorite summer side dish – cucumber salad

The Craft Leftovers Monthly Zine is printed on 100% recycled paper at my local print shop. It’s designed, written, laid out and hand assembled by your’s truly. It’s 24 pages of crafty goodness in a quarter page size. Perfect for pockets, purses, and pouches. Get inspired, inspire your friends.

In this month’s Leftover Christmas we are making dishcloths! I have two new patterns for you in this sweet little zine, one crochet and one knit. Something for everyone, or if like me you do both, bonus all around.

They both can use at least 3 colors of cotton yarn and more if you want a rainbow of color.

Get this month’s issue in the shop

• Print Edition of Volume 3: Issue 3
• E-to-P Edition of Volume 3: Issue 3
• Leftover Christmas Issue 3

Happy crafting!
Kristin

Update: Quarry Books is giving away a copy of Water Paper Paint to one lucky reader! Leave a comment between now and Tuesday May 31st about how you have or hope to use watercolors in your creative process! Please make sure to sign in so your email address is available so I can contact you, the winner! Enjoy and thanks Quarry! And we have a winner! Sarah E White! Congratulations and thanks everyone for participating!

My BFA is in oil painting which is so completely different than watercolors. They don’t really translate well, except the color part. I have always loved working with watercolors, but I’ve never really read about how to “properly” use them. I’ve just always played. This book gave me such a great dose of inspiration this past week. Water Paper Paint is rightly subtitled “exploring creativity with watercolor and mixed media.” It’s filled with projects that help the reader explore working with this fun versatile medium.

Chapter 1 covers the basics–paper, paint, palette, and brush choices and what they are each good for. I forgot how important these details are since they’ve been part of my general pool of knowledge for so long. It was a fun refresher and I did learn and was reminded of a few fun details.

For instance, did you know that you can mix your own watercolors using powdered pigments? The author, Heather Smith Jones, shows you how.

Or did you know that all paints are labeled by the Color Index International that clues you in on if pigment or dyes are used, their color type, and their quality. It’s all described by a PBr7 (pigment+brown+quality of 7). Check out page 24 to read more about it. Neat, so that’s what that little sequence stands for.

Chapter 2 is the projects and takes up the bulk of the book. I think in many ways it could be more “Part 1, 2, 3″ vs. chapters as you may normally think of them. There are 30 projects and many of them incorporate using watercolors to make fun home decor items, like project 1, which are these great wet on wet pieces made into ornaments (or a paper garland if you string them all together).

These great projects are a fabulous way to grow your knowledge and skills in regard to watercolors. They’ll open the door to play, incorporating this very affordable medium into your projects, sketchbook, and general making practice.

My absolute favorite project is the cover project: #25 adding water color to a monoprint. I’ve just never seen it done that way and I can’t wait to give it a try.

After browsing this book and absorbing some of the lessons, I did this piece last week (wrote about that day here). I then turned around and submitted to the local Community Gallery show. I had intended on just submitting my crochet/ink piece (the one I framed last week), but submitted them both instead. They both got in! Hooray!

I hope you’ll look this great book up at your local library, book store, or Amazon, and give watercolors a try. It’s really fun and it’s a great entry level painting medium. Sure you can go all nuts, but really, you just need a cheap pan set to start with, a brush, and some paper to start having some fun.

Enjoy!
Kristin

Last year I was the chief instigator in coordinating, designing, and funding an 80 foot mural project. With the help of many amazing local friends, family, and businesses, I actually pulled it off. (I had lot of help).We won a grant and we got local donations of supplies. We had over 50 volunteers come and help paint over a 14 day period. It was awesome.

It just about killed me.

We had horribly cold weather. And I was out there unless it was really raining, everyday from 10am to 6pm (give or take depending on the weather and my stamina).

I’m so proud to have done it. I’m so proud we actually finished. You can see the scale of the wall in the picture above–it’s about 14 feet tall. Exactly 80 feet long. Whew. Claps on the back all around. We pulled it off.

From the start we knew that we wanted to do an annual project that was on a grander scale–but not always a mural and not always something so permanent. After all, our name is Ames C.art and we are on the move, spreading art and creativity throughout Ames.

This year’s project: The ArtVend Machine!

We kept joking about how fun it would be to make an art vending machine. The idea just wouldn’t leave us. When it finally came time to commit to a project and start researching how to make it happen, we said, hell, let’s go for it. And we did!

I’m so excited about this project because it embodies everything I’m about as an artist and everything Ames C.art is about as my brain child art organization. It’s mobile. We can move it every year to give different people a taste. We can sell zines, art pieces, craft kits, handmade goods of all types really. Everything will be under $20 in the vending machine. We going to buy an old machine and retro fit it vs. getting a new one.

How awesome is that?

We are selling local art to the locals. We are providing a new space to makers to sell their wares. And we are reaching people who may not normally view art in a gallery-type setting. It’s good for the makers and the community.

I’m an painter, not really a video person. It’s funny how amature our video is, but it gets the info across, watch it if you dare. Click over to the kickstarter page to read the details of the project.

Now we are to the fun part, actually getting the project going! We have launched a kickstarter campaign to raise the money to purchase the machine, make starter packets for the creative types, and retrofit the machine to be able vend creative things instead of junk food things.

Please, go take a look. If it’s something you think should happen, pledge a few dollars. Sure $100 would be great, but $5 or even $1 will help get us there. We have to hit that $1300 to receive any of the pledges, so it’s really important that everyone pitches in what they can.

I know many of you don’t live in Iowa, but don’t let that dissuade you. When you help support a project, even when you don’t get to directly interact with it, you are helping to support the larger creative community. And most importantly, you are helping a little known town bring into existence a unique project. By pledging, you are helping me fulfill my dream of making Ames, IA a creative oasis in its own right. And you can always come visit. :)

Thanks for reading my public service announcement and a special thank you to those who click over to the kick starter to pledge and those of you who share the project with others. I really appreciate it a ton.

Kristin Roach

I went to Hobby Lobby 2 weeks ago to look for a frame for a particular art piece. I just wanted a simple wood frame, dark stain, but wasn’t feeling very particular about style or shade. I could only find plastic. Unless I custom ordered a frame – which significantly upped the price.

Discouraged I looked up how to build my own frames and decided it was within my skill set to do. It was a little bit intimidating, but I figured that as long as I stuck to my measure 4 times, then make a cut, I should do okay. I dug around in my garage a bit, trying to clear things out so I could make said frame when I found:

Ta-da! Box-o-frames!

How exciting! Could I use them? They are in pretty bad shape.

• Mold.
• Loose corners.
• Bad finish.
• Dings.

Sure I can!

Sourcing vintage wood frames and repairing them and finishing them costs under $10. Plus, there’s the added bonus that I love of using something that might end up in the trash AND of making it better than it was when I found it.

Restoring a Vintage Wood Frame

materials:

• old wood frame
• stain
• Sandpaper – Assorted, make sure to have a couple pieces of really fine gritt, like 220 for finishing
• Wood Glue
• Wood Filler
• Cheesecloth

tools:

• Band Clamp
• Rubber Mallet
• Paintbrush for stain
• Loads of paper towels

Step One: Sanding

This is THE most important step. You want to sand off everything, and keep it even. Start with a corser gritt and work your way down to 220. Use cheese cloth or a scrap clean cotton fabric to wipe off the sanded surface regularly so you can see how you are progressing.

When sanding corners, be careful not to round them out.

And of course, always sand with the grain, not against it.

Step Two: Repair

All my frames were really wobbly from, well, old age. The nails had worked themselves loose and a little gap had formed at the mitered corners. You could just shove putty in there and call it good, but I think that looks really sloppy.

Instead, grab your belt clamp, wood glue, a damp paper towel, and a Q-tips (I didn’t use the Q-tips and lived to regret it, precision will save you so much time).

First, put a generous amount of wood glue on your q-tip and apply as much as possible into the corner joins. Immediately wipe off the surface of the wood with the damp paper towel. Move quickly from one corner to the next until all four are done and wiped up.

Second, place in the belt clamp and ratchet it as tight as possible. Because of the mitered corners, the frame should be able to take more stress than you might think. If the wood it really thin, take it a little easier.

More glue will ooze out of the crack, wipe that off right away. Let the frame sit like that for as long as your wood glue states – I believe mine was about 4 hours to “cure”.

Fill in any little spots with putty and let dry some more.

Step Three: Fixes

If like you me, you dribbled wood glue (or putty) all over the place, sand it off all the way to the grain of the wood. Anywhere you can see wood glue, the stain will not properly absorb. That will make your frame look a little tacky.

Woops.

Step Four: Finishes

I chose an all in one stain/finisher in Ebony.

First, Brush on the stain in a nice even coat all around, then wipe it off with a clean cloth in the order it was applied. This is so the stain sits for equal time before being removed. Work clockwise so you can keep track of what side you should be on.

Second, Let dry for 24 hours.

Third, Buff with that extra fine sandpaper and wipe clean with a dry cotton cloth.

Repeat as many times as you want to get the desired finish.

Step Five: Glass

One of the issue with many vintage frames is that they are missing their glass. That’s easier fixed than you may think.

• For cheap, go to a hardware store and get them to cut some window glass down to size.
• For art and uv protection, go to a frame shop (even hobby lobby sells it) and have them cut it down to size. It usually runs about $8 for an 8×10″ piece.

And that’s it.

Now, one thing I do have to say, this is not a one day project, but it’s not a time intensive project either. Just set up a little area in the garage or on the porch where it won’t be kicked around and expect to spend about 10 minutes a day for 4 days to get it done.

Next week I’ll show you how to size up and cut a mat for your new frame. It will really make your work shine.

Happy crafting!
Kristin

(this is now)

(this is before)

I’m happy to report that much progress has been made. First, I took the suggestion of many commenters and brought some organization to the pile. Whew, that’s better. Now I can actually get to the things I need to get to.

I did toss 2 garbage bags of junk (like packaging, yarn ball wrappers, boxes, bits of this and that, and some straight up trash). And I set aside 2 big boxes of things to sell in the stash section of the shop. And I’ve already sent out quite a lot of stashy things since I posted about it 2 weeks ago – hooray!

I’m still working through the pile, so more stashy things in the shop. I found a cash of yarn that I’ve been meaning to sell forever. It’s really nice hand dyed stuff – orange is just not my color it turns out.

Oh yeah, the walls of my basement are totally pink – what! Yeah. I know. Right…. Ah well, we will paint it eventually.

New Book Stash Category in the shop!

I listed some books in the shop that are pretty fun, most of them I’ve priced at “buy me a coffee” + shipping. There are some vintage ones, a crochet one, and a creative inspiration one. Go check that out.

Bookish Update

And I also wanted to check in and let you know that when I said I thought I was all set with the book, I was totally mistaken. It’s looking like I have this week of working pretty solid before I get that “whew, finished”. So close, but not quite there yet. It’s going to be so great, I can’t wait to share with you.

Alright, more soon!

Happy Crafting & Until Next Time!
Kristin Roach