A little leisure: Sweet mushroom

While sewing and cutting and stitching, I realize I'm suffering from a constant lack of pin cushions - not a single one in sight when I need them! The small ones I did last year always seem to have disappeared without a trace ...

And from time to time it's nice just to play around and do some little thingy, nothing serious, just a spontaneous malfatto project in between!

And so I took a break and made myself a sweet mushroom by recycling a small plastic container which had held some screws. For the filling I used a handful or two of all those threads and fabric scraps laying around on my working table, but first I did put in a couple of small pebbles from the garden as a bottom weight, as this mushroom is a bit taller than usual and I didn't want it to tumble.



Every part of this pin cushion is recycled - some small leftovers from earlier embellishing projects, which I punched together with the embellisher along with some coloured scrim (used for cleaning up while dyeing!) to get a slightly larger piece - then a bit of free motion machine stitching - and a few centimeters of a really kitschy ribbon and some plastic confetti (!) which were easy to poke a hole into with the needle and to use as flower sequins.



It even fits into my little mobile sewing kit!

(German summary: Anscheinend leide ich an ständiger Nadelkissen-Not - auf jeden Fall macht es Spaß, zwischendurch so ein kleines Dingsbums aus den Resten zu fertigen, die da am Arbeitstisch herumliegen ... Ein Plastikdöschen, ein paar Zentimeter kitschige Borte, ein paar Filzfuzelchen, am Embellisher zusammengepuncht, zur Füllung einige Steinchen aus dem Garten und eine Handvoll Woll- und Stoffschnippelchen vom Arbeitstisch - und fertig ist das Schwammerl!)

Moons and stars fragments/Monde und Sterne - Fragmente

I always found it difficult to appliqué a piece of round fabric to a background - until I suddenly realized I could draw a circle with a 'Magic pen' (you know, the one that disappears by itself or when sprayed upon with water) on the background, and then follow these outlines when sewing the fabric down ...

To me, these are moons and stars - but of course you could see them as dots as well - and if they are to be dots, I guess I should link you to Jude, who's done a lot of investigation about dots!



And then I started pondering (oh, I love that word - it has been used in several blogs lately :-)) - if the Magic pen-method would work out with a more complicated form - let's say a star - too ...

Well, yes, it does!



I must admit that the fabric chosen is extremely light and soft , but a person more accurate than I am could surely do this with a normal cotton fabric as well.

I worked grain stitches through all layers to fix the yellow gauze better to the background. Filling stitches, like the grain ones, turn out very nice with a variegated thread - and here you can use up a lot of short ends, too!

In this case, both the gauze and the threads are self-dyed - products of Sara's and my dyeing last summer - and as you may recall it was very hard work - so therefore I really honour every scrap of it!

(German summary: Für die heutigen Fragmente habe ich den 'Magischen Stift' - der, der von selber verschwindet - zur Hilfe genommen, um einen Kreis vorzuzeichnen und dann entlang den Konturen die runde Applikation festzunähen. Es funktioniert auch sogar recht gut mit einer komplizierteren Form, mit dem Stern.

Die kleinen Körndl- oder Füllstiche sehen besonders gut aus, wenn man ein Stickgarn mit Farbverlauf wählt - auch Reste sind da gut aufzubrauchen!)

Another fragment - and a gadget

This is another leaf fragment - this time I've chosen a more closed form for the embellished wool and I've also pointed out the outlines with a stem stitch.

The fine nerves of the leaves were done with a normal sewing thread, in order to get them real fine.

For the background I've used the coffee-tea-walnut dye once more - I find it's being very useful for 'oldening' the fabrics a bit.

Did you know that you can re-use your teabags and coffee filters for dyeing by just drying them after drinking and then using them for dyeing later on? And that all parts of the walnut tree - hulls, nuts, nutshells, leaves, bark, root - contain 'juglon' - the dyeing content of the tree. (I've learned all this in 'Färben mit Pflanzen' by Dorit Berger - and here is another link, where you can read about the herb walnut and its medical use.)



As I'm getting back a bit more into sewing and embroidering again - and finding my eyes are growing older (unfortunately not only the eyes ;-)) - I'm happy to have found a little helper for threading the fine needles.

Even if I'm not so fond of owning a lot of gadgets for every single purpose, this is one that I've really come to cherish - it's a Japanese made (Clover) half-automatic needle threader.

You just insert your needle in the needle slot, lay your thread into another slot, press the lever, pull the needle out again - and voilà! - by magic, your needle is threaded!



It's a mechanical little thing (no batteries!) and I cannot figure out how it functions - but it works! You can however only use quite fine needles for it - on the other hand, those with a big eye I can still manage without the gadget! In Europe, the price seems to be around €15.

(German summary: Noch ein Blatt-Fragment, diesmal eine geschlossene Form mit Stielstich in den Konturen und normales Nähgarn für die feinen Blattnerven. Ich habe auch ein kleines Gerät entdeckt, daß mir das lästige Einfädeln bei sehr feinen Nähnadeln erleichtert. Und dann hab' ich noch gelernt, daß man gebrauchte Tee- und Kaffeefilter für's Färben wiederverwenden kann und daß alle Teile des Walnußbaumes braun färben!)

Just a small addition/Kleines Postscriptum

I just want to add another crazy idea to my last posting:



Yesterday my daughter was playing 'Mikado' (also known as jackstraws or pick-up sticks) with a friend - and suddenly I realized they could become great knitting needles as well ...

I measured them - and do you know what? The small (normal sized) ones are 3,5 mm and the big ones 5 mm - just the same size as the barbeque sticks and the chopsticks! Isn't that a co-incidence?

Which means I won't get any new gauges with these sticks - on the other hand, I could turn it the other way round and do another Mikado sets with those waste barbeque and chopsticks ...

(German summary: Als ich meiner Tochter beim Mikadospielen zusah, kam mir der Gedanke, auch diese Stäbchen als Stricknadeln zu verwenden - allerdings stellte sich heraus, daß sie haargenau die gleiche Stärke wie die Grillspießchen und Eßstäbchen haben! Allerdings könnte man aus solchen wieder ein neues Mikadospiel machen ...)

Taking it further .../Selbstgemachte Stricknadeln

As I've been knitting a lot with my Chinese chopsticks lately - they have a very handy length for the knitting I'm doing right now and are comfortable to knit with - I thought I would like to present them once more ...

This time I've taken it a bit further - and I still find it to be a very easy and useful way to recycle your Asian take-away cutlery !

Using a normal pencil sharpener and a fine grain sand paper, you can turn your chopsticks into a pair of knitting needles (mine are about 5 mm). This time, I used some felt-tip pens to colour them, drawing the pattern with a waterproof overhead pen, then covering them with a thin coat of transparent varnish. As my varnish was water-based, the colours were a bit blurred - which resulted in a very handsome patina, all by itself!

I made a set of five very short double pointed needles too - using them as a stitch holder when knitting braids or other patterns where you need to 'park' the stitches in between -



and another set of five double pointed needles, for socks or hats knitted with medium thick yarn - this time I didn't colour them, just polished them with a bit of a wax candle to get them real smooth.



The smaller sized set above is made out of five wooden barbeque sticks - mine are 3,5 mm, which means they are perfect for normal sock yarn!

The effort of making these is almost zero, you can colour them any way you like to - and they would make a nice treat or present with a matching strand of yarn too, wouldn't they? And they are recycled!

(German summary: Weil ich so gerne damit stricke, zeige ich nochmals meine selbstgemachten Stricknadeln aus chinesischen Eßstäbchen (5 mm) und Grillspießchen (3,5 mm) - mit einem normalen Bleistiftspitzer und einem feinen Schleifpapier kann man sie ganz einfach so formen, wie man sie braucht! Am Ende bemalt man sie dann noch mit Filzstiften und etwas farblosen Lack - oder poliert sie nur mit einem Stück Kerzenwachs!)

Knitting gadgets/Kleine Helferleins

Last week I visited Ikea and found this piece of fabric:



I think it's quite interesting - makes me feel inspired to use as a background, or outlining, for using the embellisher and a bunch of wool and fabric scraps ...!

My mother is visiting me right now, which means I won't get too much time for blogging and posting within the next fortnight - but I did some more row- and stitchmarkers lately:



I must admit I love these little useful gadgets - especially when they are so easy to make yourself!



A few I will keep, others will be passed on to knitting friends!

(German summary: Nur ein paar Kleinigkeiten, diesmal - ein lustiger Stoff von Ikea, den ich als Hintergrund für Resteverwertung mit dem Embellisher verwenden werde - und ein paar Reihen- und Maschenzähler, die ich für mich und für ein paar Freundinnen gemacht habe.)