12 Days and Counting...

My 31 day creativity binge is still going strong. So far it has been a lot of smaller projects. I've had some ideas for bigger things, but haven't had the time to tackle them yet. I didn't realize how hard it would be to carve out time for craftiness some days. Still, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with the "make something every day" concept.

I left off on Day 6 (10/6/06)

My friend Kim, her daughter and I went to the new Archivers store at the mall. It was huge. I am new enough to scrapbooking and cardmaking that the two aisles at Michael's has more than enough new and exciting things to keep me going for a while. An entire store was a bit overwhelming - I didn't even make it as far as the bargain bins in the back of the store. I could drop some serious money in there (Kim did drop some serious money in there, I made it out for under $20, so I was pretty proud of myself).

But that is just consumerism, it isn't making anything. So when I got home I started felting an old cashmere sweater. It was a beautiful color but it had (gasp!) gotten a few moth holes and really wasn't suitable for wearing to work or anyplace nice and I can't bring myself to wear cashmere for yard work. The yarn was too fine and a bit too worn to be suitable for recycling into a new knit project, so into the washing machine it went.


Day 7 (10/7/06)

Ultimately it took 4 or 5 cycles in the washing machine for the sweater to fully felt. I had removed the sleeves before I started so they wouldn't get creased during the spin cycle. I threw a pair of jeans and an old towel into the wash so the sweater would have something to bump against. For the last two cycles I decided that my hot water heater wasn't getting hot enough and added a kettle-full of just-boiled water to the wash. (I've never felted anything before, but I think I started out with a fairly typical technique and got increasingly reckless as I went on. I could get into this.)

After all that, the sweater did finally turn into the most lovely and soft felt. I'm not entirely sure how it will be reincarnated yet, but it will be something fabulous I'm sure.

And since that was kind of a carry-over project, I also made a card. But it was for my knitty CASP3 pal, so I can't show it to you. Sorry.


Day 8 (10/8/06)

Today's craft was actually official s&em designs business. These are the buttons I had ordered from ChristineRenee (man, that was fast).

They are little mini DIYer identification buttons. But because ChristineRenee rules, I didn't actually have to do all of the DIY-ing to make them. She had even put the pin backs on for me and enclosed a fun magnet surprise with my order. Seriously, if you need buttons, check out her etsy shop.

We're using the buttons to make little idea books. I used E. Bess' one shot zine tutorial to design the books. These were pretty fun to make, so who knows, we may turn this into a series.

Day 9 (10/9/06)

I wanted to try knitting toys, but to ease my way into it, I started with wonton from knitty. I figured that I have a lot of friends with kitties, it would get used somehow. I finished knitting the square, but didn't get through the finishing.


Day 10 (10/10/06)

I finished my wonton. I didn't have any catnip as I have no cats, and I'm not sure of my cat-owning friends relative positions on using catnip, so I skipped that step. Instead, I stitched a couple of jingle bells to the inside of the square before I closed it up. Makes a fun little jingly toy.

Maddie was sitting with me while I did all of this, as she often does while I knit. It didn't seem right to make a present for someone else's pet having never made anything for her. So I gave it to her to play with.

It is soft enough that she can catch it (she won't play catch with bigger/harder toys) and she seeemed to enjoy shaking it around to make the bells jingle. The bells are less annoying than most of her squeak toys, so this one gets the thumbs up from both Maddie and Sarah.

I realize this was more of a carry-over project than making something each day. But I spent my work day doing a bunch of graphic design work for a project. Since I am not a graphic designer, I'm going to say that counts.


Day 11 (10/11/06)

I started a bit of embroidery and taught myself the blanket stitch. Anyone who sews will know that this isn't particularly difficult, but I can't say that I have ever had a name for my sewing technique before. Actually, I'm not sure I have ever had a sewing technique before.

Day 12 (10/12/06)

Having learned the blanket stitch, I'll probably use this to make something tonight (note the use of the new cashmere felt above). But there's a new episode of Grey's Anatomy on, so we'll have to see what the evening holds.