Quote

I'm in the middle of my university first trimester (I'm currently procrastinating by writing here), so my crafty explorations have slowed down a bit. I did want to come on and share something of myself though so I thought I'd share a quote that I discovered a few years ago and love and find really inspirational. It's from a guy called John Ruskin, who was a philosopher and all round brilliant human being (or so I gather from his writings). It goes like this:



Think not of your faults, still less of other's faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.






I hope you think as much of it as I do. I'll put it in a frame sometime, and post the picture on here when I do.

Yarn Made From Old Jeans

So I had some old jeans that had served me well but were getting holes in the crotch. I was about to throw them in the bin but couldn't help feeling it was such a waste of jeany goodness. So I thought I could attempt turning them into yarn. I'd seen tutorials for similar things to be done with old t-shirts (T-shirt yarn tutorial) so I figured why not? (My jeans were stretchy and quite thin though, I'm not sure how well this would work on a tougher jean)

The first step was to lay out a leg of the jeans. I did it so I would be cutting towards the seam. You need to cut even strips toward the seam, stopping about 1cm from the end. Do this all the way down the leg.

Opening it out along the seam it will ook like this, and the next step is to cut diagonally from the outer edge to the the beginning of the cut on one side, as I've done in the photo.

Then cut diagonally from the end of the cut you've just cut into on the previous step, to the beginning of the next cut. Keep cutting diagonally from one cut to the next, and your jeans fabric should be falling beside you in one long stream. Repeat on the other leg, then sew the ends of the two streams together.

The jean fabric didn't curl up like t-shirt fabric does so I twisted it as i rolled it into a ball, I think this will make anything I knit look tidier. I'm thinking the strong fabric might lend itself to a knitted handbag. I've got some worries about knitting with the chunky seams, I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy crafting!  :)

Knitted Kindle Cover

I received a Kindle (e-reader that's easy on your eyes and generally wonderful) for Christmas and decided I definitely needed a case. Although it's fairly easy to find cases to buy, handmade and homemade is always preferable for me. 

I had this stripey yarn that someone had given me which I really liked for the rustic sort of look and feel of it, but wasn't enough to make anything substantial out of, so it was perfect for this. I simply knitted a long rectangle that folded over to just cover the Kindle nicely. 

Then I sewed on two rectangles of soft white fabric to make a nice inner (as you can see in the inside-out view in the last photo). I folded the edges of the fabric under so it looks pretty and won't fray.

All there was left to do was to fold it together and sew it all together into a nice little pocket. It would probably be nice to put a little loop and button on the open end, but the Kindle hasn't seemed to want to slip out yet.