PlanetJune Blog: Latest News, Patterns and Tutorials

The whiplash bag competition results are have finally been announced and, although I didn’t win, my crochet and satin evening bag got a special mention in the ‘Skill’ category! I really didn’t expect to win, especially after seeing the quality of some of the other entries, so this is a real confidence booster for me.

Here’s my almost-winning design:

Congrats to the winners and thanks to the Whip up panel for noticing me.

I haven’t done any crafting this week, as we’ve been on vacation.

Before we left, Dave asked me to make him a detachable cushion for the observing chair he’s made to use with his telescope. Previously, he had stretched black vinyl over the foam padding and tacked it to the base of the seat, but it looked a bit messy and stopped the seat from folding away properly.

I reused the old foam, and we had still some black vinyl after making the previous cushion, so the project didn’t cost anything. I found online instructions for how to make a box cushion and used them (modified as I didn’t need a zip) to figure out the size of fabric pieces I would need to cut. That was the hardest part – after the cutting, it took about 10 minutes to run the whole thing up on the sewing machine. I didn’t even pin the pieces – the vinyl surface is a sort of mock-leather look, so it wasn’t slippery. I just held the 2 pieces right-sides together and fed them through the sewing machine to make each seam.

I left one seam open to turn the cushion right-side out and insert the foam, then I hand-stitched the final seam. I bought a curved upholstery needle for the task, but the holes it left in the fabric were too large and I didn’t want the cushion to lose its water-resistance, so I used a regular needle and had to push it through the vinyl with a thimble, which was hard work! There’s probably a better way to do it, but this worked fine as a one-off.

Finally, we attached self-adhesive velcro to the seat of the chair and the underside of the cushion, so the cushion will stay in place when in use, but is easily removed so the chair can be folded away.

I’m pleased with how it turned out, especially as it was so quick to make. It’s already been field-tested (literally – in a field!) and rained on while we were on vacation, and Dave seems happy too. I think I need to find more ‘quick’ projects like this. I like the instant gratification.

I’ve been thinking of crocheting a bag for a while, since I saw a bag pattern on the Bernat site. I didn’t like how thin the strap was in the pattern, or that the bag had no way to close, so I knew I’d have to make up my own pattern. The July whiplash challenge to make a bag came along at just the right time to get me started.

I wanted a small bag to hold essentials (purse, keys, phone, etc) that wouldn’t be too bulky for when I go out in the evening, but that wouldn’t look too ‘dressy’ for everyday use. 15x15cm seemed about the right size.

I crocheted the bag with black size 10 crochet cotton and a 1.5mm hook, using a modified cross treble stitch. I wanted an open crochet pattern so that the lining could show through, and the gaps around the ‘X’ stitches worked out well for that. I made up the pattern as I went along – decreasing the Xs to make the flap of the bag was an interesting challenge.

I used a small piece of gorgeous periwinkle blue satin for the lining, and covered the button with the same fabric to tie everything together. The strap is 350 rows of single crochet stitches, crocheted tightly for strength.

The materials for this bag only cost $5, but crocheting all those Xs took a long time! I think it was worth it though – I’m really pleased with how well it turned out and I’m looking forward to using it.

I’m entering this bag into the whiplash contest in the skill category.

Here’s my work in progress for this week. I’ve wanted to paint a portrait of my cat, Maui, ever since I got my paints for Christmas, but haven’t got around to it yet. As this will only be my second painting ever, I’ve been too nervous that I will mess it up. This is going to be a long process before it gets finished. So far I have I underpainted the canvas, sketched the outline and blocked in some colours. I’m really encouraged because, even though it’s very rough, it actually looks quite like Maui already!

Hoping I get a change to work on it some more soon. More to follow…

I just bought a sewing machine last week, so I’ve started to make my way through the pairs of trousers I’ve bought and never quite got around to taking up to fit my short legs. I hate to throw away anything that may come in handy later, but I’ve never been able to think of anything to do with the leftover bands from the bottom of trouser legs.

This is a bit outside my comfort zone as I usually plan everything before I start a project, but I was struck by inspiration after hemming a pair of jeans, so I decided to try to make a hairband from one of the remnants.

The cutoff.

I folded the raw edge over twice and hemmed it. I used black thread, so it doesn’t really show up in the photo.

Here I have just started embroidering. I backstitched a freeform design using 4 strands of DMC embroidery cotton.

Here’s the finished embroidery.

I’ve been wondering what to do with these yummy mixed berry shade beads I picked up a while ago. I stitched them on with nylon monofilament so the stitches wouldn’t show.

Here’s the finished article in use.

Thanks to whipup for inspiring me to start this blog!

The WIP Friday meme is spreading around craftblogville and I’m thinking it’s a great way to introduce you to a range of what I do. Here are some of my “in progress” projects: 

Before we moved to Canada, a very sweet loved-up pair of doves used to sit on our garden wall in Durham. I took a photo of them and converted it into a cross stitch pattern. At 10 inches wide, the completed piece will be composed of 25,000 cross stitches… I split the pattern into three vertical panels to make it easier to work with, and, as you can see, I’m about 1/3 through the second panel, so I still have a long way to go.

I am crocheting this afghan and so far I have completed 26 of the 63 squares. My third block colour will be a mid-blue and I am going to finish the afghan with navy blue borders between the squares. This is really a winter project, so I’m probably going to put the box of squares away until the weather starts getting colder again!

I know they look like funny yellow ghosts at the moment, but they are going to be part of my polymer clay fridge magnet series. When the wings (shown in pic), beaks (on right of pic) and feet (still to make) are attached, they’ll look a lot better (I hope!). Bottom right of the picture are some backfilled clay tiles I’ve been experimenting with. I think they look cool (especially the bottom one), but not sure what I’ll do with them yet.

I just started playing with origami. This was originally going to be a mobile, but now I’m not really sure what do to with it. When I’ve figured it out, I have some prettier origami papers to try out as well.

There are more things that I’m working on too (painting, sewing, beading… I like variety), but this post is probably long enough already, so I’ll call it a day for now.

So this is my blog. I hope I’ll be inspired to be more creative by keeping track of my crafts here.

Care for an avocado?