Hello reader,
sorry I haven’t uploaded a post recently I have been crafting non-stop!
Here is one of the many things I have made over the last month and a bit.
It is an embroidered costume. It is based on the sort of outfits I could imagine one of Henry the 8ths wives would have worn.
The beige part of the dress is made from cotton, the ‘tummy bit’ is made from red velvet. The arms and the inserts in the skirt are burgundy cotton and the gold is this sort of stretchy-man-made fabric.
I was wondering whether to add some embroidered patterns to the burgundy panels in the skirt and also whether to make a kind of ruff round the neck. Or possibly some beadwork on the dress. What do you think, please leave some suggestions in the comments!
See you again soon,
Bea 
I’ve been looking at Tether Car Racing and it has got me thinking about building a model of an Indy 500 car.
I’m thinking about something around the 1950′s era. Although I like the tether cars I’m thinking that my car may be radio controlled.
Inspiration:
Just been looking around at tyres and they look difficult to buy. Will do some more digging and add a note here.
Engines: the initial idea was to use an authentic tether car type engine, but must admit that I want to run this as a radio control car and display it, so based on this electric would be cleaner. However, there is still an urge to use a single cylinder 2-stroke to get the look.
Categories:
Cars Tags:
car, tether
Hello everyone,
you might have seen the new macrami bracelet runthrough on glue-it.com, if not here it is Macrame Bracelets
I decided to take it one step further and here is a macrami pot holder i made, you know just like the one from the 1970′s. I decided to just (with the help of my friend) make one for a small, cactus sized pot but it turned out great and looks uber stylish hanging in my greenhouse.
It is the same macrami I used in the bracelet tutorial intersperesed with knots.
It is made from just basic string – which I would recommend because you need so much of it!
A simple flower made from pine with a bolt through the middle. The bolt rotates in a brass tube that is fixed to a pine upright.
The petals were cut from a piece of 45mm x 45mm pine with a bandsaw. I simply cut thin curved pieces of wood, then stacked them up, drew a petal shape on the top piece and again cut this out using the bandsaw.
The petals were sanded and where they were going to fit to the flower they were all sanded at a slight angle. The petals were all arranged around a 12mm thick circular piece of pine and glued in place and then sandwiched with another disc of pine on top that had been sanded into a dome shape. A 6mm coach bolt was placed through the centre.
I found a piece of brass tube that fitted the bolt perfectly and would allow it to rotate. The upright “stem” was drilled to take the brass tube and the tube was glued into the stem with superglue.
The leaves were cut from pine in much the same way as the petals. All in this took me around 2 hours to make.
The angle on the petals turns the flower into a windmill that will rotate in a wind – just a little touch.
This is a craft I literally ‘stumbled upon’ the other day.
This is the website for it:
http://www.simplyvintagegirl.com/blog/index.php/2010/05/29/tutorial-how-to-make-lovely-fabric-flowers/
What the idea is that you can hold the fabric above a tealight and it will curl up into a petal shape. I couldn’t believe it and the images looked so pretty that I gave it a go myself.
I must admit that at first I made the mistake of using real silk. When I did so it started to smoke. I then re-read the instructions (thats never really been my bag) and realised I was meant to use what they describe as synthetic silky fabric.
This worked wonders and I saw the effects imediatley.
This is my finished product.
Hello everyone,
here is a glass bowl I re-vamped today.
I keep finding projects like this online and in craft books. They always say to use sticky back felt or tissue paper to attach the image to the glass, BUT I used spray-mount and I feel I should tell you that it works really well.
I found this little glass bowl in a charity shop today, I’ve been keeping my eye out for a while for a piece of completley clear glass with no naff paterns or textures. I gave the glass bowl a good rinse and it came out sparkling. I found the image of the flapper online. I printed it out and cut it out carefully with a scalpel/stanley knife. I drew round the image in fineliner so that it didn’t have the pizellated effect that images often have. Now for the fun bit I sprayed it with spray mount (very sticky fingers)
What I was pleased about is that it doesnt created a misty effect between the glass and the paper like I thought it might. Also it’s a really quick and easy craft.
Seeing how successfull it was next time I think I will draw my own picture to place behind the glass.
I was looking around for model engines that you can buy ready built or as kits and came up with the following.
Part Machined kits:
Machined kits:
- Stuart Models - steam engines
- Bohm - stirling engines, these models come as machined kits and ready to run
Ready to run:
- Stuart Models - ready to run versions of the famous engines
- Kontax - stirling engines, low temperature, high temperature, acoustic engines and stove engines
- Bohm – stirling engines, ready to run
We wrote a page dedicated to Hit and Miss Engines.
I have never been that interested in all those little squares and hexagons in fact I thought that they looked rather dull and tedious.
However we have found a solution to all those dull fabric shapes……..
We found this fabric (the brown backing fabric) at the Ragmarket in Birmingham. They were selling it for £1 a metre and we believe the fabric was originally produced to create the barber/hunting jackets which some people are really keen on.
The fabric naturally had a criss-cross patern on it.
I sewed the metre of fabric to a metre remnant – right sides together. I turned it the right way around and stitched up the gap. I then top-stitched a hem. And looking at the brown side I stitched along every other diagnol creating a larger criss-cross pattern.
This quilt is really easy to make and with just a metre of both fabrics you can create a small quilt which is the perfect size for the bottom half of a single bed.
Only thing I would say is that the brown fabric I used was quite slippery and has a tendency to slide off the duvet.
Oops!
A cotton reel pot made from Purple Heart for the main body with Cherry top and bottom.
The overall height is 73mm and the maximum diameter is 63mm. The main body was made by first constructing a hexagonal cross-section with 10mm thick planks of Purple Heart that was machined with a 30° angle on each mating edge. I glued this all together using Titebond Original I fitted 6mm think MDF end plugs to hold the cylinder together whilst I turned the outer and inner surfaces in the lathe. With the top removed you can see the individual planks used to make the cylinder. I machined the outer surface first and then I bored the inner surface. However, the cylinder wall started to look fragile and so I decided to not remove any more material and so you can still see the grooves where the planks meet.
The nick in the bottom for the thread to locate is rather over emphasised, but have to come clean and admit that I had a rather scary moment whilst boring the centre of the cylinder when the whole thing spun out of the chuck. This damaged the edge and rather than make another I thought I could lose this by cutting the nick in it to locate the thread.
As yet the Purple Heart has not changed to the deep purple colouring as this takes a few days to mature. The labels were made by Beatrice using Powerpoint and I think the hole through the centre roughly stabbed through adds to the effect.
As a Christmas present I got some water dissolvable fabric for hand and machine embroidery. So that very afternoon I sat down and had a go and now I am addicted I haven’t stopped making cotton flowers!
The flowers are made by using a free arm to stitch (running stitch)back and forth across a picture or design. I created them on our Bernina Activa 240. Then you cut out the flowers and dissolve the fabric in water!!!
This craft has quick results and you can do it easily on a wooden frame, used upside down.
A disadvantage is that this craft sucks up cotton like its going out of fashion. I have started using cheap reels of cotton from the rag market in Birmingham where they cost about a quarter of the price. I wouldn’t recommend using really expensive cotton because its not worth it.
Next I am going to try and make some butterfly’s or maybe zoo animals, such as giraffes, penguins or elephants.
And knowing my obsession maybe I should make some of them into badges/brooches?
HAPPY NEW YEAR
