Posted on 12/02/2022 6:12:43 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
“Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, Sauté it, whatever. MAKE.” ~ Joss Whedon
The Monthly Create, Make and Share Thread is a monthly gathering of people that love to create and make. From yarn (crochet, knitting), fabric (sewing, quilting), threads (embroidery, weaving), wood crafts, ceramics, artwork and anything else you create and would like to share, this is the place to do it. Sharing something you’ve created and/or made is pure joy...and we need joy in our lives!
From complete Newbies that are looking to start that first project, to experienced artists, we would love to hear from you. If you have questions or would like advice, there’s probably someone on the thread who would be able to help.
It is impossible to hijack the Monthly Create, Make and Share Thread. Knitting, crochet, sewing, quilting, weaving, general crafting, art, wood working, patterns, articles on any of these topics, or even your own writing. There is no telling where it will go, and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you’d like to be added to our Ping List.
NOTE: This is a once a Month Ping List. We DO post to the thread during the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to other Create, Make and Share fans are welcomed any time.
Sounds pretty - I love anything Celtic!
I have very limited experience with zippers. From what I remember of the one time I tried an invisible zipper, the problem wasn’t the strength of the zipper so much as the mechanics of it. It required a certain amount of flexibility in the fabric in order to keep it from getting stuck all the time. Bulky fabrics just can’t do that.
If you don’t want the zipper to show, put it where the fabric will overlap enough to hide it.
Thank you for the detailed info.
Thanks for the feedback Ellendra. After much reading and youtubing (is that a word?) I’ve decided on a metal zipper (separating obviously) with a lapped finish to cover. I’m definitely not going the invisible zipper route.
You’re very welcome!
So she's got a blog post on how to make a lovely wreath and I thought I'd share it. She's got a video, too - the link for that is in the blog post.
How To Make A Christmas Wreath
The final wreath, hanging on her door (pic at end of blog post) has some pine cones added and they make a nice addition.
Anyone ever use Wonder Clips and, if so, would the user recommend them?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I had no idea what these were, so obviously I’ve never used them, BUT I looked them up .... & learned something new, so thank you! They look very useful .....
Wonder Clips
https://www.clover-mfg.com/product/9/278
- Great alternative to pins, especially when working with vinyls, piles, and heavy weight fabrics.
- Holds layered sections of sewing projects such as, handle connectors to handbags, piping, etc. without distortion.
- Holds quilt binding while sewing.
- Easy to see on your work and easy to find when dropped to the floor.
- Works well with sergers. (*sergers= overlock sewing machine)
Seam allowance can be estimated in units of 5mm, 7mm and 10mm.
And….I got nothing! Sheesh.
From Crip to Crochet Artist: How an Unlikely Hobby Changed My Life in Prison
(I used to hide this cathartic craft because Crips don’t crochet. But making items that fellow prisoners can give to their loved ones has allowed me to create a peaceful new identity).
As a kid growing up in Southern California in the 1980s, it was no surprise that I became a Crip. I learned how to sell drugs and gangbang, and when I moved to Kingston, New York, at age 18, I carried the same mentality with me.
Two years later, I was involved in a shootout at a bar. Two men died, and three others were wounded, including me. I was sentenced to 62 and a half years to life. Today, I take full responsibility for my actions. But I’ll be 82 when I see a parole board.
Bloods and Crips were new to New York prisons when I started serving my sentence in the mid-90s. There were (and still are) many more Bloods, and I was often the only Crip in a facility. My only concern was survival, and I avoided everyday activities to stay safe.
I once saw a guy go for a layup in a friendly game of basketball, and when he landed, someone came up behind him and sliced his face with a razor. So I didn’t play sports. On a few occasions, I saw men get stabbed while taking a shower in the yard. So I didn’t shower outside. I refused to get caught slipping.
I knew that violence would determine how much respect I was going to get in prison, but I never talked to anyone about my crime. It’s hard to live with taking a life, but I didn’t have an outlet to be vulnerable. I kept it all in, and after a few trips to solitary confinement for fighting and refusing to follow orders, I made friends and earned respect.
After about seven years, I did find a cathartic hobby: I started crocheting. I learned how from a pot-bellied, bald, old man named Joe who was on my tier. (If you ever read this, Joe, my bad.) I’d see him crocheting all the time and selling his finished work, and I asked him to teach me. After he said yes, I ordered about $60 worth of yarn and crochet hooks from a catalog.
I was slightly embarrassed when that first order came. Crips don’t crochet; old women in rocking chairs do. When people saw me carrying my yarn from the package room to my cell block, they asked what the crochet man was making for me. I didn’t confirm or deny why I had the materials.
Picture a 240-pound, 6-foot, 27-year-old, Black Crip crocheting in his cell. That was me. I would cover the front bars of the cell with a dark sheet to prevent other prisoners from seeing me. This worked for a while, until one of my friends knocked my curtain down. He probably thought I was smoking weed without him; I was known for doing that. When he saw me crocheting, he burst into laughter, shaking his head. He wasn’t the only friend who teased me; peer pressure exists behind these walls, too. But I laughed along with my friends and kept on crocheting. Soon, I realized that if my work was good enough, I could sell items for a profit.
Prisoners paid me mostly with commissary goods and cigarettes. Prices varied, depending on the customer. A friend got the homeboy price; others got the going rate. A baby hat, scarf and mitten set went for $50. A pillow with a name crocheted in the pattern sold for $40. The price for a stuffed animal or doll was determined by the size of it.
I didn’t sell everything I made. A lot of the men suffered from mental illness, and they would go to the yard in the winter with no hat and scarf to look for cigarette butts on the ground. Once, I made a hat and scarf set for one of them, hoping he wouldn’t sell it for cigarettes. He did try, but guys in the cell block made sure no one would buy it from him.
Looking back, turning to crocheting was the first step to changing my life. I left the gang, which meant severing ties with comrades and giving up a position I thought would have for life. It was very emotional for me, because I felt like I was abandoning my family. One night, I broke down and cried. I didn’t know where the emotion came from, but I woke up wanting to be a better man and live a simpler life.
When I crochet, I get into the rhythm of it and get into a zone. I maintain the tension of the yarn as it slides through my fingers evenly. I’ve perfected every stitch, whether it’s a double, triple double, half double crochet or single stitch.
My hobby has also helped me keep my sanity. Crocheting teaches me patience, control, humility and compassion, and it allows me to meditate on my life. When I finish a project that a fellow prisoner will give to a loved one, it feels like an accomplishment. I like knowing that whatever I make in this uncomfortable place will bring comfort to someone in society. I also take pride in creating gifts that my children will become attached to because they came from their imprisoned father.
More than two decades in, I sit, legs pretzeled, on my bunk, with my pillow and blanket propped up behind me because I have a bad lower back. My knees and hips ache, too, but I try to walk as if they don’t. I don’t put a sheet across my bars anymore. Younger guys tease me: I’m a washed up, ex-gang member who crochets. Ha! But the truth is, many of us age out of the characters we once were. Crocheting helped me spin a yarn and create a new identity — a softer one that felt better.
When guys walk by my cell and see me crocheting to Marvin Gaye and the O’Jays, they just smile and give me a head-nod. One fella recently heard me playing Jeezy while crocheting and said, “Oh shit, O. G. Crochet!” I like the nickname, though. When winter comes, it’s those same jokers who ask for a hat and scarf to keep warm in the yard.
A few years ago, one of my old gang associates landed in here with me in Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York. I didn’t recognize him until he approached me in the yard. He let me know he had been watching me for over a week to see how I was moving. “What happened to you?” he asked. “Crocheting and playing Scrabble in the yard?”
At first, I got upset. Instead of embracing me as a comrade and respecting my choices, he seemed to be judging me. I shook my head in disappointment, then told him, smiling, “I’m not a gangster anymore — I crochet.”
Then he laughed, gave me a friendly hug, and said, “You done lost your mind.”
“Not yet, brother,” I said. “Not yet.”
Keep trying! :)
Thank you for the story.
Finished three more memory quilts (only one more left to finish!) and made pillowcases in Christmas fabs for stocking stuffers.
https://littlelooms.com/small-looms-roundup/
Weaving Tablets
Tablet weaving, also called card weaving, is interesting because it’s technically a loomless type of weaving. In tablet weaving, you use a set of cards (often square, sometimes other shapes) with holes typically in the corners of the shape. The warp is threaded through these holes strategically. From there, you need only to anchor the warp in some way and hold the warp at tension while you weave. The shed is created by turning the cards in different directions. Although you don’t technically need a loom for tablet weaving, many weavers will do it on inkle, band, backstrap, or even rigid-heddle looms.
Of course, this is just the tip-top of the iceberg that is small-loom weaving. Over time, I’ll write more about individual loom types and go into more details about how they weave.
Happy Weaving!
Christina
and:
Rigid-Heddle Loom
The rigid-heddle loom, shown in the photo (below), gets its name from the heddle used to lift and lower warp ends and to beat them in place after each pick. The heddles contain evenly spaced slots and holes. The spacing of the slots and holes determines the sett, or how many warp ends you have per inch. 
More at link!
I still need to do the lining, but you won't see it inside the stocking, so I took the pic on top of the lining fabric before I cut it out so you can see the pattern. I have borrowed my SIL's sewing machine - if I can figure out how to use the machine, sewing the lining seams should be easy - don't want to do it by hand. Sewing the lining neatly into the stocking at the top will be an adventure.
The hubby is a hunter so I think he'll love the lining and I think the stocking looks a lot like a 'hunting sock'. I still have to deliver it - hour & 15 minute drive each way .... will do it early one morning coming up this week. She plans on letting him put up his old, very small stocking he had as a child & then she's switching it out with this one - when he comes down in the morning, he'll have a new huge stocking ... a bit bigger than his son's, which I made last year. Fun surprise for him - my niece is excited about pulling off the switch/surprise.
Color is off ... red is a beautiful deep red. Cuff looks narrow, but it's not. I used a 1 x 1 ribbing & this works really well ... better than 2 x 2 ribbing I used on the first stocking.
Beautiful! Looks just like a warm, cozy huntsman’s sock! :)
Ah yes I remember those looms. I even have a few potholders left in decent shape. True story, I have some vivid memories from my childhood, one was putting my head through one of those red looms and down around my neck. So I must have been pretty young! I freaked out and hid in the basement because I could not get it off. The teeth were pointed up. Mom had to use some butter and some patience was required on both our parts.
I think they still make those things!.................Maybe larger now!..............😜
I’m not even sure what a placard is. When I want a zipper to be invisible I just allow a wider fabric fold when installing it. Pinning it first works best. Easy way for a zipper to be invisible.
I use a giant plastic crochet hook for rugs. I am working on one now. I like to use old blankets and start at the outside and cut one continuous strip between an inch or 2 wide. I have 2 on my back step that are over 30 years old. The nice thing about crochet is there is more room for dirt and sand to just filter right through. Easy to shake, slip and sweep off the step underneath. They keep a lot of dirt out of the house.
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