Rag -tutorial

If you have old unused fabrics or old used fabrics (bed linen, curtains, dresses, shirts etc.) you can reuse them again in craft making. Old clothes have always been used in patchwork but you can use them also in weaving and crocheting; why not in knitting too.

Cut the fabrics in this way. Pay attention on the turn ups. You can use the scissors but I usually use the scissors only to cut the start and then tear the rest. Depending on the fabric it may be very easy to tear it. Usually the easiest direction is according to the weft but sometimes it works better to the warp direction. I tear it up always when possible to work fast but also to get the weft straight and even.

How wide you should make the rag weft to be? It depends on it how thick the fabric is, what you are making and by which method. 1½-2 cm is max for the crocheting and knitting so that it still is easy to work with without stressing too much your hands. (Take big enough hook or needles.) For weaving you can use also thicker if you like. Notice that if you tear the rag it vanishes few millimeters by both edges.

Wind up the rag weft turn out to be a ball. If you are using flexible material be aware of not to stretch it. Wind up always over your four fingers which hold the ball, then loose the hand, change direction / point a bit and wind up again. The ball should not be too tight so that it can hold in the material without damages (stretching & getting wrinkled too much).

For rag weft you can use also old VHS and Cassette tapes. There is a lot in each so open one at a time to avoid a huge mess with them. You can use VHS and Cassette tapes straight from the reel that's inside. If you remember or happen to know 😊 Cassette Tape is much thinner than VHS tape so it suits better for smaller hooks.

Old fabrics and tapes you can ask always from friends, buy at second hand and charity shops. Make sure everything is clean before using. It is very eco-friendly craft making but also excellent method if you need to keep up the budget. Not to mention to save those old pretty / emotionally valuable pieces of clothes your heart doesn't allow you to throw away but brains keep on nagging you can only hide them in your wardrobe or attic!

What to make of rag? Rugs and baskets are good to start to try it out.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a princess...

...who grew up and much pink princess stuff was left behind.

So her mother grabbed last pieces and stored them well in hidden place. For further use; of course. Because she had no squared pattern paper she needed a pen and ruler to draw 5 x 5 cm squares all over. Because she had no quilted princess fabric she needed to do it by herself.

She had done it several times before so it was easy and finished fast.

She charmed two blankets and pillows for a little MissN who is about to think she and all her dolls are true princesses.

MissN will get them on her birthday on a dark autumn day when the magic is real and all the wishes become true. Until that very special moment these crown linen will be stored and hidden well.

My own design

Bunting -tutorial

 I know in Finland bunting is not such a common way to decorate your home, garden, public or private streets or any occasion. But it doesn't have to mean that it is banned. It is just something Finnis just don't do. 

But I did. For our special celebration; high school graduation. Usually people buy flower ampels and hang them all around. Which is very pretty indeed at this time of the year when our gardens are still bare and almost nacked. Crocus, narcissus and tulips may be just in time at the end of May; but really, you can not count on them. 

That's why I did WreathNo1. And that's why I made this bunting. I want flowers around but in a different way. The idea for the bunting I got from the pictures of my English friends. And DearM. from TheFarm kindly explaned all about the bunting to me (thank you my darling) and helped a lot with her information in my inspiration and designing process.

This is some kind of recycled bunting. See, the rose fabric I used is very old English Laura Ashley design. At early 90's I bought this fabric to sew curtains for my bedroom. It was excessive expencive and demanded all my savings. But it was a rare fabric by the arctic circle on that time. I never considered myself as a romantic girl but this print out just enchanted me and I ended up counting my pennies if I only could afford full length curtains. I still remember those bad thoughts of that fabric shop owner who did not gave me -poor high school student- any penny discount, not single one. I bought a lot from her shop when she had it and she always was so sour. I am happy to tell she had to give up the shop long long time ago. 

But still I have this adorable fabric. It would have been heart breaking to throw it away. It has faults the sun has made. But still it lives here with me. And now it has become the time to transform it to something else. It is Mr.W's high school graduation time. It feels more than meaning to use this fabric I bought as high school student to crate decoration for my son's high school graduation celebration.

So, here it is all for you!

You need fabric, felt, plastic or perhaps paper. What ever you desire to use. Notice the place, weather and material connection. No paper in the rain etc. Drawing the pattern is easy. Just as big or small you desire.

I used green felt and cotton fabric. The fabric is thin so I used it as two sided.

I placed the front sides of the fabric at each others. Then I sew the side edges. Then I turned "frontside out" so that the seam allowances were be hidden inside; between the fabrics and their back sides. Then I ironed them all.

 I used seaming machine to close out the moth of the triangle and stitched it to the back side so that there will be passageway for a twine to go through.

 I decorated the green flags with recycled buttons. These are left over buttons from my art school student times at 90's.

 These are rcycled buttons from mother-in-law.

 I place one of the buntings under a dream. Some day; like my dear friend B. recommends, I will go and see New York alive.

 Here you can see how the twine goes.

I didn't stitch the twine to the flags because I want the flags to be movable. But it is not banned to do so. If you think your flags need to be fastened to the twine just do so. No problem.

This is my own design, but easy to do by anyone.

Blue and white lace

To run away from the spring cleaning I really needed to go to the fabric shop to buy material for the living room curtains. I didn't find the right fabric at my last weekend fabric shopping. Now I went to another shop and there it was in a sale basket. Well done! Just 5€ per meter. I have never before seen any other colour lace fabric curtains than different shades of white. Perhaps somewhere else -not so backward- it is common to use all the shades in lace fabric but no, not in the windows located deep north. But soon there will be some in my windows.

I bought also some white velcro and lace. No, I am not going to use them for the curtains. :) But they are very useful to have at home. You never know when you need them.

Tomorrow I will sew the curtains and later on will teach you how to make simple styled curtains by yourself. Just to save money. My aunt used to moan she can sew only straight seams. I said there are no any others; they all supposed to go straight. :)

Because the evening turned like this I had to go back to my spring cleaning project and forget the burning need to sort out more raw wool. Yes, there is still snow. Today we got more snow and even hails. But today I also saw the first rainbow for this year so I know; summer is comming and soon the whole sun will be all mine -day and night. :)

This and that from fibres and fabrics

I've been shopping. I need to make a dress for myself. There will be very formal celebration with ball in July. Unfortunately they didn't sell updates for dance skills but the fabrics I found. This disco effect looks very 80's. But I will use it just a little bit, like a drop in a blue sea. So it should look more decorous than cheap. I have the design in my head; I just need to make the pattern.

And I have already started from the 1st step. Which is not getting the fabric or the dress itself. All the ladies reading -the 1st step is to buy the underware. You should always get them first and try on the dresses with the wanted underware. The underware change the form of your body which influences also on the dress and how it looks on you and how you look in it.

Today I had yarn moments on sofa. I stitched my secret projet and the yellow heart. I also crocheted a bit BlanketNo2. I was happy to discover it was not that slow anymore. The starting was so desperate slow but now I think I will finish it before Xmas. Yeppee! Still it is slow but not devastating dull.

This is how it looks now from the front side...

...and like this it looks from the back side.

The day has been dry with a blink of the sun. The evening was cloudy but still no water drops. It was perfect weather with tiny wind to do something a bit different.

We went outside and carried two of five bags from the shelter house.

I have bought 20 kilos of ethic produced sheep wool. Today we started to clean them up. We seperated the wools by colours and picked up the white ones and put the dark ones back.

We cleaned the wools and packed them into clean paper bags. They should not be stored in plastic bags because it perishes the fibres. Believe or not but at the moment we are using extremely old garment bags made of paper which we happened to find in good shape!

It is easy to clean the raw wool. Put a clean tarpaulin on the dry ground and wool on it in a pile. Then lift up some wool and it shows its form when you do it gently. There is no need to tear the wool apart. It happens without doing. So, lift a bit and start gently shaking. The trashes drop down easily. Beware off not to shake above the wool pile; to avoid more trash to get into the wool you suppose to be cleaning. You can pick up the straws and other bigger trashes individually by fingertips.

On some other day we will continue this project. Little by little. Later on May we'll take this wool and arctic dog wool into a spinnery to get ethic produced yarn which will be mix of sheep and dog wool.

My fabric

Here it is. I got it yesterday. The fabric I talked about before . All the prints can't be seen on the picture but it gives an idea of it what it all is about.

At the fabric shop

Today I went to a fabric shop to buy a zipper. Well, I found the zipper but have not used it yet. I should replace a broken one with it. That is always soooo boring and should be banned by the law.

I didn't plan to buy anything else. But I found something. The garden fabric I used immediately so I have been spending the day by sewing. Later you will see what I did. The horse and star themed fabrics I put aside for later use.