Personalized Sponge Cloths

Just before Christmas I was inspired to work with stencils, and that inspiration has continued after the holidays, partly because I'm teaching stencil techniques at the moment. Today I want to show you a couple of small projects that perhaps could make your household chores a little more fun: personalized sponge cloths. You can buy sponge cloths without print in craft shops.

You've had a sneak peek of the first one already, but as it was a gift for my mum, I didn't want to reveal it completely and spoil the surprise for her. For this first one I've used freezer paper, which I cut into a sort of 'snowflake'. The artist Melanie Testa was the first person to open my mind about the possibilities with freezer paper 'snowflakes' (See e.g. Quilting Arts Magazine issue 21, spring 2006). Paper 'snowflakes' don't have to look like the snowflakes we all cut when we were kids. So I cut a Westie snowflake for my mum. (Regular readers know that I keep referring to Fia the Terri(fi)er. She has an impressive bark, but she really is a very gentle and sweet dog.)

Here you can see the design process: sketch, folds, cut-out, stencil:

And here is the result. As the sponge cloth was quite porous, the paint went under the edges a little bit and made them slightly fuzzy, so I used a Pentel Gel Roller for Fabric to tidy up the edges. I love that pen!

And then I decorated a sponge cloth for myself too, but for this one I didn't use a stencil, only a fabric marker: a Tsukineko Fabrico Dual Marker. A lovely and juicy pen that comes with a bullet tip and a brush tip. A lot has happened with fabric markers since I tried my first one many years ago.

That should add a bit of pizzazz to my kitchen.

Thanks for visiting and see you again soon!

- Annika

Oh By Gosh, Oh By Golly...

... it's time for mistletoe and holly!

In this part of the world we celebrate 'Little Christmas' (lillajul in Swedish and pikkujoulu in Finnish) on the Saturday before Advent Sunday. I celebrated Little Christmas by making this little bunch of mistletoe according to Susan Brubaker Knapp's directions in Quilting Arts Gifts 2010-2011, and by having a healthy helping of chocolate, nuts, my favourite cheese and mulled wine. The mistletoe is now hanging from the door frame, ready for some smooching, if a candidate happens to pass by.

My computer has been threatening to give up on me for some time, and today I finally got round to backing up my files. By gosh and by golly, there's stuff in there.... While the DVDs were burning away, I was bending wire. It was a bit fiddly at the beginning, as I haven't done much metal work before, but I got the hang of it eventually. I strung the snowflakes that I stiffened with sugar last week together with the wire, and added some beads for further embellishment. Now it remains to be seen whether the sugar will be able to hold the weight of the snowflakes, wire and beads. I might have to disassemble the mobile later and stiffen the snowflakes with another medium. It's an experiment. This is what the snowflakes look like strung together:

And here they are hanging in my kitchen window. Look at the weather: not were Christmasy yet, huh? There hasn't been any daylight to speak of  today. I wish we'd get some snow soon. It brightens things up considerably.

Happy Advent!

Snowflakes and Wooly Socks

I enjoyed a whole day of adventures on my own yesterday. I got up early, boarded a train and went to Tampere, where Finland’s biggest handicraft fair was held this weekend. I’ve never been to this fair before, so I was quite excited. I even brought my camera, but there were signs that asked visitors not to take photos. So I’m afraid I don’t have any images to show you. But it was huge. At least in Finnish terms. I spent five hours wandering around in the throng. I was quite dazed by the end.

And the loot? To be honest, there isn’t as much as I had expected. It may be that the thought of the dentist’s bill lying on my desk put a damper on my eagerness to shop. (Almost two weeks ago I had a wisdom tooth removed surgically. Yikes.) But the main reason for the meagre shopping result, I believe, is that they didn’t really have the things I wanted. There were very few things related to quilting there, and as for dyes and PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabrics, these were practically non-existent. Art supplies such as paints and pens were also pretty absent. So I was rather disappointed in that respect. But I had a good time anyway, got some new ideas and some advice, and made a few bargains, so I’m glad I went.

I bought a few fat quarters of fabric at the fair. I love the batiks, the blue fabric is for a future sashiko project and I’m planning to overdye the white fabrics.

On the train to and from Tampere I worked on a crocheted snowflake mobile that I started a couple of years ago. I finished the snowflakes and today I dipped them into a solution of water and sugar to stiffen them. I’ll string them together with metal wire when they’re dry.

After frosting the snowflakes I finished a sock I started a few weeks ago. The pattern is from a book titled Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. It should be titled The Rolls-Royce of Knitted Socks. I never knew knitted socks could look like these. The socks in the book are so gorgeous, I didn’t know where to start. So I started with the first pair in the book.

The sock is on the wrong foot, as the clock pattern should be on the other side of the ankle, but it was easier to photograph it like this. I don’t want to twist my ankle again.

The cable pattern travels over the foot. Ingenious.

I have a lot of smaller projects going on right now, and will save some of them for my next blog entry, so please stay tuned. Have a great week!