Monday, January 28, 2013

Mabel's Exercise Book Cover Tutorial!!


 

 
 You can cover any kind of exercise book, but the kind with hard covers work best.

Lay your book over the fabric you want. Cotton or linen works best.


 Leave a good size border around the book on all side and with your ruler draw a line for where to cut. We just use our eyes to judge how straight things are.

 Cut!

 Use your fingers to press an inner seam.

 Then fold over again, so the raw edge is hidden.
Pin and sew edges.

 Now do the same for the short edges. Fold over like before, pin and sew.

 Now, line up on the fabric and fold over the edges to make the envelop sides. 
Pin and sew!

 You now have a book cover! If you would like a piece of elastic to keep your book closed, just cut a length of elastic and sew it onto the very edge of the top and bottom of the back fold.


Add mushrooms, flowers or whatever else you can think of!! Hooray!!!
Now you have pretty exercise books for school!
And the best thing is, when you've used up your exercise book, you can take it out and put the cover on the new one!!
Have fun!

Saturday, January 26, 2013

f i n i s h e d h a t

golly! the hat is finished.
Here it is in all its glory, though I really lost interest during the making of it, probably due to the long, rambling, but interrupted days of endless cabling!
Not perhaps the ideal Christmas season knit!
That all aside, isn't it rather spiffy!







Ravelled here
Pattern: Encircle by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn: Madelinetosh Sport in Well Water

Friday, January 11, 2013

Thursday, January 10, 2013

~house~

a day at home....


 a new chalkboard drawing...


 a bit of random incomplete dusting in corners...

the girls find their way into creative projects...




sailing....


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

the blanket

We made a blanket for Roger. A knitted gift. From his devoted class of 16 children aged 11 and 12 years whom he had taught for 6 years.
In August a box arrived from Peace Fleece containing 22 balls of yarn. That's 4400 yards (4026 metres).


I knit up a sample piece to inspire the children.


The "knitting bees" began; mostly Saturday mornings and some after school. It was such a joy sitting knitting with these young people, who obviously loved and respected their teacher so much.








There was lots of chatting, including coming to the realisation that Roger wouldn't be their teacher for very much longer. The making of this blanket was a healing, a transition process,  an act of love and gratitude. Appoximately  242,000 stitches worth.


We ended up with 35 squares to somehow fit together, and after arranging the squares in strips of similar size,  ended up having to knit a few extra squares to make it all fit properly.

We also had to consider the squares which spelled out his name, Roger!

I then joined my circular needle cables together from my addi click set and cast on stitches along one edge at a time and knit a 14 row garter stitch edging, alternating grey and colour rows.
Finished 5pm on the night of the graduation party and presented to their beloved teacher, who was pretty overwhelmed.

 He said: "I will treasure it forever"