Epsom Salts

A few months ago I acquired a single skein of Noro Silk Garden Lite in pinks, greys and purples. I decided to make a bowl and felt it. I could display pretty things in a pretty bowl. This seemed like a better idea than a hat that I wouldn't wear.

Here is the bowl:


what I didn't count on was Silk Garden not felting. There's too much silk and too little wool, then combined with my cold-water-only washing machine, I was hooped. Basically instead of getting smaller and stiff, I got a larger and floppy bowl.



This sat on my craft table for a few weeks. had thoughts of starching it but there was no starch in my house. I could have bought starch, but food and more yarn ranked higher on my priority list.
But then Ravelry came to my rescue. There were other things you could use instead of starch to stiffen projects.

1. White glue and water. Con: Can go yellow. Didn't have glue in house.
2. Sugar and water. Con: can attract bus and critters.

But the one I used was Epsom Salts! I had a tons of these because they are great to put in the bath to relieve sore and tired muscles, or mixed with a skin friendly oil as a body scrub. Wiithin 10 minutes I was boiling 6 cups of water and 6 cups of epsom salts.


While this was happening I covered a tupperware container with plastic bags and saran wrap to make a properly sized and shaped form for the bowl to dry on. I placed it on a tray covered in was paper.


Once the mixture boiled for a few minutes, I took it off the burner and let it cool down. Once it was cool enough to put my hand in, I put the bowl in the mixture until it was soaked through. The wet bowl then went onto my mold and dried overnight.

The next morning the bowl was dry and kind of firm. It could have held small ad light stuff but nothing too heavy. But by 2 days later it was completely hardened. I filled it with stray lip glosses, eye shadows and bobby pins, and placed it centrally in my room.



Overall I am really happy with this method and would definitely use it again. The drying process does take a few days, but the boiling part is really quite quick. It's also cheap and gives me another use for something I always keep in the house anyway. I had a few crystals on the rim of the bowl but they were easy to dab off with a wet cloth. I keep think of the possibilities of lace bowls, and anything that gets me thinking of a next project is a definite winner.

Sun!

You might be wondering where is Maked and why aren't they blogging about awesome crafty stuff? Our blog posts have become somewhat sparse.... are we frantically preparing for the upcoming GotCraft? Busy with orders from our Etsy shop? Well, yes, kind of a little of each of those... but, to be honest.... the sun came out in Vancouver and along with it came proper warm spring temperatures. It's been a loooooong winter, so we've all been making the most of the good weather. And, 1/4 of Maked had a birthday! Happy Birthday Megan! (Check out her brand new Etsy shop - you can see where Maked gets its cheeky sense of humour.)

We'll be back at it soon!


In the meantime, I'm pulling a project from my archives to share - one of my favorites - the Tiramisu Blanket. It's a crochet pattern by Posie Gets Cozy - you can find it here (pdf). I love the texture of the finished blanket, and the ribbon detail. I made this for friends who struggled for a long time to have a baby, so when it all finally worked out for them, it was extra special. I'm hoping the blanket gets used up until it falls apart. Made with superwash wool from Knitpics in a great buttery yellow colour. Great yarn, great pattern and I love the finished product!

Got Craft? We sure do!

We were very excited to find out recently that we've been selected as a vendor at our favorite craft fair in Vancouver: Got Craft? This was the first craft fair we ever did as Maked - so it has a special place in our hearts. It also happens to be THE BEST fair there is in town. It's been getting bigger every time as word gets out about its awesomeness. It's a great collection of indie vendors selling ridiculously creative and unique products. It always has a great vibe as a result of putting so many creative people in one room for a day.

It's also becoming legendary for another reason.... the first 30 people through the door in the morning get a swag bag filled with product samples and promotional items. Every year these swag bags get better. We're always kind of bummed that we can't stand in line for them! But, as more and more vendors apply for tables at the fair, we're very happy to have a spot even if we miss out on swag. =)

Hope all you Vancouver peeps will come out and see the awesomeness! It's May 3, 2009, 11am - 5pm at 2205 commercial Dr. Vancouver, BC To check out the list of vendors that will be there - go to the Got Craft Vendor Page.

Here's Megan and Rhiannon, hard at work making fabulous stuff for our table at Got Craft:

The Missing 'R'

I had an epiphany recently. In my ever on-going quest to reduce my impact on the environment, I remembered the old R-R-R they taught me in elementary school.... and I realized, we've all been glossing over the first and second 'R's. Reduce - Reuse - Recycle. Be honest now, how many people kind of skip right to recycle and gloss over the whole reduce and reuse parts? Especially 'reuse'?

This was highlighted to me at my office where people are really good at recycling waste paper... except a lot of it is blank on one side. So, I've started collecting the reusable paper to cut up and turn into notepads. People will now reuse the scrap paper and then recycle it. Maybe the notepads will also help remind everyone about the other poor, forgotten Rs.

Here's the proper tutorial that inspired me, over on an awesome blog on The Small Object. But I couldn't find any padding compound locally and I heard school glue works just as well so that's what I used. (It works okay, I think padding compound might be better. I have to do a few coats of school glue to get good coverage.)

I cut the paper on a paper cutter to roughly the same size, paint some glue on my stack of paper (I'll split this up into thinner pads when its dry), stack some books on top to keep it all in place, and wait for it to try. Stupid easy project. Give it a try!




While you're waiting for the glue to dry - try to think up other ways you can Reduce and Reuse to lighten our load on the planet!

Fibres West 2009

Rhi and I went with the lovely Alexa to the show this year. It was a decently long and early drive to Abbotsford but overall worth it. I was expecting the show to be larger, with more independent seller presence, and more animals, but I still managed to spend all the money I planned to spend.

My purchasing mission for the day was undyed fiber. As a result most of the pictures are less then inspiring. I'll post follow ups of the dyed and spun fibers eventually. I'll also get Rhi to post her llama pictures.



Top left: 100% local Llama from the Fibres Plus booth.
Top right: Set of felting Needles from the Shades of Narnia booth.
Middle left: Magazines from Knitopia in Langley - the wearable art, and the paper issues
Middle right: angora wool blend from a booth I can't remember. ugh.
Bottom left: 100% bombyx silk from Twist of Fate.
Bottom right: this was bought at safeway when we stopped for lunch. it'll help make the fiber more exciting.

(Side note on wrist warmer pattern: After a bit of thinking, I am going to be providing my patterns under a name other thn maked. I hope to have a website up by the end of May. However, in the mean time, if you want the armwarmer pattern, email me at {staminea at gmail dot com} and I'll email it to you.)

Egg Fun

Easter is still a ways off.... and it's been a long time since I've dyed eggs - but this tutorial has me itching to do it again!

Check out the adorable eggs - there's a full tutorial on how to achieve this awesome result over on LollyChops (pic is hers also)!

I finally did it!!!

Ok, I know that this is shameless advertising but this has taken me forever and a day to actually get my poop together so I am pretty excited and I can't contain myself!!!
Check me out heart-on and I will be adding more stuff as time goes on!!!

teaser!

Here are the wristwarmers I made from the fiber I dyed last week. Sometime in the next week we will put up a free pattern for them on the website. Get 200 grams of 28 st gauge yarn ready! You even have time to custom dye it with your own kool-aid.



Dyeing tutorial I used is here.

Good News!

Button Button is reopening!! This is only good news if you're in the Vancouver area, but for those who are it's very very very good news. They'll be in gastown around the end of this month. Those are all the details I know of but it's all very good.

But I can't post without pictures so here's some hand-dying I've been doing. The original yarn is Diamond Alpaca Prima, I dyed it with kool-aid, and it is becoming garnet stitch armwarmers.

Button Button!!

I absolutely love buttons to bits!!! Ask anyone who knows me. I am always on the hunt for cool buttons!! I seem to find them in all sorts of unexpected spots in all different shapes and sizes!! I was cruising the world wide interweb and happened to come across something that blew my mind. Not only was it a button but it was made out of chocolate which united two of my favorite things: chocolate & buttons. I mean really what more can you ask for????

I am yet to purchase the molds and all the goodies to go with it but as soon as my next pay cheque comes in I will definately be going on a bit of a shopping spree at Bake it Pretty they also have a tutorial and some freebies for their nifty packaging!! I think that these would be super cute as grab bags at birthday parties or baby showers or anywhere where you'd love to leave your guests with a pleasant tastes in their mouths!

Hope this makes you as happy as it made me!! xox