TUESDAY TUTE: WRIST WARMERS

Time for a Tuesday Tute! I haven't turned this into a meme (yet!), but if you have a tutorial you'd like people to see, feel free to put a link to it in a comment. You'll get at least one visitor: ME!

From me, today:

There’s a chill in the air, but there’s fun on my hands! We’re talking darling fleece wrist warmers here, and a quick-as-a-wink gift to make. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A scrap of fleece, about 12” X 18”
• Buttons, bows, or other low-profile furbelows
• Thread

Begin by cutting two rectangles from the fleece, each 6” X 8”. Before you cut, check for stretch. You want to have stretch across the 8” side, which will wrap around your hand.


Fold each rectangle in half the long way, right sides together, using a ½” seam allowance. You should have two tubes now, each 3” X 6”.


Slip one of the tubes over your hand so that one edge of it just covers your knuckles, and the seam is at the outside edge of your hand. Feel for the bone at the base of your thumb, and for the first knuckle of that thumb, and draw a line between the one and the other.


Slip the wrist warmer off and flatten it so that the line you’ve drawn is right on the edge of the fold. Notice that the seam will NOT be on the other edge, but will be turned to the underside. This is important, because it allows for the thickness of your hand. After you’ve cut the thumbhole and put the warmer on, the seam will have magically moved to the edge of the warmer.

Cut a sliver of fabric out where you’ve drawn the line. Don’t worry about making the cut too narrow. You can always enlarge it if you need to.


Cool! Now you can decorate them! Use buttons, or little appliqués, or a bit of embroidery, near the knuckles, roughly centered.

When you know what you want to use, slip the warmers on, lay the adornments in place, and mark. Doing it that way is important, because I promise you, when you take the wrist warmer off and look at where the mark is, you’re going to think you’ve got it wrong! Centered will not look centered, but that’s an illusion.

Sew your trims on, and you’re done.

TUESDAY TUTE: FRAZZLES!

Feeling frazzled? Lots of us are, with the school year nearly underway and all the fall and winter holidays on the horizon. So let’s make a card, and not just any card, either. Let’s make a Frazzled card!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Blank card and envelop
• Fabric large enough to fit the card, front and back (fabric samples work well)
• Button
• Rayon or other embroidery thread
• Glue or double sticky tape

The first thing you’re going to do is choose your fabric. If you have one of those fabric sample books flip through it until you find a piece you like. They’re nice, because they have a paper backing around the edge, but any piece of fabric you like is good.


Take your blank card and open it out flat, and lay it on the fabric, with the side you’ll write on down, and what would normally be the front of the card facing up. That’s because you’re going to trace around all four sides of the card now, and if your pencil slips you don’t want the marks to show on your finished card.


You can see that my fabric is already nearly the size of the card, but that’s because I had a fabric sample that size. Once you’ve marked your fabric, cut it with pinking shears just outside the marks. You want the fabric to be a little larger than the card. If you have enough fabric, cut a strip as long as your card is wide, and maybe an inch wide.


Now choose a button that coordinates with your fabric. Flat buttons work best, but buttons with short shanks can be used, too.


Fold the fabric piece you’ve cut in half, so you’re looking at the front of your finished card. Take the button you’ve chosen, and play with positioning it a bit. Maybe it will look best centered on the card, or maybe near one of the corners. Maybe it wants to sit, centered, near the lower edge. Just move it from place to place until you like what you see.

Thread your needle with the embroidery floss, but don’t tie a knot. Rayon thread is crinkly, and will give shine and a lot of texture. Other option are regular floss, or yarn.

This is where the “Frazzled” part comes in. You’re going to sew the button to the fabric, but not from the back like you’d usually do. Push the needle in from the front, and pull the floss through until an inch and a half or two inches is left, sticking out of the button. Bring the needle through the other hole in the button, and cut the thread, again leaving a tail an inch and a half or two inches long. You can leave longer tails if you like; it’s all up to you.

If your button has four holes, do that twice.


Pick up the thread tails and tie them in a knot.


You’re almost finished!!

Glue the fabric to the card. You can use rubber cement if your fabric has that paper backing. Otherwise, double-sticky tape is the way to go, as the rubber cement may show through the fabric.

Glue the extra strip of fabric you cut to the flap of the envelope.


Here’s my card:


Frazzles are really very tactile. You’ll find people want to stroke them, and play with the shiny floss ends. Well, I do, anyway!

TUESDAY TUTE: SCRAP PADS

There’s paper all around us these days. Junk mail, last year’s date books, old ledgers, snippets of scrapbook paper, school notebook paper, and you don’t want to just throw it away, but what’s it good for?


Scratch pads! I don’t know a single person who doesn’t need something to scribble a quick note on from time to time. Have you ever made your own? It’s remarkably easy.

You’ll need just three things: paper, card stock, and rubber cement.

First decide what paper you’re going to use. I chose to use an assortment, just for the interest of having different patterns and colors to write on, and took sheets from all the sources I mentioned above. The card stock is for the last sheet, to give your scratch pad stiffness, and it’s good to use it for the front, too, to protect the lighter-weight papers. What I used for mine was the back of a Bessie Pease Gutman calendar.

Cut all your sheets to exactly the same size. Or you could go random with them, which was my first thought, but I quickly discovered I liked a smooth, book-like edge better.



Shuffle the pages for maximum variety. If you want, make your cover pieces just a smidge bigger than the writing sheets, and choose them for their decorative effect.


Now stack them so that the top edges are perfectly aligned, put a sheet of paper under the stack to protect your work surface, and one on top to protect your weights, and then weigh the stack of paper down with something good and heavy. I used my cast iron bench press, but a concrete block, several heavy books, or pieces of wood clamped together with C-clamps are also good choices.

Paint the top, exposed, edges of the scratch pad with rubber cement. Let the cement dry, and repeat. Do that until you feel like you’ve got a good heavy coating of rubber cement. This is what holds the pad together.



When the glue is completely dry, take the weights off, and peel off the protective sheets of paper. Trim any excess glue sticking out. If some of your writing sheets have skewed in the process, you can trim their edges, too, if you like.


My front cover looked a little lopsided to me, so I added another image to it. You might want to decorate it with a bit of ribbon, lace, or other pretty item.



You can also make these more production-style, by stacking multiple scratch pad assemblies, and painting as for one. When the glue is dry, just tear them apart.

Another option is to glue one side, rather than the top edges. Your scratch pad would then open like a book.

"TIME FOR DINNER!" Recipe Tins Tutorial

Okay, admit it. You were so sure there’d be a way to use those spiffy metal tins you used to get in the mail from AOL, the ones that held a CD, that you saved every one of them. Do you still have them? Because I finally found a way to use mine, and I’m so excited about it that I’m going to show you what I did!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• CD tin
• Gesso
  
• Fabric
• Cut outs from old magazines
• Alphabet Stickers, or the word “Recipe” cut from a magazine or book
• Small adornments–Lace, Buttons, string, etc.
• Glue
• Every pair of scissors you own (Just kidding, but you’ll be cutting paper and cloth a variety of ways.)
• Sheet of paper or plastic for template

First, protect your work surface, then paint your tin on all sides with the Gesso. You don’t need to paint the inside.

Let that dry. If you have a second tin you haven’t painted, you can go ahead and trace around it to make a template/pattern. (Or you could do this step before doing the painting.) There’s a bit of a bead around the rim of the tin where the top goes over the bottom, so be sure you don’t use that edge to draw around, or your pattern will be too big.

Choose the fabric you’re going to use for the background, if you haven’t already, and lightly trace around you pattern. (Placement is easier if you’ve used something transparent for the pattern–the lid from a take-out box works well, or a sheet protector.) Use pinking shears to cut fabric out.

You could glue the fabric to your tin now, or do what I did, which was to cut an identical piece from an old book and sew all the way around. I find it’s easier to glue the paper down flat than fabric, to tell the truth, but I also liked the look of the stitching.

Now the real fun begins. Go through your old magazines and/or cookbooks, and find images and slogans you like. If you can’t bear to cut the actual book, you can make copies to use.

Arrange the pictures and words you’ve found on the fabric-covered tin lid. Leave room for “Recipes” if you want to include that. Glue everything down securely.

Last, use your paper pattern to cut a piece for the back of the tin from the index of an old cookbook.

Put recipe cards inside to finish. I made my own, but store-bought works just fine.

These are like potato chips for me. I just can’t stop, and I’m thanking my lucky stars these are no-calorie treats!

PRODUCTION-STYLE WIRE WRAP

Are we in full scurry mode yet? I know I am, gatherings to attend, and Arts & Crafts shows to prepare for. Honestly, there are times when I have so much to do, I just come to a full stop, not knowing what task to do next.

Efficiency becomes more important at this time of year than at any other, and I look for shortcuts.

I'd like to share a speed wire wrap hint: Do as much as you can assembly line style.

For instance, a simple wrapped loop has a number of steps. Fully described, they are:

1. Pick up spool of wire and wire cutters.
   
2. Measure out the length you need, and cut.
   
3. Put down the wire cutters, pick up the round nose pliers, and make a wrapped loop.
   
4. Put down the round nose pliers, pick up the wire cutters, and cut off the excess.
   
5. Put down the wire cutters, pick up the flat nose pliers, and squish the end of the wrap flat.
   
6. String on a bead.
   

That's six steps, with six tool changes, per bead. Multiply that by the number of beads you need, say seven, and that's 42 steps, with 42 tool changes.

Now, instead of that, try this:

1. Pick up spool of wire and wire cutters.

2. Measure out the length you need, and cut as many pieces of wire as you'll need. (Say, seven.)

3. Put down the wire cutters, pick up the round nose pliers, and make all the wrapped loops.

4. Put down the round nose pliers, pick up the wire cutters, and cut off the excess on each of the seven pieces.

5. Put down the wire cutters, pick up the flat nose pliers, and squish all the ends flat.

6. String a bead on each of the wrapped loop eye pins you've created.

That's still six steps, and six tool changes, but you've done all the beads. You just saved yourself 36, count 'em, thirty-six, tool changes. That's a time saver, even if you're making just one thing. If you've got multiple items to make, it really does add up. It also has the advantage of being something you can do ahead of time, even when you don't have the time or inclination to attempt an entire jewelry piece.

You can continue similarly with the rest of the piece you're creating.

If you're making a bracelet, or other item that ends with a clasp, you'll need to leave both loops unfinished on the end bead, one to attach to the chain of beads you've created, and the other to accept the clasp.