Tottie Talks Crafts Blog

June 9, 2010 · 2:44 pm

My mother’s pincushion

My mother has unwillingly had to let go of her lifelong passion for needlework.

Because of health challenges, she is not able to handle independent living anymore. Reluctantly, she has moved out of her condo and into a different living situation where she gets the support and assistance that she now needs.

Most of her possessions are now being lovingly shared out among her kids and grandkids and nieces and other kith and kin.

There were a couple of things that I really really wanted to have…..

She was a spectacularly gifted embroiderer, and so I really wanted to have some of her threads.

The other thing that I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelly wanted was a pincushion doll that I had given her when I was a child.

When I was a little girl, I saw the most beautiful thing I could have ever imagined…. it was a pincushion of an Elizabethan Lady….

I would go into the shop, and visit the Lady, and stroke the velvet skirt, and be filled with longing.

I decided that I HAD to buy it for my mother to show her how much I loved her.

So, I asked the lady in the store if I could pay for the Lady in stages, and she agreed to that. I don’t know if she had ever had a child make such a request, but she was so kind about it!

Every week, for weeks, and weeks, I would take my allowance in, and give it to the shopkeeper. She would then bring ‘The Lady’ out, and I would cradle her in my hands… and then sigh, and hand her back….

Eventually… the little bits of allowance added up and up, and – ‘The Lady’ was mine!!!

She was swathed in tissue, and placed carefully in a box, and I secreted her away until Mother’s Day.

I don’t know if my mother knew how much effort went into buying her ‘The Lady’, but I think she felt the love and excitement that I had in presenting her with my treasure.

And now, ‘The Lady’ has come home to me…. and some day, she will be gifted to my daughter…. with love…. always with love….

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Filed under doll & dolls & dollmaking & doll making, gifts & easy to make gifts & presents

Tagged as family treasure, pincushion

June 1, 2010 · 10:31 pm

Video tutorial on how to make tarn or t shirt yarn

I absolutely love working with tarn, which is yarn made by cutting t shirts into a continuous length of fabric strips. You then use the fabric strips as stretchie, wonderful yarn.

Tarn is a terrific way to upcycle, recycle, re-fashion, re-purpose, re-use and reclaim old t shirts that are no longer wearable. Perhaps they are stained or have little holes in them, or the neck has gone all wonky, or they have a logo on them that you just don’t want to wear anymore.

In that case, turning the t shirt into tarn is a fabulous option.

I showed how to make a ‘buttonhole join’ in tarn here:

How to do the buttonhole join link

and in this video, I showed how to weave it on the potholder loom:

Potholder loom weaving with tarn

Normally, I use a swift to hold the t shirt when I cut my tarn. I decided that that wouldn’t be the best choice for making a video, as most people don’t have swifts, so I used a little stepladder to stretch the t shirt.

It’s kind of clunky, so you have to forgive me for the fumbly bits.

Here’s the video on how to cut tarn: LINK

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Filed under eco crafts & green projects, tutorial & how to

Tagged as re-fashion, re-purpose, re-use, recycle, reduce, t shirt yarn, t shirts, Tarn, upcycle, video tutorial on how to make tarn

May 17, 2010 · 3:24 pm

Garage sale treasures

I have to admit, blush, that I am rather hooked on garage sales. ( I should amend that to make it clear that I am hooked on ~going to~ garage sales, not actually having one myself. :P)

Why?

Well… I love finding old things that are useful, and even better, if they feel like they have a story to tell.

On the weekend, we went to 2 garage sales that were just great.

At the first one, I found a shelf thingie that is perfect for holding my husband’s sheet music. He has been questing for this for ages, and I was convinced that one was out there for him.

And, hurrah…. I found it! Yay! (sorry… didn’t take a pic of it)

At the second garage sale, I was ecstatic to find the table top display manequin for jewelry and the wonderful ‘shabby chic’ vintage table that it is sitting on.

There is a circle in the base of the table that just invites baskets and bowls and boxes to perch on it. (Nope… the basket didn’t come with it…. that’s one of my designs)

And, it’s sturdy enough to support my swift, even when it is whirling madly.

I have been hoping to find a jewelry display mannequin to help with photographs. It was serious happy dancing time when this one was sitting in the sunshine waiting for me to bargain a wee bit and then to whisk it off home and start dressing it up.

The neck was hollow, which wasn’t good, as it showed off the frayed bits inside. It was a little too ‘Sweenie Todd’, so I cut some circles of grey foam and popped them in to fill that gap.

Ms Mannequin wasn’t wearing the amber necklace when I bought her…. that’s one of my pieces that I made a couple of years ago. It’s crocheted copper wire with a huge hunk of ambler. I’ll be putting the necklace up on etsy and was in need of a way of photographing it, so the timing on this was just poifeck!

Yay!

So, that’s why I can’t resist the siren call of the garage sale…. treasures await!

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Filed under jewelry

Tagged as garage sale treasures, jewelry display, shabby chic, vintage table

May 14, 2010 · 8:48 pm

How to weave a square on the bias on the potholder loom

For weeks and weeks, I have been meaning to get my video tutorial of how to weave bias squares on the potholder loom posted to YouTube.

What with one thing and another, I haven’t gotten around to it.

One thing that was odd, was that I simply couldn’t upload videos for awhile. I just gave up on YouTube. Anyone else having trouble with uploads? Weird.

And, since it took me so long to get the video uploaded,

I decided to re-shoot it, using ‘Tarn’, since I am working with Tarn so much, lately.

Fun!

Here’s a link for how to do one kind of join with Tarn:

Tarn Join

I didn’t have a potholder loom when I was a child, so when I was introduced to it when I was a grownup, I didn’t have any preconceived notions about what it could or could not do. So… I have been designing all kinds of magical and wonderful things for it ever since (for decades, in fact- my love for the potholder loom is a long standing one!!!)

You can see some of the things I have designed for it here: Potholder loom.

Over the years, when I was designing for the Potholder loom, I realized that I needed to be able to weave different shapes and in unusual ways with the looms. So, I have done a lot of experimenting with it.
I have worked out a bunch of ways of weaving triangles on it, and this is how I twigged to how I could weave a square on the bias on the potholder loom…. after all, a square is just 2 triangles that happen to be in love.

The pesky gaps on the potholder loom were a challenge – but I have solved the mystery of how to deal with them!

How? Well.. check out the video!

Here is the YouTube video tutorial on how to weave a square on the bias on the potholder loom : LINK

Happy Weaving!

9 Comments

Filed under Loom & looms & small loom weaving, potholder loom, tutorial & how to, weaving & handwoven

Tagged as how to weave a square on the bias on the potholder loom, re-purposing, reclaiming fabric, recycling, t shirt yarn, Tarn, upcycling

May 13, 2010 · 10:57 pm

How to make a join in fabric strip yarn or tarn

I’ve been working with Tarn (T shirt fabric strip yarn) a lot lately.

I remembered this afternoon that I had been asked how to make a smooth join in fabric strip yarn…. so I thought that I would post a quick tutorial on how to do that.

Everyone has their own system of cutting t shirts into fabric strips (tarn).

My favorite way is to stretch the t shirt over my swift and open it up until it stretches the t shirt taut.

I then cut a narrow strip, starting at the hem of the t shirt, spiralling up to the sleeves.

Then I stop and cut away the neckband, and cut strips around and around until I reach the sleeves.

I cut them off, and cut them into strips.

And then I wind them up into yarncakes on my nostepinnes.

This pic has a touch of oddness, doesn’t it?

The scissors floating in mid air are posing politely while my cutting hand is busily taking the picture.

You can see the loops of Tarn pooling up in my lap.

So, what do you do if you need to join one length of fabric strip to another?

Cut a small slit into each end of the 2 fabric strips.

Take the shorter piece through the slit of the longer piece.

Now, take the tail end of the shorter piece through the opening of the shorter piece.

Tug on it to pull it up tight, and Voila! the 2 strips of fabric are magically joined!

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Filed under eco crafts & green projects, tutorial & how to

Tagged as how to join 2 fabric strips, t shirt yarn, Tarn

May 7, 2010 · 7:43 pm

Yes that is my necklace design on the Lion Brand site

A new design went live on the Lion Brand website today. It’s for a spool knitted Celtic Interlace medallion necklace.

A very beautiful Celtic Interlace necklace, even if I say so myself….

😀

Since the pattern went live,

people have been saying:

‘Hey… Noreen!

Have you seen this? It looks just like one of your designs!’

And, with a grin that

reaches all the way round…

I have been responding:

‘Why yes! I have seen it…. and yeppers… it IS one of mine!’ LOL!

Here’s the link: Celtic Interlace Medallion Necklace pattern on the Lion Brand site

Spool knitting works beautifully for making jewelry, and I have designed lots of wearable pieces in spool knitting.

It was a pleasure to design these necklaces for Lion Brand. I used their ‘Vanna’s Glamour’ yarn, which is very springy and stretchy, so it works well for making lightweight, very comfortable jewelry. The touch of glitter in them is great, and I like that it is really soft, and not scratchy, like some metallic yarns.

Because of the flexibility of spool knitting, you don’t need fittings or closures for the necklace.

If you want to add beads, you can certainly do that, too…

I also wrote an article for Lion Brand about spool knitting, too:

Article about Spool knitting on Lion Brand Site

One lady wrote to me, after reading the article and asked exactly what spool knitting is, and how is it done.

To see what you can do with it, and to see some video tutorials on how to do it, click on

Spool knitting on Crone-Findlay Creations (the video links are at the bottom of the page)

Happy Spool Knitting!

12 Comments

Filed under jewelry, spool knitter & spoolknitter & spool knitting & spool knitting

Tagged as Celtic Interlace spool knitted necklace, Lion Brand

May 3, 2010 · 9:23 pm

Menopause Fairy and 5 peg spool knitting on 4 pegs

Recently, I noticed that -horror of horrors! – that there was a link to a dead file in my pdf pattern for the Spool knitted Menopause Fairy. Here’s the link to the pattern in my etsy shop: LINK

So, I completely re-built the pattern, and added all the information that was missing, and made it all ‘oh so pretty’.

😀

And, one of the things that I needed to do to make the Spool knitted Menopause Fairy do-able is to make a video on how to turn a 4 peg spool knitter into a 5 peg spool knitter.

So, I shot the video and here it is…. I love doing the impossible, don’t you? LOL 😀

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Filed under doll & dolls & dollmaking & doll making, spool knitter & spoolknitter & spool knitting & spool knitting

Tagged as spool knitted Menopause Fairy Doll, video tutorial on how to adapt a 4 peg spool knitter into a 5 spool knitter

April 29, 2010 · 9:30 pm

This week 2 profiles and Friendship Fairies

It’s been a busy week in the studio!

I have been working away on a new design for some adorable little spool knitted dolls.

They are ‘The Friendship Fairies’. They’re spool knitted dolls that are a celebration of wonderful friends and relations, teachers, students, co-workers…. you name it- if there is someone who makes you feel like the world is a better place because they are here, then that’s who the ‘Friendship Fairies’ are meant to celebrate. The pdf is available for purchase on my website at Spoolknitting .

Several months ago, (sorry about the bold face type… I can’t seem to get it to stop doing that!) I was asked to share some photos of my studio and to answer some questions about where I work. It’s been really hectic, and it took me a long time to get it done, but the post has gone live. This pic is a photo of the alcove where I shoot my video tutorials. Hmmm… you’d think that I could have straightened the lampshade before I took the pic…. oops… anyhow, here’s the link:

noreen-crone-findlay-studio

Cherie Burbach also posted an interview with me this week. It’s here: Cherie’s Interview

Lots and lots more has been cooking up in the studio, so I’ll be posting more about it as it all ripens…

1 Comment

Filed under doll & dolls & dollmaking & doll making, spool knitter & spoolknitter & spool knitting & spool knitting

Tagged as designer profile, spool knitted Friendship Fairies

April 20, 2010 · 8:07 pm

How to spool knit with 4 pegs and cast off

People keep telling me that they have forgotten how to get themselves started with spool knitting.

So, I have made a video tutorial on how to spool knit with a 4 peg spool knitter. LINK

And, they also ask me: ‘How do you cast off or finish your spool knitted cord?’

Good question!

Here’s a video tutorial on how to finish your spool knitted cords: LINK

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Filed under spool knitter & spoolknitter & spool knitting & spool knitting, tutorial & how to

Tagged as how to spool knit with 4 pegs, spool knitting video, video tutorial on how to cast off spool knitted cord

April 15, 2010 · 9:10 pm

How to spool knit with 2 pegs- 3 video tutorials

I am working on designs for all kinds of spool knitted jewelry. So I have just made 3 video tutorials that explain how to spool knit 2 peg cords, as these are wonderful in jewelry making.