Day 16 of #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms- A video tutorial for making square 2 peg cord on almost any spool knitter
For Day 16 of #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms I made a video showing how to use any size of spool knitter (with any number of pegs) like a lucet to make square cord by using only 2 pegs of the spool knitter.
Day 13 of #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms- Our Lady of the Starry Night with Dragonfly Spool knitter
I have a stack of sketchbooks that are designated as my ‘evening sketchbooks’.
Every night at bedtime, I do some quick sketches in the current sketchbook, and make design notes about things that are not working (which will often trigger the answer to the design question) as well as notes about what was delightful and worked well and also what I need to do the next day.
A couple of evenings ago, I did a quick sketch that I really liked. So, the next morning, I chose one of the small spool knitters that my brother Jonathan (@distinctivewoodworking) and his son, Kieran, had turned for me on the lathe. I drew, burned and painted her on the spool knitter.
Here she is: Our Lady of the Starry Night with a Dragonfly.
I’ve been doing some spool knitting with her, and she’s quite enjoyable.
Day 12 of #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms- How do we mend what’s broken?
On Day 11, I showed how I upcycled a plastic bottle into my ‘Storyteller’ spool knitter. But, I didn’t talk much about needing to cut away part of the bottle that was cumbersome & clumsy. I had to lop off part of the top to get the spool knitter to work. Sometimes, we just have to cut away the unworkable part.
But sometimes the best way to fix something that’s broken is to find a way to stitch the edges together again… a radical mend may be needed.
I am enjoying upcycling ‘boink/busted’ bowls from my brother Jonathan (@distinctivewoodworking)
One of them had a crack up one side. He suggested a way to fix it. I tried it & it looked good, so I spent hours drawing & burning a bumble bee & a hexagon on it.
Alright- I drilled the center hole. Fine. Now- 5 holes for pegs. Fine. The 6th & final one- the bowl opened like the gates of dawn! My knees went blorp. I gazed at the Bee & held the bowl in my hands. No way was I going to toss it away. So.
Time for something different! Let’s sew this bowl together! I drilled holes on both sides of the crack & was sure it was going to fly apart-eek- the lines of little holes wobbled up the bowl!
I used waxed linen to sew the edges of the bowl together. Then glued the pegs in.
Yes! It’ worked! The stitching is Wabi Sabi, BUT my precious Bumble Bee spool knitter is a joy to work with.
The disruption of her rupture and the ‘freeform’ mending has completely endeared her to me.
Metaphors! I hope that we can find lots & lots of quirky & unique ways to mend our precious, wobbly & hurting planet (whether it’s snipping the things that don’t work or sewing the broken edges freely & trustingly together again) so we can all get back to work, creating beauty.
Day 11 of #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms-Upcycling plastic bottles into spool knitters-The Storyteller Spool knitter
In my Day 9 post, I showed how I upcycled a sturdy cardboard tube into a spool knitter that I love as it’s an Homage to Jane Austen. At the same time that I was making the Jane Austen spool knitter, I was experimenting with upcyling a plastic bottle to see if I could make a reasonable spool knitter with it for my #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms.
The bottle has to be fairly sturdy, so I chose an empty vitamin bottle.
I wanted to see if the sharpened end of 7 lolly pop sticks would work as the pegs.
They are okay, but I prefer the blunt ends, so I won’t use the sharp ends as pegs again.
I marked off 1 1/2 inches(4 cm) at the end of each.
Next- I put 3 rubber bands onto the bottle and one at a time, I slipped a lollypop stick into them
and hot glued them to the bottle.
Then, layers of papier mache,
and decorative paper – I love that I found a delightful image of a storyteller with some bouncy kids and also a few goddess images, a few hippos and some almost invisible elephants.
Now mod podge to seal.
I had cut a too small hole in the end of the bottle, so I carefully cut the excess plastic away
and the Storyteller spool knitter works just fine!
In my Day 7 post, I showed a gorgeous Paduak bowl that my brother Jonathan (@distinctivewoodworking) turned and then, I upcycled into a spool knitter since the bowl had developed a hole in the base while being turned. I have been working on getting set up for shooting a couple of how to videos for #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms, but I keep getting distracted by being inspired…
I started wondering about a walnut bowl (another one rescued from the firewood box – yay!) that he had sent me and so, instead of working on the videos, off I went to have a little visit with the drill press. I drilled a hole in the base that is larger than the rip out, then 8 holes for the pegs, and did a little sanding and glued in pegs.
Oh my word! It’s so beautiful! I couldn’t resist drawing and burning a butterfly on it, as I could see a whisper of a butterfly in the grain of the wood.
Lovely! Just lovely!!!
#100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms is making my heart very happy!
Butterflies make me feel hopeful. May we all live in hopeful times!
If you’d like to make a large spool knitter without woodworking tools, and have a few crafting tools, then you can make yourself a spool knitter that is uniquely yours and pleasing to work with.
You need a sturdy core for the body of the spool knitter. I wound off some jute string onto a bobbin to free up a cardboard tube.
It’s 1 1/2 inches/4 cm in diameter (yours can be any diameter that you happen to have) and 4 1/4 inches/10.5 cm tall.
I bought a little bag of bamboo lolly pop sticks in the candy making aisle of the grocery store (craft stores sell them too). They’re 1/4 inches/.5 cm in diameter and 5 inches/25 cm tall.
Mark 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) from the end of 6 (or however many you want) of them.
Line up the marks so they stick out from the end of the tube.
Glue the dowels to the outside of the tube with hot glue.
Now, mix up some wallpaper glue or thin some white glue.
Tear up paper and glue layers of it to the spool knitter.
My Homage to Jane Austen spool knitter is one of the unexpected delights that has unfolded for me because of my project, the #100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up 4 old encyclopedias at the Re Use centre to use in papier mache projects.
What a thrill to find an article about Jane Austen in one of them. I immediately pulled her pages out and carefully tore them into sizes and shapes to fit the spool knitter. Then, I gleefully glued them on.
I waited overnight for the papier mache to dry and then added a little bit of color with water color pencil crayons and Mod Podged it.
I am absolutely delighted with my Homage to Jane Austen spool knitter!
#100daysofspoolknittersandlittlelooms has given me a lovely gift!
BTW- there are benefits of working with ‘larger than usual’ spool knitters and I will be showing those in upcoming posts.
Butterflies are the symbol of transformation, and since everyone I know seems to be experiencing some kind of transformative experience or another, it seems to me to be a good time to make some little butterflies.
They are very quick and easy to make, using a Lucet – although you can also use spool knitted cord, if you prefer.
They can be used to embellish anything that you can think of, or can be stitched to a ribbon for a book mark, or have a pin sewn to the back so they can be worn on a hat, bag, scarf or lapel. They can be attached to a key ring.
They can be used in scrapbooking or card making.
It’s lovely to have one in your pocket to give to a friend who just needs a little comfort…..
Here’s the video for how to make the butterflies:
We are in deep, cold, snowy mid winter in Western Canada, so it’s lovely to have butterflies flittering about the studio, even if I had to make them myself! 🙂
That just reminded me of something that I hadn’t thought of in years….
My mother used to give us ‘Butterfly Kisses’, which were a quick little flutter of her eyelashes on our cheeks.
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