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Here's my first attempt at paper quilling. The most difficult part was definitely the outline. Once that was done, I just had fun trying out different shapes to fill it in. I like the freehand approach you can take versus doing a lot of pre-planning on how the curls should look. This took me about 4 hours to complete while catching up on Mad Men.

Photo Contest!

One of my favorite knitters, Anna Hrachovec is having a photo contest on her MochiMochi Land blog. You can choose from one of 3 bird patterns and shoot either a single image or a series of photos (up to 6) of your birds in creative scenarios. Entries are due April 28th.

I tried out the pigeon and chickens (minus the feet) and will probably stick with the chickens for the contest. Either way, they're adorable and tiny (the chickens are maybe an inch tall) and quick to make, about an hour/hour-and-a-half each.

These aren't my final submissions, just wanted to show them off a bit before their big photo shoot!

This year's crops..

So far:
-Sugar Peas
-Cilantro
-Jalapenos
-Chives
-Arugula

Corn Cub

My latest knit creation: Meet Corn Cub! He began as a freehand creation, when I started knitting in the round and decided to branch off to create 3 flaps. The flaps reminded me of a corn husk and thus the idea was born. The play on words helped me decide to make it bear versus just a plush corn. I had debated making the whole body so the bear could be removable, but in the end, the shorter method won and I only made the head.

I used worsted weight yarn and size 3 double pointed needles. The ears and snout and crocheted and the accents are sewn in.

As I mentioned I mostly freehand my projects, but here's a ROUGH outline:

-Cast on 6 stitches (2 per needle)
-Increase in rounds until you have a total of 40 stitches (18 stitches per needle)
-Continue around till you reach the desired height where the leaves will split
-Instead of continuing around, when you reach the end of the stitches on one needle, turn the work around and purl back across that section. Decrease each row by one or two to create a triangular shape. When you only have a few stitches left, bind off.
-Repeat with the other 2 leaves

Head:
-Cast on 6 stitches
-Increase in rounds until you have a total of 40 stitches (18 stitches per needle). Or make sure to match the same number of stitches as the base
-Continue around till you reach the desired height for the head
-Bind off
-Sew to body and stuff with filling

Ears and Snout (crochet)

Ear
My crochet freehand is even sketchier to describe, because I really do this by eye. So again, this is a VERY rough estimate:
-Chain 4
-HDC in 2nd chain from hook and repeat through all remaining chains.
-Chain 1, HDC in 2nd chain from hook and the next chain.
-Slip stitch the last chain. Sew onto head

Snout:
Crochet in the round for 2 rows (total 12 SC), then SC around once
Sew a nose and mouth using a different color
Sew onto head and add a bit of stuffing

Strawberry Mary Janes

These are probably the cutest things I've ever crocheted. As I mentioned in my last post, I have a baby shower coming up. After sewing a bib and failing twice more at sewing another bib, I decided to go with a craft I was more comfortable with. I found this adorable pattern on Ravelry by Yofi Design for $5. The pdf was great and comes with instructions for 3 sizes and contains lots of photos for clarification. The only thing I altered were the leaves (I made 2 instead of 3 and made them shorter and rounder). 

Baby Bib

It's been a busy year so far and I haven't had much time to craft, or even cook much. But with an upcoming baby shower and wedding I'm hoping this will get me back in the swing of things. 

Here's my first attempt at a simple baby bib, as found on the Instructables website. The only thing I did differently was add some padding between the fabrics to give it some thickness. I used sew on snaps for the neck enclosure. The plan is to make 2 more with different fabrics which I'll post once I'm done. 

Sweet Genius

Tune in Thurs, Jan 10th @ 10pm on Food Network for the dessert competition Sweet Genius! My friend's sister Emily Wallendjack will be competing! She's an amazing pastry chef. I've been lucky enough to sample her desserts at Jean Georges and Cookshop. I believe she's currently at Veritas but I haven't had the chance to visit yet. Best of luck, Emily!

PS: She won!!

Unicorn Poop Cookies!

I'd spotted these cookies on the Instructables website and loved the idea, but it took me forever to get around to making them. One of my favorite haunts at lunchtime is the Broadway Panhandler store which has everything from overpriced pans and knives to sparkle gel for cookies. I bought the latter, along with flower sprinkles and gel food coloring. I wasn't so sure about using the recipe from the original instructions after reading the posts, so I went with a recipe which other people recommended because it doesn't spread during baking: No Fail Sugar Cookies

It took me a while to get a method of rolling the dough and mixing the colors. I tried to follow the instructions, but in the end, I took globs of different colors, rolled them together like playdoh and hoped it would create cool stripes of colors, which it usually did. Just make sure not to overmix the colors or you'll lose the striping. Baking was 8-10 min per batch. I cooled them, painted them with white sparkle gel and sprinkled them with flowers, just like a unicorn would.

Brooklyn Night Bazaar

Last night was the Brooklyn Night Bazaar, where I had a booth selling my crocheted food ornaments. They did a great job advertising the bazaar and there were crowds of people coming in and out of the 6 hour event. The best part was that it wasn't just a craft fair, which tends to attract a limited crowd, there were food and beer vendors and live music, which kept people hanging around longer. It'll be continuing through Dec 22nd, Fri-Sat 6pm-midnight, so if you get a chance to visit, it's definitely worthwhile. There's a nice variety of indie vendors, ranging from screenprinted T-shirts, prints, jewelry, soaps, clocks, home-brewed beers, candies etc.

I shared a booth with my friends the Smithereenes and we lucked out and got assigned prime real estate in the center of everything. My mini burgers proved the most popular and sold out. I actually had someone run across the room after catching her eye to immediately buy one. The sushi and donuts were the next most-purchased items. Apparently fuzzy foods make people smile.

Gluten Free Products

There are a lot of gluten-free products out there now. After trying quite a few, I thought it might be helpful to those just starting out on a gluten-free diet to list brands which I think are worth eating or avoiding.

PASTAS

Favorites: 

Schar and Archer Farms

Consistency and texture are usually my biggest issues with gluten-free pastas. I honestly think that if you swapped these out with real pasta, most people couldn't tell the difference. Tastes great and has the same bite as pasta does. Made with rice and corn flour.

Edible:  
DeBoles: This is also made with rice and corn flour, but the texture is very gritty/grainy, similar to whole wheat pasta. It's not intolerable but doesn't feel like pasta.

Least Favorite:  

Tofu Shirataki: The smell alone is enough to turn you off. It's made from the "root of the Konnyaku - a member of the yam family and tofu." This is usually found in the fridge section of the supermarket, because much like tofu, it has water packaged with it. It smells horrible and has a really rubbery texture. I could only handle a few bites before throwing it out.

Quinoa Pasta: Very chewy, rubbery texture. I threw most of this out as well.
 *********************************************************************************

CHIPS/CRACKERS:

Obviously,  you can stick with potato/corn based chips. But if you love pita chips and saltines as much as I do, you need alternatives.

Favorites:
FoodShouldTasteGood. I loved this brand even before I started gluten free, so it's a nice perk that I can still eat it. Their chips have great flavors, my favorite of which are Multigrain and Olive.

Riceworks: These are dense chips made from whole grain rice. Great taste, great cruchiness

Veggie Chips: There are a lot of brands of these so it's hard to narrow it down. They're easily identifiable by their tri-colored chips (off-white, orange and green). The flavors are fairly subtle, mostly just salty, which is what I tend to look for in a chip.

Least Favorites:
Glutino crackers: Texture reminds me of a stale cracker

Natural Nectar Cracklebread: It's like eating salty, flaky, airy crust.

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BAKING PRODUCTS: It's tricky rating gluten-free flours because it really depends on what you use it for. For example, coconut or almond flour may be great in a cookie recipe, but not so good in a crumble or cake recipe. I've heard that Cup 4 Cup flour, created by Thomas Keller, is the best one out there right now, but haven't had a chance to try it because it's quite pricey ($20 for 3lbs) and is only available at a few places, like Williams-Sonoma.

Gluten Free Bisquick: I made drop biscuits with these, not pancakes, so my rating is only based on that test. The results were more cake-like than biscuit, both in texture and taste. Perfectly edible as long as you're not expecting a traditional biscuit.

Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust: (I made pizza and foccacia with this) This comes with its own yeast packet. Rise time is very short. I wasn't a huge fan of the consistency or the flavor, but it's definitely edible.

I'd love to hear opinions of other products which I may not have had a chance to try yet, so feel free to post other brands you'd recommend!

Craft Fair Prep!

Hurricane Sandy happened this week. Work has been cancelled since Monday due to the inability to commute plus our office is downtown and without power. We were extremely lucky enough to have electricity throughout this whole mess. Now, although we have a car, the shortage of gas is keeping us at home, so what better time to be productive?

My friend asked me last night if I'd want to share a booth at the Brooklyn Night Bazaar on Nov 24th (the entire bazaar runs from Nov 23rd - Dec 22nd on Fri and Saturdays, 6pm -  midnight). I haven't done a craft fair in a couple of years, so I jumped at the chance. The only problem is I've been procrastinating all year as to what to sell, so I finally settled on what I know best: Crocheted food. Out of all 6 of my Etsy stores that I've had over the years, YarnYums was my favorite and did fairly well. I'll be going under the name Tinkerbot, since that's my current online store and I've already printed business cards for it.

I'll be selling mini crocheted food as ornaments. So far the menu consists of mini donuts (chocolate and strawberry icing), mini sliders with lettuce and cheese and toast with butter. I may also sell regular sized crocheted pie slices and bacon and eggs. Also debating making xmas light and/or bell garlands. Only 24 days to do this all!!! Back to crafting!

October Baking

Now that the weather's cooled off I've been doing a LOT of baking. All month I've tried to bring something sweet to work once a week. There are around 50 of us to feed, so I usually have to scale down the size of my cookies or double the batch. So far I've made:

Heath Bar Chocolate Chip Cookies
ButterFinger cookies (The recipe tasted good, but the cookies spread way too much and were as flat as can be)
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls (never fails to please)
Caramel Apple Bars (It got a bit soggy after taking it out of the fridge and leaving it out for an hour. There's a good chance it was my fault because I didn't follow the instructions exactly, so I'd be willing to give this recipe another shot)
Sugar Cookies (Good ol' America's Test Kitchen. Works perfectly every time)

And last night I made butter cookies because I wanted to try out my new GingerDeadman cutter. Maybe it was the fact that my dough wasn't chilled enough, or I didn't make thick enough cookies, but I couldn't get the skeleton part to show up well at all without completely mashing my cookie. It was faint and barely visible, which made me believe that during the baking process it would vanish altogether. So I used a good old fashioned metal leaf cutter instead.

SpoonFlower: Print Custom Fabric

In this month's issue of Mollie Makes magazine they mention a website called Spoonflower which allows you to upload your own designs to print on fabric, wallpaper and wall decals. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty excited about the option to sew something with fabric I designed. I'm particularly interested in making prints for fabric dolls, like this one, where you create a template directly in the print: http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1452867

Prices look fairly affordable, (although my general self-imposed limit when buying fabric is usually $10 or less a yard). They start at $15.75/yd and $5 for swatches, eco-friendly textile printing and a range of 10 fabrics. Their help section explains pattern repeats, color guides for beginner designers. You also have the option to sell your fabric through them once you've uploaded it. 

Hopefully I'll be trying this sometime in the near future, but if anyone reading this has already used it and has any tips to offer, I'd love to hear them.

Lined Drawstring bag

Bags are my favorite thing to sew. I've tried totes and zippered pouches in the past, so I went with a drawstring bag this time. I found this excellent pattern by Jeni on her blog In Color Order. There is both a free version and a paid version (which contains various sizes and options to help you create a custom bag). I chose the paid version, partly because I'm lazy when it comes to readjusting measurements and also to support my fellow crafters. She also allows the sale of the bag as long as credit is given in online sales and it's not used for commercial purposes. The version shown here is the "snack" size. 

Since I have a tendency to mess up frequently, especially on my first attempts, I chose my least appealing fabrics, which is why it's a bizarre mishmash of patterns and color. The instructions had lots of photos and was very easy to follow. Adding a lining is usually the trickiest part for me, but the technique used in this pattern made it easy. I also love that she shows you how to create the ties, instead of assuming you will use ribbon. So now that my confidence has been boosted by this first attempt, I hope to make plenty more, with better fabrics. 

UPDATE: (3 hours later) Here's my 2nd bag! This one is the next size up, slightly more practical. I'd been saving the exterior apple fabric forever and finally found a good use for it. 

Knit Armwarmers

Inspired by the circus, Tim Burton and Halloween, I decided to knit some glitzy arm warmers.  The general pattern came from here: http://ayarntale.com/2011/products/bit-o-sparkle-mitts-free-pattern/. It's very easy and great for beginners, you just have to know how to knit in the round, purl and bind-off.

For the silvery arm warmers I used Ice yarn Lame Black, Silver (I'm not sure if this product is available any longer. I had bought it a few years ago).

The striped armwarmers use Vanna's Glamour yarn in Ruby Red and Onyx. If you click on the photo you can see they both have a subtle shimmer to them. 44 stitches was too big, so I reduced them to 34 which was a bit too small, so I'm thinking 38 should be perfect. 

3D character print!

Measures 5"x2". White sandstone. Cost was $50 to print.

3D printing has become more and more affordable over the past few years. It used to be strictly for product designers and technical folk who needed to generate prototypes. Now anyone with a bit of 3D modeling  knowledge can submit a model online and have it turned into a tangible object.

I'd been reluctant to spend the money for a 3D print until I found something worthy of printing. I finally decided to team up with one of my friends, who came up with the character design you see below. I modeled it in Autodesk Maya and submitted it to Shapeways for printing. I had visited Shapeway's booth at SIGGRAPH this year and was impressed by the quality of prints, range of materials and prices.

For those of you planning on trying 3D printing, make sure you read up on how to prepare your model for printing. Even if you have lots of 3D software experience, you still need to think of things like wall thickness, and hollowing out your model to save costs. I did NOT hollow out my model and I definitely ended up paying more than I probably needed to because of the extra material needed to create it. That being said, Shapeways is great at emailing you back with suggestions on how to correct your model.

For those of you who don't own Maya, 3D Studio Max, Zbrush or any of the other big name 3D software, not to worry. You can use freeware, like Blender or Google Sketchup to create your 3D model. If you haven't had any experience in 3D software it takes a while to learn but keep practicing and watch lots of online tutorials.

I'm really happy with the level of detail that was captured. Even the tiny bag buckle showed up! It's heavy, but also very very delicate. I feel like if picked up wrong, or even bumped it could break, so I'll be keeping it somewhere safe. I would have chosen the more durable plastic but it was a bit pricier at $75 and I wanted to test out the result first.

Silhouette Cameo: Paper cutting machine

I can't believe I had never heard of this machine before. Ever since I started papercrafting, I had been looking for a printer-like machine that could cut out intricate shapes. I was only ever able to find machines that could cut out pre-designed stencils....until now! A friend of mine told me about the Silhouette Cameo, so I looked it up and it sounded exactly like what I'd been looking for. It's currently cheaper on Amazon ($269 vs $299) if you happen to be interested:

"It can create intricate projects of all sizes from small (1/4" wide) to large (12" wide) and has an unlimited cutting length. It can cut paper, cardstock, vinyl, fabric, and other materials. It operates with or without a cutting mat. When the blade is replaced by a pen, the CAMEO will sketch instead of cut. It can be controlled from a computer or an SD card. With the print and cut feature, the CAMEO also has the ability to cut out designs that have been printed on your home printer."

It comes with very clear instructions for those of you afraid of new technology. The software is user-friendly and quick to learn. Basically, you can create your design in the software, (or import artwork from elsewhere and draw over it), choose what type of material you are cutting and the program will tell you what blade setting to use and how to register your paper on the cutting mat. The mat is adhesive, since you don't want your paper sliding around while it's being cut. 

For my first test, I only used the tools in the Silhouette software. I drew some basic shapes and used the text tool (which is able to use any font already on your computer). It's a noisy little machine, but it's really fun to watch and you can tell right away if it's working. You then peel off your cut-outs and voila!

The second and more important test was being able to print a design I already had. I imported a jpg file of one of my papercraft designs. You have the ability to print from the Silhouette program, which is extremely important because it sets registration marks for itself, so that after you're done printing, you can feed your image back in and tell it to look for the registration marks so it can precisely cut over your artwork. Of course, you still have to draw the lines over your artwork as to where to make the cuts. But I was really impressed because it worked perfectly on the first try.

The "Must Eat Brain" design up top was my third design meant specifically for the Silhouette. I sketched it out in Photoshop then imported the jpg. Drawing the vector paths for the brain took a while. Adjusting the paths in the Silhouette software isn't quite as easy as in Photoshop or Illustrator, so I'd recommend using one of those programs to draw out your design first.

Tip: You can export vector paths from Illustrator (.dxf file format) as long as nothing is grouped. 

Tip: Don't make holes that are too tiny, or the blade will most likely rip the paper. I had a few tiny tears around the letters.

The machine cut it out without a hitch and only took around 3 min. I think it cuts the paths in the order you create them, so don't be worried if it doesn't start with the outermost path. Peeling it off the adhesive mat is the tricky part. I can't imaging using anything thinner than construction paper if you're doing something intricate because  there'd be a high risk of tearing it. The Silhouette store sells spatulas for helping lift off your designs, but I think I'll stick with my hands for now.

For those of you who prefer pre-made designs, the Sihouette store has tons of templates you can download for 0.99.

Knit Cowl

It's 95 degrees outside, but I needed to keep my hands busy while I watched the Olympics. I started and unraveled at least a dozen projects before settling on a simple cowl from Lion Brand's website (stockinette cowl, Easy +). It's probably the fastest, largest project I'd done, (a couple of hours here and there over 5 days) and my hands hurt. You just need to know knit/purl/bind off to do this and it's made on circular needles. I used an acrylic yarn versus wool, which might account for the stiffness, particularly at the bottom, but it's nice and warm. I figured it would be a nice change from a scarf, which I have too many of anyway. Next project is a simple hat for my upcoming plane ride.

Mushroom Baby Rattle

I made this for a friend who's baby is due sometime in November. I got the idea from the Purl Bee's Toadstool Baby Rattle. Crocheting comes much more naturally to me for 3D objects so I didn't follow their pattern. But I did follow their use of a caged bell cat-toy for the rattle, so there's one of those hidden inside.