Finger Braiding - a tutorial

Following the circular or disk braiding, here's another how-to of Iron Age woolcraft.

First get a length of wool - you can use multiple strands, but start with one till you get the hang of it. Probably 12in will make a braid suitable to use as a friendship bracelet.

1. Tie a slipknot.

Ok, there's a way of doing it. Take one end in your dominant hand, holding the yarn over your fingers, so that the bulk of it is behind your hand, and a short tail in front of your fingers. Got it?


Right, next, cross the short end over the long end thus:


Twist the loop by putting the fingers of your dominant hand (usually right) in the loop and holding the short tail with your weaker hand (usually left), then grab the short tail, but DO NOT LET GO OF IT with your other hand, and make the slipknot loop. Watch the movie again to see how it's done.

2. Put the new loop on the index finger of your left/weaker hand, holding the short tail in your thumb and the rest of your fingers.


3. Take the long tail and make a NEW loop over your finger in FRONT of the first one, and hold the tail in the fingers of your left hand.


4. Lift the ORIGINAL loop over the top of the new loop and pull either end of the yarn till you make a knot. The first stitch is always the hardest, so don't worry!

5. Make another new loop over your finger in front of the one you just made, and pull the first loop over it again. Tighten by holding the long tail taut in your right hand and pull and pull with the fingers of your left hand which are still holding the short tail.

DO NOT LET THE LOOPS FALL OFF YOUR FINGERS AT ANY POINT!! Yes, I know I'm shouting, but this is the biggest hurdle to control the yarn, just don't let it off your fingers or out of your grip.

Continue to make loops this way until you have a line of them, just like a line of crochet stitch!

6. To finish your braid - when you have almost no yarn left, instead of making a loop over your finger, pass the end of the yarn through the loop and pull tight, which makes a knot and secures the end of the braid.

Then you have a lovely braid to use as a bracelet, a loop to secure a small picture (yes, it is that strong), longer thicker yarn can make belts, bag straps etc.

Here are some examples of finger braids using more than one colour of yarn and multiple strands - it works on exactly the same principle.

Dream stitches from the Dreamstress

Fellow crafter The Dreamstress is having a giveaway on her blog. Always colourful, always interesting from 'Poggie Bait' to fabulous reproductions of vintage clothing, Leimomi Oakes is a designer and crafter from New Zealand. A friend of equally talented Lauren Reeser aka American Duchess.


So if you want some fancy hand-stitched tray cloths featuring classic war-time flowers and edging - similar to what appeared in the Aberdeen Blitz exhibition - and a classy pin dish, go over to the blog and follow the instructions. The Dreamstress is also on Facebook.

If I get them, I'll be sure to tell you! I've won pineapple drops from Leimomi before and she sent them all the way from NZ!!

Keep up the great work, gal!

Artyquine

Simple Circular Braiding

Hi folks, long time no blog!

This is the first in a series of posts on traditional woolcraft, illustrated for you to try.

Circular braiding is as old as the hills! Well, maybe not quite, but as old as domesticated sheep and Neolithic farmers.

First of all you need to cut a circle of thin card and then puncture a hole in the middle (use a set of compasses). Cut eight (8) slots in the circle, about half-way towards the centre. Then cut seven (7) lengths of wool or thread of different colours. A nice idea is two strands of three light colours and a contrasting dark strand like I've done here.


Ensure your threads are all the same length and tie an overhand knot to secure them.


Push this knotted end through the hole in the middle of your card circle.


Separate the seven threads out into each of the slots, leaving one empty.


Turn your circle of card so that the empty slot is pointing directly away from you. After that empty slot, count THREE (3) threads and lift out the third thread.

Pull this third thread out and drape it across the circle and into the empty slot.


Turn your circle around again until the empty slot is facing directly away from you and repeat the process. Keep going until you get a build up of thread in the middle of the circle and give the knot a gentle pull from the rear.

Eventually you will start to see the braid build up as a thick rope-like item.


Keep going until you have about an inch of threads left. Pull them all out of the slots and then pull the completed braid out of the hole. Plait, or tie off the ends, trim if necessary.


And that's a circular braid! Friendship bracelets are most often constructed this way, so it's a very easy, quick present to make.


The length of your braid depends on the length of your thread. You can make really short ones for trimming or long ones for bracelets. If you use embroidery thread it will be much thinner and more delicate.

Artyquine

Loveheart Pincushions II

As promised - another one rolls off the production line, each time I get neater with my stitching!!

When I got the huge amounts of cloth from a former acquaintance in the States, she said 'You won't get much use out of that piece,' how wrong she was!!

More to come soon folks!

Loveheart Pincushions

My latest production is the beginning of my 'Loveheart Pincushion' range. A very simple design that can be easily replicated, the only snag is sewing the thing up!

Anyway, after a trial piece which is not going on sale, I put together two wee cushions which I am very pleased with.

Autumn Leaves (above)
Fiddle-dee-dee (below)

Also figured out that filling it from the bottom of the heart with self-coloured thread is the best way of disguising the fabric which isn't turned in.

So - it starts with two pieces of heart-shaped cloth:

Sew them back to front - remembering to add any embelishments like buttons, sequins etc to the front of the heart and put it inside as you sew up. I've double-sewed just for security, first just loop stitches around the pieces of cloth to fit them together, then backstitch all around under the looping.

Then, leave a space for filling - best at the bottom - turn right side out. I stuffed with quilting, but you can use cotton wool. The quilting is far less lumpy than cotton wool, and I've even used old tights in the past! If you are going to scent the innards with essential oil, be SPARING with two or three drops of lavender or rose. I was a bit liberal with the first bit of oil and it leaked everywhere, fortunately it all dried.

Use tiny stitches to sew it up, et voila! One cute cushion.

If you are hanging it up, then add a ribbon loop to the top. I left a space for a loop at the top of the heart. Again, try and be neat.

I'm planning some more soon, here are the cut pieces to give you some idea, from the top 'Blue Blossoms'; 'Stripey Green' and 'Life is a Bowl of Cherries'

Photo-stitch

Yay! Managed to get a FREE copy of DMC Cross Stitch Designer online after a hiccup with my Amazon order.

It does exactly what it says on the box!!

Here are some of the colour-block designs with their originals, and then I'll tell you how I did it and how you can buy your copies!!

This was the first design - in fact, my signature one, the 'Flower Power' heart. The program uploads the image and breaks it down into pixels to be used as the colour blocks to show the design.

And here's a good one - the RGU 'bothies' installation, c.2006 in Aberdeen's Castlegate.




























I call it 'Invasion of the Wee Hoosies' simply because they appeared overnight and looked as if they'd just dropped from the sky!! The colour-block version is ok - I wonder how long it would take? Seems massive!

Anyhoo - to the patterns...

With all of them, you can have the option of just printing the colour blocks, or coloured symbols, or, as I prefer, being used to commercially made patterns, black and white symbols with black lines.

This is a close-up of the heart pattern















You can see just about that each square of stitching contains a symbol - which has a corresponding colour on the chart of DMC thread/floss.

















The whole b/w pattern looks something like this one above.


























And the second page contains the key and any instructions or info about the origin of the photo/image or copyright details.

All the symbols have their DMC colour name and numerical code so you can just pop into to your local craft shop and pick up the right thread from the DMC rack!

'Red Line' at the top of Union St across from the Town House in Aberdeen has some, so does John Lewis.

There was a knitting/ craft shop in Rosemount, the descendant of the once famous Wool Shop of George Street, but I'm not sure if it's still there.

since I wrote this of course, Hobbycraft opened, and there is Holburn Crafts; Bead Crazy; etc.

Visionary Stitchery!

I'm currently planning a new product - cross stitch designs from my photos. I've been searching for a suitable computer program to help do the job rather than the scary prospect of using graph paper and a wheen of DMC* thread to match the colours!

It would seem that there are very few new packages that do the job for anything above Windows XP - that suits me perfectly fine, having stuck with Win98 for years before being forced to make the move to XP, but the programs available are mainly for Mac OS X and above. Not that I'm against Macs - fabulous machines for art, but not ideal when you've used a PC for eons!!

So with a little help from Google and Amazon, I've sent off for the old DMC Cross Stitch Pattern Designer - released in 2002 and 5th most popular of this type of craft program on Amazon UK's list. Looks just fine for my purposes. I don't want to do anything complicated like half or quarter stitches yet.

I quite often used to draw a picture outline in pencil on a piece of aida cotton and stitch in the colours as I went. Might do that again, but note the colours and stitches used. For now, keeping it simple is the best option!

I had a wee shottie at the demo of a program called Cross Stitch Professional Publisher - does the job, but demo doesn't even let you save your designs. And at over £300 it was waay too dear for my liking, so I'm not even going to link to it. Still, it let me see what these programs do, so here's a screen shot using my favourite fishing trawler image - the Banff-registered Caspian, in all her shiny red glory! That's going to be a wonderful pattern!

If this is anything to go by, the patterns should be fine. I presume they print just as colour and you use the DMC numbering system to select the threads? The palette you see on the left of the picture shows the colours, and rolling your mouse over them shows the name and number of the colour.

So, we shall see - watch this space for further developments!! I may even offer a bespoke design service. Cross-Stitch is another hobby I had to abandon due to being back at university, but happily can indulge once more.




* DMC of course being the wonderful folk who make the cotton thread or 'floss' as the Americans call it. They started in the 1920s, but the company had its origins in 18th Century Europe and an artist called Jean-Henri Dollfus. It was his nephew who would set up the business name of DMC with his wife, creating 'Dollfus-Mieg & Compagnie'. Yay for them! Learn more about their history on DMC's own US home site.