Word on the Street - May 28, 2013

May, where have you gone?  We've been busy bees this month, and this past holiday weekend was no exception!

Liz has a follow-up from her rug dyeing experiment - a picture of the final result! 

Bonus: This item was sold to a lovely lady we met at the Flint Handmade sale!

Well, this rug was a trip.  In a classic move of trial-and-error, Liz learned a lot from her rug-making experience.  Here are Liz's tips for making a big crochet rug:

• Dye your fabric before cutting it, especially if using a fabric that tends to get stringy when cut.
• Crocheting something like this rug, which has several strands of fabric strips instead of one long piece, followed by dyeing and washing will result in lots of holes and strings and it will end up looking shabby - not very functional.
• Adding an additional string of yarn along with the fabric may help the rug be more durable and add a little visual flair.

So, needless to say, this project was a bit of a hot mess.  The new color was a great success, but the process took a toll on the structural integrity of the rug.  After dyeing and washing, Liz laid out the rug to dry on a drying rack, then painstakingly took it all apart.  This involved lots of time, cutting, detangling, and swearing.  Once unraveled, Liz attached pieces of fabric by stitching small bits of embroidery floss on the ends of two pieces, then wound the whole long strand of fabric into one big ball.  Then, along with some white yarn, she crocheted the rug all over again. 

Liz is hoping to make more fabric rugs soon, but now has a better idea of how to go about the whole process.  Order of operations, people.

Erica has found time in her busy schedule to start another quilt--this time for her cousin Chelsea. Instead of finding fabrics to put together, she found a great pack of flannel receiving blankets that were on sale, and coordinated so well they couldn't be passed up! Erica hasn't started sewing yet, but the most time consuming part--the cutting--is finished.

Chevrons are SO fetch right now.

But cutting is the second step in any quilting project. Planning WHAT to cut is the first! Here is the method to Erica's madness (the third draft):

One day, Erica will buy graph paper...

In Erica's opinion, the best part of any craft project is the happiness it brings to others. Her first quilt for Baby Claire was a success! And her brother Tom loves it too!



Samantha is too busy altogether these days, but you can bet that she's been crafting up a storm as well.  More updates on Samantha's crafts, La Croix, and everything else next time.

That's what we've been up to this week!

Word on the Street - April 5

Hey hey! It's Friday! And Friday means an LSC update! What a great day!

Liz decided to try her hand this week at crocheting a rug using a big crochet needle and a big chunk of fabric cut into a continuous strip - a familiar process, the basic chain, but new material.  Here is the result:

Not bad!  Liz was pretty happy with the result.

Now, the only was to really describe this color of this fabric is "dusty rose" (or Maeve Binchy, as us LSC girls like to say).  Liz wasn't too happy about that, so she bought some fabric dye - also a new craft experience for her - to see if she could make the rug a more attractive hue.

Fuchsia, not so different from the original color of the fabric that it would be a disaster is the dye didn't work properly.

Stay tuned to future blog posts to see the update on the magical dusty rose/fuchsia fabric crochet rug experiment.

Sam has been working on prototypes for this year's craft season. Here's the beginning of her pedi-socks:

Eventually this will be a sock you can put on to keep your feet warm while you paint your toenails! How, you say?! Black magic? No, just some knitting trickery. Stay tuned to see the final product.

This is the other product Sam is really excited about: face puffs! It's been a goal of Sam's to replace disposable items with reusable ones. Easier on the environment and the pocketbook! These are hopefully going to replace cotton balls. The idea is you use them, wash them, and then use them again. The only problem is that Sam crocheted this one and then...can't seem to make another one. Hmmm...Crocheting might just not be meant to be, so she's going to try to create a knitted pattern instead.

Erica has been one busy B this week and has no crafts to report at this time. While we'd love for crafting to be our whole lives and only priority, sometimes other things come up. It's a fact of life we hate. And have to accept. And hate to accept.

That's it for your favorite crafty girls this week. What are you working on?!