Archive for the ‘Crafty’ Category

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How to Make a Drop Spindle

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Spinning is awesome, and I bet you have everything in your house you need to make a spindle, and if you have a dog, or some other sheddy type of pet you might have everything you need to spin! (But wool is probably easier to start with.) This spindle I’m about to show you is super low tech, and slightly shoddy, but it does the job. The other CD tutorials I’ve seen want you to get a rubber grommet to snap the CD into, but I had a hard time finding one the right size, so I made this up instead. Heck, if you want to go really old skool though just go out in the front yard and pick up a rock. Done. The first drop spindles were very likely rocks with a leader yarn tied around them. Now I want to try spinning with a rock.

What do you need?

  • A wooden dowel, about 12″, (but a pencil will do fine in a pinch)
  • An old CD, (or some cardboard cut to look like a CD)
  • Some masking tape or two rubber bands
  • Some kind of hook – if you have a picture hanging kit look in there, otherwise you can get creative with a paper clip or sewing pin. Or you can ditch the hook altogether and just put a notch into the end of your dowel to hold the yarn, or tie your yarn in a half hitch around the end of the spindle. So many choices!

Wrap masking tape around your dowel or pencil until it just fits through the CD or cardboard. For a top-whorl spindle put the tape about 1/3 of the way from the top, and for a bottom-whorl put it about 1/3 of the way from the bottom. The ‘whorl’ is the thing that whirls around, in this case the CD. :-) I like a bottom whorl spindle because it is more stable, but a top whorl spindle is easier to hook the yarn on the hook because of the way the yarn comes up and over the edge of the CD and then through the hook.

Use small pieces of masking tape to secure the CD. You could also use hot glue.

To do the same thing with rubber bands, wrap one rubber band several times around your dowel to make a lump, stick the CD on, and then make another rubber band lump above it to hold it in place. This is what we did in our class. These rubber bands are too small though, you should use something thicker. Next time we will too. Or we will skip the CDs altogether and use wooden toy wheels.

Screw the cup hook into the end of your dowel or pencil eraser. You probably want to drill a pilot hole, but you can get away without if you are lazy like me and don’t mind a bit of cracking. If you are aiming for a heirloom spindle you probably aren’t going to use a CD, or follow this tutorial at all.

If you don’t have a hook, I would hammer in a pin, then pull it out, bend it into a curve with some pliers, and super glue it back in.

Then tie a stout piece of yarn around the middle of your dowel and start spinning! It is so much fun!

Actually, I think the CD doesn’t quite have enough mass to give you a nice spinning inertia, to make it better I’m going to try taping some pennies on the underside of the CD right at the outside edge. I bet that would give it a nicer feel.

Here are some getting started links from the Joy of Hand Spinning, there are videos over on the far right side of the pages.
Spinning with a Drop Spindle
Basic Hand Spinning Techiques

So much fun! I have no idea what to do with the yarn I’m making though, I’d like to make something special, but I’m not sure what. Any ideas?

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Stellated Dodecahedron

Monday, December 12th, 2011


What does stellated mean? It means pull on the center of every face on your polyhedron turning it into a pyramid. Yay! We learned something! This was such a neat brainless pattern (free over here) to work on in meetings. Which is to say I didn’t follow the pattern very well, used yarn that was much thicker than suggested and generally randomly tromped around my dodecahedron, and it still came out quite fun. At least Penelope thought so. And it gave me something to do rather than stab my eyes out at another wasted hour of my life. I need another crochet or knitting project to take to school meetings now. I feel less guilty crocheting than sewing for some reason, because I am not the only one doing it and it is culturally accepted as a brainless hand filling activity? Also there are fewer things to forget and no pieces to drop. I was spinning at our last general meeting, that works too, although there was more staring at the crazy lady. Stellated, your word of the day.

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Texture Balls

Friday, November 11th, 2011


So… the picture could be better. This is a pre-no-brain-because-I-am-designing-curriculum project, harking back to my texture book tutorial but in 3D! Ooooh! (I am tired.) I used red, orange, yellow, brown and green, and I tried to arrange it (without actually buying any fabric) so that there were two textures for each color and at least two colors for each texture, if that makes any sense. So there was brown suede and brown corduroy, as well as green and red corduroy. It is fascinating! (pretend I’m one) There is this one silky texture in two different colors! And this one color, comes in two other different textures! And it goes around in circles! The patterns! Mind boggling! Clearly I need to go to bed.

In other news, I survived my spinning class yesterday. It went pretty well, there were a couple of kinders and first graders who needed more hands on help than I could give them, but really everyone managed it, in the end I think there was just one kinder who refused outright to spin, and one first grader who in the end had to hold the end of his wool up while I gave his drop spindle a few mighty spins and we twisted up the whole (3′) length at once. Sometimes you just need to move on to the next project. Out of 23 though, that’s not too bad, I think that means I made my 90% success goal. (We used this method if you’re curious.) It also means that there were several kinders who with a few minutes of personal attention actually did manage to successfully use a drop spindle with pre-drafted combed top. I learned it’s not actually called roving, unless it has some twist. But I need to be further educated there. So many new words! Diz, hackle, noil, long draw, short draw, rolag, woolen vs worsted, drafting, combed top, roving, sliver (rhymes with diver!?) so many words! If you are curious there is a lot of great information about spinning at the Joy of Handspinning. But like the snap of fingers, now I am on to weaving, because that is what I am teaching *next* week. I am learning SO much teaching this class! And weaving, it is so cool! Go read/watch this introduction to backstrap weaving! Now I want to make a backstrap loom, but my living room is currently full of a bajillion different table looms from school that I have to figure out and warp, so I don’t think I’m going to be doing that! At least, not this week.

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When to Start Sewing?

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Yes I have been eaten by my textiles class. 4 more weeks of brand new lesson plan drafting, prop & materials acquisition, teaching and learning, and things might get back to normal. Next week I get to teach spinning, which I am feeling more cheerful about. All of my K-5 kids managed to make a felted rope, ball and purse last week, so as long as we use the ‘park’ method of drop spinning which doesn’t require spinning a top and drafting wool at the same time I think we will make it through. Although I need to work running around in circles into my lesson plan for the younger boys. I’m thinking braiding rope hung from the ceiling.

Several people have asked me when is the ‘right’ time to start sewing with your kids? I think around 1.5 they are old enough to start sticking a large embroidery needle through hooped fabric. Supervised of course. Penelope thinks it’s fun to sew like mama for about five minutes. One of my friends was shocked, and thought they might hurt themselves, but really, a needle prick is hardly traumatic compared to a skinned knee, and it doesn’t take them long to figure out that it is sharp. Plastic canvas is another way to start, or a square of thick felt.

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Egg Dolls

Monday, October 10th, 2011

I’m working on something, I know where I wanted it to go, but I don’t know where it’s actually going… And my goals might have gotten lost somewhere. I wanted to print some little dolls that would be fun, and very easy to sew. That’s pretty much it. And fun to play with. To give Rebecca, and anyone else, an extremely accessible sewing activity.

So this is one of my egg dolls. She is cut on the bias to try to make her more plump and eggy with only two pieces of fabric. She is stuffed very firmly, not sure how ‘easy’ that is though, and has rice in the bottom so that she will stand up if you set her down firmly enough. So possibly not fun, and too hard. I need to see how she looks if I give one to Rebecca to sew and stuff.

My prototyping was a bit of a comedy of errors, only not as funny. I bought waxed paper rather than freezer paper to iron on to my fabric to send it through the printer (because I am cheap.) Needless to say it didn’t work at all. But what DID work which you might like to know, was to spray-starch the heck out of the sheet of fabric, mutter incantations about how it’s only a $40 printer, and send it through the printer. Anyway, it worked the 4th time. It jammed the first three. I remember there was a trick to it, I’m sure I’ll be painfully rediscovering it next time because I seem to have completely forgotten! Oops. Because I’ve gotten distracted by the textile exploration class I’m supposed to be teaching at Rebecca’s class. About things like weaving and spinning and felting and dying. I’m good with dying, okay with weaving though I’m still working on some of the terminology, fine with felting, I was going to say I know nothing about spinning, but hey, I learned yesterday! And it was really fun! So today I spent a couple hours at the playground with my drop spindle. I have a lot more to learn before I can teach this stuff to K-5th though! So, basically, the egg project is doomed. Like the two patterns I thought would be finished by the end of the summer. Doooooooooooooomed! Maybe that should be the theme of my Halloween decorating? Half finished projects grave yard. Too depressing. Dooooooooom! What a great word. :-)

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Beaded Headdress

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

So, I found this blue stone at a gem show that Jesse dragged me to, and I had to get it for my sister, it was just the right color and not too expensive. I keep waiting for someone to invent blue cubic zirconia, they have most of the other colors, but no blue yet, so this is lab grown spinel. Way more affordable than a natural 14mm sapphire, admittedly less romantic. So then I had to do something with it, right? Right. I was thinking, get a snap fitting and chain from Rio Grande, pair it with some blue leaf beads I’d gotten for her previously and make some matching earrings. But then she goes and suggests that head dress from the movie version of the Never Ending Story. Well, okay.

And then, whoa! Somehow with my ‘unique’ novice beading skills I end up with something that looks more like a Bollywood headdress. But! Rebecca, recently having watched the Never Ending Story looked at it and said, “Oh, it’s like that thing the princess wears in the Never Ending Story!” So, I guess? Win?

I started with a ring of 5 shockingly tiny beads, I’ve only recently become aware that seed beads even came in different sizes… These are from Japan and sized ‘super small’. Okay, they aren’t labeled and I can’t remember. ‘Super small’ was truthfully not part of the actual product description. :-)

It just sort of grew and grew. The part where I wove a pentagonally symmetric net around a square stone was interesting! Luckily no one told me it was a dumb idea before I started, and it worked! Mostly.

Taking a more distant look at it, now that it is no longer right in my face, it’s really no where near the 10 on the overdone Bollywood scale that I thought it was. More like a 2, maybe a 1! Whew!

And here is my baby sister who’s head I crammed it onto just before she got into the Rolls-Royce to begin her honey moon! Lucky girl is in the Caribbean now!

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