Soft Circuits and Bird Box Avenue

I had hoped to blog before this with many wonderful new photos of undersea life in Fuerteventura. Sadly, once again, the camera suffered an accident so I have none to offer!

But I’ve been busy at workshops since I came back. Firstly with Artillery from Walthamstow creating braids as part of Make Yourself at Home http://www.makeyourselfathome.org.uk/. If you live in or around Edmonton, London have a look at the some of the events including street of Blue Plaques and Birdbox Avenue.

This weekend I went to the Furtherfield Gallery in Finsbury Park to help add some soft circuits to the Digital Commons project underway there. MzTek had organised a drop-in workshop to allow women to learn a bit about circuits, conductive thread and electronic switches. About 10 people turned up to try their hand at adding LEDs to one of the patches from the Digital Commons; either to their own embroidery, or, as in my case, adding some light to an existing patch. Ele, who is curating the work, has a blog with pictures from the day and the wall of completed memes. (Blog can be found here: http://eleweekend.blogspot.co.uk/) There will be another chance to add circuitry to the memes at the end of May at Flossie 2012, at Queen Mary’s University http://www.flossie.org/.

The patch I embellished had the phrase:

to be a meme is a condition.

Since I wanted to use a swing switch this reminded me of programming conditions using ‘if’ statements and secondarily of ‘conditional clauses’ as part of grammar. I used thick conductive thread to sew two lines from the battery pack to the ‘condition’ with a bright red LED (strangely this was clear when unpowered) for the first circuit and a less bright green for the second one. I used two small metal beads as contacts and put them in the ‘o’s of condition. Hopefully viewers of the final exhibition will be able to touch the memes to make the lights work – some of the circuitry on other memes was installed with pressure switches – so that they can be viewed in all their glory.

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As with the V&A workshop I attended recently, time seemed to move fast; I paced myself as to what I could achieve although I did find using the thread easier this time. I’m naturally impatient, which is why I crochet rather than knit, so had to make myself slow down and sew carefully.

Top tip: use a needle threader to get conductive thread through the eye of the needle. Conductive thread frays quickly and because you double the thread to pull it through the eye you don’t get this problem.

Crochet Cafetiere Cosy

I normally drink tea, but sometimes coffee just hits the spot. At home, I love using the cafetiere to make ‘proper’ coffee but find that the last cup usually comes out too cold. I don’t have a microwave so can’t blast it in that; tea cosies seem to keep tea warm so I reasoned some kind of cafetiere cover would be useful. I created this one using recycled cotton yarn and bought some wooden style buttons to trim it with. I used a stitch called ‘spike stitch’ which gives a great texture and, I hope, better insulation. The fastenings are done in double crochet (single in US terms). I will be putting the pattern up here soon as cafetieres seem to be so varied in size that I can’t really offer the finished product. However I do have this one for sale on Storebeez: http://www.storebeez.com/products/green-cafetiere-cosy/1007/

I made two coasters out of the remaining yarn (one shown here).

Eureka – it’s uploaded, the cosy has landed!

Cosy and coaster

Come to the fair!

Virtual Craft Fair

The fair is now open for viewing!

You can find my stall on the Gifts pages:  http://creative-connections.ning.com/page/gifts-19-35

Enjoy

Daphne aka Seawitch

Too hot for a scarf?

I decided to try my hand at creating a neck wamer – I find scarves too bulky for wearing with ski type anoraks and now the weather is blowing hot and cold it was time to have a go at a neck warmer, sometimes called a snood I think (to me a snood is worn in the hair).  The great thing is you can stick it in a pocket if it gets tropical, try doing that with a 3 foot scarf!

So this is the result, I made it complete with buttonholes and then had trouble finding suitable sized ones which didn’t cost more than the yarn used to make the neckwarmer. I eventually found these lovely buttons at my local bead shop, Indivijewlistic http://www.indivijewelistic.com/ .  The neckwamer itself is constucted from half trebles using two strands of acrylic yarn – I find wool too itchy – and looks great with both my ski anorak and Uniqlo padded jacket, and of course the matching headband I blogged about in ‘New Year, new crochet’.  If you want to try making it yourself, I’ll be putting up the pattern soon.  In the meantime, I’ll be selling a few in different colours on my virtual craft stall at the end of this week, or to order if you have specific requirements.

Enough from me, here it is:

Virtual Craft Fair

I mentioned that I was going to be have a ‘stall’ at a virtual craft fair, it’s run by Creative Connections in the UK, but people seem to be from all over.  I’ll be putting the link up to it soon but in the meantime, url will folllow nearer the date!

Virtual Craft Fair

New Year, New Crochet

I know it’s a little late but I have been busy with horrible financial stuff – the tax return has gone in now and I can get going with the fun again. I have been trawling the web though for ideas on Lilypad arduino, Aniomagic’s Sparkle and soft circuits in general.

This is my resolution for 2012: merge the tech with the craft! However am in stasis since I’ve now done so much research I can’tdecide whether to go for the easier option of Sparkle (no programming involved) or to go with the Lilypad which is more challenging (C programming needed and I only ever did Pascal) plus I’m not sure what the future development of these will be, or to do-it-myself using battery packs, conductive wire and LEDs. One tip I will follow though is to use beeswax to coat the wire as this should make it easier to sew with.

To show I haven’t been completely idle on the crafting front, here are some of the things I’ve been making this month:

• Chthulhu from the Creepy Cute book (Nicki Trench) for my friend Janette; I promised her this only two years ago and have actually redone a lot of it since as I realised the crochet was so loose it going to show the stuffing.
• It was high time to make something for myself so I decided on a headband and matching snood (neck warmer?); the challenge was to make something that would go with my ski anorak (I felt I would be needing to wear it this month) and my fave black non-puffa puffa from Uniqlo. Since I’m not a frills kind of girl I went for using strong colours with two strands of DK and simple shapes. I like the final effect although have had to pad the headband with second layer of crochet as it has large gaps. I could only find a 12mm crochet hook on the day I decided to create this wonder as I’d mislaid the pencil case containing my entire collection of hooks, snips and tapestry needles. The resulting open pattern of half trebles worked up quickly but did let the wind through on a test run outside!

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And since I’ve mentioned the pencil case I will share its loveliness (depends if your as much a fan of Mr Monkton’s quirky cartoons and rhymes as I am!)

As part of my plan for this year I’m attending a workshop at the V&A on soft circuits – making cushions that light up and rattle. I have a plan to do my own creation post workshop based on brain coral swirls. I have a picture by Alex Mustard of brain coral under UV light and the colours are stunning. So purples, greens and maybe pink with some glittery lights is the aim. (If you want to see the photo follow this link: http://www.amustard.com/Web_galleries/glow11_gal/ )

Am feeling chuffed that my mate ordered a ‘venom dripping’ spider (see October blog for pic)  for his mum’s birthday and was a little let down when the ‘itsy bitsy cute, fluffy’ one arrived. His mum was happy though and if it helps her to get over her arachnophobia that’s worth something?

On the garden front, have lost the battle with the local squirrels as they’ve dug up and eaten all the crocus and tulip bulbs I’d planted; they left the broad beans and, eventually, the garlic alone so at least I have some feeling of being green fingered. The squirrels are getting ever bolder, I found one sitting on the windowsill eyeing up the indoor plants recently, and they both sit on the fence trying to stare me out whilst I’m in the kitchen. Stlll they’re doing me a favour by eating the remaining crab apples – I just wish they’d leave the plants alone as they keep digging them up to find acorns and other goodies they think are down there.

 

Happy New Year!

and it seems there’s a new WordPress!  Have I been away that long? (perhaps not, have just given up on the new interface….)

So – Christmas, birthdays (times 3) and anniversaries are past; and am struggling with doing finance-y type things so am not reaching for the yarn stash just yet.  But the longer days are giving me a spur to make stuff – what to start with?  I have ideas for sea creature related amigurumis in mind – but do I make them realistic or cute (complete with teddy bear eyes)?  Or shall I get ready for the next seasonal event and make some lovehearts for Valentines?  Let me know.

And in the meantime just to show I haven’t been completely idle, checkout my store on Storebeez.com – a new marketplace in the UK:

http://www.storebeez.com/stores/seawitch-designs/

More items to follow soon!

Christmas Crafties

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Just a few of the items I’ve made for this Christmas.  Let me know if you like them!  (And if you want any they’ll be in my Etsy shop soon….)

The Humbug has landed

Not bah!

Ok – so the wire decorations were not working out (yet), so I finally got to grips with the humbug design.  Not sure if these will get out of the door as daughter will probably want them.  May make them into tree decorations too.

Bah humbug!

The finished article!

Closeup of single row stripe

The phone tucked away

Tis the run up to Christmas and I wanted to make some slightly alternative gifts.  I plan on doing some amigurumi humbugs for those who might not be quite in the spirit, but before I got embroiled in ‘just how do I make that shape?’ I thought I’d try out the stripy pattern.  The second thought was to make the swatch into something useful and so the humbug mobile phone case was born!

I like the end result so much I feel inspired to make it larger and perhaps create Kindle or iPad covers!

WIP - Christmas tree decorations

In more sparkly mode I’ve been playing with beading wire to create snowflake tree decorations.  My original plan was to thread beads onto the wire before crocheting but this made the final snowflake more of a snowball, so I left off the beads, although I did add one to a small circle and place it into the middle of a snowflake.  I’m pleased with the result – they look very effective when the light catches them.  I’m also thinking of making some napkin rings using the beading wire and wine glass charms.  More soon!