Category Archives: Scrap Sunday

Shriek Sunday: eye catching body parts

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Warning: This post contains the description of unspeakable things, female body parts misused for baby feeding and there is even a picture of a BREAST. Naked. Really.

The holidays are finally coming to an end. We have done lots but nothing spectacular (unless you call a daily visit to the same playground spectacular). As we didn’t travel anywhere, we frequently pretended to be tourists and had lots of unhealthy food or healthy food in the pretend cafe at our dining table. (Can’t recommend this place, ridiculous prices, a single breadstick for £1!) We had stomach bugs, teething, eye tests, two visits to the fun fair and one immunisation which lead to multiple running away threats (a day later even). He would have taken his sister and initially the baby brother. But as this one needs to be breastfed he would have left him behind with the horrible mother that drags her children to nurses with needles. Which leads to today’s topic: the baby hat in the shape of a female breast or as others would call it: the booby beanie.

A dear friend of mine and midwife wants to learn knitting to be able to knit a booby beanie. As she wanted to present one in about a weeks time, I offered to knit one for her and let her learn knitting without the stress of a deadline.

I followed this pattern, written by Amanda Rundquist (she seems to focus on food now and I will definitely check out the website. That burger looks rather yummy, even at 8.30 in the morning (well, it is almost lunch time for me, I am up since a few hours).

I used some Rowan handknit cotton from my stash.  I chose the yarn because it was the one that came closest to my own skin colour, but it looks a bit unhealthy, not enough red in it. However, I think it will be presented to a bunch of Japanese midwifes, so it might not be totally wrong, maybe a bit too pale.

I did see a few hats online that were white or light pink with a bright pink nipple. I guess these colours make the hat look cuter but I personally think if I choose to put a breast on the head of my baby than it is a statement. Tongue-in-cheek pro breastfeeding in public. So I think the more natural and realistic the better.

I altered the pattern slightly as I was comparing with my own reality. So the colour change is two rows later but I didn’t decrease down to 5 stitches for the I-cord and did a few rounds with 8 stitches instead to form the nipple.

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I knitted the smaller size and didn’t do a tension square as it will only be used as a sample but it fitted the baby well enough to wear it for a picture 🙂

Stillkappe 2And if you stare hard enough, you can actually see my skin! Really. I tried hard to cover my breast with that baby but I failed. Luckily this was in the privacy of my home and not in a public space 😉

 

 

 

Scrap Sunday or the “commitment to commissioned work” problem

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There is this romantic image of the poor artist sitting in his freezing atelier, trying to hold his brush in his clammy hands to finish that magnificent painting before dying from pneumonia. Or the composer writing down the most wonderful music with the last tiny bit of his pencil before dying from hunger. Only the hope that one’s artistic genius will finally be recognised by coming generations keeps them going.

Other artists or artisans have a more pragmatic approach. They produce what the paying customer wants.

Now, I do not even dream of putting my name in the same sentence with Van Gogh or Mozart (Ok, I just found out that he wasn’t actually that poor, that is just a myth!!!!) but so far I am happy to say that I usually like what I make and that I am fully committed to it. So far, I never had to question the things that I made for others, be it a present or be it a custom order. I had been wondering in the past, if I would ever come in a situation where I would have to say: “No, I am not going to make this, it does not reflect any of my values” or “that is beneath me”. Or even worse, where I actually had to make something that would not reflect any of my values or that would be beneath me. Not because I would fall for a huge fee but because the safety or emotional well being of a close person would be threatened. Have you ever asked yourself where you would draw the line?

By now you might be wondering why I am going on about this problem, after all it is “only” Scrap Sunday. Well, you will see.

Last week, one of my friends took her children to a fun fair and for reasons that are not to be discussed here she convinced her daughter to have a go at the “catch a duck” game. The girl overcame her objections and caught a duck (obviously). She chose a toy set which included some plastic high heels and was incredibly pleased as she knew her mother would have never ever agreed on buying her high heels. She is that sort of humourless kill-joy who wants her children to play with a few stones and a jute bag to develop their creativity. (I believe I have shown you the results of their creativity on here already.)

So already the educational persuasion to catch a duck had backfired slightly. But things got worse.

At home the little girl realised that the shoes didn’t fit. A bit like Cinderella’s step sisters. Which is why the mother suggested to cut off those toes with a knife* (correction: the woman has clearly a brilliant sense of humour) . After this fabulous joke which was not really appreciated by the girl with the big toes, she promised to somehow fix the problem so the girl could enjoy her beautiful price.

And this is where finally my Scrap Sunday comes in. As I actually had to sacrifice some of my pink stripy jersey to make the little shoe big enough for the not so little girl. I removed the plastic top of the shoe and replaced it with a stripe of stretchy jersey which I crossed over to give a bit more security.

IMG_4689Toes are still big but get through.

IMG_4691I never thought that I would actively be involved in saving toy high heels but considering that I my friend had started the whole thing with the duck catching, it would have been too cruel to add the educational lesson of “see how these cheap plastic toys are of poor quality and have no value whatsoever, they even lead to negative feelings.”

And luckily after a day with the toy set and the fixed shoes the girl realised the latter all by herself :

* The German version by the Grimm brothers features two step sisters, who cut off their toe respectively heel in order to fit into the tiny glass shoe.

Scrap Sunday: Sleeping Bag

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Just a quick one for this Sunday, but a cute one.

Mr. No Thank You agreed on my suggestion on a mummy made sleeping bag for his dolly as I thought a plastic bag is not the appropriate choice. So he chose the fabric, I took the measurements and my little assistant (the girl, Mr. No Thank you was totally exhausted from the decision making) helped me draw the design and then the pattern.

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I decided to line the sleeping bag as facings on such a tiny scale would be a nightmare and even if it is only a sleeping bag for a doll, I still want it to look nice. Even as a child I always found the doll dresses cheaply made. I guess I already had an eye for top quality.

After the slight inside out problem last week, I decided to make a tiny sample first, just to see that I leave the right seams open this time. And I managed. Hard to believe, I know, but I did.

IMG_4624The sleeping bag went down well with the new owner – not only had the doll to sleep for three days non stop but he also requested a few new clothes 🙂

And I am rather happy too. It is actually cuter than the one for the life sized baby.

And I am seriously considering to create an e-book – except that I do not know how to do this or where to even start. But never mind. I am the proud owner of a brand new computer, surely there is a button for E-book creation. I’ll just put it on my to do list 🙂

 

 

Scrap Sunday: the homemade tag blanket – a tutorial

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I am really busy these days businesswise and I actually have to follow a rather strict time table in order to fulfill all pending orders. That sounds spectacular, I know. And I like it. Even if it is slightly, just slightly exaggerated. But I do have to make a few yoga bags (manly ones. I hope I will achieve this goal this time round) and knit a cardigan plus a birthday dress for my niece (ok, that is a private matter but it definitely has a deadline). Plus I have to write a scheme of work for my class “numeracy through knitting”. So while I was busy doing the latter, thinking a lot about numbers, shapes, patterns and spacial sense, I needed a break and thought finally making that little tag blanket might be a welcome change.

As super-ambitious teacher and generally smug person I thought I’ll spoil my readers with a little tutorial as I am clearly an expert of turning things inside out as I had recently experienced with the coat.

So here is how it is done properly 🙂

You’ll need two nice pieces of fabric, I went for woven cotton, I guess, jersey might be softer but I wanted to use the cute animal fabric from the advent calendar. I also cut a really broken and scratchy face cloth into shape to add some texture. For the tags you can use all bits of left overs, ribbons, labels, bits of fabric,…. Just make sure you’ll have all the edges sealed. The easiest will be to fold them and have the open edges inside the seam.

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You could also add some crackling material, either in the main part or, as someone had commented last time, just in some of the tags, which I did for this one.

As one of the fabrics features unsuitably dangerous sharks, I cut (twice) a few blue waves and stitched them together with some of that crackling foil.

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I left the piece open at the bottom to be able to turn it inside out and that open side will later be inside the seam of the blanket anyway.

Next, you carefully arrange the layers. It works best if you smugly explain your baby or any other person present how brilliant you are that you whip this up during a “numeracy through knitting scheme of work” break, just before you’ll have to go shopping. And that you are going to take some pictures for your blog readers to explain them how things are done.

Basically, all you have to do is to put the layers in a random order on top of each other not caring about right and wrong side as long as you are taking pictures of the process. And pin everything in place. Make sure that all tags are looking inside, in line with the seam. There is no need to take pictures of the five tags that you pinned sticking out in the first attempt as you will realise early enough which way to place them. You are a clever and well rested person after all.

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Take an other picture to show your readers that the right side of the top layer is facing down as you are going to turn the whole thing. You are not stupid after all.

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Stitch around the four sides. For added safety, you should secure each tag by going back and forwards again. Actually, don’t go around the whole thing. Leave a gap of a couple of cm for the turning. Be proud of remembering that. I’d take a few pictures of that really.

IMG_4593Even if by now you might be realising that you actually hadn’t payed attention when you put the first layer of fabric on the table. And that the sharks will be facing inwards after turning. They are inappropriately dangerous for a small baby anyway and it might be better that way. No need to get the seam ripper out. You only have about 5 min until the baby sitter comes anyway.

IMG_4594Just make sure your readers will see that gap properly. That is the only important thing here.

And then turn the inside out. IMG_4595This might now be the moment where you are slowly realising that not only the wrong side of the sharks but also the old and scratchy face towel will be on the outside and the cute animals will be completely hidden. But possibly give the whole thing some added stability. And that scratchy face towel will really have a very different feel and the baby will enjoy that. At this stage it is all about different textures. After all this is why you created all these different tags.

So you could just keep turning the whole thing. Or you do take that seam ripper and take the whole thing apart.

No it is probably time for shopping. A bit of fresh air might not be the worst at this stage anyway. So do that and continue with this quick project later.

When reassembling the layers, just remember one thing: The two sides that are supposed to be on the outside later, need to be on the inside, with the tags in between them. The middle layer can either be underneath everything or on top of everything. Doesn’t matter. As long as the two pretty sides are facing each other and have the tags in between them. Easy. And actually follows the same principle as the crackling material in the waves. Remember when you stitched them together correctly in only one attempt?

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The benefit of this slightly longer process with the few extra steps before this one is that you will actually have a line of dots from the previous stitches showing you where to sew. Which is really helpful. So just be proud of it again.

Shorten the seam allowance, especially the corners.

And turn the whole thing inside out. You can either close the gap by hand or top stitch around all sides and close the gap during that process.

Now, it is optional to iron the whole thing. I decided not to take pictures of the ironing process as I would like to leave a bit of room for imagination to keep my readers active.

Time for more pictures. And to be proud. Before you finally go back to your numeracy scheme of work and all this thinking about spacial recognition and logic.

IMG_4597IMG_4598Needless to say that the baby was most impressed by the cleverness of his mum. And the crackling waves are so much fun. I really enjoy playing with them.