The Crafty Princess Diaries

Tammy Powley’s Crafty Weblog

August 21, 2011
by Tammy
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Craft Link Time

I don’t have a lot of pictures of Lola because most don’t come out that great. It is so hard to take photographs of animals with black fur, and her fur is super dark and soft, live velvet. Lola was an unexpected addition to the group of cats we adopted. She somehow made it under the radar.

We had reviewed the shelter’s web site and contacted them also before going over, so we kind of had an idea of who we were going to adopt. We also wanted to adopt slightly older cats, around 2 to 5 years old.

Since we planned on adopting multiple cats, the shelter folks immediately steered us toward Chanel and Coco who were mother and daughter, and the shelter didn’t want to (understandably) separate them. Then there was Herbie, whose description said he was about 2 1/2 years old and had been passed up too many times. He was super easy going from the moment we met him.

As we made the rounds of the shelter, we stepped into one room full of young black cats that swarmed us like flies, buzzing, purring, rubbing, loving like crazy! Lola was the first of this crowd to attack us (affectionately of course). She was all over us, trying to get inside my purse, literally throwing herself at us. How could we not take her? In fact, it was all we could do not take take every cat in that room!

When we got home, we looked at the paperwork and realized she was only 8 months old, not the older cat we had planned on, but it was all sort of serendipitous. Today, she is still super affectionate. In fact, she does this funny thing where no matter where you are standing, she comes up to you and brushes past you with her old body, sort of like if you swipe a credit card through a reader. After she does this, she usually stands right up next to you, so you have to really watch where you step!

Okay, that is today’s cat tale (ha ha…) and here are today’s crafting links, just a few but super good ones this week!
About Family Crafts
The current make-it-over crafts challenge is all about teaching math using crafts… Come play along!

Beading Arts
The “Mostly Metal” challenge was a great success, many thanks to Michelle Mach! Come and see all the fun pieces that were made.

Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi shares a post she wrote for John Bead using embossing powders and metal.

Craftside- A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a fun article all about Jeannine Stein author of Adventures in Bookbinding, which you have a chance to win just by leaving a comment in the post, an idea for using an unusual element as a curtain tieback, a bunny poem, and how to create a hierarchy and system for type.

Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Eileen takes a precious amethyst necklace from dull to dramatic.

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
How to make a Fancy Framed cartoon card and a chance to win a Cricut Fancy Frames Cartridge.

August 19, 2011
by Tammy
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Star Afghan Take 2

I’m making another attempt at the star afghan. The last one I made had a lot of boo-boos in it, so that is in the charity bin. This one is going to a couple my husband I both know, and so far so good. I’ve had to frog rows a few times here and there, but I manage to get back on track. The thing with this pattern, which I’m not following exactly anyway, is that it takes some counting, which means you can’t just mindlessly crochet like you could with something like a granny square. I’m not exactly doing calculus here either, but if you don’t pay a little attention, you find that you have extra stitches or not enough. On the up side, when I do pay attention, it comes along pretty quickly. I should have this done in maybe a week or so (as long as I an keep the frogging to a minimum).

August 18, 2011
by Tammy
3 Comments

Organic Cotton Baby Afghan Completed!

My latest project is finally complete, a baby afghan using Lion Brand Organic Cotton in a color called “macadamia.” It’s about 32 inches x 32inches, and I used around 5 skeins of yarn for it and a K size hook. The edging is a solid scallop stitch, and the center is made up of shell pattern stitches. This is very thick yarn and actually surprisingly heavy, so I opted for a stitch that wouldn’t make it too heavy.

In the above photo, you can get a little better look at the center stitches. At this point, it’s been washed and blocked. I just need to trim off a few fuzzies from it, and then I can pack it off and sent it to it’s new home. I know that cotton will not be as durable as acrylic, but it is so soft and “spa” feeling. It’s just hard to compare cotton to acrylic, you know!

August 14, 2011
by Tammy
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Crafting Link Day

It seems lately that I’ve often included a little cat story and photo with some of my weekly link posts, so here is another one for you: Chanel adores Herbie! I mean everyone in the house does really, but this girl is flat out in love with this dude. Luckily, Herbie has a really easy-going personality, so when Chanel insists on squeezing into the box with him on top of my filing cabinet, he’s okay with that. Notice how the box is sort of bent on the side? That’s because Herbie and Chanel are both at least 9 to 10 lbs each, so we are talking a tight squeeze here. I love the look on her face, as if she’s telling me “He’s mine! All mine!”

Okay, now for some craft links from some of my fellow crafting bloggers:
Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
See how to upcycle 3 t-shirts using inspiration and techniques from the new book 101 Tees by Cathie Filian.

About Family Crafts
Find out how you can participate in the current craft challenge and get your butterfly crafts featured!

Mixed Media Artist
Cyndi has had a busy spring and summer making beaded jewelry pieces!

Aileen’s Musings
Take a flight over to Aileen’s blog to view her ethereal gossamer wing tutorial.

Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi has some beautiful frame cards to share featuring Fairyopolis!

Craftside- A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world
This week at Craftside brings you a chance to win 1 of 50 bulking dummies (blank books), a video from the 5th Annual Independent Handbag Designer Awards, a Steampunk decoration idea, facts about manual coffee grinders, and how to create a visual path in a composition

Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Consider the profit potential of jewelry repair and redesign.

August 12, 2011
by Tammy
2 Comments

Making Dog Leg Warmers?

This is what happens when I spend too much time on Facebook: I volunteer to do crazy things like make leg warmers for a dog 😉

Leggings for Life is a Facebook page started by Lisa Krolasik, who has a mission to help special needs cats and dogs, like her cat Willow whose back legs are deformed. Since Willow can’t use her back legs, she has to drag them around, and Lisa got the idea to make little leg warmers for her to help protect her legs. There’s actually a more detailed story about it over at The Creative Cat weblog.

Of course, when I read about this I had to contact Lisa. I mean…I need something else to do, right? Seriously, I’m such an animal lover I felt compelled, and crocheting up some little leg warmers didn’t sound that hard.

Lisa attempts to match up crocheters with a specific animal, preferably one that is close by in case you need to go see the animal. I was matched up with Dakota, a resident of Safe Harbor in Jupiter, Florida, which is about 45 minutes south of where I live. Lisa got Dakota’s caretakers to measure her legs for me, and now I have a crochet leg warmer assignment!

August 11, 2011
by Tammy
1 Comment

Yarn Swatch to the Rescue

I was recently commissioned to make a unique baby afghan. The recipient has opted not to know the sex of the baby before he/she is born. You don’t hear that too much these days. To top it off, the parents-to-be have shunned traditional unisex baby colors like green, yellow, or even purple and decided to use a palette of various shades of beige in the nursery. Thus my assignment was to make a beige baby afghan.

Beige is not a real popular yarn color as it is, but boy, try to find it in baby yarn. There is plenty of white or even off white, but beige, nada! Now if you want wool, then that’s easy to find in beige, but some babies are allergic to wool, so that was not an option. Finally, I narrowed it down to two yarns, Lion Brand’s Organic Cotton in macadamia or Cotton-Ease in either sand, almond, or taupe. The client opted for the organic cotton, which color-wise I tended to agree that it was more on the beige side.

So I ordered the yarn and went to work. It was really coming out well, and though I have to use an aluminum hooks instead of my beloved bamboo, I really like working with this yarn. It has a textured look to it, and it is so, so soft! I was nearing the end when stupid me decided to read the yarn label only to discover…yikes..it says “hand wash and lay flat to dry!” Oh, the horror! I mean…who is going to want to hand wash a baby afghan?

As my freak-out session continued, I urgently post on the Ravelry boards for help. My hope was that someone had washed this yarn in the washing machine before. While I never found anyone who had done that, a few replies suggested I make some swatches and run them through various machine cycles to see how they did. And that is exactly what I did.

I washed both in the hand-wash cycle of my washer. Then one swatch I partially dried in the dryer with other clothes, and the other swatch I lay flat to dry. To my relief, both turned out fine. In fact, I expected to see some noticeable shrinkage, but that didn’t happen either. Once I finish the afghan, I plan to use the hand-wash cycle, run it very briefly on a low setting in the dryer, and then lay it flat to finish drying. Since I live in such a humid climate, this thing will never dry if I don’t get it at least started. Hopefully, the entire piece will survive just as well as the swatches did.

August 10, 2011
by Tammy
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Loom Knitting DVD


When I first started working with round knitting looms, for the most part I found it fairly easy, but I kept getting holes in my stitches. This means I was probably dropping stitches, but boy, it is really, really hard to fix a boo boo on a loom. It is just better to frog the whole thing and start over, or you have to live with your boo boos.

The looms do come with instructions and I found loads on the Internet as well, but they still didn’t really make things crystal clear to me. In fact, the instructions that came with the Knifty Knitter looms were some of the worst I’ve ever seen in my life! So I decided to purchase the DVD called Round Loom Knitting. It is available at the American Knitter web site as well as Amazon.

The DVD includes 4 projects, a hat, scarf, slippers, and socks. The hat is obviously the easiest, and after watching that portion of the DVD, I finally got rid of my holes. I’m not exactly sure why, but whatever they told me to do seemed to do the trick.

The scarf project I thought was kind of weird because they have you make basically a super long tube, and then you stitch the ends closed…weird…

The slippers look very promising, except those stupid pom poms will have to go. I’m just not a pom pom gal, I guess. But these look like a doable project and something that would make good gifts as well as donations to places like nursing homes and shelters.

Finally the last project they call a “sock,” but to me it looked more like a stocking, something you’d use for Christmas. It was just so thick looking I can’t imagine trying to wear these inside a pair of shoes. This project is also the most advanced of the three.

For someone who already has the basics down, this loom video probably isn’t worth the money, but for me, I was pretty lost and this really helped. Plus, I could see using this for my craft club, so that’s an additional bonus for me.

August 9, 2011
by Tammy
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Jewelry Book Give-Away Reminder


Don’t forget about the jewelry book give-away I’m running this month!

Margot Potter, famed jewelry designer, weblogger, TV personality, etc., has another new book out. This one takes a unique and contemporary approach to making bead and wire jewelry. It’s called New Dimensions in Bead and Wire Jewelry: Unexpected Combinations and Unique Designs, and you can read the full book review that I wrote about it over at my About.com Jewelry Making site.

After you read the review, head over to this weblog post and read the instructions for leaving a comment and entering.

August 7, 2011
by Tammy
0 comments

Weekend Crafting Links & Pasta Love

Before going back to school full-time, I’ve decided to give the old weight thing one more college try and see if I can get a few pounds off. This means counting calories (boo, hiss) and exercising more than usual (which I’m pretty okay with). I have actually increased my exercise over the summer, so I know I can handle cranking it up a little more. As far as the food goes, I’m not much of a cook, so I have to rely on easy peasy, unless I get my hubby to help (which he does sometimes, bless him!) Here’s one pasta dish that I can handle and love to eat. It’s got bow tie pasta (210 calories for 1 1/4 cups), feta (1/4 cup is 90 calories), about 1/4 cup of grape tomatoes (16 calories), fresh basil, seasoned pepper, and rice vinegar.

Another thing I’m working on before the school books hit the fan is crafting like a crazy woman. Here are some crafty links for you to enjoy before school starts…oh..too..soon!

About Family Crafts
Learn how you can make back to school fun with all of these crafts and activities.

Aileen’s Musings
Stop by and read Aileen’s book review on Margot’s new book New Dimensions in Bead and Wire Jewelry: Unexpected Combinations, Unique Designs and enter to win a book of your own!

Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi showcases the cards she made with a free Crafters Companion download.

Craft Buds
Enter the giveaway this week at Craft Buds to win a Slice Fabrique cordless fabric cutter from Making Memories! Great for sewing applique and also paper crafts! (Ends 8/9)

Craftside- A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a fun idea on customize black and white fabric with colored markers, cutting an orange to look like a chrysanthemum with a recipe, a tutorial on how to sew sequins on “Road Warrior” style, and a fun video of Carla Sonheim’s illustrations.

Eileen – The Artful Crafter
How to make a tubular wine bottle tote from a cardboard mailing tube.

Lindsay Sews
The cathedral windows quilt is unique in that it requires no batting or backing. It’s an all-in-one quilt block! Check out Lindsay’s cathedral windows mini quilt in bright solid fabrics.

Mixed Media Artist
Remember when altering Altoid tins was all the rage? Cyndi shares an accordion book that she made using a tin as the cover! It’s still a lot of fun!

August 6, 2011
by Tammy
0 comments

Making a Loom Cat Tube

Coco loves to burrow in things. She’s always in my purse digging around for something to steal, and lately she’s decided the bags I use for grocery shopping are extra fun to hide in and then strewn all over the kitchen floor. This has inspired my next loom knitting project – a cat tube.

Originally when I started this, I was thinking of using the largest round loom to make a cat tubbie, similar to a few I made for my last crew of old kitties. After making a few of these in the past, I learned that I needed to have thicker yarn or the sides eventually slumped.

So this time I used double strands of Red Heart Super Saver and started looming away.

After I started getting further into this, I realized that probably Coco would prefer a real tube versus a tubbie, so I’m continuing to make it longer and longer. This is much thicker than my previous tubbies, but I’m still not totally thrilled with the thickness.

So now my thoughts are that I’m going to make this super long, and then fold it in half and stitch it up so that it is quadruple thickness. Hopefully, Coco will appreciate the effort.