Salihan Crafts Blog

Achievements, celebrations & the mundane

Salihan — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:28:18 +0000

What a week it has been! We’ve done more home improvement in the last month than we have done in the last year! That’s Parkinson’s Law for you.

The biggest achievement (and a huge weight of my shoulders) is the completion of Richard’s office. It’s a small room attached to our garage and basically had bare brick walls, a concrete slab floor and a dodgy light. Richard installed down lights and put new power, telephone and TV points. Then we spent the entire last weekend painting the brick walls and ceiling, which by the way is very hard work! And on Friday I laid down the new vinyl flooring all by myself. Yes, me! I rock!

Richard has set up his office now and he is a very happy hubby. Only 2 more weeks before my new house mate moves in and I’m starting to feel nervous and excited at the same time.

On Saturday, we celebrated our nephew’s 9th birthday and there was a bit of fooling around when the sparkles got lit on the cake! That’s the uncle (Richard’s brother) grabbing his nephew’s face. Haha… no harm done I promise!

Now for the mundane part of life. Charlie had one of his showers this week and was happy to show off for the video camera. He LOVES it and gets all excited when he sees the spray bottle.

[Video link]

I’ve also bought yarn to start knitting a charity Christmas project. I won’t say what it is just yet.

Has anyone started their Christmas knitting? I can’t believe we’re only 4 months away from 2011!

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Self-striping sock yarn – Love it or Hate it?

Salihan — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 12:52:10 +0000

Hello! How have you been? It’s been a few weeks since I shot out a post. Both my mum and mother-in-law thought I was sick! But I’m fine. I’ve been happily busy and occupied. So what’s new with me? Well, I’ve picked up more freelance work and we’re going to have a new housemate in a few weeks! We’re renting our spare bedroom to a Japanese student, so we’re in a mad rush to get some renovations done. Very exciting!

But I have managed to squeeze in a bit of knitting as always and the last few projects involve self-striping sock yarn. I’m loving it but there are down sides to this type of yarn.

Love: Socks really come to life with self-striping yarn!
Hate: The pattern gets lost among the stripes. Can you see the spirals?

Project details here

Love: Leftover self-striping sock yarns make a great scrappy blanket! The blanket looks more complicated to knit than it actually is. I love that I’m not in control of the colours too. A nice change to my usual uptight self. I’m changing yarn in the order I knitted the socks and knitting it until I run out.
Hate: Sock yarn is normally thin so this project progresses slowwwly.

Project details here

Love: Self-striping yarn are not always crazy and wild. The analogous colours in this pinky yarn are pleasing to the eye.
Hate: I can just see the lace! Grrr…

Project details here

So what about you? Do you love or hate self-striping yarn?

I also want to share with you my new toy. I finally bought a set of Nancy Knit Knacks’ DP WIP tubes. They safely store my double pointed needles and current project together. So handy, especially since I’m officially addicted to knitting socks!

Available here

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“Help” sewing buttons on

Salihan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:22:32 +0000

I had a bit of help sewing buttons onto my knitted rib jacket…

Charlie was very helpful in handing stitch markers to me… and taking them away!

Hmmm… More disruptive than helpful to be honest. Cute nonetheless.

I did get real help somewhere else though. I found this great tutorial on Craftstylish – Sew Buttons Securely on Hand Knits – and it was extremely useful. All the buttons are now sewn on.

So what’s left to do?

Nothing! I’ve finished my jacket! Yayyy!

Photos coming soon… ish. Haha… Hope you’re having a good week!

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Oops! Made a knitting mistake…

Salihan — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:52:15 +0000

I was halfway through knitting the collar of my ribbed jacket when I tried it on. I turned to the left and right, adjusting and scrutinizing the collar. The garter stitch edges bugged me. It didn’t look right.

I re-read the pattern and there was an “Oh-oh…” moment. I had knitted twice as many stitches in garter stitch than what the pattern had asked for! Doh!

So I took a deep breath and dropped the stitches back one at a time, re-knitting them in the rib pattern using a crochet hook. I decided to omit the garter stitches altogether, except for the ones right on the edge.

If you have not done this before, it can be quite intimidating and downright scary. So here are some time-saving tutorials that might help you fix common mistakes without having to rip back your knitting:

Video tutorials to fix common knitting mistakes:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knitting-tips

Illustrated tutorial to pick up dropped stitch from several rows below:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/pick-up-a-dropped-stitch-from-several-rows-below.html

Illustrated tutorial to fix errors at the side edges of your knitting:
http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2007/10/fixing-errors-at-sides-edges-of-your.html

I much prefer this version of the collar, even though the edges curl slightly. I’m close to finishing now. I bought buttons today and hope to sew them on soon. Maybe next week I can show you a finished jacket.

What’s on your crafting to-do list this week?

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Picking, knitting & watching

Salihan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:19:27 +0000

I’ve picked up the stitches along the neckline of my ribbed jacket to knit the collar. I worked out a simple way to make sure I have the stitches evenly spaced out around the neck and managed to get it right the first go too! Yay!

This how I did it. I divided the neckline into sections using stitch markers. Firstly, I folded the neckline in half to work out the mid point. So now I have 2 sections. I folded again to work out the mid point of these sections. Marked them with stitch markers. Now I have 4 sections. I repeated this step again until I get 8 sections.

A little bit of maths helped me work out how many stitches I needed to pick up for each section. I tried to divide the total number of stitches as evenly as possible between all the sections. Some sections had one more stitch than others. Generally, it’s much easier than trying to eyeball 116 stitches around the entire neckline!

Then I picked up right number of stitches for each section. That’s it! So much easier dealing with a small section at a time. Phew! Glad that’s over though. I’m happily knitting my collar now and it’s going quick.

Oh and while I was picking and knitting away, I had one eye on this…

It’s a little hard to concentrate and count when at any moment, Olly might wake up from his feathery dream and make Charlie his midnight snack!

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Need help sewing in sleeves onto your sweater?

Salihan — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:21:19 +0000

I’ve got a cheap and easy solution to help you seam your knitted sweater pieces together. I’m very sure someone has thought of this idea before but I have not come across it in any book or blog recently. So I thought I’ll share it here.

Well, ever heard of Knit Klips? They are clips that help you align your items together before sewing up. Cool product but quite expensive for my minimalist budget. So I bought a pack of 8 small butterfly hair clips for $2 instead. Cheap as chips!

I aligned the sleeve opening to the armhole and used the butterfly clips to hold them in place. As you can see, using the butterfly clips makes realigning easy peasy. You can tweak to your heart’s content without having to undo any sewing.

Then I just sew the edges into place, removing the clips as I get to them. For seaming the sleeves onto the jacket, you can’t go wrong with the mattress stitch. This Knitting Help video is excellent if you’re not familiar with this finishing method.

And that’s it! Here are my sleeves sewn onto my almost finished jacket. I have the collar to knit and buttons to sew on. The next step is to pick up stitches along the neckline. Does anyone have any tips to ensure my stitches are evenly spaced and I have the right number of stitches at the end?

P.S. That’s right ladies. I’m wearing my pajama top underneath my half finished jacket! The sheepish face should give you a clue that it’s the end of the day and smiling is not feeling natural anymore. Zzzz…

P.P.S. If you like my happy green sewing-up needle, I have them at my shop here. Lots of new products recently added! Plus, free shipping worldwide. Yay!

P.P.P.S. Get those WIPS finished this weekend. You’d thank yourself for it later. Happy sewing!

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Charlie’s Firsts

Salihan — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:25:42 +0000

My baby eclectus parrot, Charlie, has had quite a rollercoaster ride the short few weeks he’s been with us. He’s still settling in and so are we! I’m still getting used to preparing food for him and getting him to come out to play. It’s a new experience for all of us!

Here are a couple of videos showing the exciting new things he has been up to. The first one is of him making a big mess while having dinner at the dining table. The second video is of his first shower!

Video 1

Video 2

We are seeing an avian vet today to give him his first check-up. Exciting!

On the knitting side, I have almost, almost finished knitting the second sleeve on the ribbed jacket! I also have a lot of other news to share with you and I will reveal them through the week. Stay tuned!

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Kiwi Giveaway

Salihan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 10:58:06 +0000

Would you to win these cute New Zealand goodies? There’s NZ fabrics, chocolates, a tomato sauce bottle and a tea towel. What more can a girl ask for?

Pop on over to cute and crafty Kiwi at Heart and leave a comment. Open to all. Yay!

Good luck!

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Organic Hot Water Bottle?

Salihan — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:02:45 +0000

Since the snuggie didn’t get much support in the last post, I’ve decided to go organic and use my darling cat as a hot water bottle to stay warm. I’m carrying her around like she’s a celebrity pooch in Hollywood. Like, she’s my BFF, you know.

Oh and if you drop by during the day, please excuse the dressing gown and flanelette pajamas. I thought I’ll just stay in them all day since they’re warm, cuddly and soft. If I’m not going out, I’m not getting changed. I may carry my pet around, but it’s not really The Hills here!

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Baby, it’s cold inside!

Salihan — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:21:54 +0000

It’s cold! My house won’t warm up and neither will my fingers and toes. I had the heaters on during the day and wore fingerless gloves indoors! Outrageous! It’s the coldest winter in 3 years and boy, am I feeling it today. So much so that I have been seriously contemplating buying a snuggie!

Should I? Shouldn’t I? Hmmm…

I know I can make one. But seriously, why would I spend months crocheting this…

Image and free pattern from Coats and Clark

… or knitting this?

Image and free pattern from Bernat

Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. Right? It will be warm again when I finish it! Although I must admit that the knitted snuggie does look pretty cozy. No no no… Must resist… must resist…

How about you?
Are you pro- or anti- snuggie?
What do you think of those handmade ones?

P.S. Knitting party went really well yesterday! But I forgot to take pics and was too busy chatting about fibre that I didn’t do much knitting. I’ll try to take pics next time though.

P.P.S. I compensated for loss knitting time yesterday and spent a good few hours knitting today. Happy to report that I’m halfway through my second sleeve. Yay! Hope you had a great weekend!

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