Self-made Crochet Hooks And Knitting Needles

Self-made crochet hook and knitting needles

Once I wanted to have a really big crochet hook and knitting needles and after I found tutorials on how to make them (see links below), I made myself some.
In fact they are so big that it is quite difficult to work with them ;-)
I use them very rarely – but if necessary, I can ;-)

 


Links:
Making Crochet Hooks:
Making Crochet Hooks from Chopsticks (with explaining pictures)
Make your own straight hook (with explaining pictures)

Making Knitting Needles:
Chopstick/dowel knitting needle tutorial

Organic Stripes

Organic Stripes

Note: the Random Stripe Generator doesn’t exist any more, but you can find two new links in my entry Random Stripes Generator.

While knitting or crocheting you sometimes want to stripe your workpiece. I find it difficult to design organic looking stripes.
Math can help here (although I’m not a very mathematical woman ;-)): At Fuzzy Galore you can find an article about the Fibonacci sequence which sounds perhaps difficult, but is quite easy.

And those who don’t want to figure out their stripes themselves can use the Random Stripe Generator. (I just tried the generator, but it didn’t work properly. Hopefully it will ‘recover’.)
(It did work properly, but I didn’t know how to use it ;-)
My problem was, that I entered a stripe width and thought, that this was the max. width.
But for the stripe width selection, it requires that you specify exactly which widths you want. So if you want widths of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 rows, you need to select all five of those check boxes, rather than just the box next to ‘5’.
Try it and you will get wonderfully striped patterns. :)))


Links:
Article about the Fibonacci sequence
Random Stripe Generator

Here at unikatissima:
Random Stripes Generator

Eraser Stamps

Eraser Stamps

There are lots of tutorials on how to make stamps from erasers (look at the Google search result for ‘eraser stamp’).
I want to present three of them:

Some hints & tips for eraser-carving
This site shows how beautiful those stamps can be and gives helpful hints.

Kneaded Eraser Stamps
Craft Chi always have ingenious ideas and tutorials and I like the kneaded eraser stamp because it is a technique to create stamps from everything with a textured surface.

Making and Using Stamps with Watercolor
I liked this one because I don’t stamp so often and so I don’t want to spent too much money on ink pads. Using watercolour makes it easy to use different colours nonetheless.

By the way: On the photo you see my first attempts on carving stamps from erasers and although they’re very simple I still like to use them from time to time.


Links:
Google search result for ‘eraser stamp’
Google Suchergebnisse für ‘Radiergummi Stempel’

Some hints & tips for eraser-carving
Craft Chi: Kneaded Eraser Stamps
Making and Using Stamps with Watercolor

Coloured Yarns

Coloured Yarns

I like to work little pieces where not much yarn is required and I like to use a different colour and colour shade with each piece.
Unfortunately I can’t afford to always buy the shades I like: on the one hand it is too expensive and on the other hand I don’t have enough place for such a big stash.
Therefore I like to work with four to six sewing yarns in similar shades and – if I am in the mood – one or two metallic sewing yarns. They don’t take so much place and I can get much more subtle shades by combining them then I ever could buy.
I put the chosen yarn in a dessert bowl, so that they don’t roll away and begin crocheting.
Coloured Yarns I worked the Crochet Chamsas I presented yesterday with this ‘technique’.

 


Links:
Here at unikatissima:
Crochet Chamsa

Making a Bead Spinner

Making a Bead Spinner

Yesterday I presented a how-to crochet with beads. For the rope you have to string beads on a thread which is a boring exercise. When you simply want to string the beads without any pattern you can use a bead spinner. Kimberly Chapman published a tutorial for making yourself a bead spinner out of reused materials.
What a great idea!

 

Links:
Making a Bead Spinner

Here at unikatissima:
Beaded Crochet Rope

Make Your Own Knitting Loom

Make Your Own Knitting Loom

While looking for knitting patterns I found sometimes sites about knitting looms. It sounded/looked interesting but I never thought of buying such a tool.
Then I found instructions, how to make my own knitting loom.
I haven’t done it yet, but the project still lurks in the back of my head ;-)


Links:
ThriftyFun.com: They say, that ThriftyFun.com wants to help people save money, save time and solve problems
Make Your Own Knitting Loom