Category: Crafts

Craft projects of mine

  • Silk organza press cloth

    Silk organza press cloth

    I was reminded while I was sewing the other day that I really do need a press cloth. This is a piece of fabric you put over your work when you are pressing seams, to keep the fabric from potentially getting scorched. We used them in my sewing class with Gertie a few years back, and I seem to recall they were silk organza. I’ve seen this recommended in a few places because silk has a high burn point and it’s transparent enough to see your work through it. I looked them up recently online but couldn’t really find any for under $20 AUD. Then today I found myself at Spotlight and realised I could make my own. They had one bolt of silk organza at $47/m, so I bought 30cm of it for $14.10. Then I cut it into three pieces of roughly 12″ x 18″ (31cm x 46cm) and overlocked the edges to keep them from fraying too much. I also cut a tiny bit of ribbon and put that in the corner so you can hang it up. That’s one for me, and two for friends for < $5 each!

    Overlocking silk organza on a Singer overlocker

    Overlocking a ribbon loop into the corner of a piece of silk organza

  • Sydney Royal Easter Show 2025

    Three Craft competition entries delivered – two knitting, one quilting – and my volunteer uniform picked up. April’s going to be a big month!

  • Quilt binding

    Quilt binding

    It’s been a while since I experienced the Easter Show craft competition deadline finishing frenzy! Looks like I’ll be done with about 48 hrs to spare. 😅

  • Knitting the gut-brain connection 🦠🧠🧶

    The Darling Square library is hosting a special event in April and May: Crafting wellness: exploring gut health through knitting. Huh. I’ve seen a lot of random fibre projects in my time – coral reefs, breast prostheses, neurons, bunting with knitted leaves on it – but never a knitted gut biome!

  • Google are breaking my mittens

    Sonofa. Twelve years ago I knitted a pair of “self-replicating mittens” with a QR code that pointed you to the pattern for the mittens, and I entered them in the Sydney Royal Easter Show. I was pretty proud of my cleverness. In the blog post where I talked about making the mittens, I said:

    I wanted my code to be as simple as possible, so I needed to use a URL shortener to mask my intended address. I settled on using Google‘s, reasoning that it was likely to be around the longest. (Though who knows these days, right?)

    You can guess what’s happened, right? Google URL Shortener links will no longer be available as of August this year.

    Bastards are breaking my mittens. Perhaps I’ll have to add some embroidery. 😠

    A knitted pair of mittens with a QR code. "404" is written over the image in red marker.

  • Birthday prezzies

    Birthday prezzies

    It was a lovely surprise to receive some birthday gifts today from friends! Do they really know me or what?! ❤️

  • Heart Warmer Cowl

    Heart Warmer Cowl

    I’m making progress on this cowl, getting through the lace and cable section tonight. I’m pretty sure I somehow inserted a row in the last repeat though, probably due to excitement watching the Shoresy Season 2 finale. I reckon I’ll leave it though…

  • Random Links

  • Nine years ago…

    I was doubtful whether my project to import all my old tweets to my blog had any real value. But through them I just remembered that 9 years ago today, I got to meet and teach knitting to women and children in Manila who had been rescued from human trafficking. Canva supported the organisation and a whole group of employees went. It was one of the most worthwhile things I did in my whole tech career, and it had nothing to do with computers. 😭🩷

  • Open Source Knitting Machine

    This is so freaking cool. Someone designed and 3D-printed a knitting machine! 🧶