knitting projects

How to pass a 4 hour train journey......I went back home to Scotland last weekend and eventually managed to figure out how to do intarsia knitting and think I've just about mastered how to use a cable needle. I've been following patterns but hopefully once I get a bit more practice in I can plan out my own designs. 


These two projects will be cushion covers eventually. Going on holiday to south Africa at the weekend for a few weeks so may get a chance then to work on them. 

This is the video for how to knit intarsia that finally helped me work out what I was doing. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK07PBQMTE8



A bit hot for this jumper now but this is the first jumper I knitted last winter..

soft furnishings

Here is a few pictures of some soft furnishing bits and pieces I've made for my little house. 
Some cushions (not the pink stripy one) that match in with the blind that I made with my mum.

With the left over fabric from the small chair and box I re-upholstered last year I made two cushion covers, not decided where they will go yet though. 

I made curtains for my bedroom so here are the tie backs and cushions I made to go with them. 

And here is the bathroom blind closed...

knitted mug snug

This is the mug warmer I knitted over the weekend, its an Amy Butler pattern.  I managed to work out how to use a cable needle too as this was part of the pattern. 

There was a 25% discount last week so I stocked up a bit on the lovely colours of yarn she has so more projects to come! 

Screen printed roman blind

 Today was my first official week day of not being on annual leave...just not working on a Monday! I finished the blind for my bathroom that I've been working on. I hand screen printed the fabric at my textiles class and today stitched it up into a blind. 

Because the screen was bigger than the stencil I had to use paper to cover up the prints as I went

The next week, once the first prints had dried I filled in the gaps with the second colour

this was the practice prints

Here is the finished blind hanging up in my bathroom.  Will post day light picture with it up tomorrow hopefully.  Got to go into work tomorrow (as a once off on a Tuesday).  Got lots more projects to upload so will try to catch up with that as soon as I can. Work is also progressing on a new logo design. Just trying to figure out how to chop and paste and merge photos into a logo. 

Re-upholstery of set of 4 dining chairs, story so far..

A year or so ago I got a set of 4 dining chairs for free from an old nursing home in Glasgow that had closed down and was chucking out loads of stuff.

This is the inside of the chair pad, Full of very stinky dusty dirty real horse hair.....

...and rusty springs. My upholstery teacher convinced me to wash the horse hair. So I waited for a sunny day and washed it in big plant pots and left it out to dry, not the most pleasant thing I've ever done. 

I sanded down the chair frame and waxed it which gave it a much lighter colour

Next stage was to re-web the chair

Then sew new springs in

Then tie them down

Next the horse hair gets sewn in

and tied down to give a firm edge. 

This is where I'm up to so far, ready for the next layer of horse hair. I also have to decide what the final fabric will be and I have to fix this in at the back first. 

 

I've got enough of this stuff to cover all fours chairs

It looks quite yellowy in this picture but I think I might prefer this one, only thing is I've only got enough to cover two chairs in this one. 

Re-upholstery projects - piano stool and storage box

 This is some before and after shoots of two re-upholstery projects that I worked on last year. I got the stool and box from a junk shop for £25. I hadn't done any re-upholstery before so these were my practice items.

The wood was really dark so I sanded it down and used wire wool and wax to seal it again. 

I used a rubber type padding and then covered it with calico first to give it a fire retardant. 

This is the finished stool with stud strips round the edge. Makes for a useful extra seat in me little living room. 

Ugh! plasticky fake leather and a bit stinky, this is the box before.

And the end product. Harder than you would think to get those stripes to match up!