Amy Zimmer from Sebastopol, CA writes in: I would love to go to the maker faire in San Mateo–but crowds flip me out! Do you have any suggestions or must sees for navigating for a crafty mostly gift giver type crafter (and maybe her two girls, ages 10 and 14)? I think each of us […]
This week’s question is about fusing plastic bags: I was watching threadbanger last week and saw the episode on ironing plasticbags to a laptop case, which was so cool, I wanted to make one for myself. But when I tried, the plastic just either would not couplettley fuse or it got all wrinkly and not […]
Miss Fish in California writes: I would like to make a laptop bag, but have heard that there may be some issues with static. I crochet and tend to use natural fibers. My idea is to crochet a large, flat bag in wool; and to tack it to a neoprene skin before felting it. Will […]
Jennifer writes: I’ve noticed the wonderful jeans/pants mending tutorials you guys have posted this week. They’re useful and informative, but here’s my conundrum: My jeans always wear out in the, uhm, crotch area first. (One of the less-discussed perils of being a bit overweight is ones legs rubbing together) The jeans are always in great […]
This week’s question is from Violet: Quite often when I’m crafting, I find that I have a need to sew a “loop” of elastic – similar to what you’d find inside the waistband of your favourite ‘jamma pants. I slightly overlap the two ends of the elastic and, using my machine to run a quick […]
Dear Becky, I have something I would like to mend this month (and it is Mending Month) — my sofa. My awesome and sweet cat, Flaquita, has spent years scratching at the upholstery. On the back corners you can see some stuffing and framing. I plan to keep my sofa, but I really would like […]
When I posted about the amazing yarn I customized at Yarnia in Portland, OR, I got a lot of questions about plying yarn. At Yarnia the yarn is wound together from many “singles,” or individual strands of yarn to make up one unit, but the strands remain individual, making it a little more difficult to work with than plied yarn. I asked one of my professors, fibers artist Jerry Bleem, if he could teach my class how to ply yarn, or twist the singles together into a single strand, and in this video he does just that. Plied yarn is also much easier to work with on a knitting machine than non-plied yarn because there’s less of a chance of one of the individual fibers catching where it’s not supposed to. If you have a crafty question, send it on over to me at becky@craftzine.com for use in a future installment of Ask CRAFT!
For more info go to: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/03/ask_craft_plying_yarn.html
