Category: Equipment

Useful books

Now here is a good idea for a website. Interview a series of people who really know their subject, and ask them about their 5 favourite books on a subject.

Except couldn’t really find anything arty or crafty on the menus. But I knew that couldn’t be right, because I found it via an Andrew Graham-Dixon tweet. So I did a bit of digging and found some interesting lists.

But be warned, there are some expensive books on there. I had a look at one about Elizabethian embroidery which turned out to cost £250.

Fringeless weaving

In the last year or so, I’ve got into tapestry weaving. I’ve always been put off weaving by the space and money taken up by the loom.

But if you are doing something small, you can get away with a basic frame.

Most of these involve wrapping the warp thread round the top and bottom of the frame to keep it in place. This means that either the weaving has a fringe at both ends, or there is a lot of darning in to do.

Or so I thought, but then I found an online class for fringeless weaving. You wind your weft round a jig, then attach it to the loom using an auxiliary weft.

This is my jig. I reckon I can use it for three sizes. Small, medium, and large. I’ve joined the pipes together using plumbing fittings, and then cut through the pipe to allow the jig to be removed once the warp is on the loom. The parts of the jig are held in place by dowelling inside the pipes, which stop them from moving from side to side. The tension of the warp holds it together in the other direction. The warp is help in place by an auxiliary warp, which can be reused in the next tapestry.

Once you have the auxiliary weft in place, you need to adjust the tension before you start weaving. My usual loom doesn’t have this facility, but I found a nice simple one online. There is a slight delay in implementing this plan, because as you can see, it came ready warped.

So now I’m trying another experiment on that warp. Waste not want not. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode. But don’t hold your breath…

A flower foot for my sewing machine

Remember Spirograph? You put the point of a coloured pen into a hole in a plastic wheel, then rolled that wheel round the inside of a plastic ring to make a pattern. The two bits of plastic were held together by cogs.

Well, this is a similar principle. I disengage the feed dog, which moves the fabric in a straight line through the machine, fit this foot, and then off I go.

The notches round the foot rotates it as the stitching proceeds, so the stitching forms a circle. All sorts of embroidery stitches on the machine can be used to get different effects.

The size of the circle can be varied by adjusting the position of the tongue that goes across the middle of the foot. If you forget to tighten the screw, the vibrations of the machine move it gradually to the other end of the scale, making a spiral effect. Accidents are sometimes useful.

There is lots of fun to be had with this toy, although I will have to remember to stablise thinner fabrics. This piece of calico was 9 1/2 inches wide before I started to stitch, but the sides both shrank in by about 1/4 inch after I had stitched it.

A new way of getting heat

I’ve decided to buy a toaster oven to use in the dye house (OK, it is a garage really). I like to work out there so that chemical things stay out of the kitchen, but also to keep the house smell free. I have been using slow cookers, but they don’t allow control of the temperature, only the time. If you want to use things like madder, control is key.

I also plan to use it for baking polymer clay, and heat setting silk paint. I’m happier doing this sort of thing in the kitchen, but sometimes there is an odd smell.

First problem I didn’t manage to plug it into the extension lead properly. Next problem – it has an inbuilt timer, which I assumed was an optional extra. Wrong. If the timer isn’t on, it doesn’t get hot.

At first I was fine, because the instructions said to set the timer for 5 minutes to get the hobs to the correct heat. As I need to heat gradually, and make sure nothing got above 60 degrees C, I was happy that things weren’t getting towards boiling point. But then I realised nothing was happening at all.

Then I re-read the instructions and realised my mistake.

Knowing your sewing machine needle

I have to admit I’m a bit slack here.

I know the importance of using a needle that is sharp and straight.

And I always make sure I’ve got a ball needle when I’m sewing jersey.

Apart from that, I don’t tend to pay a lot of attention.

I think I might be changing my ways after reading this post about using the correct needle.

Twenty uses for a bulldog clip

I must say that I think the title of this post is rather pushing it.

Some of these “ideas” are only what I thought a bulldog clip was for.

But on the other hand, there has got to be some mileage in the brush holder idea.

And I rather fancy the jam jar lid palette.

I shan’t be trying the idea for hanging the end of a bottle from a nail. With my luck, I would put in just a bit too much weight, and the whole thing would ping off the wall.

Pattern weights

Sometimes, pins just won’t do.

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You might be using something where the pins would leave holes. Like leather, pvc, or paper.

You might not want the distortion you get when you lift everything up to get the pin through.

You might not want the bother of putting the pins into the pattern just to take them all out again a few minutes later.

Then the answer is to use pattern weights. Chunky pebbles do the trick, if you can find ones flat enough. Tins hold the pattern down, but sometimes cutting round them is difficult. The height gets in the way. A set of weights from kitchen scales can be useful, but of course their sizes vary, so you might find that you have used the crucial one already.

So the answer is a set of proper pattern weights, with flat bottoms, in a sensible size for the job. For a while, I have been getting round to making myself some fabric weights. I have seen lots of pictures on line. Equilateral triangles, cut from pretty scraps, stuffed with rice will do the job. A 2″ base triangle seemed like a sensible size.

Eventually I got round to making a trial one. The size seems about right, and the tetrahedron shape means it is easy to pick up. But it seems a bit on the light side.

But now I’ve found some really pretty ones on Etsy. The only difficulty is deciding which diameter to get. I suspect this would still be a difficult decision if you were standing in a real shop and could see and feel them. This is the sort of knowledge that comes with experience. I went for the middle sized ones, partly because the middle size is often the most flexible. But also because a set of 6 gives you a decent number, with no duplicated pictures.

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My collection at the moment

And how to do they compare weight wise? The bought ones weigh 47g. The home made one weighs 24g. Well that will be why mine feels light then. My guess is that I need to use 2.5″ triangles to get a comparable weight. Having tried these weights out, I’m not bothering to make any more. Cutting out my new dress was much quicker than using pins, and the weights stayed put nicely.

New tapestry bobbins in action

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Weaving tapestry tends to mean that you have several colours on the go at once.

Which means a choice between lots of loose ends, and winding the thread onto some form of small piece of card, or another type of bobbin.

I can’t get on with cardboard bobbins. They get battered too quickly, and collapse on me at inconvenient moments. Wooden ones sound much more appealing.

The traditional shape of a tapestry bobbin has a shaft to hold the thread, a knob to keep it there, and a pointed end to help with threading it through the warp. And of course the pointed end can be used for beating the weft down into place.

Polished wood is nice to hold, and slides well through the weft, but it can be difficult to find. There are some beautiful ones available, made of exotic woods. The first few I bought were very plain ordinary wood. Although they were nicely turned, the finishing wasn’t quite as good as it could have been. There are slightly rough patches that catch on the warp.

So when I decided I needed more bobbins, I thought I would investigate the nicer ones. As you might expect, they are not that easy to find. You can’t just wander into the local craft shop and pick some up. These came from Australia, as you can probably guess from the names of the woods, like Bungeroo, Tasmanian Myrtle, Hairy Wattle, and Rose Sheoak.

I’ll be buying more of these from my fellow Etsy seller, WoodenTreen, where you can also buy all sorts of other beautiful craft tools.

Recycled looms

Now, I know you can make looms out of all sorts of things. The big, serious ones cost loads of money, but on a smaller scale, there is a lot of scope for using your initiative.

There are instructions online for using old picture frames, or sturdy cardboard tubes from the middle of fabric bales.

But this post about using parts from electrical gadgets must take the prize. I love the idea of using a telephone receiver for a heddle!

A new helper in the studio

On duty next to the sewing machine

Following my trip to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC recently, I have a new helper.

According to the instructions that came with her from The Quilters’ Trading Post, her name is Dawn.

I’m not sure about that, because so far she has been too shy to say anything.

Anyway, as you can see, she is making herself jolly useful around the sewing room and the studio, holding bits and bobs, and being a nice cheerful presence.

Helping with the ironing

Her conical body is really sturdy, but it took rather more rice (topped up with lentils) than I had anticipated. Must remember to buy some more.

You can also see my new rack for spools of thread: another treasure from the same foraging trip.