Grape vine Nal

On July 12, 2020July 11, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

As we sat and watched the fire around the artist’s charcoal (see yesterday’s blog entry for more on that), I had extra lengths of grape vine stick, which happened to be a good length for a nålbinding nal. I had my pocket knife and decided to give carving a nal entirely by hand a try. Previously, I used a drill press for the holes, and a band sander for shaping. It was quite easy to carve the grape vine, and although it does have some flex, it is sturdy. I was able to carve out the eyes of the nal, which was the trickiest bit. I also added a channel along the eyes, which helps the loops of yarn pass through easily with the needle.

After roughing out the shape with my knife, I took 120 grit sandpaper and refined the shape and the eyes. Then I used 220, 320, and finally 400 grit to smooth the wood. Rolling the sandpaper into a tight tube helped sand out the holes.

At this point I tested the nal with some scrap yarn and found that it had an unpleasant bump in the middle. I went back with the 120 grit and sanded out the lump, then smoothed it out again. To be sure I had all the wood fibers smooth, I ran the nal under water. This raises the fibers that want to raise, and is an important step in wood finishing, especially for hand tools. If this step is skipped, those fibers still raise, but do so when the sealant is applied. It is much easier to use water first. When the nal dried, I sanded again with 400 grit. It needed it! I repeated the water treatment, then I had a nice smooth nal.

Raised wood fibers after rinsing with water

I usually leave my nals uncoated, letting the natural oils of the yarn and my hands condition the wood. Since the grape vine had so much raised fiber after the water treatment, I decided to apply a couple coats of teak oil to seal the nal.

The love the light and dark color of the wood and the slight curve!

Test round with hand spun merino wool and grape vine nal, Mammen stitch

Artist’s charcoal

On July 11, 2020 By CarynIn art, Craft

I have found a wonderful book: The Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints, and More from Nature by Nick Neddo. This is right up my alley! I haven’t read it all yet, but we had the opportunity to try making our own charcoal for drawing when I needed to make some wood ash for the dust bath for the chickens.

Grapevine, metal container, and steel wire

I had a grape vine wreath that I made over a year ago. It has been aging in the woods for awhile but was readily available for a new purpose. I also had a steel container that I used with my kiln that was a great shape for making charcoal (and it was already seasoned!) My eldest and I used pocket knifes to scrape the bark off sections of grapevine, and then we packed the container with the sticks and closed it securely with twists of wire.

We used the bark shavings as tinder, and built the fire around the steel box. I love it when I can light a fire with one match (it helped that I also used a bacon grease soaked paper towel with the bark shavings). We let the fire burn down, then cool before we checked the box. The charcoal sticks were perfect! Solid black all the way through and a nice texture for drawing.

Grape vine charcoal (unprocessed sticks shown below)

I just had to try drawing with it, so I did a quick sketch of some grapes on the concrete (Nick Neddo makes drawings of the source of his art materials, so it seemed appropriate).

Doll House bed

On July 5, 2020June 29, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

So I saw something on Pinterest (I think this phrase is to crafters what “Once upon a time” is for fairy tales), and my youngest asked for a bed for her doll house, and have been wanting to try weaving a cot. (Pinterest is both the boon and bane of my existence.)

I had extra wood from the doll house construction, so made a frame. I found some bamboo and cotton fingering weight yarn in my stash and wrapped the warp with two lashes between each warp thread, and repeated for the weft. This was much more straight forward than I feared! The wraps kept the sides straight, and I could easily hide the ends by running them through the wraps on the back side. I used more scrap to make a base for the cot, which I glued on after the weaving was done.

I knit a small blanket for the cot too, out of the same yarn, but my youngest said it was too big and she didn’t want it to match, so now it is a rug. I used scraps to make a kind of table too, but it also is even smaller and more fiddly than making the doll house. No thank you, especially when Melissa and Doug makes such pretty doll furniture.

Dura-craft Ashley doll house

On July 3, 2020June 29, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

Done! It took me a week gluing and waiting, gluing and waiting, but the doll house is complete and my youngest is happy that she can play in it now without worrying about wet glue or paint.

By the way, artist’s acrylics do a pretty good job as caulk for doll houses, since the consistency is nice and thick. It is very difficult to get a crisp joint on that tiny trim. Touch up paint was definitely my friend.

Most of the house is painted with acrylics. The roof and stairs were spray painted metallic silver. The pink was mixed by hand, and I tried for a lighter shade inside than outside (note, a little red goes a LONG way). The wall paper on the ground floor room was designed in Photoshop, printed on office paper, and decoupaged to the walls. The whole thing looks much better in photographs. I’m not a huge fan of the press board construction. Time will tell for the durability.

Mask variations

On June 30, 2020June 27, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

My cotton fabric stash is gone, transformed into masks and donated to a local children’s hospital and given to friends. I had to break down and buy fabric (gasp!). Good quilting fabric is expensive, by the way. Although I liked the pattern I used for the donated masks (they were relatively easy to make, stored nicely, and had filter pockets), they were bulky with the pleats and after washing were a bunched up mess because the wire was sewn in. So I started mixing and matching patterns to see if I can come up with something better. Looming on the horizon is the potential for my kids to go back to school with masks. I need something easy to wear and wash.

One of the top features I like in a mask is tie sleeves, so that it is easy to trade out kinds of ties. This is important for us as we move forward because ear loops work for one kid, but not the other. And if the ear loops start to irritate, we can switch to a different strap method. Here is a quick video on using a U shaped wire to thread the ties. In the mask above, I used this basic pattern, but extended the sides to give room to make the sleeves (thanks Mom for that idea!). I also printed two more copies of the pattern and made overlapping mouth and cheek sections to allow a filter to be slipped into the mask. I like this filter pocket better because the cotton is between the filter material and the mouth of the wearer. The idea for this came from this pattern.

The other thing my masks need is a removable wire, so I can take the wire out before I wash the mask. As it turns out, by making the inner layer with three pieces, then sewing along the edge (wider at the top to accommodate the wire), it forms a pocket with two access slits. It takes a little wiggling to get the wire in and under the cheek sections, but once in it stays put. Getting the wire out isn’t terribly hard either, just fiddly. A wire slightly longer than the mouth section with the ends curled works well.

3/8” elastic with buckle and figure 8 slide

The final thing we are testing is an alternate strap method to ties or ear loops. My youngest wears glasses and hearing aids, so ear loops are out. Tying straps behind the head is also fiddly. So we are trying 3/8” elastic in a loop. The loop is adjustable with the use of a figure 8 slide, and clips together with a buckle (although once at the right size, the elastic has enough stretch to just pull it into place).

No, I don’t think masks can guarantee not catching a virus, but they do a great job reminding me not to touch my face!

Critters and Craft

Category: Craft