My "New" Studio

It's been chaos here in my normally peaceful neck of the woods, a few weeks ago we had a hail storm that lasted all night and the weight on my studio roof seperated the the roof sheets from the nails and so the water poured in. I was very lucky though - everywhere it leaked wet only the floor, missing all the important stuff like books, yarn, fabric, furniture ... some one was looking out for me :) anyway, I had to move out while it all got fixed and so I took the opportunity to get the walls painted and some new shelves put up and a new desk.. now I'm all reinstalled in what feels like a brand new space and I love it!

The veiw from my desk - looking in to my top space

 

Where all the yarn gets dyed

more workspace in my top space

my bottom space

for whatever reason, this photo will not load upright!





What a Lovely Day - Make some Felt Beads!

August is usually my worst time of year, cold and very dry here in our corner of the world and dusty and windy,! I usually have dust induced sniffles and end up feeling very sorry for myself. Well this year hasn't been so bad. We had snow 2 weeks ago and then went straight to summer, the last couple of days have been in the high 20's C  and when I woke up this morning it smelled like rain. The sun is shining and it's warm outside but if I look out to the south there are clouds building so you never know, we may be lucky :)

Today I have taken the dye pots out again and I'm busy dying wool tops for felting. All of a sudden it's what every one wants. I love felting too and am busy with a felted project for the December issue of Stitches. I thought I'd post a tutorial on making felted beads here today.

Felted Beads

©Dana Biddle

 We’ve made a necklace using felted beads before but here is a different way to make them. Most methods of making felt involve a fair amount of work but this way uses your tumble dryer to do the work for you.

 What you’ll need

Wool tops – available from ColourSpun
Good kitchen scale
Old stocking or pantyhose
Elastic bands
A bowl of hot water (not too hot – you’ll be putting your hands in it)
Dish washing liquid
Tumble Dryer
Beading needle
Beading thread (dental floss works well too)
Other beads
indings

Instructions

1.      To make beads of equal size, divide the dry wool into portions of equal weight. You will need 6 x 3g, 6 x 2g and 6 x 1g.

2.      Take a portion of wool; wrap it around itself to form a bead shape

3.      Carefully place the wool into the stocking; holding the bead in shape, pull the stocking tight around it and twist a couple of times, secure it in place with an elastic band

4.      Repeat step 2 and 3 for all the beads

5.      Fill a bowl with hot water and add a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid.

6.       Wet the beads in hot water; make sure that the wool is wet all the way through.

7.       Squeeze out excess water

8.      Place the stocking full of beads in the tumble drier for about half an hour

9.      Check if the beads have felted enough by feeling how hard they are. If necessary, repeat steps 5 to 8 once more

10.   Remove the beads from the stocking and wet them again

11.   Rub each one between the palms of your hands using a circular motion to smooth the fibres

12.   Leave the beads to dry

 

 Once you have made all the felt beads you want, leave them to dry and then string them into a one of a kind necklace.

Enjoy!

Blankets for Babies

the welcoming committee

Last week we were back in Ratanda delivering more blankets to pre-school children and not too soon either, the cold is really here. The school,we went to, Ratanda Day Care, is run by Maria Dlamini who started it to take care of the many children in the informal settlement during the day. Parents who work pay R120.00 per month and Maria gets a subsidy of R4.50 per child. Each child is given 4 meals a day, breakfast, lunch and 2 snacks, leaving very little for anything else and yet Maria and her staff have managed to keep their school going and provide care and education for 250 children every day. Starting in temporary buildings ( now home to the kitchen and staff room), they have managed to build brick class rooms and are in the process of having an admin block built, but still have a long way to go. The classrooms have no ceilings so are not well insulated and so cold in the winter. The blankets we collected will go a long way to keeping the children warm.

When we arrived, there was a welcoming committee waiting at the gate to escort us in and then we were treated to a lovely concert put on by the children.

A huge thank you to The Land Cruiser Club and to Jo Jenkinson for collecting the majority of the blankets and to everyone else who so kindly made and sent blankets for these kids.

As promised, we put all the contributors names in a hat and the ColourSpun voucher was won by Mrs. I Hansen from Observatory.

I was so impressed by the efforts that Maria has made to care for these children that I'd like to help her make their environment better. They need ceilings in the class rooms, roofing materials, doors and windows for the new block, grass for the play ground.....

If anyone can help in any way or if you know someone who can, please contact me and I'll put you in touch with Maria.

happy faces

Jo, handing out blankets



Craftsy

Hi Everyone,

I've recently discovered Craftsy, a wonderful website for crafters! I've already loaded a number of projects onto my store there and will be adding more regularly, so keep checking to see whats new. All the patterns there are printer friendly so that solves the problems that have been encountered by people trying to print from here :)

To reach my store, just click on my Craftsy label in the right hand column of my blog.

Here are some of the paterns I've already loaded

Blankets for Babies -Again

I recently sent out a plea for blankets for children at a creche in Ratanda near Heidelberg. Today I was lucky enough to meet Ronda and her team from the knit-a-square group to deliver blankets, beanies and toys to all the children at the creche. It was heartwarming to see the smiles on their little faces as one by one they were wrapped in lovely warm blankets, hand knit by kind hearted people from all over the world and stitched together by the inmates (all men) at a maximum security prison near Bloemfontein. A huge thank you to all of them :)

Now we’re working on blankets for the 210 children at the other creche in Ratanda that are also in dire need. I have already received blankets from a number of people – thank you, and promises of more. If you’d like to help, it will be greatly appreciated. You can send blankets of any description (they just need to be warm) to PO Box 2, Heidelberg, 1438.

I have decided to postpone the draw for the ColourSpun gift voucher to the middle of June because we have a postal strike on the go. That should hopefully be long enough for all the blankets to arrive and give everyone a fair chance of being in the draw.

Love Dana

 

Blankets for Babies

I have a friend who volunteers at a pre-school for underprivileged children. They have 150 babies and toddlers who are sleeping on plastic mattresses without sheets or blankets and their budget only stretches to feeding them. We are having a drive for  blankets for them. For each blanket sent, the name of the person donating it will be entered into a lucky draw for a R500.00 gift voucher from ColourSpun, so the more blankets you send the better your chance of winning.

 If you would like to take part, 1m x 1.5m blankets are a good size and inexpensive to make from polar fleece. Fleece is 1.5m wide on the roll so you will only need 1m for each blanket. Stitch a narrow hem around the edges and that’s it. If you prefer to send other blankets they will all be appreciated, even 2^nd hand ones, so long as they are in good condition and measure about 1m x 1.5m.

Send the blankets to ColourSpun PO Box 2, Heidelberg, 1438. The draw will take place on 25^th May 2012 and the name of the winner will be posted here.

 Please share this with any friends or family who you think may be interested.

Thanks

Love Dana

Q is for Quilt

I belong to a wonderful group of artists from all around the world - TAFA - and Rachel, who runs this group, has written a really interesting article about Quilts and quilting find it on the TAFA website

I am about to start my very first, made all by myself quilt. It will be my entry to the Dreams Challenge for the first International Quilt Convention Africa that will be held in Jo'burg in July.

I have made one other quilt before, it took me forever! I started out drawing a very detailed pattern, then I set about candlewick embroidering all the blocks and sashings. When I showed them to a friend, who is a quilter, she helped me lay them out on the family room floor. That house had a huge family room and even after pushing all the furniture aside it hardly fit, if I'd have stuck to that pattern it would have fit 4 king size beds pushed together! - and I'd probably still be working on it.

 She worked out that I had already done enough for a double bed quilt and a few cushions, soI drew a new layout for the completed pieces and she took them all away to stitch together and cut the batting and backing. I then joined the 3 layers by hand tying hundreds of little knots! The binding was done with a lot of help and....... I had a quilt - half made by me :)