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Sewing Tips and Tutorials

As I have only begun to learn how to sew with a sewing machine, I have been browsing pinterest and weblogs for tips and tutorials. Some of my favourites:

sewingmachine

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Thread Bobbin Tutorial

As I was winding some embroidery threads onto bobbins yesterday, I realised I was almost out of them. Not being all that close to a craft shop, I pondered what to do. I noticed a couple of thin cardboard packets from chocolate blocks and realised they would be perfect for making some new bobbins. Bonus is that I am reusing cardboard.

If you don’t have cardboard chocolate packets, have a look at what other recyclables are around your home. Tissue boxes would suit, the thinner packing put between new shirts and sheets, cereal boxes, tea boxes etc.

* If you use cardboard that was from a food product, just make sure there is no food residue left on the cardboard.

Step 1. Open and flatten your cardboard, and trace around an existing bobbin. Try to fit as many shapes onto your cardboard as possible – we may as well make as many as we can! As you can see, I used the packets from Cadbury chocolate; enjoy the chocolate and then reuse the box. Mmmm.

Step 2. Carefully cut out the bobbin shapes, using your tracing as a guide. On one end of the bobbin, make two small cuts in the shape of a ‘V’ which will allow you to tuck the ends of your threads away during winding.

When I am about to start a new bobbin, I write the colour number plus the brand of yarn on one end as well as in the center of the bobbin. That way I can easily replace that colour when I am running low, or have just run out of the thread.

Step 3. Wind some thread onto your bobbins. Hey presto! You have made some new bobbins and you have reused packaging. It’s all good!

Feel like reading more creative posts? Head over to Kootoyoo for this weeks edition of My Creative Space.

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Learning New Crochet Motifs

Now that I can make granny squares, I’ve started learning how to make other crochet motifs. The first was hexagons and today I started learning how to make simple flowers. I love the thrill of learning something new and then practising to refine your technique. I’ve been enjoying looking through crochet blogs and come across some wonderful tutorials, two of which taught me the two motifs below.

The flowers are in the order in which I made them, starting at the top, the same with the hexagon motifs. With both, I’m not 100% spot on with the technique, but I’m quite pleased with my progress so far. I haven’t blocked any of my crochet motifs yet, something I really should learn how to do.

For the Hexagon motif, I used the tutorial from Life on Laffer and for the flowers I used a tutorial from Attic24.

Do you have any favourite crochet sites or tutorials you’d like to share? Please do! I’ll include them in a new post with your links plus a link to you, then we can all explore fabulous crochet sites together.

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Update: More flowers! Wheee, I’m on a flower kick:

I played with the pattern and instead of doing 9 dc in the circle, I do as many as fit to make a tight circle, then add the petals. The more dc the more petals, it seems.