Not much else happening on the craft front! I had a big push to finish all of my WIPs before the move and now I’m down to one knitting project that’s almost finished. Not since I started knitting have I had only one project going on at any given time!

I’ll leave you with this terrible webcam pic of me in my new office. Exhausted, yet elated, as ever.

There be yarn in those bins! I need a better storage solution for that…

I’ve been finishing up some embroidery this week… here’s what I have to show!

This is just one of my own weird designs. I love cupcakes… I see a long line of cupcake themed pieces in my future.

I finally finished up my peacocks design from Jenny Hart’s Embroidered Effects. I loved doing this one and it came out so cute. It’s hanging up in the office now, surrounded by all my other needlework!

I also mastered using some foil thread… Its actually really hard to work with.

Another design from Embroidered Effects, the fan dancer. I did this as a test swatch to make sure I liked the colors and the look… I’m going to put them on a set of curtains for the craft room/office. This one will end up in a purple frame (which is still drying!) and might get hung up elsewhere.

I’ve been knitting too but I’ll save some of that for another post!

Clockwise from UL: 1. Feather Headband by LovMely; 2. Peapod Necklace by newhopebeading; 3. Steamy Ring by edmdesigns; 4. Green Hair Pins by thebitsybean

Hello there!! I’m Amy from the craft blog AisforAmy

Julie had a great idea for beginning a new series called ‘Wednesday Wants’ and I’m super excited to be writing the inaugural post!

There are SO many different things on my “I wish…” list! I am somewhat of a jewelry hound and my favorite thing is stumbling across a special piece on Etsy and falling head over heels for it.

I can imagine this necklace from luxedeluxe being worn with a lovely linen shift dress on a gorgeous spring day. I’m excited about the leather and crystals combo! (I might actually have to find an excuse to buy this one…)

This necklace from mykonos would be super pretty with a simple open necked t-shirt. I love the way the different beads are paired together.

I’ve got a navy colored v-neck shirt that this necklace from photoglassworks would go perfectly with! Isn’t this one so delicate and stunning?

These earrings from leavesofglass rock my world because they’re made with real cotton! Coming from the south (Texas!!) cotton is a big deal. These would be perfect with any outfit really.

I know this little owl from ERMoriginals doesn’t look like much, but it’s really a super sweet bracelet! Who wouldn’t love a wee owl perched on their wrist all day long? It would be like having a friend around at all times.

Last but not least, is this gorgeous orange ring from luvindamuzac. It is such a show stopper. I have one in green that consistently draws compliments from almost anyone who sees it. Who doesn’t love getting a compliment? (I adore kinetic jewelry, I’ll probably be buying something from this shop very soon!)

Are there any Etsy artists that make jewelry that you adore? Tell me! I’d love to know who I’m missing out on!

Thanks for joining me on this post! I hope you enjoyed it!

-Amy

I wrote this comparison back in 2008 but I thought it would be a nice preamble to my upcoming review of Knit Picks’ Zephyr needles now that I’ve knit various different fibers with them.

I bought all the varieties, DPNs, fixed circs and a set of interchangeables to see how they held up to some of my most loved and trusted brands. I have also bought more since I first purchased them.

I previously had Clover, Brittany and Boye DPNs. My circular collection consisted of Boye, Addi Turbo and a Denise interchangeable set. So those were the brands I had as a comparison overall but my main focus is on Addi Turbos since they are the most similar. I make a few mentions of the Denise set because Addi Clicks hadn’t come out at the time and I have yet to buy a pair.

When I first opened all the needles from Knit Picks they felt a little sticky. Not like they had glue or candy on them, just not as smooth as everyone raves them to be. However, after a few minutes of fondling they were smooth as ice. I’m guessing there was some residue from the nickel plating. So they won for being as smooth and glassy as Addi.

The nickel plating wasn’t an issue for my nickel allergy, however the nickel plating as worn off on some of my most used needles. An issue I’ve never seen in Addi Turbos. I can only assume Knit Picks uses less plating in their needles to keep the cost down. The good news is that they have excellent customer service and will probably replace them if you have this happen and complain. Its happened on a few of mine but I’m really not bothered by it.

The tips on the Knit Picks needles are great. Some people like the duller Addi points but I like sharp points that help me pick up lace (stitches that I’ve dropped.) But they aren’t so sharp that touching them will break skin!

The cables on the Knit Picks needles are alright. They’re better than the hollow plastic of the Denise cables but I still prefer the sturdiness of Addi’s cables. They’re made of a similar material to Boyne cables, but are thinner and therefore more flexible. They will get a coil shape to them if you coil them up for storage like I do. But I hear that a quick dunk in just boiled water will fix that. I’ve never done it though. You also get two (2) cables with Knit Picks Options cables, two sets of caps and one tightening pin. A steal when you consider the price of one pair of Addi Turbos.

The threading on the interchangables is really long and you would notice it was loose before half your knitting fell into your lap! They all come with a tightening pin and I recommend using it even if you think you can tighten them by hand. I would pick these over the Denise interchangables every time because Denise only clicks into place with half a turn and I’ve lost many stitches as a result of that.

The actual join on the needles (interchangable and fixed) is really smooth. I don’t have any issues with this part of the needle. I’ve had one come slightly away from the metal but it hasn’t fallen out in the years I’ve been using it. And again, their excellent customer service will probably replace it if it ever happens to you.

Overall I’m very satisfied with Knit Picks’ needles. They are very cost effective and ‘I’ve so far done a pretty decent job collecting my most used sizes. I’m not a fan of DPNs to begin with but they are far superior to any others that I own. And 90% of my circs are all Knit Picks. The price combined with the quality and customer service makes them a big winner in my book.

I finished Simple Things a few weeks ago! And… forgot to post about it. It was a really simple pattern from Mary-Heather on Ravelry. If I make another one I’d probably keep going until I ran out of yarn. It was a little monotonous but I really love how it turned out.

manual focus!

I never liked the plastic stitch markers that most yarn shops carried when I started knitting. They were boring, flimsy and very easy to break. The only kind I use any more are the locking stitch markers… and I mainly use them to hold my DIY stitch markers. If you’ve also grown bored with plastic markers grab some supplies and get started!

Materials

You can use plain wire just make sure its a sturdy gauge. You will also need to make a tiny loop at the bottom before threading your beads on. I used wire posts that have a stopper on the end. Mine are plain but you can get some fancy ones at most craft stores in the beading and jewelry section.

I like to put a seed bead at the bottom. Its partly for aesthetics and partly to keep larger beads from sliding off the end.

You’ll want to make that bend about 90º.

If you decide to use a jump ring just loop the wire around the jump ring instead of a pen pr pencil

My pliers have a useful bend in them. You don’t need that– any pliers will do!

Rinse, repeat about 10-12 times or make as many as you need. These can also make great gifts for fellow knitters.

If you’re a crocheter and want to make some swanky stitch markers you can use the same basic technique but try looped earring backs or even small hoop earrings (the kind that close to form a full circle.) Enjoy!

Constructing Your Corset

Part 1, Measuring and Drafting Your Pattern is located here!

What You Need

You will need the following for this half of the tutorial

• Your customized pattern
• Chalk or fabric pencil
• Scissors or rotary cutter
• Pins
• Needle and thread for hand sewing
• Something pointy
• Closures (rivets, buttons, buckles, etc.)
• Lacing (ribbon, leather cord, long boot laces, etc.)
• Boning (see below)

Boning

You can buy boning at most fabric stores or online. I use plastic store bought boning but a lot of people have been re-purposing plastic bottles and jugs as well. You can also use steel boning if you can find it! If you know of a vendor who sells this online, or any other helpful vendor links, please leave them in the comments. You will also need casing for the boning. I don’t use the store bought stuffs casing because it always falls apart on me. I make it out of bias tape or other thin pieces of fabric. Do whatever pleases you.

Onto the construction!

1. First find your fabric and figure out how much you will need (it will be different for everyone, so use some newspaper to figure it out before you buy fabric!) I used cheap muslin and black thread so it would be easier for you to see what’s going on.

Fold the fabric in half, right sides together. Fold it in half again so you have four layers of fabric. When you cut the pieces out you should have two sets of left facing pieces and two sets of right facing.

2. Separate two sets of pieces like the image below. The pieces on top are wrong side up and their mates underneath are right side up. You want all the pieces to be right sides together when you lay them out to make sure you have what you need. Now label everything right now. You’ll be sorry if you don’t! I labeled mine RO for Right Outside, RI for Right Inside, LO for Left Outside and LI for Left Inside. Label them however you want so that you will remember.

3. Now you can start pinning the pieces together as shown.

Make sure your seams all line up. If they don’t, like the image below, lay out your pattern pieces next to the original pattern to make sure you have everything matched up correctly.

4. Start sewing those seams! For now  just sew the three interior seams where. Do the same for the other three sets of pieces.

Now iron your seams flat as shown.

5. If you bought boning from the store, remove the casing now. Cut the boning to fit the corset in the five places pictures below in blue. You will need two identical sets of boning. Now cut 3/8″ off each end of these pieces, rounding the corners as well. You can cut a little more if you like as well, just remember that whatever amount you cut off must fit with the seam allowances. I even cut off more as I’m sewing the halves together sometimes, but more on that later.

Whatever you are using as a casing, gran it now and lay it on the seams and ends of the wrong side of the lining pieces. For the ends, place the casing behind the seam allowance. I used .25″ seam allowance so my end casings are .25″ away from the very edge of the fabric. Now pin those in place and sew away! After you finish the seams, stuff the boning into the casing.

6. Lay the right and left outsides ontop of the right and left linings, right sides together. Match up all edges and corerns.

7. Pin everything together (you can see the casing with the boning inside it on this picture, that’s the lining’s wrong side btw) but leave a gap between the three middle pieces of boning at the bottom. You’ll need this area to turn the corset right side out later. Its a good idea to back stitch with your machine at the beginning and end of these seams, so when you turn the corset the seams wont come loose. Now stitch everything together.

8. Trim the seams (only if you used more than a.25″ seam allowance) and clip the corners.

9. Now turn the halves right side out. You can use any small pointy object you can find (aside from a knife) to poke those corners out to look nice and crisp.

10. Press the edges all the way around. You can press the inside, but be careful around the boning. You don’t want it to melt. Although a little heat will help flatten it out if you find it’s curving too much. When you get to that gap we left back in step 7, turn in the seam allowance and press. Then slip stitch it all closed. You can also top stitch the top and bottom edges instead.

Closures

I used rivets on my finished corset, but you can use just about anything. Just be sure to allot for them ahead of time if they require extra planning, like zippers might. Buckels, buttons and other hooks can be used too. If you used rivets you’ll want to thread in your lacing like a shoe. A lot of corsets use four pieces of lacing (or two if the front is closed) with the loose ends tying in the middle. This makes the corset easier to cinch up at the waist, but you can lace yours however you want. Mine had ribbon tying at the bottom.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and please post pics of your corsets! And again, a huge thanks to Cathy Hay and Roethke from Craftser whose tutorial and booklet on fitting helped me create the first half of this tutorial, the custom fit.

Part 1, Measuring and Drafting Your Pattern is located here!

Measuring and drafting your pattern

(Part 2, Constructing your corset, is available here!)

I can’t take full credit for this tutorial, I used Cathy Hay’s notes on fitting and Roethke from Craftsers tutorial on corsets together to form my own custom pattern for a corset. What you find below is the process I took to get my own custom fit corset.

Why did I make a new tutorial when such awesome ones exist? Because I have a long torso. It means nothing fits me. I have to be careful when picking out dresses and tops with fitted waists because they never seem to hit me in the right spot, making my hips look about 2 sizes wider than they are in reality. I also have wider hips than underbust (don’t we all?) So a straight rectangle, like in Roethke’s tute, wont work for me. I needed something more customized and the notes on fitting from Cathy Hay were a really good resource for this. If you’re going to make a corset, you might as well go all the way!

DIY Corset Tutorial For ALL Shapes and Sizes

First, measure yourself. You can have a friend do it for you but I’ve never had an issue doing it myself. Cathy has tips for doing this in her booklet. She also suggests you use the metric system, which I fully agree with. Its more accurate and the numbers aren’t associated with the fashion industry’s idea of what a size 6 is. You will need the following measurements:

• Bust (optional)
• Underbust
• Waist
• Hip
• Xiphoid process to hip
• Xipoid process to waist
• Waist to hip

Notes on measurements…

Why’s the bust optional? A lot of people like to make underbust corsets and to be honest, they’re easier to make. You can extend the top to cover the your bust if you want, but if you’re a busty sea wench you’ll need more instructions on how to add gussets for the girls. Cathy Hay offers a Part 2 of her booklet which includes this stuff if you suggest her site to a friend. Do it! You can, of course, ignore gussets and just squish your boobs into the corset. If you do this measure your bust “squished” to the right size.

Underbust: Right under the boobs, where you want the corset to end.

Waist: Bend over, stick two fingers against the crease that forms in your mid-section. Stand up. That’s your waist! Its typically the narrowest part of your trunk, but that isn’t 100% for everyone.

Hip: Brace yourself. Your hip is the widest part of your butt. Its also about where your thigh bone sticks out the farthest for you anatomy buffs.

Xiphoid process: I admit, I had to look this one up too. Roethke uses the term in her tute, and its the bottom of your sternum. Basically where the top of your corset will lie.

Drafting the pattern

Get some big paper or, if you are anal like me, get on the computer and open up Adobe Illustrator or Coral Draw. (I don’t recommend Photoshop, Paintshop or Paint because you can’t be as accurate, but feel free to use these if you like!)

You’re going to be drafting half of the corset, so the horizontal measurements you just took will all get cut in half.

1. First, divide your underbust measurement in half and mark out a line.

2. Next draw a line starting at the middle of that using the measurement of your xiphoid process to hip.

3. Now divide your hip measurement it by four. Use this new number to draw a horizontal line extending to the left of your vertical line.

Draw another on the other side.

4. Connect the ends of your underbust and hip measurements. A box! I’ve labeled the picture below so you can see what’s going on in terms of layout.

5. Use the xiphoid process to waist measurement and make a mark on the middle vertical line. This is your waist line. Extend this to the ends of your new box. Tip: If your waist line is very different from your underbust and hip line you can adjust the side lines to accommodate that now. It will make them curved in or out on the finished product. If you don’t want that look ignore this tip and read the note about fitting at the end of step 8.

6. Mark about 2cm to the left of the Front Center line. You’ll want the front panels to be a bit longer than the back and sides for closures.

Divide your box into quarters from the Back Center line to this new mark. Just use straight lines, its the easiest. You can get creative later if you want.

Get rid of that old center line you drew in step 5.

7. Cinching your waist! This is my favorite part, where you get to shave off a few inches from your waist and squash your internal organs. I don’t cinch much, my corset is only cinching off 12cms from my waist. Decide how much you want to cinch. Divide this number by 12. Use this new number to mark little lines on your waist line next to those lines you drew in the last step.

8. Connect the dots! Draw lines connecting the marks on your waistline to the lines at the top and bottom. Those diamonds you just made are scrap!

The areas pictured below in red are the pattern pieces. You can start to see how the pattern is going to come from this, but we aren’t done yet!

A note about fitting: Remember that waist measurement you took? Get it out. You’re going to measure the waist lines that fall inside the red areas, or the pattern pieces. Take that number and multiply by 2. If that number is too close to your natural waist line, push your cinching marks in more, making the waist line of the red areas smaller. If you followed the tip in step 5 you might be OK. You can keep pushing the cinching lines in and measuring until you are satisfied. Just remember that the combined total of those waist measurements times 2 will equal the waist of your corset.

Optional step: Your corset pattern is basically done at this point, but you can add some shaping if you want. I wanted my corset to dip down on the sides by about 2.5 cm so I marked that on my center line and curved that to the front and back lines.

You can make any shape you want here, so be creative! You can also make the pattern pieces more curved if you want, but be careful. If you do this I suggest making a corset out of cheap fabric or muslin first to make sure it fits. If you want to get really creative read through Cathy Hay’s booklet entirely. She gets down to the nitty gritty of fit.

Back to the pattern!

9. Alright, do not cut out your fabric yet. You have to add seam allowance! Retrace or duplicate the pattern pieces onto another piece of paper or artboard and spread them out about an inch apart from one another.

I use .25″ for my seam allowance. (I know, switching from metric to US, but my sewing machine only has US measurements!) If you’re on the computer go ahead and figure out how to do this…

Just kidding! Duplicate your boxes and throw a .25″ stroke around the outside. Poof! Seam allowance! See why I use a computer? If you’re drafting by hand pat yourself on the back for having more patience than me. Now grab a tiny ruler and start marking out your seam allowance all the way around by hand. You can also wing it, but that’s entirely up to you.

Note: Some people like their corsets to close completely and some prefer them to be slightly open where they meet. Its up to you, but this tutorial is for a closed corset. You can easily rectify this by leaving off the seam allowances on the center front and center back, or even shaving off a few more millimeters from those sides.

10. Number your pieces so you don’t forget what’s what.

You will need to cut four of each piece with the fabric folded and selvage meeting at the ends just like you would for any other pattern. Never sewn before? Just fold the fabric in half with the right sides together to get two mirrored pieces. Do that twice for four total. Then go find a nice easy skirt pattern to sew before you attempt to do this. Just kidding. Give yourself props for picking an advanced pattern to start with.

Congratulations!

You just drafted a pattern for a custom fit corset!

Print it out if you need to or transfer it to pattern paper. I changed my colors and strokes to look more like a real pattern, but its just printed on regular paper.

There aren’t very many secrets to sewing this together, so if you’re somewhat intermediate to advanced in your skills you can probably figure it out. If not, sit tight and watch for the rest of the tutorial tomorrow. Now is a good time to search for fabric and a plastic 2 liter bottle or jug to use for boning.

Part 2, Constructing your corset, will be here tomorrow for Sewn Up Saturday.

If you have a request for a tutorial please comment!

Meet Bridget from Hooker Next Door, who is a very talented crocheter. I’ve known Bridget for a while and she always has something different and beautiful in her shop. I’ve also got several of her wearables and let me tell you something about her quality… every stitch is exactly the same! I’ve tried my hand at crochet a number of times, but I never manage to get the consistency of Bridget’s tight, neat stitches. She also has a great eye for color, as you can see in this Birds Nest Neck Dangle she designed last year.

For more info about Bridget and the Hooker Next Door check out her site at HookerNextDoor.com and her Etsy shop! Get free shipping by letting her know Shiny Crafts sent you!

Want your stuff featured in Handmade Monday? Drop me a line in at shinycraftsblog (a) gmail (d) com with a link to your stuff and some info about yourself.