Various recent crochet projects

This is a gallery of some of the crochet work I have done recently.  I teach crochet as well as knitting, including how to read patterns, how to choose yarn and needle sizes, and how to block.

This triangular scarf took several evenings while watching TV, and wasn't hard.  I got this pattern, "Festival Shawl" designed by Lyn Robinson, found on Ravelry.com.  It is crocheted using Lion Brand's "Vanna's Glamour", color Topaz.  It is a beige with a gold metallic running through it.  Very pretty in person.  I crocheted in small beads around the two 'v' edges.










This native girl is made with a gourd and various crocheted motifs hot-glued on.  One of my favorite features in this one is the crystal belly button!   I had split the gourd in half so that I could hang it on the wall.  The other half is still in my sewing room waiting for inspiration!




While I was decorating the master bath, I made this for my husband's area.  Slightly naughty, but appropriate for its location!








I must have needed something to do when I made this --- it became one of a set of picture frames, and went in the same room as the gourd girl, using the same yarns.








We go camping a lot, and I always have something with me to do while traveling or relaxing.   To the left is a cozy to go around the french press coffee maker we keep in our camper, to keep the coffee warm.  I found the "buttons" (off of elastic hair ties) at a Dollar Store while we were in Munising, MI.








Below are various beanies (but not all) that I made on a recent trip.

  

Reupholster Armchair with Show Wood

One of the skills I picked up several years ago is reupholstery.  I had recently had three bad upholstery jobs done for me --  In one, the floral fabric was run sideways.  In another, the nice spring cushion was replaced by a too-thin cushion and instead of giving me the extra yard of fabric I ordered for pillows they made a skirt I did not want.  And another job was botched with white decking in a dark blue sofa, with the cushions so small you could stand by the couch and see the white decking. The cushions were so hard they didn't make a dent when you sat on them.  I would have added exclamation marks to these, but there would have been too many!

So I took an upholstery class, got the right equipment, and never looked back.  I have done more than a few projects - sofas, chairs, ottomans, and cornices among them.

This project was fairly straightforward, to reupholster an armchair that has exposed wood on the arms and lower edge ("show wood").    The project should have included refinishing the wood and fixing the bottom of the chair (as you will see!), but the client requested only the upholstery itself be done.  Just sayin', in case you look at the pictures and notice!

I don't know the history of this chair, but it must have been quite a while ago it was recovered in this thin-ish chintz fabric.  My client pulled this out of storage to update and use in her new guest room.

The first step is removing the old fabric, starting with the back.  Here is where I found the old fabric not removed by the previous upholsterer.

Next is a dressing of new batting over the existing batting, which still seemed to be in good shape.

Next I strengthened the back by stapling some burlap over the open space.

Roughly using the old pieces - the seat, inside back, outside back, and arms, I cut pieces out of the new fabric, paying special attention to the pattern.  I wanted to center the pattern on all of the pieces, even the arms.










I did the arms first, laying the new piece over the arm, stapling around, and trimming close to the staples.  Since this was thin fabric (meant more for drapes than upholstery), and was bad to unravel, I wet the stapled edges with a coating of Fray Block.  Fray Block is basically a glue that goes on wet and dries clear.

Somehow I don't have pictures in between, but here you can see all the pieces (except the back) have been stapled on.  First the small piece under the front of the arms, then the seat and seat back.  I trimmed and fray-checked all the stapled edges that are next to the show wood.

To finish the back involved several steps.  First, welting around the sides and top, with some extra batting.

Then the top of the back was stapled on close to the top welting, using a cardboard strip to give it a good edge.  This is looking up under the back piece at the top of the chair.







This is the top of the back after stapling it, but before dealing with the rest of it.

Before going any farther, I needed to put on the gimp over the exposed staples next to the show wood.  Gimp is glued on typically with hot glue, which is what I did.








I love the gimp my client picked out!

The tricky part is next - closing the sides of the back using a tack strip.  (Note: I added more batting over the burlap before doing this step.)

To get the tack strip positioned, I pinned the fabric where the outside fold needed to be, then pushed the tack strip through the fabric at the pins.  I folded it in and used a mallet to drive the tacks in.











In this step, I stapled a piece of welting along the bottom edge of the back to protect it and give it a finished look.  The final step should be to staple  the black dust cover to the bottom.  But since the springs and metal pieces stick out, I cannot do this.  I gave the client a piece of dust cover to use when she has the bottom fixed.  I really should have insisted that I needed to do this repair!

The finished chair.

Another shot, since it looked so bright in the sun!  A pretty fabric.

Living Room/Dining Room Drapes

In this post, I describe the drapes that go with the valences in the previous post.  Same fabric, a beige stripe damask, and accent fabric, a beige satin.  These drapes are 109" long, with the accent fabric forming a band along the center edge.  We chose goblet pleats to give an elegant look, wrapping the bottom of each pleat with the accent fabric.  The drapes are lined and interlined, but do not have blackout lining as the valences did.  There are two 41" windows; we will use one width per panel, 4 panels total.  

 Ok, I'll apologize up front for not having pictures of all the steps - I'll just do my best to describe them!  Starting here--- After cutting the 4 panel lengths out of the main fabric, I cut one length of the accent fabric and divided it into four long strips of about 12" (having used some of the width previously for piping on the valences).  I attached a strip of accent fabric to one edge of each panel.  I had to keep in mind that there are two "left" panels and two "right" panels!  Oh boy, would that have been a disaster to have made four identical panels!!  You can see in the picture to the left the accent band at the far end.

The next step is to turn up a double 6" hem, press, pin, and hand sew.  It wasn't too bad - it's easy to pick up a single thread with this fabric.

After preparing the main panels, I cut and prepared the lining and interlining.  With the band added to the main fabric width, I needed to piece the interlining as well, since I wanted the interlining to back the main fabric completely.  So I cut another length of interlining and divided it into four strips.  I attached the strip and serged it to prevent fraying. On the left is the pieced interlining, showing the 2" double hem pinned, ironed, and ready to sew.

I did not piece the lining, but planned to use a single width.  The band will wrap around to form a nice edge in the center of the window.  In it, as well, I made a 2" double hem.








I wasn't taking any chances the two linings would wrinkle or have pulls, so I laid the pieces down and smoothed it out until it was perfectly positioned.  The lining fabric is face up on the bottom layer, the main fabric is face down on top of it, and the interlining is on the top (no right or wrong side).  The interlining had been pieced, but not made the exact width of the pieced main fabric.  Instead, I lined up the piecing seams for the main fabric and interlining.  I trimmed the excess interlining on the non-banded side, as shown.  There is still some excess on the other side, but I will deal with it later.

To sew the side hems, I decided to match the edges on the banded side, shown here.  I pinned, sewed, and pressed.  You can see here the bottom edge of the panel with the different layers - face-up lining, face down main fabric, and interlining.  The hems are staggered so the lining is above the main fabric and the interlining will be hidden above that.

I serged the side hem seam, trimming the excess interlining at the same time.








The other side hem needed to be sewn so it matched the other side hem exactly.  I kept the panel wrong side out and laid it on the work table with the un-sewn edges of the other side seam lined up.  I worked to smooth all the layers and make sure the band wasn't pulled in any way.  What will be the final band edge for the center of the window has not been pressed - I will do that after this.  So, I pin the other side seam, stitch, and serge.

With both side seams stitched, I turn the panel right side out and determine the exact with of the band to show on the front and press a crease there, then, smoothing all the layers just right, press the other side, which will indent about 2", as shown on the left.

Side seams and hems done, it is time to finish the top of the panels.  Here I am measuring the exact length from the bottom of the hem to the top edge and folding over.  I also tuck in an additional inch or two to make the header section 5" wide, and pin and press.  I will hand sew the bottom edge to the lining.  I am not using any header tape because the fabric is thick enough already here, and leaving out the header will allow the drapes to softly open.  (I will use a stiffener in the goblet pleats as you will see.)





With the header ready for pleating, I put down a piece of masking tape on my work surface and mark pleat and gap spacing.  I will reuse these markings for all four panels.  To mark the panels, I lay the panel down, matching the ends with end markings, and pin every pleat beginning and end.






I stitch each pleat 5" down plus a little more to get just past the folded header edge.








Here are the sewn pleats  I pressed the seam areas but not the folded edge of the pleats, because goblet pleats are rounded at the top.  They look pressed in this picture, but that is just because they were folded there for sewing.













I experimented with different ways of attaching the "choker" to the bottom of the goblets.  This picture shows pre-stitching the choker to one side of the pleat seam.

The lower pleat has been "choked."  I took the pleat, pinched the lower end like a pinch pleat and hand sewed the other end of the choker so the choker holds the pinch.











To make the upper part of the goblet hold its rounded shape, I cut a piece of buckram about 4" long, rolled it into a tube, and inserted it in the top.  In this picture you can see a panel of completed goblets with the buckram giving them shape.

 Last but not last are the standard drapery pins behind each goblet and on the ends.

 To transport these panels with minimal wrinkling, I folded them lengthwise several times and rolled them up.  To keep the goblets from being flattened, I held off on the buckram tubes and inserted them just before hanging.

 A set of panels hung in the living room.

 My client wants the drapes to be just off the floor.  We hung these a little high so that when they stretch out hopefully they will be just right.  If not, I'll move the rods up or down or adjust the drapery pins, as needed.

To close in the outside edges of the drape, I put screw eyes in the wall and hooked through them the drapery pins at the end of the panels.

  In the dining room.

Closed.  We are using 60" clear batons to aid opening and closing the drapes.  The batons are attached to the center-most ring of each panel.

Besides making the drapes feel luxurious, there is an additional benefit to the interlining:  It adds insulation to the windows.  My client plans to keep the drapes open most of the time, but in the winter may want to consider closing them at night to keep out the cold air.

Well, goodbye beige striped fabric!  It's been nice knowing you for these few weeks, but time to move on to a different project!

Living Room/Dining Room Valences

In July, I posted a blog about a valence mock-up made out of muslin.  That mock-up was about 45" wide.  The first windows my client decided to tackle with this valence were 82" wide!  So -- do we add more swags and chevrons or do we make the same design, only larger?  

The answer was clear when I saw the dimensions we needed.  The valence was to be attached at about 107" from the floor, several inches above the window.  And the valence needed to come down long enough that the top of the window was not visible, even more length needed because the viewer would be so far below the valence.  We ended up with 37" length on the ends and 23" for the swags.  This actually fits a guideline I have seen - a valence should be about 1/3 the length of the window.  To add swags the size of the mock-up, but with the new length needed, would make the valence look stretched from top to bottom and would have taken much more fabric.  We went with enlarging the original design.

The scale settled, I made new patterns of the size needed.  There are three types of pieces:  The center chevron, the cascade for the ends, and the swag.  All pieces are made with four layers in this case:  The main fabric on the front, lining (with an accent band) on the back, and interlining and blackout lining in the inside.  The interlining gives the valence a luxurious feel and the blackout lining keeps light from coming through and interfering with the look of the folds and creases.

On the left is the back of the center chevron.  The lower edge is a band made of the accent fabric (a beige satin).  When the chevron is folded, the accent fabric will show on the front side as seen in the next picture.  To create the band, I simply cut off the bottom of the lining and sewed on strips of the accent fabric.  The cascades on the sides and the swags also have a border of accent fabric on the lower edge of the back.  

  

This is the cascade.  The picture on the far left shows using a ruler to ensure the accent piping is applied in a straight line.  I used lots of pins to keep the bias-cut fabric from stretching and slipping.  (I also used a ruler and lots of pins on the chevron since its edges are cut on the bias.)  You can see in the picture with the folded cascade how the accent band on the back shows through the front at each fold.


The piping for all the pieces is made using sausage bead weighted cording.  The piping is made from accent fabric, with a narrow layer of interlining between it and the sausage bead weights to cover the bead "bumps".  This type of piping gives the pieces extra weight so they hang well.


The swag pieces were very large - with too much width to cut on the bias as would have been done if possible.  Swags cut on the bias hang a little better than swags cut on the grain.  But even if we had gone with narrower swags, the width needed would have prevented cutting on the bias.  It took a little work, but the grain-cut swag had a nice form in the finished valence.

Each valence will have a cascade on each end, a chevron in the middle, and two swags, all hung from a 1" x 4" board.  To prepare the board, I took a piece of lining fabric and stapled it so it covered all the wood.  I used a wide enough piece of lining so that there was enough left to cover the stapled valence pieces at the end.


The next step was to staple on the chevron in the center, then the cascades on each side.  To prepare those pieces, I folded them on my work surface, pinned the top edges, and ironed very well, pinching the weighted piping at the folds.  As I stapled them to the wood, I was able to make any adjustments needed so they hung nicely.  The stapling itself was very easy since I use an upholstery staple gun powered by an air compressor.  The only way to go, in my opinion.

Getting the swags on the wood was challenging as it involved working with the folds to make them hang just right.  I adjusted some of the folds, which required cutting the top edge.  The finished product, then, was not the same as the original cut pattern!

 

 Here I have finished attaching the pieces to the wood and have brought over the flap of lining, folding it at the edges and stapling all around.

One last bit of preparation was to tack the folds in the chevron and cascades so they hung flat, but in a natural way.  As you may be able to tell, I had the board clamped to my work surface, and fortunately had enough height for the pieces to hang without touching the floor.

Here are the installed valences.  To hang them, I attached 3 angle brackets to the wall at the desired height, then laid the valence on top.  With someone holding one end in place, I was able to screw the angle brackets to the bottom of the wood (using a cordless drill with a screwdriver bit attached of course!).


 
One final detail - to keep the edges of the cascades close to the wall, to keep sunlight from shining through, I pulled the bottom of the cascade tight and nailed a tiny brad through the piping into the wall.





I have to tell you about my perfect drill - the Bosch PS10-2A 12V Max I-Driver.  It's cordless, not too heavy, slim and sleek, has plenty of power, and has good balance.  But best of all, I can rotate the head to different angles, including straight up!  This was great when screwing the brackets to the wood on these valences.

I gave my previous one like this to my daughter, and right away went to buy a new one.  But the stores I searched do not carry it!  I bought it online.