Tutorial - easy peasy storage drawer

Materials needed

1 top shelf from any fridge so long as it already has a drawer

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 140C

2. Remove all rosemary leaves, bits of cheese, etc that may linger after turning it upside down over the bin.

3. Clean item in warm/hot soapy water or with whichever method you might normally use to clean it.

4. After rinsing and double checking for unwanted pieces left in hard to find crevices allow to dry for half an hour, turning frequently to drip all water out.

5. Switch oven off.

6.Place clean teatowel on oven rack so that plastic will not melt and stick to it.

6. Place item in oven on towel. There may still be a few drops of water left but that is not a problem as these will quickly evaporate. 

7. As I forgot to time the process I cannot say for sure how long this will take. Let intuition be your guide and check back every couple of hours.

8. When completed to your satisfaction remove from oven.

Cost: $55 plus postage and handling.

This will not be available in my madeit shop but purchase is available via this blog.

For a reduced price please quote the word "stupid".

Visit here for other creative projects.

New Flower Brooch Tutorial

I just whipped this little number up after contemplating doing it for about the last half year or maybe more.

I don't know where todays' energy is coming from but I sure hope it holds for the next few days because my oldest daughter is taking me for a lovely holiday in the Blue Mountains for 5 days.

Five whole days of non stop action. Eek!!

Anyway, I thought I would just give you a quick run down on how this is made.

You need a fine doily ie, not heavy, thick fabric, about 12 cm across and shirring thread in your bobbin.

I used five pins to mark the petal divisions then started sewing each one.

If you can follow my diagram you should start at the big dot and follow the red markings up and down until all five petals are formed.

Then without breaking your thread you just start sewing in an ever widening circle till you reach a point that you are happy with. 

Because you are now sewing over already shirred fabric you will need to stretch the fabric.

Don't be too fussy though as all your mistakes will be hiden in the gathering.

Except if you don't sew your button on correctly.

Like mine. That's obvious and will need to be fixed.

OK. Once that is done you sew your brooch attachment to the back - I just used a tiny safety pin left over from some swing tag. Then a button on the front and you are done.

Enjoy!

Hanging teatowel tutorial?

I could never really understand how these were done. I thought maybe all those teeny-tiny stitches along the edge were some form of blanket stitch - but what form?
So last year I asked a granny, lovely Lydia in Albury. She scrambled around around in her crochet bag and came up with a size 1 hook. Instead of getting me to do the work she crocheted away while talking to me but still managed to impart the right knowledge. Yesterday, after 9 months, I finally gave it a go.

Of course. before you start crocheting, I imagine you will want to cut your teatowels in half, although some people just fold them and have a double hanging towel. If you cut yours in half, you might like to work out how to deal with the rough edges in order to strengthen them. You could zigzag along them or overlock them. I simply folded the cut edge in, approximately 5 mm which was about the depth of the first row of crochet, so that the crochet actually overlocked them.

I used a size 1.5 hook because the only other option was a 0.75 and I reckoned that might not even have a hook on it, it is sooo tiny. LOL! The yarn is a cotton, I think. I bought it for $2.99 at the local cheapy shop because there is no where else around to get it here except maybe Kmart.

Then I just start to crochet into the fabric. That's right - you just poke the hook into the material and pull your yarn through and do ordinary double crochet stitches. That is why you need such a tiny hook. I imagine a finer teatowel could well do with a finer hook and possibly that may require thinner yarn.
Next 2 rows I only crocheted every second stitch, again in dc.
Next 2 rows have a treble in the first 2 stitches, miss a stitch, then repeat. Because of the unknown quantity of the original number of stitches you may have to have a stitch more or less at the end. Play it by ear.
At this point I had 8 stitches. I continued on doing treble for 16 rows of 8 stitches.
17th row. 2 treble, 4 chain, 2 treble.
18th and final row. 1 half treble crochet, 1 treble 4 trebles in chain gap, 1 treble, 1 half treble crochet and sign off.

On the bottom of the towel I crocheted into the towel and returned with a row of lace, each time something different according to how I felt.

This is a very basic tutorial. A lot of what you do will have to be arranged according to how many stitches you originally crocheted into the towel. I guess this is a bit like the older cook who knows the basic recipe and just does it without ever measuring a thing and it always works. Hope this works for you too!