There are several people here who are able to create custom framing for relatively cheap.

Brian

Not that I wouldn't trust folks to build a lovely custom frame ... stitchery framing is a specialty ... not every framer can do it.

Oooh oooh oooh! I found another one!!

http://scribe.fork.org/cellar/crafts/mousse.JPG

Once you have it mounted on a stretcher, wouldn't it be the same, except for the thickness?:confused:

Stitchery framing is a PITA, that I prefer to pay someone else to do, particularly for "the big projects". Little stuff I have done myself. The process includes mounting onto a (sometimes padded) backing board, cutting mattes and glass (often overpriced "non-glare" varieties), and the actual construction of the frame itself.

Most of the pieces that I have framed or managed to have framed were given as gifts over the years.

Since there was a lot of football to watch yesterday, I had some time on my hands.

I can't just sit.

Since I wanted to actually watch some of the playoff games (anybody else hoping for an All-Penna. Stupidbowl?)

So I got caught up on some crocheting. The green one was about three-quarters finished. I did all of the yellow one yesterday.

It's been a big year for babies at the nuthouse. Two cow orkers have already given birth, one is pending. So I figured I better get cracking on the blankies that I've been slacking on something fierce (one of the kids is on solid food already, I have to get the blankie done before she's in college).

That leaves one to go as of now.

Great work, Wolf. No Hello Kitty inspired stuff, though?

If I ever get around to it, I might consider an HK filet crochet project ... But for the most part, no, I haven't done any specifically HelloKitty crafting.

Nice job!

I'm attempting to learn crochet... to put a border around a blanket. I think I'm ready to give it a try for real.

Oh! Those are beautiful! I love them both, but the green is a favorite. I so wish I could do that. Those are special gifts---I know, coz I've kept the ones people made for me when I had my little ones.

Crocheting is probably one of the easier crafts. There are only about 5 or 6 stitches you have to learn, everything else is based off that.

Actualy I'm pretty much got the hang of double crochet and I'm just going to do that all the way around. The big thing I don't know is how to hook it all back together once I've come full circle.

Can I worship you from afar you massive, bearded, tweed-ed (?) nerd-fest of a dude?

I think you have inspired me to pick up a crochet needle, wolf. I remember doing it when I was a kid, learning from my grandmother. IIRC, it required significantly less manual dexterity than knitting. I hope so, because my knitting career was short indeed.

Help yourself... sorry, no tweed.

Just remember to do extra double crochets into the corner spaces for turning so that everything lays flat.

So one of my hippie friends decided that she wanted to have some tableware to carry around with her in the event that she would buy some fast food and not want to use plasticware. She bought a set of bamboo tableware when we were at an upscale culinary store in the mall. She's real into that whole sustainability thing. She drives a Prius and recently got solar panels installed on her otherwise conventional surburban roof.

She mentioned in passing that it would be really nice to have a case of some kind to carry it in. There was nothing available in the store. As we were enjoying some TCBY cones I said, "Well, it shouldn't be too hard to do something."

So I did something. I had in mind to sew something, but the sewing machine has been hibernating in a closet for several years, and I'm only a moderate sewer, anyway. I've been on a crochet kick recently, so I had some yarn and hooks within easy reach of my chair. So, the other night while I was watching Bones, I made a case. I put Velcro spots on it as a closure.

I think you may have found a job! :)

But I had told her that I would sew her a case. I was intending that it would be a fairly simple design, similar to the crocheted one, with a flap that velcros closed.

So, wolf heads off to the fabric store.

There are supposed to be women in the fabric store who actually know what they are doing, right?

I described my intentions to the lady at the fabric cutting table. I had decided that any pouch should really have a goo-proof lining of some sort. So I asked if they had any sort of fusible material that would be waterproof. "No," says the counter drone, "We don't have anything like that." But there's this stuff, it's waterproof. She leads me to a section of the store I had already investigated ... bolts of overpriced (and really ugly) vinyl.

No, that's not what i was looking for. But I didn't tell her. I pretended to finger the fabrics, because that's what you do in fabric stores. Eventually she went away and left me alone.

Which is when I discovered a bolt of fusible vinyl. It's a thin vinyl coating that you iron on to a fabric to make it waterproof. How about that ... exactly what I was asking for, but I had to find it myself.

It's a freakin' specialty fabric store ... staff are not only supposed to know every single stinkin' thread in the place, but also what do to with it.

Oh well.

Clutching the bolt of stuff to my chest, I then went a-wandering looking for fabric to please a hippie.

I think I found some good stuff.

Now, bear in mind that I have no idea how to make a pattern, or how to put this thing together.

I knew the basic shape I was going for ... a rectangle.

And I foolishly decided that the flap should be pointy. Making things pointy in sewing can be a challenge. And I decided on a really narrow seam allowance of 1/4 inch (this translates to "not much margin for error).

Part of the adventure involved ironing the vinyl stuff onto the cotton I had chosen. Okay, adventure translates to "trying not to burn myself with hot plastic while also not bonding hot plastic to my ironing board." This step went surprisingly well.

I've never worked with slippery material before, so there were a couple false starts because the fabric wouldn't feed through the machine quite right, but that is why Dritz makes seam rippers.

I should have done a proper photoessay of the whole process, but sometimes it spoils the magic when you know how it happens, right? Which translates to "I was so focused on the process that I forgot." And focused, that translates to I was really frustrated and I would have thrown the camera off the balcony with the sewing machine.

But since I live on the first floor, it would have been an empty gesture.

So, I made a lot of stuff up as I went along, ended up with a really pointy point on the flap, and found a very cool button to camoflage where I attached the velcro spot.

I hope she likes it.

And I hope that she doesn't offer me another ion cleansing footbath session in return.

I went back to the specialty fabric store and obsessed over buttons for at least 45 minutes, and picked one that was nice, but not quite what I wanted, and was $3.50 for two of the darn things.

When I got to the checkout there was a basket of clearance buttons. 50 cents for two. Moose buttons. Only ones in the basket. who would have guessed? Mother of pearl with nature scene handpanted by Chinese orphans buttons went back on the rack.

I love doing stuff like this.

When I say "I've been crocheting," I mean, "I've been crocheting obsessively."

I have finished ...

A scarf (standard winter type)

A triangle shawl with a shell border.

A bookcover.

An openwork (more girly) scarf from the leftover shawl yarn.

A cat toy (this was actually quite spur of the moment. I was at the home of the cutlery case lady watching V for Vendetta on her Solar Powered Television in her Solar Powered House and was crocheting the openwork scarf (which, interestingly, given what we were watching, is made with a V-stitch). One of her cats decided to try to help me crochet by playing with the yarn I was working with. She (the lady, not the cat) mentioned that she'd love to have a cat toy for said cat, but that just plain string was quite dangerous. I had some crochet cotton on my bag just in case I finished what I was working on. I wasn't but I set it aside and crocheted a little flat piece, and put a fancy shell edging on it. Less than 10 minutes work, and especially since she was paying attention to the movie, not me, it was really cool when I tossed it in her lap and said, "Here you go, one cat toy ..." People who don't do crafts get all impressed by that kind of thing.)

3 Hippie string market bags (two are based on the same pattern, but with a different size hook, so one is actually a wee bit smaller than the other, and another on a completely different pattern.

Two dishrags (there's a lot of leftover cotton from the market bags, but not enough to make another whole bag out of)

I'll work on some pictures of this stuff.

The scarves and the shawl are already wrapped for gifting, so I'm not able to shoot those at the moment.

Nice composite project, bamboo encased in hemlock.

It's awesome really, nice work!!

Very cool, you are Über Crafty. When I was 17 I embroidered a panel from Cheech Wizard on my jeans. I stopped after that.

Thank you!

Okay, here's some of the crochet pile.

The bookcover and the hippie bags.

You can see that the multicolored one is bigger than the mostly cream one ... same pattern, different size hooks. Actually, what's interesting about that is that the yarn manufacturer's website (Lion Brand)has the same pattern with different hook size specifications listed multiple times. I actually prefer the larger version. Either of them will hold a ton of groceries.

It seems they vary the materials and hook sizes and use the same pattern for a lot of their freebies ... that openwork V-stitch scarf I recently finished seemed really familiar ... I made it for my mom a couple of years ago in a bulky weight yarn.

The yellow and white bag is a pattern from a different manufacturer (Bernat) and is more like the European openwork "string bag" type, except for the solid bottom and handle.

Very Nice Wolf! I am blown away. :)

You can sell things on Etsy, maybe.

Could you, would you sell those on Esty or some such? Didn't Caseosene sell stuff on Esty?

Caseosene snort!...:lol2:

very nice work there wolf!

Wolf, and I'm serious, start making afgans (sp?) You could make a killing!

What, like, for the army to practice on?

wolf could breed afghans and sell them to pet stores

Love this stuff wolf!

Killer stuff, wolf! I love the moose button, love it!!

I wish I knew how to do that stuff. It must be really soothing.

I do find crochet to be very meditative. Depending on the pattern you can almost go on autopilot, at least for good bits of the time.

Did somebody say "afghans?"

I think I'm missing some, but I have no idea where momwolf might have hid them, and she's not talking. Of course there is always the possibility that she gave them as gifts without asking me (happened more than once) and there are uncounted numbers of baby blankets and wedding afghans and emergency birthday gifts that I do remember.

The "Christmas Afghan," the red and green one is a true double sided afghan ... green and red on one side, red and green on the other. There are two mile-a-minutes in there, and two ripples, one granny.

Oh, and one of those is knitted rather than crocheted ... the red, white, blue, and aqua one.

They are beautiful! You really do nice work.

Set up a site and get to selling your wares young lady!

My grandmother did it for years after her legs gave out and she did pretty darn well at it.

Serious question. How much would a hooded shawl go for?

It really depends on the complexity of the design. 5-8x materials cost wouldn't be unusual, if you want a really rough estimate.

What I'm really trying to ask is how much would you charge to make me a hooded shawl. :D I don't really need anything fancy. I want something thin enough to use to protect me from the a/c air that blows right at me.

I'll be honest in that I don't have any hooded shawl patterns, just shawls and scarves.

Lola - this is just the sort of project you need to start you on a lifetime of crochet (or knitting). There are loads of resources on youtube to get you started. And just think how cool it'd be to say "I made it myself" to your cow-orkers!!

Lil' Pete is about 1' into a 10' Dr. Who scarf.

I have a Doctor-sized scarf, but it's not in the official color scheme, because I couldn't be bothered to search them all down or pay attention to the striping pattern.

Mine is in black and cream.