Making fringe for the play

This is not a tutorial on how to do this.  This is just us showing you what we have been up to.  But if you are use to making things there should be enough info in these photos that you could make your own too.

So my oldest daughter and myself are making fringe together for the costume prayer shawls.  The reason I say costume as usually these are woven and the like to specific requirements.  I wish I had the time and knowledge to do them that way. Maybe in the future I can but for now I must make something that will look similar on stage.  We are making fringe to sew onto the bottom of the shawls where there would usually be fringe from the warp threads.  These are just a simulation of that.  I will learn how to make the tassels to add to the four corners.  For those people who might read this who are Jewish please realize we wish we could have real prayer shawls and not fakes as we are not trying to offend anyone with a fake.  Just real ones cost 350 to 1000 dollars a piece and that is no way in the budge of this production. All the supplies for the shawls I have donated to the production from my own stock of craft items.  So I am making them out of what I can no disrespect intended at all.

This is what it looks like on the costume prayer shawl  it takes 2 1/2-3 hours per shawl to make the fringe that does not count making the shawl itself adding the stripes and attaching the fringe.  Each shawl has about 7 to 10 hours in time in it.  Making 11 sets of fringe( 2 per shawl) thank goodness my daughter is helping me or it wouldn't get done in time.

Fiddler on The Roof

I am doing the costume designs for Fiddler on the Roof. So my kitchen table has become my construction zone as well as a few other spots in the house.  I love my family they are so patient for not having a place to eat for a while.

I am crocheting, knitting, sewing, weaving, fringing you name it we are doing it for the costumes with only about 15 days till performance sort of a craziness in the house.  I still have to figure out how to make the tassels that go on the corners of the prayer shawls will get that done just takes time oh yeah I don't have that but will get it done anyway.  We are having so much fun doing there is no sarcasm in that at all.  We are all working together it is great.My children are helping my oldest learned how to do a hand woven twisted with a crochet headband fringe.

The youngest is doing her best to be happy with all of her sisters and me tag teaming to make sure she is happy (she has had a fever of 102 on and off for 3 days).  Like I said all little troopers the lot of them the littlest one I hope has made a turn for the better last night see didn't sleep through the night yet but she didn't feel like she needed fever reducing medicine either that was the first in 2 1/2 days.  She had been counting down the mins. till her next dose before last night.  I love them so much I have the best family in the world I promise.

Large snow queen shawl progress

I have made some progress on this bu tit goes pretty slow now that it has this many rounds and is in a size 10 thread.

pattern

Valentine afghan done

 

This is the afghan that my youngest daughter started over 1 1/2 years ago.  She finally completed it today after it sitting around for a while with only two rows left to do.  it is the only afghan in our home that all four of us ( me and my daughters) have worked on.  At different points in time we have all sat down to help her when she was getting burned out on it.  She is very excited that she gets to put it on her bed tonight and sleep with it instead of it being in the plastic tote work box it has been stored in for so long.  She wanted to quit so many times at first because she didn't like her stitches later because the rounds had gotten so large it took her hours to complete one round.  She persevered and now has an afghan that she can take with her when she is grow up and can say all her sisters and her mom worked together to make this. She learned so much in the making of this afghan from holding the hook to tension and that not all things made in life come easy or are quick to do.  Sometimes having help in life is a good thing at first she didn't want help but needed it at the end she did not need the help but liked it when given.  She went from a little girl who was just learning to read and hated it to a little girl who likes to read.  It is amazing how much life changed during the course of this blanket we moved switched schools,  have had major life events and this blanket ties them all together and she will have it for many years to come. That may sound like a lot for one afghan but that is how it is and life continues to grow and change and have milestones and isn't it wonderful.

Merry Christmas

Amigurumi year

 

This last year my children have gotten into making crochet and knitted Amigurumi (first knitted one made ,kyesterday) .  They have improved much over the year.  This is not all of the amigurumi they have made as a they have given them to friends and such.  But it does show how their talents over the year have progressed the earl ones you could see the stuffing but now you can not see it any more.They have made most of these only 2 have I made for them as gifts.  I don't know how well it shows up in the photos but one of the turtles tucks into himself that is why there are two photos of that one.  One with it out and one with it tucked in.

Blue Ice Queen

This is a project I started yesterday morning. It is mostly done; I want to make it a little longer so it is easier to wrap around. The yarn has a metallic thread in it which I think you can see in the photos. I have done this in a size 4 weight yarn, so it is much thicker and warmer than the first snow queens that had been done in a size 10 thread. This one is a little more causal in look than the first ones, as well. I like it just as much; I think it would still work for dress up on a winter's day.
This was made in the same way as the white snow queens; I did not do the modifications that I showed on the Golden queen version. The golden version is less lacy, to me, and I wanted this to have more of a lace look and less of a flouncy look.

Golden Queen Sweater

This is a mixture of the crochet shawl pattern and some knitting to make a sweater. The sweater is on the wrong mannequin. When it is on the correct one (the one with the apron) the holes are not in weird locations. The solid band of knitting actually goes over the breast area instead of weird holes. I was too lazy to undress the correct mannequin this morning to make it look right. Just wanted to show what I have been working on in the last few days.

On this sweater there will be cables running down both sides of the front and one center back. When finished there will also be cables running down the center of both sleeves, they will be long sleeves. The solid horizontal band you see will actually run over the top of the bosom not below it and will look more correct. It will have embroidery on it, as well. I plan to wear this with a skirt I have that has battenberg lace on it that I got from Anthropologie over a year ago. I have had issues trying to get something to go with that skirt, so I hope this will work. I think my camera was getting into the festivities of the holiday; I have no idea why I have so many light spots in the photos when the item is a solid color, not mottled.

Snow queen Update

I had some testers testing the snow queen and I went back this morning and worked strictly from the pattern and, between all of us, we have found a few mistakes. They have since been corrected on the blog (the English version) and on Ravelry (the English version). I am not able to update the French version; sorry for that.

crocodile stitch

This is a similar in concept, meaning three-dimensional of look, to the snow queen. It's not the same, but it's pretty cool anyway. It is in Portuguese, but I thought it was neat enough for you to see. If you know how to crochet the visuals should be enough for you to understand how to do this.
I might have these in the wrong order; each one is roughly 10 mins., some are much shorter. She talks a lot; wish I understood her better because I am sure with that much talking I must be missing something. There are 10 videos. I have figured out she is explaining how to make the dress starting at the bottom hem up. I am not interested in making this dress, just the techniques employed.


There are some patterns on Ravelry that incorporate this technique if you like it. I have two of them, just have not looked at them yet. I wanted to try and understand what the stitches did before I read the patterns so in case they don't make sense to me.

part 1 explaining first row

part 2 explaining second row

part 3 explaining 1st round of decreases

part 4: cutting and attaching thread to side to make front section of dress while making the back section open

part 5: filling decreases on back and showing back opening

part 6 continuing decreases

part 7 (haven't a clue what she was showing here) I think she is saying to go straight up sides till you get to under arm.


part 8 after having traveled straight up the side with out decreasing. Also showing how to secure stitches to go under arm

part 9 decreasing around the bust edges, sloping in

part 10 just showing lacing of the dress and the cord to make the lacing



update July 31, 2011
Found some more tutorials on this in English though



Update Aug 3 2011
found a pattern on ravelry for free with a tutorial if you wan to try it follow link below

Golden Queen Progress

Here is the progress I have made on this one so far.  Has a long way to go still but it is neat with the modifications I made to the pattern.  It is hard to tell in these  photos but there is much more texture in this shawl as opposed to the other one. The other shawl has a much more refined look to it which I like as well.

Errata for snow queen

I am posting this more for the Ravelry downloads than my blog readers because I will go and correct the blog post in a few seconds.

was:
3. (right side) chain 6 sc in 3rd chain from hook (counts as first treble and first picot

should be:
3. (right side) chain 7 sc in 3rd chain from hook (counts as first treble and first picot

french errata in comments below

yellow wool snow queen

Making a slight modification to the pattern instead of placing the sc around the treble crochet posts one row below as with row 4 going around post of the treble crochet on row three. Row four is going around treble crochet posts of row 2 and row 7 is going around the posts on line 5 and so on through out the pattern. I am hoping this will make the 3-D effect larger and more prominent and the fans more free to move.

Because I am using a much larger yarn I am also using a much larger hook; this should progress much faster.

If I was doing this with the same size thread as the other three snow queens I am working, because the shells/fans overlap more it would actually take more time and more yarn to do it that way. However, it would be very lovely that way; I may still do it, but I might want to do that in size 30 thread instead.

Because this is yellow wool I just could not bring myself to call this the yellow snow queen shawl; just too many bad images there. ;0)

Snow Queen/ Medium Neck Shawl

I have the snow queen to the point where it could be worn as a medium neck shawl/scarf. Progress has been made but, of course, each round takes longer and longer to do. So progress posts will not be as frequent.

At this size it could also be used as a small hip scarf. I actually like to wear hip scarves a lot.