Christmas 2014 saw me doing exactly zero sewing. That’s not to say I didn’t work with fabric. I stretched my crocheting knowledge and stenciled designs on a pre-made napkin and pint glasses. Here are a few pics:
Chevron Crochet Scarf. Double Crochet.
More after the jump.
Chevron Crochet Scarf. Double Crochet.
Wave Pattern Crochet Scarf. A series of single, double and double crochet together stitches.
My non-fabric gifts involved something I’ve long wanted to be able to do at professional quality level – make stencils. There may be something charming about hand cutting a stencil, but I draw the line at fairly large and not terribly detailed stencils and definitely don’t want to hand cut anything with small text. I don’t have the patience to use a magnifying glass to cut bits out. Enter the Silhouette American Cameo Machine, which allows you to use digitized files to cut stencils from sticky-backed vinyl, paper, cardstock, fabric, etc, etc. I opted for the vinyl since I wanted great detail and was using fabric paint and etching cream. Had the designs been less detailed (on the fabric gift) I might have tried stencil plastic sheets. The biggest drawback of the vinyl was that it couldn’t be removed for reuse; removing it destroyed some of the smaller details. Each stencil was single use, meaning I could only make one of these napkins.
The Just As Well design is a combination of borrowed and my own images. It originated with a brunch cocktail in the New Orleans’ restaurant Tableau this past October. The drink is a variation on an Old Fashioned which uses a unique Bitters (regional and seasonal Bitterman’s New England Spiced Cranberry Bitters), rosemary infused simple syrup and lemon juice. It only took two tries to get the recipe right. I even found the specific bourbon the restaurant uses and some classy 60’s silver rimmed coupe glasses to complete the gift.
The second design is also a combination of borrowed art and my own design. It’s a take on the classic Viking Urnes style art which often depicts stylized hounds and snakes. The hound came from Courtney Davis‘ Viking Tattoo Workbook and I added the snake. I did these in vinyl as well and used etching cream to make these awesome pint glasses.
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