Bullion Stitch Roses

Huzzaah, another embroidery-milestone passed! I have expanded my repertoire of stitches by learning how to do the bullion stitch. There are loads of helpful videos on YouTube (and twice as much unhelpful ones) that teach you how to master this stitch, but the one that I actually understood was a video that shows you how to do Bullion Roses and French Knots that are used to embellish the Bridge of Roses socks by Knitters Brewing Company. Click here to see the video.

Happy knitting, everyone, hope you enjoy the video, I surely found it useful!

Quick Photo Enhancement Tutorial

The wonderful thing about Etsy is how supportive people are. There are a lot of helpful forums for generic discussions on selling crafts, supplies and vintage, guides to help newbies get started and loads more. When ever I've encountered a problem on Etsy, be it pricing, pictures, new banner etc, I've always found people on the forums extremely helpful and happy to be of service. I have recieved so much help through the forums I am myself extremely happy if I can pass on any nuggets of info to someone else in need.

Handmade Beaded Necklace

Yesterday I came across a lovely lady, Terri Richard, in one of the forums and we soon engaged in a very lengthy conversation about improving one's photos. Terri lives in Newton, North Carolina and makes wonderful unique jewelry. Due to her disability she is unable to be in the workforce, so her Etsy shop, Havenwood  is a good possible source of income for her and her husband Bill (who judging by the way she talks about him is an angel sent to earth).

After just a few convo's my heart had warmed up to her, she's a true trooper and has overcome a lot! In effort to try help her out with her shop I took one of her pics and thought I'd share how she can improve it in a matter of seconds. As this is as simple as 1-2-3, I thought I'd share this nugget with my dear blog readers too. I'm by no means a pro, but here's a quick tip on how to get your white background even whiter.


Before you start, check if your camera has a "set white balance" function, most cameras do. White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. If you don't and you have a picture you've taken against a white background but that does not look white on your photo here's how you can tweak the picture using pixlr, a free online photo editor.

1) Go to http://pixlr.com/editor/ and open a picture you wish to work on

2) Go to "Adjustment" and select "Curves"

3) Grab the curb and drag it up.

You will see pretty quickly which way to drag it in order to achieve desired effect. Don't over-do it, always make sure that the item you have photographed looks natural. If you can't get the background to desired shade of white without distorting the other colors, go take a better picture and use plenty of natural light!

4) Save.

See the difference? It's a small, but significant change, and all in a matter of seconds.

Handmade Beaded Necklace - before

Handmade Beaded Necklace - after

Handmade Beaded Dangle Earrings - after

Handmade Beaded Dangle Earrings- before

Handmade Peace Sign Earrings - before

Handmade Peace Sign Earrings - after

Hope this helps Terri or anyone else willing to get their white backgrounds look crisp and clear with a flick of the wrist :)

All featured jewelry on this blog post from Terri and Bill's shop at www.havenwood.etsy.com published with their permission.

Anti-Depressant Socks And Other Spring Crafts

Spring time in Finland means 3 months of watching the snow melt followed by a brief two week run when everything explodes into blossom. Most of what we call spring isn't that glamorous. Instead of cherry blossoms and daffodils we have heaps of half melted snow, brown patches of last year's grass shyly peeking from under the blanket of snow and dog poo that has been lurking between layers of fresh snow all winter. The color palet of a Finnish Spring on the first of April is dirty grey, dirty brown and dirty snow. There's still time before the Big Green Bang.

Hence a little color therapy is in place!
Easter is next week so I made little egg decorations for my wreath. It really is the handiest of wreaths, it's made out of thick rugged roots and gives a lovely contrast to any seasonal decorations I've had on it so far. I cut little egg shapes out of thick craft felt and decorated them with little strips of thinner craft felt and a few embroidery stitches here and there. Simple but effective!

I also made a pair of anti-depressant socks for myself. I started knitting with the orange thread and was going to make knitted easter eggs (very easy to follow pattern here) but after a few rows I found myself knitting something a lot larger. It became a sock. A super stripy sock knitted from toe up. I've never made toe up socks before and neither have I knitted both socks at the same time, I've always made socks one at a time and I gotta say working with both socks at the same time makes it so much more easier. I often find it tedious to start again after just finishing the first sock. Now I didn't have that problem. Plus it was easier than I thought to knit from toe up. Will deffo do it again and maybe next time write down the pattern instead of just winging it :)

I love the way these turned out! Knitting with 15 different colors meant a lot of yarn ends to be darned in (120 in total!!!) but it was all worth it. These super trippy socks are like wearable anti-depressants. I wore them out yesterday and through out the day where ever I was I found myself staring at the bright and almost annoying colors and smiling. It works!

What do you think? Super trippy or super annoying?

Knitted Felted Tote Bags

Ha! After tediously trying and testing over and over again I finally managed to do kitchener stitches! Kitchener stitch is a neat way to combine two pieces of knitting without seams and is handy for handles and such.

I managed to use it in two different kinds of bags, both large tote bags. The first I made was this lilac beauty with a long strap to wear around the neck. I don't quite know how I did it, but I did!

Then I moved on to try it on a bit of a more challenging piece. The pink bag has pretty plaited straps. I did them by knitting twelve (twelve!!) i-cords, 6 on each side. I plaited three together and then using kitchener stitch joined them with three shorter ones, creating a seamless plait handle. It was tricky but I did it! Don't ask me how, I still don't understand how I pulled it off, I just tried and tried until the stitches were right. If I ever fully come to comprehend what is the logic here, I will surely share it. Until then there is nothing to do but accept the mystery!

Spring Craft Sale!

Just a reminder for my local friends; Kerava Käsintaitajat ry (non-profit organization) has taken over Galleria Alli for the next few weeks. From today until the 1st of April you can find beautiful and unique handicrafts from local artists and artisans, both professional and us dilettantes. Opening hours mon-fri 12-18 and sat-sun 10-16. WELCOME!

photo courtesy of Keravan Käsintaitajat ry

New Hang Tags & New Bag

New and improved hang tags

Old hang tags

I'm getting ready for local craft sale by Keravan Käsintaitajat ry starting next week. I'm feverishly finishing new bags for the sale, as I don't want to put my Etsy shop on vocation mode as I did during Christmas sale. I've now got 3 new bags finished out of the 6 I was planning to make. Dead line is tomorrow. Ooops.

Anyways, I've made some new hang tags and am extremely happy with the way they turned out, make my bags look more professional and less hobby-y. I also made some iron on labels to go on the inside of the bags, unfortunately don't have a picture of one at the moment, but those turned out great also. So I'm almost ready to start the spring sale :)

Next up is renewing business cards, but I might just order them instead of making them myself, don't think my printer would love thick carton paper.

Cinnamon Roll Cake + Old Furniture = Happy Days!

'

nothing beats fresh ground coffee in the morning

Cinnamon roll cake (recipe below)

I'm currently on a long sick leave from work, so I have plenty of time in my hands. Time to meet up with my amazing father, sit in the coffee table for four hours eating cinnamon roll cake and drinking fresh ground coffee. Time to finally, with the help from my dad, finish the 80 year old chair I've been working on since 2006. Time to finish my desk made out of an old sewing machine stand and a glulam board.

Look, I used to have a waist!

The chair used to belong to my grandfather and as my mom estimated, it's been in the family for at least 80 years. It has been black, white and all sorts of colors along it's life, but in 2006 I stripped it of it's layers of varnish and paint and oiled it to a more natural, rustic look. I just didn't have a seat cushion for it, so it was left in storage for several years.

When my parents moved house it re-emerged from it's slumber and was sent to my aunt, a retired upholsterer who kindly made a new seat cushion for the chair. How wonderful it is to belong to such a crafty family! As a small token of gratitude I in return sent her a rose embroidered pin cushion in a tin tartlet, handy for her many sewing projects and in a color I know she adores.

Me and my dad fixed the cushion into the chair and voilá! The chair is in use again :)

The Husqvarna sewing machine stand was found abandoned at a storage my parents used to have their stuff in. I saw it when rummaging through my parents' many a treasure and fell in love. It still had the sewing machine on it, but my crafty father took it apart and the stand has since been taking out space in our storage room. Yesterday, finally, we managed to screw on a glulam board and it was then ready to recieve the finishing touches; a layer of Maston WOODmix Wood Wax in shade of cognac.

When picking up the shade in the shop, we couldn't find a sample of the color, so chose it based only on the picture on the tin. ERROR! It turned out a lot darker than I imagined, only did one layer and it looks awafully mismatched with the chair. Goes to show decisions like this should not be made hastily. But as I say, only the victims of unavoidable circumstances have the right to whine, victims of their own choices are denied this right. So I'll just have to live with it :)

I'm not much of a baker, but now with all this time in my hands, I'm trying new recipes. This one I simply MUST share, the cinnamon roll cake turned out sooooo yummy and quite easy to make I simply gotta share it. (Or more accurately; I gotta write down the ingredients somewhere I can easily find them again to re-do this beauty some day)

Finnish Cinnamon Roll Cake 

(or as it is called in Finland; "Boston cake")

ingredients:

for the dough
250 ml water or milk (I used water though recipe originally was made for milk)
25 g fresh yeast

1 egg
1 tsp salt
100 ml sugar
1 tbsp ground cardamom

~800 ml all-purpose flour
150 g soft butter

for the filling
~50 g soft butter
~1 tbsp cinnamon
150 ml chopped almonds
1 tart apple coarsely shredded
for the icing
200 ml icing sugar
1 tbsp of luke warm water

Take ingredients out from fridge about 2 hours before starting to cook, all ingredients should be luke warm before baking. Crumble yeast into luke warm water or milk. Stir until the yeast has dissolved.

In a mixing bowl, add egg, sugar, salt and ground cardamom and blend well. Start adding the flour and stir until you have a gruel-like consistency, then work in the butter (this is easiest with a mixer with dough hooks). Knead in the rest of the flour (start off with a bit less than 4 dl and add as needed) until you have a nice elastic dough.

Cover with a kitchen towel or cling film and let stand until the dough's doubled in size. While the dough rises, ground the pealed apple into a bowl and mix with sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts. The nuts will then have plenty of time to soften while the dough rises.

Once the dough is risen punch out the air from it gently. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to a ~30x40 cm rectangle. Spread the rectangle with butter and then the apple-nut mixture making sure to get filling right up to the edges. Beginning on the longer side, roll up to a log.

Cut the log into thick slices and arrange in a buttered pan (about 25 cm in diameter), cut-side up. They'll rise and spread quite a bit, so you need to give them a bit of space. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for half an hour.

Original recipe instructed to cook in 200°C for 30 minutes, but mine took a lot longer than that to cook. You can test if the cake is done by sticking a tooth pick into the cake, if the dough clings to the tooth pick, you need to cook it a while longer. Reduce temperature if after 30min it is still raw (we don't want the surface to burn).

Let the cake cool completely. Mix the icing sugar with water and drizzle over the cake. 

(thanks to deinin, I used her Spicy swirl cake - blog post as a source for translating my version of the recipe (lazy ass me). Check out her version too, sounds delish!)