It’s been a while since we talked loom-knitting around here.  Ever since I got the hang of the needles, my knitting loom collection has been languishing in the basement.  There is one project, however, that has routinely seen me dust off the little blue knifty knitter and take it for a spin.

I’m going to give you a little back story, and then present this really great knitting loom pattern, followed by some images and descriptions that should help you to master the stitches, even if you are brand new to looming.  And finally, look for Episode 2 of the Polka Dot Cottage Video Blog at the end of the post. I’ll demonstrate the whole process and give you a few hints and tips, too.

The back story

See, back in the olden days of 2009, I was growing steadily more enamored with knitting, but I was entirely befuddled by needles, and only ever had any success when knitting on a loom.  I was dissatisfied with many of the patterns that were written especially for the loom – they looked cheap, un-stylish, and out-of-date – and so I began looking to traditional needle-knitting patterns for projects that were current, and ripe for “translating” to the loom.

Knifty Knitters are comparable to needle sizes #10 – #13, depending on how tightly you tend to knit.  That means they work best with bulky yarn.  You can use them to knit in the round, or you can choose not to close the circle, and make a simple flat panel.  What this means is that you can generally do any bulky-yarn needle-knit rectangular pattern on a Knifty Knitter!

There are other patterns that also translate well, and other looms you can use too, but those are for another post, another day.

If you are unfamiliar with knitting looms, or if your experience is limited to the spool-knitting of your youth, you may not realize that knitting looms are capable of multiple stitches.  The most popular stitch is of course the knit stitch, which you achieve by pulling the lower loop over the upper loop and right on over the peg.  It’s an extremely simple stitch, and you could very easily churn out hundreds of bulky knit-stitch hats and get more than your money’s worth out of your loom.  But you’d be missing out on half of the fun.

Yes, you can knit with a loom, but did you know you can also purl?  You can make cables and bobbles. You can even increase and decrease, although this poses some difficulty, in certain situations.

So, back to 2009.  I was a loom-knitter looking for a neckwarmer pattern that didn’t have that “I was knit on a loom using one boring stitch and cheap-ass yarn” aesthetic.  Ravelry lead me to Kim K’s Cashmere Neckwarmer pattern.  It was perfect:

• It required bulky yarn
• It was a rectangular shape with no increases or decreases to worry about
• It was hip-looking with an interesting stitch pattern

I set to work translating the pattern for my own personal use on the loom, and since then I have made somewhere around a dozen of them in some form or another.  Even after learning to knit with needles, I still go back to the loom when I want to make one of these.

The pattern

If you knit with needles, and would like to continue to do so, check out the original pattern here, and just make it as written.  My thanks to Kim, who cheerfully gave me the ok to share my loomy take on her pattern.

The original pattern calls for a ball of cashmere yarn, but I have made all of mine in Malabrigo Chunky and they are positively wonderful.  So soft and lovely on the neck, and not as pricey as cashmere.  I do recommend using nice yarn here.  It really makes all of the difference!  I made one in an acrylic blend once and promptly regretted it.

Materials

• One skein of Malabrigo Chunky (104 yards)
• Small blue Knifty Knitter (available by itself or as part of a set) with knitting tool
• 1 cool button, 1″ – 1.5″
• Tapestry needle

Gauge

Not terribly important here, but 3 stitches and 3 rows is roughly 1 inch

Finished Size

25″ x 4.5″

Directions

See the directions below to learn the e-wrap cast-on, the knit stitch, the “slip 1 with yarn in front” stitch, the basic bind-off, and how to make an i-cord.

• CO 15 stitches using the e-wrap method.
• Row 1: K1, slip 1 wyif, repeat until end.
• Row 2: Knit back to beginning of row.
• Row 3: K2, *slip 1 wyif, k1 repeat from * to the end.
• Row 4: Knit back to beginning of row.
• Repeat these four rows fifty times (200 rows total), or until you reach the desired length, roughly 25 inches.
• I-cord buttonhole: Along the cast on edge, starting at the 5th stitch “in” place the next 3 stitches back onto pegs. Work i-cord for approximately 2.5″ and bind off.
• Seam i-cord to cast on edge.
• Block neckwarmer to help tame curving edges, and to give some softness and drape to the piece.
• Sew button on in desired location.

This pattern takes me at most two nights to knit in front of the TV!

Stitches and such

E-wrap cast-on

Make a slip knot, and put the loop over the 1st peg.

The tail should be on the inside of the loom. Run the working yarn behind the 2nd  peg, and then wrap it around the front of the peg.  Bring the yarn back behind the 2nd and 3rd pegs, and wrap it around the front of the 3rd peg.  Continue in this manner until you have wrapped 15 pegs.

Bring the working yarn in front of all of the pegs and hold it in place above the loops.  Use the knitting tool to pick up the loop on peg 15, pull it over the working yarn and completely over the peg. You will be left with one new loop on the peg.  Do the same for peg 14 and all remaining pegs.

You have now cast on fifteen stitches.

Knit stitch

This is the simplest and most common of the stitches.

With the working yarn held in the front of the peg, and above the loop, use the knitting tool to pick up the loop, and pull it over the working yarn and the peg.

Slip 1 wyif

To slip a stitch, is to leave the loop on the peg and not knit it at all.  To slip it with yarn in front (or wyif), you will need to first use the knitting tool to remove the loop from the peg, slide the working yarn behind the peg but in front of the loop on your tool, and then place the loop back on the peg.

Basic bind-off

Knit peg 1 and peg 2.

Move peg 2′s loop onto peg 1, and knit it. Move the resulting loop off of peg 1 and onto peg 2.  Knit peg 3 and repeat the process.

Continue in this manner until you have one loop remaining.  Break the yarn, slip the loop off of the last peg, thread the tail through the loop, and pull gently to close the loop.

I-cord

Place three of the stitches from the cast-on edge back on the loom and knit them until you have a long enough cord to make a button loop.  Bind off the three stitches, and sew the tail into the cast-on edge to make a loop.

The video

Did you get all that?  Need to see something demonstrated?  Want a few tips and hints?  I video blogged every step.  Happy viewing!

If you have any questions about the process, please be sure to leave them here.  I will do my best to answer!

I hope I’ve enticed some of you to give another look to looming, especially if you’ve wanted to get into needlecrafts but have been unsuccessful, or have felt intimidated.  Loom knitting is as simple as pulling a loop over a peg.  Over, and over, and over.

Add a few other simple techniques, and you can have a finished product to be proud of!

Want to learn more about looming? I can recommend these books and these looms. All but the very smallest knifty knitter on that page will work for this project.

The Fiesta Hats pattern I mentioned in my P.S. can be found here.

Video soundtrack was “Ordinary Girl” from A Few Songs of the Week (Helen Austin) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Luxurious Loom-Knit Neckwarmer

If you have ever wished for a knitting loom pattern that didn't scream, “I was made on a tool marketed towards children!” then your search may be over. This tutorial walks you step-by-step through the creation of a lovely grown-up neckwarmer, and teaches you looming basics, at the same time.

This tutorial is available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have a handy 9-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $0.99

So here we are at Week Five.  We’ve learned how to make four different types of buttons, and we have a small pile of “scrap” clay leftover from the last two lessons.  Today I’ll show you how to use techniques we’ve learned in class to turn those scraps into a nice little pile of bonus buttons.

If you need a refresher on Conditioning or Baking your clay, you can find these instructions, as well as a Supplies + Tools list in Lesson One.

Additional Tools

• miscellaneous small cutters in your choice of shape.  I am using a 1.25-inch circle cutter and a .75-inch square cutter.
• brayer or acrylic rod.
• sheet of plastic wrap like Saranwrap or deli wrap.

Directions

You should have a small pile of scrap clay leftover from the previous two lessons.

Note: If you don’t have scrap clay handy, you can use some of your remaining solid colors and mush them together a few times so that they resemble a pile of scraps.

Press your scraps together in your hand until they form a short log.  Grasp the log at each end, and turn your hands in opposite directions, in order to twist the log and form thick stripes. Roll between your palms to smooth the edges.

Place the striped snake on your work surface and roll it back and forth to smooth and elongate it. Use both palms, one at each end, gently guiding the snake towards the edges of your work surface, but in opposite directions – the movement will lengthen the snake, and at the same time, tighten the striping.

Trim the messy ends off of the snake, and begin coiling the snake.

Continue coiling until you reach the end of the snake, and you should have a large striped snail shell.

Use the brayer to flatten the shell into a 1/4-inch slab.

Place a sheet of plastic wrap on top of the slab, and use your cutters to cut out as many buttons as you possibly can.

Poke holes in the buttons, and set the buttons aside on your baking tray.

You now have a new pile of scrap clay, made up of the remaining slab, and the two messy ends that you cut off of the snake.  Take all of these scraps and repeat the process: form thick snake, twist into stripes, roll out thin & long, coil it, flatten into slab.

Again, cover the slab with plastic wrap and cut out some more buttons.  These will be similar to the first, but the striping on them is likely to be somewhat tighter, and you will begin seeing more secondary colors as the original clays combine with each other.

You will have more clay leftover after this pass.  Continue to repeat the process, until you are left with an amount of scrap that feels too small to turn into a slab.  At this point, skip the slabbing step, and simply turn the whole snake into a single striped snail shell focal button.

The shape and quantity of the buttons you get out of your scrap clay will vary, of course, but in this particular case I ended up with ten extra buttons.  Not bad for materials that were going to go to waste otherwise, eh?

Your turn

Let’s see what your scrap can do! If you have any questions, you may leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. Once your buttons are done, I hope you will blog about them, or post them to flickr, and leave your link below so we can all see how you did!

<a href="http://lisaclarke.net/tag/beginner-button-class/"><img src="http://lisaclarke.net/images/host_bbc.png" alt="Beginner Button Class at Polka Dot Cottage" /></a>

Next week

I’ve decided to add a bonus lesson: Taking it to the Next Level, with hints and resources for those of you who want to go further and make their buttons look more “professional.”  Meet me back here for that next week!

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Beginner Button Class

Here, collected together, are five complete lessons that take you from the very basics of polymer clay, to a big bowl of coordinated buttons in varying shapes, styles, and sizes.

These lessons are available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have all five lessons in one handy 21-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $4.99

[Sorry I'm late with this lesson - the stomach bug got me. Let's hope I've manage to be coherent with this through the last remnants of my fever!]

I hope you enjoyed making the Assymetrical Stripe Buttons last week. Be sure to go back and check the comments and galleries on the previous lessons, because often there are questions asked and answered – you might find the extra information helpful.

For this fourth lesson, we will be making large beveled-edge polka dot buttons. We’ll be making six of them, two in each background color.

If you need a refresher on Conditioning or Baking your clay, you can find these instructions, as well as a Supplies + Tools list in Lesson One.

Additional Tools

• 1.25-inch round cutter. You can use the smaller cutter from the previous lesson for this, if you don’t want to buy another cutter. The technique is the same, you will just end up with smaller [and more] buttons.
• brayer or acrylic rod.
• sheet of plastic wrap like Saranwrap or deli wrap.

Directions

Just like we did with the striped buttons, we are going to start this set by flattening out a slab of clay. This time, though, we are using an entire 1/4 piece so that we may have enough space to cut out two large buttons.

Condition and roll out your base color until it’s between 1/8-inch and 1/4-inch thick. The slab should be large enough to cut out two buttons with your large circle cutter.

Pinch of tiny pieces of clay in your two accent colors, and roll them between your fingers into 1/8-inch balls.

Press the balls into the slab, flattening them as you do. Continue until you have a pleasing pattern.

Use the brayer to make sure the dots are firmly adhered to the base. It is not necessary to smooth out the joins between the two colors, but you can do so, if you like. Just be careful not to thin the base layer out too much.

Roll in multiple directions to avoid distorting the dots into ovals.

Place the sheet of plastic wrap over your slab, smoothing it down with your finger.

Cut your buttons, right through the plastic wrap, repositioning the wrap after each cut.

Do you see how nice and smooth the edges of these buttons are compared to the last set we made? The plastic wrap softens and bevels the cut edges.

Poke your holes, and you’re good to go!

Your turn

Go have some fun with polka dots! If you have any questions, you may leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. Once your buttons are done, I hope you will blog about them, or post them to flickr, and leave your link below so we can all see how you did!

<a href="http://lisaclarke.net/tag/beginner-button-class/"><img src="http://lisaclarke.net/images/host_bbc.png" alt="Beginner Button Class at Polka Dot Cottage" /></a>

Next week

Buttons made from leftover scrap clay!

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Beginner Button Class

Here, collected together, are five complete lessons that take you from the very basics of polymer clay, to a big bowl of coordinated buttons in varying shapes, styles, and sizes.

These lessons are available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have all five lessons in one handy 21-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $4.99

So how was Lesson Two of the Beginner Button Class for you?  There weren’t very many comments or additions to the gallery.  Don’t be shy!  If you have questions, please ask them.  And if you make the buttons, please show them off! The galleries will remain open for at least a month after the lessons are posted (I’m considering leaving them open even longer), so jump in whenever you can.

For this third lesson, we will be creating stripes, and using a cookie cutter to make consistently-shaped buttons. We’ll be making nine of them, three in each background color.

If you need a refresher on Conditioning or Baking your clay, you can find these instructions, as well as a Supplies + Tools list in Lesson One.

Additional Tools

• 3/4-inch round cutter.  I have a large nested set like this one, which I love, but you can find smaller more affordable options at Polymer Clay Express, if you can’t find them locally.
• brayer or acrylic rod.  Or, even the side of a straight-sided drinking glass that is no longer being used in the kitchen.  You just need something to flatten snakes of clay with.

Directions

For these buttons, we’ll be using 1/4 block of each color.  Cut each quarter in half, and then one of each half in half again, so that you have three pieces (2 small, one larger) of each color as shown.  Select one of the larger pieces to use as your base, and two of the smaller pieces to use as stripes, and set the other sections aside.

Condition the sections, and then use the brayer to roll out the larger piece to roughly 1/8-inch thickness.  Roll the two smaller pieces into snakes (as shown in Lesson Two).  They should be super skinny, about 1/8-inch wide.

Cut the snakes into 4 or 5 pieces, and lay them on top of the base, alternating colors, and pressing them down with your finger as you go.  Be sure to leave some space between the stripes so that the base color can show through.  The stripes will spread out as they are flattened.

Once you’ve covered the entire base with stripes, use your brayer to press the stripes into the base smoothly and evenly.

Position your cutter over the striped slab, looking through the top so as to choose the most pleasing arrangement of stripes to cut out.  You should be able to get three buttons out of this slab.

Repeat the entire process in the other two colors, for a total of nine striped buttons.  Poke your holes as usual and bake the buttons.

The rest of the slab – the parts that are too small and oddly-shaped to become a button – is the beginnings of your scrap pile.  Just press the scraps gently together in a ball-like shape, and set them aside.  We’ll be making something out of them in a future lesson.  Nothing goes to waste with polymer!

You may notice that you have extra snakes leftover.   So did I.  All this indicates is that we probably could have gotten away with using more clay for the bases, and less clay for the stripes.   If you want to try distributing your cuts differently in the first step (i.e. don’t cut it exactly in half – make the “half” that will become the slab a little bit larger than the “half” that will become the snakes) you would likely end up with fewer leftover snakes, and enough of a slab to cut out an extra button or two.  Feel free to experiment!  The worst that can happen is you end up with more for  your scrap pile.  It’s ok – there will still be enough clay left to finish the class, even if you have to re-do one of the lessons.

Your turn

Go forth and be stripey! If you have any questions, you may leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. Once your buttons are done, I hope you will blog about them, or post them to flickr, and leave your link below so we can all see how you did!

<a href=”http://lisaclarke.net/tag/beginner-button-class/”><img src=”http://lisaclarke.net/images/host_bbc.png” alt=”Beginner Button Class at Polka Dot Cottage” /></a>

Next week

Polka Dot Focal Buttons!

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Beginner Button Class

Here, collected together, are five complete lessons that take you from the very basics of polymer clay, to a big bowl of coordinated buttons in varying shapes, styles, and sizes.

These lessons are available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have all five lessons in one handy 21-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $4.99

Welcome back to the Beginner Button Class! I hope you were able to complete Lesson One without too much trouble. Have you been taking advantage of the gallery at the end of the post? Add your own buttons. Visit your classmates who have added theirs, and add a comment of support on their blogs.

For this second lesson, we will be building on the skills from last week and learning how to make snakes, twist them together, and create a snail shell shape. We’ll be making six buttons, all the same.

If you need a refresher on Conditioning or Baking your clay, you can find these instructions, as well as a Supplies + Tools list in Lesson One.

Directions

You should have three quarters plus two sixteenths of clay in each color leftover from last time. We’ll be using those smaller sixteenths today.

Condition each piece, and then roll it into a snake: You can start by rolling the clay back and forth between your palms until it begins to be elongated. Once it outgrows your palms, place it on your work surface, and roll it back and forth with one of your palms. Stop when the snake reaches about 4 or 5 inches in length. Repeat with each small piece.

Stack the six snakes on top of each other as shown. Make sure that they line up nicely at both ends of the stack, and all down the middle as well. Press gently down the length of the stack to ensure the that snakes are all adhered to each other, and to minimize air pockets between them.

Grasp the stack at each end, and turn your hands in opposite directions. This will cause the stack to twist. Press gently down the length of the twisted stack as before, and then roll between your palms to smooth the edges. Your goal here is to turn this twisted stack of separate snakes into one unified stripey snake.

Place the striped snake on your work surface and roll it back and forth to smooth and elongate it. Use both palms this time, one at each end, gently guiding the snake towards the edges of your work surface, but in opposite directions – the movement will lengthen the snake, and at the same time, tighten the striping.

Continue in this manner until your snake is roughly a foot long.

Cut the snake into six equal sections, one piece per button.

Take one of the sections, and roll it on your work surface, keeping your hand at one edge. The goal is to bring one side of the snake to a point, and make a cone shape, leaving the other edge as wide as it began. (As this is a smaller snake than the others, your palm may be too cumbersome for the job. You can switch to using a fingertip or two when you are dealing with more delicate sizes like this.)

Beginning at the pointy end, roll the snake into a coil.

Poke two holes with your knitting needle. In spacing the holes, take notice of how much thinner the center of your button is than the outer edges. Don’t put your holes too close together, or you will risk breakage in that delicate center area.

Repeat the coiling process with the other five pieces, poke some holes, bake, and there you have it: Six new Striped Snail Shell Buttons!

Your turn

Time to go make your snail buttons! If you have any questions, you may leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. Once your buttons are done, I hope you will blog about them, or post them to flickr, and leave your link below so we can all see how you did!

<a href="http://lisaclarke.net/tag/beginner-button-class/"><img src="http://lisaclarke.net/images/host_bbc.png" alt="Beginner Button Class at Polka Dot Cottage" /></a>

Next week

Asymmetrical Stripe Buttons!

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Beginner Button Class

Here, collected together, are five complete lessons that take you from the very basics of polymer clay, to a big bowl of coordinated buttons in varying shapes, styles, and sizes.

These lessons are available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have all five lessons in one handy 21-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $4.99

Welcome to the Beginner Button Class! For this first lesson, we will discuss how to prepare polymer clay for use, how to make a 1/2-inch solid-color button, and how to properly bake it. We’ll be making six buttons, two in each of three colors.

Supplies + Tools

• 3 packages of Premo! Sculpey polymer clay in your choice of colors. You may be tempted to use the less expensive Sculpey III clay. Sculpey is not as strong after baking as Premo is, and for something like buttons that will take significant wear-and-tear, including machine washing, you want to use a material that will hold up.
• Something to cut with. I like to use a Clay Blade, but they are very sharp, and if you are more comfortable with an x-acto knife, an old kitchen knife, or even a plastic knife, that will do for these purposes.
• A medium size metal knitting needle. Mine is, I think, a US #8.
• A work surface.  I use a 12-inch square ceramic tile that I picked up for about $1 at Home Depot.  Some people use marble tiles, some use glass.  If you don’t have any of these things, a piece of parchment paper taped down to your table could work in a pinch.
• A regular oven, convection oven, or toaster oven for baking your buttons, as well as a tray or tile on which to set your buttons while they bake.  I use my home oven, and a homemade contraption I will discuss in more detail later.

Safety note: Any kitchen tool you repurpose for working with clay must then be dedicated to craft use, and not returned to the kitchen!

Supply note: If you want to buy online, I recommend Polymer Clay Express for the clay and the blade (and for the lucite brayer or rod I will be recommending in a future lesson). You can also follow any links above to buy on Amazon.

Directions

Premo comes in 2-oz blocks that are scored into four sections. Using your clay blade, and being careful to point the very sharp edge down, cut one of the sections off of each block, and set aside the remaining pieces.

Cut each of these three ¼ blocks into four smaller pieces. You should now have twelve pieces. Six of these twelve will become buttons today.  The other six, set aside for later.

While your clay might feel soft and nice straight out of the package, it still needs to be conditioned.  When you condition polymer, you warm it and knead it well between your fingers.  Pick up one of your small sections and smoosh it between your fingers. Press it from all angles.  Roll it between your palms into a snake.  Ball it up and roll it into a smooth sphere.  Continue to play with it in this manner until it feels comfortable to work with.

Conditioning clay prepares it for use in any project.  It aligns the particles and plasticizers so that they will harden properly later.

Note: Failure to condition the clay may result in a weaker finished product after baking!

When your clay is conditioned and ready to use, roll it briskly around the perimeters of your palms until you have a nice, smooth ball.  It may take some practice to get it perfectly round, but the beauty of working with a solid color is that you can mush it up and start over as often as you like.

Place the ball on your work surface and press down with your thumb, flattening the ball to about 1/4 inch thick.  I like for my buttons to be as free of fingerprints as possible.  If you also feel this way, you can gently rub the top of the button with your thumb, and ease the thumbprint off.  This is fairly easy to do on a solid color button, but becomes more difficult when you begin working with patterns.  You’ll need to develop a very soft, gentle touch.

Use the knitting needle to poke two holes in the middle of the button.  Be careful to space your holes in such a way that they are far enough from the edge and far enough from each other not to leave too, too thin of a wall around them.  The less clay surrounding the holes, the more susceptible to breakage your button will be.  Try to avoid any weak points, if possible.

To make sure that the holes go all the way through from front to back, pick up your button from the work surface and re-poke the holes, this time from the back of the button.

If the button is stuck to your work surface, you can try gently nudging it up with your fingers and then smoothing any distorted areas once you have it in your hand, or you can scrape the clay blade under the button, right up against the tile, and slice the button cleanly off of the tile.  That is how I generally do it.

Repeat all of the steps, from Conditioning to Hole-Poking for the other five sections, giving you six buttons total.

The last step is to bake the buttons.  If you are the patient type, you can wait until the end of the class and bake all of your button types together at once, as I have.  If you want your solid buttons now, though, that’s fine, too!

The most important rule for curing your work is to follow the instructions on the package for the brand of polymer you are using. Sometimes companies change their formulas and the baking temperatures right along with it. As of this writing, Premo cures at 275 degrees Fahrenheit, for 30 minutes per 1/4-inch of thickness. Since our buttons are roughly 1/4 inch or less, we should give them 30 minutes.  At least.

Here’s a tip: you can bake polymer for a longer time than recommended, but never a higher temperature than recommended. I usually bake my buttons for 45 minutes or so to be safe, and most of my buttons are made in such a way as to require multiple bakings, which means that they are in the oven for well over an hour total.  But I never bake higher than 275 because burning polymer causes nasty fumes and requires you to open all of the windows and doors in your house to eradicate it.  (Don’t ask me how I know that…)

Note: An oven thermometer would be handy – you should verify that your oven is actually baking at 275 when it says it is, or you could have underbaked buttons.  Or nasty fumes.

Periodically discussions pop up in the polymer community about the safety of baking clay in the same oven where you bake your cookies.  I don’t know if anything has been resolved to anyone’s satisfaction in this matter, because I stopped paying attention to the entire conversation once I made myself an enclosed baking doohickey.  (That’s a technical term.)  It consists of two aluminum baking pans, hinged together on one side with wire.  In one of the pans I put a ceramic tile with a piece of parchment paper on top.  The buttons go on the parchment paper, and the other pan gets flipped over to cover the bottom pan.  Voila! Self-enclosed baking doohickey.  If there are cooties escaping from my claythings as they bake, they’re not landing on the walls of my oven, but in the aluminum pans.

You can get a similar effect by tenting your clay with aluminum foil, if you feel the need.

Your turn

Time to go make your first set of buttons!  If you have any questions, you may leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.  Once your buttons are done, I hope you will blog about them, or post them to flickr, and leave your link below so we can all see how you did!

<a href="http://lisaclarke.net/tag/beginner-button-class/"><img src="http://lisaclarke.net/images/host_bbc.png" alt="Beginner Button Class at Polka Dot Cottage" /></a>

Next week

Striped Snail Shell Buttons!

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Beginner Button Class

Here, collected together, are five complete lessons that take you from the very basics of polymer clay, to a big bowl of coordinated buttons in varying shapes, styles, and sizes.

These lessons are available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have all five lessons in one handy 21-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $4.99

This image, besides being of a beach on a sunny warm day, also has a bit of an old-timey look to it.  I took this picture on Point Pleasant Beach here in New Jersey in 2008, only at the time it looked like this:

While the difference between the two images is significant, the transformation is much simpler than you might think.

Want to try this yourself?  Here’s what you need:

• a nice beach picture (straight out of the camera – no edits – is fine)
• the 6th image (mostly yellow with dark blue edges) from Shadowhouse Creations’s Aged Canvas Texture Collection – the collection is free to download
• a photo-editing program.  I am using Paint Shop Pro Ultimate Photo X2, but if you know your program’s “language” well enough, you should be able to translate my steps.

Essentially, what we’ll be doing is taking the beach image and the texture image, and overlaying them on top of each other almost like a double-exposure would be on film.  And that is it.

1. Create a copy of the beach image to work with so that the original is preserved.
2. Resize the working images so that they both have the same dimensions:  Use the Resize Image tool to make the larger image the same width as the smaller image.  If the heights are not the same, then use Resize Image again to tweak the height of the texture so it matches that of the beach.  Be sure to uncheck “lock aspect ratio” so that the width is unaffected.   The aspect ratio on this particular texture isn’t critical, so it’s ok to stretch or shrink it in one direction, if necessary.  Alternately you could crop your beach image to the correct dimensions, if you prefer.
3. Select the texture and press Control-C to copy it to the clipboard.
4. Select the beach image and press Control-L to copy the texture on top of it as a new layer.
5. At this point, you won’t be able to see the beach anymore, so you will need to change the blend mode of the new layer.  I used “overlay” at 100% in this example, but you should cycle through the many blend modes and adjust the opacity to see what works well for your particular beach. The lower the opacity percentage, the more subtle the effect.

You could stop there and the image would already be pretty neat, but I went one further in an effort to bring out the white of the clouds more.  I won’t go into too many details here, since it’s an optional step, but essentially I added a Curves contrast layer and masked out the portions of the image that I didn’t want more contrast-ey (namely, anything that wasn’t a cloud or sea foam).

Textures are a really powerful tool in image enhancement.  As you can see, this little aged canvas really made a significant difference in the look and feel of the scene.  Here are a few other examples that I whipped up really quickly this morning to show you the possibilities:

Texture from Kim Klassen.  Overlay blend mode, 100% opacity.  Here I also added a subtle dark vignette in between the typewriter and the texture.

Texture from Imagenskins via Paper Heart Camera.  Multiply blend mode, 53% opacity.  Here I added a mask layer over the child (who belongs to me but wishes not to be a part of this and therefore will go unidentified) so that the texture was not covering him.

Texture from Dancing Sheba on Flickr, who I can’t seem to find anymore to link to…  Darken blend mode, 100% opacity.  I didn’t do anything extra to this one.  I just love how the pink of the post card ended up in the clouds.

Simple technique, nifty results.  Just beware – once you get hooked on this, you could find yourself downloading every free texture you can get your hands on, or even making them yourself.

Not that I have any experience with that

P.S. if you like this kind of thing, take a look at Touch-Up Tuesdays.  Following those links can give you all kinds of ideas for how to improve your own photos, as well as links to some of the tools that people are using.

(Told you I’d get more mileage out of these Christmas balls yet…)  Ok, so I’ve been super busy this week, but I have a bit of a breather today, and as luck would have it, serendipity gave me something seasonally-appropriate to blog about: gift tags!

See, I ordered this snazzy gift tag punch online last week, and it arrived a few days ago.  I had been planning on printing out some of my more festive photos and punching them into tag shapes to be used in my gift-wrapping later this month, when Tracey Clark‘s Picture the Holidays daily prompt arrived, and pushed up my plans a bit.

Turns out today’s prompt is about – you guessed it – making gift tags out of your photos.  Well, that’s cool.  Tracey provided a tutorial, but I haven’t actually looked at it yet, since I had my own ideas already percolating.

Plus, I was thinking of joining in on Mortal Muses‘ Nine Muses Musing which started today, and their prompt was “giving.”  Well, how could I not make tags and wrap my sister’s present right this very minute??

So here’s how I made the tags:

Feel free to play along

Pull the photos you want to use into your photo-editing software.  I used Paint Shop Pro X2.

For each different tag that you want to make, take the following steps:

1. Make a new working copy of your image
2. Use the CROP tool to give the image dimensions that are some multiple of 4×6, if necessary
3. RESIZE the image so that the longest side is 3.5 inches
4. Add a Raster layer with 50% opacity and fill it with solid white
5. Use the SELECT tool on the “rounded rectangle” setting, to select a box inside the image, leaving a fairly wide border
6. Invert the selection
7. Making sure you are working on the white-filled raster layer, delete the selected area – you should be left with a rounded translucent box in the middle of the image
8. Using the TEXT tool and your favorite font (I like French Script MT) add “to:” and “from:” to the translucent box
9. Save the image

TIP: If you are comfortable recording and using scripts, do so the first time you make a tag, so that you won’t have to repeat each step by hand for each image you want to use.

You can get eight tags on one page.  If you don’t have two that are naturally vertical, you’ll have to rotate two of your images before printing if you want to get the most out of a sheet of paper.

Print onto matte card stock.

Next you will punch out your tags.  While it’s easier to work the punch tool when it is right side up, I found doing it upside-down in this case was a better idea.  It allows you to center the image in the best possible way.

Last thing you’ll want to do is punch a small hole in the top of each tag so that you can tie them to your gifts.  Or just skip the hole and attach the tags with double-sided tape.

And there you have it!

Not up for all of this photo-editing stuff? You can skip it and just punch your tags out of heavy scrapbooking paper, or use plain card stock and doodle on it with a handful of Sharpies.  Maybe have your kids color them.

Or, maybe you’d like to use mine?  I’ve made up two pdfs with tags in two different designs.  They’re downloadable below. (Enter your name and email to download for free.)

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by naming your own price. Thank you!

Gift Tags: Ornaments + Santa

Print your own holiday gift tags with two pdfs based on photos I took. One features glittery Christmas ornaments, and the other, a ceramic Mrs. Claus and Santa Claus.

This printable is available here for free, but you can also choose to pay for it. There is a suggested donation, but you may name your own price. I appreciate the support!

Price: $.99

By the way, if you don’t want to buy a special tag-shaped punch, you can cut your photo tags out by hand and just leave them rectangular.  Or use those scissors that have fancy blades and scalloped edges.

So I’ve been staring at the smiling Hershey Kiss on this garage sale travel mug for at least two years.  I’ve never liked it, and I often think about scribbling over it with a Sharpie.

Today I decided to take action in a much more attractive way.  If you have your own straight-sided, handled cup that needs covering up, read on, and I’ll show you how to sew a cozy that is perfectly-fit for your very cup.

Supplies

• a mug you want to cover
• a pretty cotton main fabric
• a solid color linen/cotton accent fabric
• a focal button
• a hair elastic

Tools

• measuring tape
• straight-edge ruler
• card stock
• tape
• pencil
• scissors for paper
• scissors for fabric
• spool of thread
• sewing machine
• iron
• fabric pencil
• needle and thread

Making the Pattern

In order to draft a pattern, you need four measurements from your mug.  Wrap your measuring tape around the mug, starting right next to the handle.  Determine how much you overlap you would like for the two sides of your cozy, and make a note of that number, calling it “A.”  For me, I’d like an inch of overlap, so my A=12.

Without moving the measuring tape, flip over the mug and make a note of the measurement just before the handle, calling it “B.”  For me, B=10.

“C” will be the amount of usable space between the top and bottom parts of the handle.  My C=1.25.

“D” will be how tall you want the cozy to be.  I used 2.5 for D.  I could have gone to 3, but I have to take into account the fact that there needs to be space at the top of the mug for my lips while I’m drinking.   This also means that the offending logo won’t be completely covered, but I am ok with a tiny portion of it peeking out.

Tape together two pieces of card stock and draw a pattern as shown above, noting A, B, C, and D, which refer to the solid inner lines.  Measure and mark 1/2-inch from all of the solid edges (for a seam allowance), and cut along those outer lines.  Draw a lighter line, about 1/4 of the way from the left, to indicate where the solid linen fabric and the main patterned fabric will come together.

You can click on the above photo to enlarge it, and see more pattern detail, if you need to.

Making the Cozy

Using the pattern you just made, cut one piece of batting, and one backing piece.

Cut one piece of the main fabric, but don’t go the whole length of the pattern.  Instead, start from the right, and go only to 1/2-inch beyond the light vertical line.  Do the same for the solid linen fabric, but start from the left of the pattern and go only to 1/2-inch beyond the light vertical line.

Place the linen and the main fabric on top of each other at the short ends, right sides together, and stitch along the short end.  Press open the seam.

You should now have three cozy components the same size and shape.  If you have a label, now would be a good time to stitch it onto the backing piece.

Pinch the hair elastic together in the center like a figure eight, and sew the pinched part down using a zig-zag stitch, 1/4-inch from the right edge of the main fabric.  Sew over it several times to secure it.

Make a sandwich: batting on the bottom, patchworked main fabric rightside up in the middle, backing upside down on top.

Stitch all around the sandwich with a 1/2-inch seam allowance, leaving a 3-inch opening for turning.  Trim excess seam allowance, leaving about 1/4 inch around the edges, except for the area around the opening.

Turn rightside out, being careful to keep the corners as square as possible.  Press.

Sew around the cozy, about 1/8-inch from the edge, and make sure to catch the section that had been left open for turning.

Wrap the cozy around the mug the way that you’d like it to fit, and mark with the fabric pencil the ideal spot for the button.

Hand sew the button on.

And there you have it!
Goodbye childlike cartoon, hello artsy grown-up coffee experience

Variations

If you have a mug with a tall handle, or you like a skinny cozy, you can skip all of the fancy footwork involved in measuring two widths, and just make the pattern a plain rectangle.  I’m considering doing this for my coffee press.  (Not that it needs a cozy, strictly speaking, but I appear to be unstoppable with this stuff right now…)

If you still need it narrow at one end and wide at the other, but prefer not to have it be too boxy, you could choose to make your pattern almost triangular in nature, and taper it from the large end to the small end, rather than abruptly changing the width as I did.

If you are using a solid-color button, you can eliminate the steps involved in adding the linen patch, and just use the main fabric for the entire length of the cozy.  The linen is there to help a fancy button “pop” but can be omitted if your button already stands out nicely against its background.

Tutorials like this represent many hours of work. Consider showing your support by purchasing the PDF version. Thank you!

Custom-Fit Mug Cozy

If you have a own straight-sided, handled cup with an ugly logo that needs covering up, read on, and I’ll show you how to sew a cozy that is perfectly-fit for your very cup.

This tutorial is available here for free, but for a nominal donation, you can have a handy 7-page image-rich PDF to print out, or take with you on your favorite mobile device. And you can also have my gratitude for your support!

Price: $0.99

I’m thinking I may need to have my “crafty blogger” license revoked.  Not counting photography-related posts, I haven’t dedicated an entire post to anything craft-related in almost a month.  A lot of that is because I haven’t done much of anything crafty.  I’ve wanted to, but I’ve been stalled by the state of my craft table.  It’s not pretty, folks.  I couldn’t make anything there if I tried!

I have been doing a little bit of knitting, though, mostly because it’s portable, and I can do it at night with the TV on in the background, thereby elevating my evening TV habit to something remotely useful.

So let me tell you about what you’re looking at here.  The purple gloves are Eamonn’s – he’s 7.  They are based on the Knitty pattern Dashing, which I love and have made once before.  Dashing is written for adult hands, but I made some modifications to make them appropriate for smaller people.

These are Aidan’s gloves, and they’re not quite done.  He’s 10.  I’m stalling on the thumb holes because I stink at picking up stitches, and I just hate the whole process.  Let’s pretend for the time being that the poor boy’s thumbs are covered.

Would you like to make a pair for your favorite smaller person?  These are a great, simple introduction to cables, if you’ve never done them before.

Dashing for 7-Year-Olds (and Skinny 10-Year-Olds)

The original Dashing pattern can be found here.

The yarn I used on both pairs was Berocco Vintage (Sloe Berry and Douglas Fir).

Modify the Smaller size, as follows:

• Go down a needle size (but stick with whatever yarn you would have used for an adult pair)
• Reduce the number of rows by 1/3.  In other words, wherever it calls for 18 rows, knit 12.   Where it calls for 24, knit 16.  And where it calls for 12, knit 8.

That’s it!  Very simple.  And I have to warn you to do as I say, not as I do.  Eamonn’s gloves are too short over the fingers, and too tight in the thumb because I eyeballed it instead of reading my own notes.  If I’d followed my directions, they’d be fine.  I learned my lesson, and Aidan’s are much better (except for the missing thumbs, which we’ve agreed not to talk about).

Aidan has complained about them being a little bit tight, so if your 10-year-old is not a beanpole like mine is, you might want to try this with size Larger as your basis.