Quick 'Design Wall' project

Hi!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to make a design wall similar to this one. I have an IKEA canvas print that measures about 118 cm x 80 cm (~46'' x 31''). I didn't take any photos while I was actually making this, but I have some simple instructions. I don't think this is as durable or as awesome as the one described by Elizabeth (see link above), but it was a quick & easy project and it will help me decide if I want to spend the time and effort to build a nice one like hers.


Supplies:

• Picture frame
• Batting
• Masking Tape
• Scissors
• Helping hand if you have a large picture

1. Measure your frame that you want to cover. Add ~8 cm extra on each side, enough that you could wrap the batting up and tape onto the wood frame on the back (add more if your frame is thicker).  I had some leftover batting from another project that was a pretty tight fit.

2. Clean a nice spot on the floor, lay the batting down, and lay the picture frame face down, centred around the batting

3. If you have a friend, begin at the middle of one edge of and start taping the batting to the frame adn work your way to the outside. Don't stretch the batting too much or it will tear. I put masking tape on the batting to attach to the frame every 10 cm or so, and I folded the corners very neatly so there wasn't a lot of bulge.

View of the back, sorry I didn't get a better one!

4. You're done! Hang it on the wall (or lean it up against the wall as in my case). Ideally I would like to push pins into mine, and I can't really do that without ruining the canvas. So I'll probably make a nicer one when I have the time and energy.

Tadaa! These are some block-of-the-month from my local quilt store

Here's something else I'm working on: 

Pattern: Well-Dressed Bunny by Barbara Prime

Pattern: Well-Dressed Bunny by Barbara Prime

Yarn: Rowan RYC Baby Alpaca (Super Soft!!)

Ravelry link to my project page here

He's almost done, just in time for Easter... just missing some eyes, a mouth and some clothes! Overall it was a good pattern, but it was written for knitting flat and seaming afterwards. I am not very good at seaming so next time I make this I'll try to knit it in the round (and on smaller needles). I also used DK weight yarn instead of worsted, which made my rabbit a little smaller and partially see-thru. I can see the white stuffing inside of him if I look closely!

Take care,
~knittypie

Craft Room Cleanup

Hi!
    So a couple of weeks ago I posted about how messy my craft room was, and my plans to clean it up. There were definitely pros and cons to tackling that room! While I'm happy to report it's in much better condition, I've also quadrupled my to-do list because I found so many half-finished projects! Everyone loves before & after shots, and I wish I had done a better job setting up the camera & taking better photos, but this will have to do.

Behold:

Desk- before

Desk- after. This was a basic cleanup of everything on there (and piled into other things on the bed in to-do piles)

Before, things stashed in the corner

After- A little tidier, but things still stashed in the corner!

before- storage area for magazines and randomness

 

After- magazines organized and purged.

Before- messy closet! There's yarn, fabric, costume jewelry (pink box), roving (white bag) and art supplies all in this photo.

After- This was my favorite place to clean up. Now I can access my yarn & fabric easier.

     It was a daunting task to organize this room, it took almost 5 hours to complete! I worked on one area at a time and sorted into categories on my bed-- To-Do, To Donate, To Keep/put away, and a pile for future sorting. Here are the final areas:

To Do. Yes, this is a giant pile. There are T-shirts, pillow cases, new fabric for a knitting basket, clothes to hem, and clothes to sew. Yikes!

Another view of the To-Do pile, including some vintage lace I found stashed in my closet!

To Donate: There's some stuff here that I know I'll never get around to using, including yarn, magazines & T-shirts.

"Needs more sorting". Yes, I admit I have WAY too much stuff. My fiance says I'm a borderline hoarder, so I've got some cleaning up to do! Most of the stuff in here is for give-away or I'll try & sell some of it. Since I took this photo I've already whittled this pile down to about half of what I'm showing.

     So I ended the day with a semi-clean room and a giant pile of stuff to sort, and an even bigger pile of projects to do. My next couple of blogs will be focused on some of the projects I intend on finishing. Before I close out this post, I wanted to share some photos of some interesting and lovely things that were hiding in my room. Enjoy!

A pile of vintage lace (I need to store these properly).

Some beautiful fabric I picked in in Japan, intended to be used for Japanese Furoshiki.

Some silk-screening on fabric that I made at ACAD

The magazine (and unfinished sweater) that re-introduced me to knitting!

(I never finished this, I didn't know much about knitting and yarn choices, and used Bernat Cotton for this!)

My initial to-do list..... *sigh*.

 Thanks for reading! ~knittypie

Stay-At-Home Sunday

This morning I woke up to this:

Snowstorm- March 3, 2013

We're expecting 10-15 cm of snow today, so I decided it was a great day to blog... and what am I blogging about? My 'new' craft room! We've been living in this house for about 5 months now, and we really haven't done much with the place (luckily we didn't have to do much when we moved in), but we're still without blinds and have yet to put a nail into the wall to hang artwork.... but I'm hoping today that's going to change! I'm going to focus on my craft room, which also doubles as a spare bedroom.

Here are some before shots:

View of the sewing table (covered in stuff!)

There's a lot of stuff on that table, including some fabric I recently picked up from a garage sale. I love the colors, there's some vintage bedsheet fabric (blue one) in that pile. I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet, but for now I'm just going to clean up that area.

Awesome vintage fabric... not sure what I'll make!

 Here's a view of some bookshelves, and the walk-in closet:

This is my disorganized walk-in-closet. I'm hoping this looks a lot neater after today.

Here's one of the projects I hope to complete today. It's currently a picture from Ikea, which we purchased to stage our old condo when we were selling it. It's a nice photo, but I want to transform this into a design wall for quilting. If you don't know what that is, check out this blog that inspired me to do this. This is probably half the size as the one Elizabeth made, but if I actually use it, I'll try making a giant one.

Ikea canvas picture

I'll post some 'after' shots of my room and this project in my next blog. Thanks for reading!