(NOTE: I took the following pics with my phone. They’re not as nice as previous shots but it was quicker and simpler to use the camera phone than it was to whip out the Nikon for every step. Sorry for the lower quality pics, might go back to the other way for the next project.)

My sister’s birthday was coming up and I knew she was getting the new Kindle with internet access.

I immediately remembered a great Kindle cover craft project I saw on the Craft blog inspired by this hilarious XKCD strip. We were both big fans of Douglas Adams as kids so I thought this would be a perfect gift from one nerd to another!

I wanted to do something a little different and so I hit the internet for some images and fonts and dug around my craft stash for stuff to make a cover.

I started out with an old 3-ring binder and a box cutter…

I took it apart, pulled out the dense board inside and measured out the size of a kindle (looked it up on Wikipedia) plus a few centimeters to build a margin.

I took the three pieces I cut out for the front and back cover as well as the spine and pulled out some extra knitwear fleece I had in the back of my closet, covered it in Elmer’s Glue and wrapped them up. This would give a little bit of a cushion to the cover, keeping my sister’s Kindle safe from jostling and falls.

Trimmed it down a bit…

…and pulled out some nice dark blue fabric I had bought awhile back.

I knew roughly what I wanted to decorate my front and back covers with so I made some basic placement guidelines.

My sister loves sashiko, a traditional Japanese style of stitching. She’s made some lovely projects of her own so I thought she would like a cover with a sashiko vibe so I broke out the white cotton thread and found a really cool font called “Radio Space” at dafont.com for the text and a logo from the film campaign!

In case you’re wondering how to get a perfect circle drawn onto a stretched out piece of fabric, here’s a good trick. Take a small glass or votive candle and a piece of chalk. Press the glass under the ring, take a piece of chalk and rub the ring of the glass through the fabric. Ta da! Perfect circle ready to be embroidered!

So the basic pattern of the front and back were done. Not super impressive but, oh, I was not done! 

I marked out the spine of the book with chalk.

I went over to the ever handy Wikipedia and looked some quotes from the book (I haven’t read it since high school) and found “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

It looked straight to me.

Oh, yes, and I added some stars. The Sagittarius constellation for my December born sister! Apropos.

Easy to find star maps online!

When I sewed up the sides and placed the cover on the body of the book the spine quote wasn’t straight. I tried to move around the side seams but that would make the front look weird. I undid the spine quote twice.

And then on the third try, after realizing my final attempt was too big and would not fit…

I gave up and started making fish! Like Babel Fish or “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!” 

Pretty, pretty fishies!

Some eagle eyed readers might have noticed I added a little border to the spine! It’s lovely on the outside, not so much on the inside.

I trimmed down the threads and bound them all by winding more thread around each side of the inside spine.

It’s a little uneven but that’s what makes it obviously handmade. Some people like it, I’m sure there are easier or tidier ways to clean up threads but I stuck to this. 

And that was about it. I added some velcro strips with hot glue and it was done! I wanted to add some double sided tape but wanted to converse with the birthday girl about what she wanted to stick to her Kindle. 

All done! And she loved it! Teared up and everything :)

Still waiting for the actual Kindle to show up in the post. When it comes in I will definitely post some action shots!

Time may be an illusion, Mr. Adams, but this project took about a week!

Have been knitting little hats and things for charity these past few weeks. Most will be sold at the Eagle Ridge Hospital store while one or two will go for Shaken Baby Awareness! Don’t shake your babies, people!

Knitting baby things are really quick and a great way to bust through small batches of end yarn you have left over from bigger projects. I used a couple of different free patterns I found online.

Bev’s Baby Ribs Hat is great for premies as well as Carrissa’s beautiful preemie caps! Drop’s has a really simple pattern but my favorite was this pattern from Simple Things. I’m not sure I mastered it but it was fun to knit!

Make your own sandals! The possibilities are endless!

Drawing and cooking and vodka? Nirvana has arrived and it is called kokblog!

Last year I was sitting on my friend Ingrid’s couch as she was going through her late mother Barbaro’s books. Barbaro was from Sweden and had quite an eclectic and beautiful collection of tomes covering all sorts of topics from poetry to history to biography. As I do not speak Swedish all I could do was admire the leather bound copies of literature and flip through to the illustrations. (The Swedes have an amazing history in illustration that oddly, other than Astrix and Obelisk, hasn’t blossomed into a strong presence in the comics industry, yet.) 

Then I saw this simple little book lying on top of a pile of tiny leaflets and novellas. 

I picked it up and flipped through it’s wonderfully thorough diagrams and photos and was engrossed as I would be in any good work of fiction!

I had started embroidery projects as a small child. I remember basic embroidery was one of the first things my mother taught me after crochet. I still have a pillow case cover I worked on when I was five years old! 

I never really mastered it as I didn’t find any use for it at the time. I was such a practical child! If it was purely ornamental I wasn’t all that fascinated. That holds true today, I suppose. Also, I don’t recall being exposed to all the possibilities of embroidery. After all, it was the era of machine embroidery and I remember my mother taking a small foray into applique with her sewing machine in the 80’s but that didn’t last. 

But this book I discovered on Ingrid’s dining room table was like a full course in embroidery. It covered the basics to the insane! Any possible embellishment you might want to add is covered in here. 

Life is busy and I kept meaning to crack it open and start a project. Over the months I flipped through it over and over, fascinated by the techniques and the craftwork displayed in it’s pages.

Finally, I had something that needed a bit of something! A shirt! I had made this purple, flowy shirt a few weeks earlier, intending to wear it to Daphne’s christening but the neck was all messed up and I was focused more on her gown than what I would wear. I  put it aside until another event came up, a wedding. Our good friends, Robin and Step, were having a casual carnival themed wedding and everyone was encouraged to dress comfortably and creatively. I already had the shirt. It was fitted to me and my odd little form, the neckline issues were fixed, but it was far too plain for this particular event.

So, out came Sömmar och Stygn!

I picked out a nice branch pattern (no. 27) and did my best recreate what I saw on page 10 and 11 of my fabulous guide to stitchery.

After very few re-dos I ended up with this!

But it still needed a little something more. So back to the book!

Some basics, a border! Number 6 is in order!

Starting the base stitch…

…and filling it in. Also, finished up the swirls on the bottom and added some stars!

Stars, page 16, illustration 56 a & b.

Still, needs a bit more…

Ha ha! Leafy pod things care of page 8 and 9. (Number 17, if you please.)

I wanted to add a lot more, and I might do, but it was getting late and the wedding was the next day so off to bed I went.

The next day I put on my new purple top and went to an awesome wedding where there was much love flowing everywhere, some of it going to my lovely shirt!

I will be adding more, I think, but for now I think it’s grand!

The happiest bride and groom in the world! And yes, that’s the shirtless best man in the background with the wreath of leaves and sarong! It was the awesomest wedding I’ve been to in a long time. 

It was a wonderful day and I was proud of my handywork when compliments came my way. Nothing better than someone complimenting something you’re wearing and being able to say, “Why, thank you! I made it myself!”

And thank you , Barbaro, for collecting such beautiful books and Ingrid for sharing them with me and teaching me a little prettyness on something practical can be a lovely thing. Crafts were meant to pass on from on to another and I hope these skills will pass into the internet and out into the world. 

I’ll be sure to post more from this amazing book!

Amazing Star Wars alphabet series! More on the artist’s flicker feed!

Here’s a shot of my lovely sister, Pia, and the wooly gloves I made her! 

She’s a huge Doctor Who fan, we both are actually. It’s a show we watched when we were little kids back in Toronto and when they started back up again in 2005 we were in! When Pia’s birthday rolled around I decided to make her some fingerless gloves from the “Doomsday” episode, the season closer from 2006. 

It was the big, emotional season finale and The Doctor had sucked the power from a supernova to transmit one last message to Rose, stuck forever in an alternate universe! They meet one last time on a beach in Norway and Rose was wearing these beautiful fingerless mits that lit the internet up with crafters! 

I added some ribbing to the fingerside hem, just cause I like how it looks.

She wears them a lot, especially in the winter months in her studio where she makes stuff like this: 

Doctor Who: The Forgotten

Torchwood Magazine #21

Yeah, she may be a bigger Doctor Who fan then me.

I’ve asked my friends and family to send me photos of things I’ve made for them over the last few years.

Here’s my brother in law, Ian, in a blue wool scarf I made for him. He’s not big on long, wrapped around your neck five times kind of scarves so I made him this short and simple scarf. It’s a ribbed scarf, knit one, purl one, with some simple tassels at each end. Just enough to wrap around once or lay on the neck and tuck in around the chest. A little bit of warmth and colour without too much fuss! 

It’s done it’s job in his travels around he world, like here on a windy day visiting Stonehenge with his friends and comedy cohorts, Drew and Diana (lovely hat, not one of mine), on trips to Chicago in the bone chilling winter months and during Vancouver’s brief forays into seriously chilly weather.

Sometimes lace and cables and tricky patterns will be super impressive and make everyone ooo and ahhh, but other times a simple piece of well made yarncraft will be the most practical and well-used of items. Making something someone needs and will wear again and again is a hard skill to master! Harder than socks! Harder than fair isle! Harder than… well, it’s hard. And I’m happy when I sometimes nail it:)

After all that you deserve some pics of the special day!

Here she is, Ladies and Gentlemen, my goddaughter, a dangerously cute monster of giggles…. Daphne! 

Button close-up!

A little running around pre-christening. See how happy she is?

Oh, so happy and curious!

“Yeah! You bet I’m pissed, lady! You dressed me up, took me out and a scary old dude in a white robe poured water on my head and wrecked my hair! And then you all laughed at me!”

Food came out, dress came off! Underdress will hopefully make a nice summer dress for the hot months to come in Edmonton.

Someone found the cupcakes!

Let’s play name the stain, shall we? Raspberry, cantaloupe, strawberry, icing, salsa….

And my favorite shot of the whole day! What grandma doesn’t know is those church shoes are super grippy and sneaker like on the bottom. She’s a climbing ninja in those things! And what a great camera that is, huh? It, like, caught that chip mid air!