A long yarn

About a year and a half ago I was up in Orkney visiting the in laws familiy when I came across an ad for the workshops of Tait & Style (http://www.taitandstyle.co.uk/) in one of the tourist brochures. Not being one to miss an opportunity to do some crafty shopping I dragged everyone else and had a look round. Their workshop is in a converted old school house in Stromness - the view from the car park is stunning looking down to the harbour. As well as all the lovely knitted goods that they are known for, they also had a big basket full of scrummy yarns. I just had to buy a couple of them. Then me, being me they sat in my knitting box for another year and half! Anyway I've finally got around to knitting the green one up over christmas and it found a buyer as soon as I posted a picture on flickr, before it was even listed in Etsy! I've just finished the second one and listed it: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9276724

Weight Watchers Again

Had my 2nd weight watchers meeting tonight and I've lost 2.5lb, so the truffles can't have done that much harm. A large part of the meeting is waiting for all the people to be weighed so they can start the meeting proper. I've decided to turn this waiting time to my advantage and took a little box of goodies to work on while I was sitting around waiting.

Back in November I took a course entitled 'Glamorous Corsages' run by the V&A museum. I thoroughly enjoyed it and came back full of ideas for things to make using the techniques, but what with christmas and Calum being sick it never really happend and all the material I bought got shoved to the back of the spare room where I keep most of my crafting stash. I decided to get it out again this week to make some floral bracelets. The fabric rolling technique is ideal for doing when you've got sitting around time, so I cut the pieces out the night before, put my little box of supplies together and took it along with me to the meeting. Managed to get 4 flowers made and didn't get too many weird stares.

Weight Watchers

Well I have taken the plunge and signed myself up to weight watchers properly now. As in properly going along to the meetings to get weighed and having someone tell you off if you've been naughty rather than the pretend weight watchers I've been paying for online and never actually recording my points or dieting in any way for the last goodness knows how long.

So in the spirit of my new diet, yesterday I decided to make chocolate truffles (ahem). Yes okay so not strictly diet food I agree, but I used the 'Eat Youself Thin' recepie so they come out kind of ok points wise as long as you stick to eating just one or two a day which mercifully I am doing at the moment. I used Grand Marnier for the flavouring so they're quite potent and you probably wouldn't want to scoff a whole load of them anyway. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Star costume tutoria - the final say

004
Originally uploaded by Cloth cat

Of course all that hard work may not be appriciated!

Star costume tutorial - step 5 Connect the Two Stars

Star costume
Originally uploaded by Cloth cat

Now you have the two stars, put them face together with one point pointing downwards (so you have two points going upwards). The two upwards points will sit on the shoulders. Cut two pieces of elastic to approx the length you will need to sit across your tot's shoulders. Pin one to each of the two points on the first star. Now comes the dangerous bit - hold the first star against your tot with the silver side facing inwards (making sure the pins don't go into him/her), drap the elastic over their shoulders and place the other star (silver side inwards) on their back. Now pin the elastic to the second star to form should straps. Take the costume off your tot and sew these pieces of elastic in place.

You could stop there, but the costume will stay in place better if there is something to hold it in place around the waist, so cut another two pieces of elastic to the approx side needed. Pin them either side of the first star on the back and put the costume back on your tot inside out. Pin the other ends of the elastic to the back of the other star so it holds it comfortably around the waist. Take the costume off your tot again and sew the elastic in place.

Ta-dah! You have now finished your star costume.

An alternative if you have less time or material is to only make the one star and instead of having elastic shoulder straps, you could put a tie around the neck (like for an apron) and another one around the waist.

015
Originally uploaded by Cloth cat

Voila you have created your first star. Now repeat this all again with the second lot of star shaped materials to make the other star.

Star costume tutorial - step 4 pin together and sew front

014
Originally uploaded by Cloth cat

Take one silver star and lay face down. Now lay a one of the interfacing stars on it followed by one of the batting stars. Pin the layers together securely then baste around the edges of the star to hold the layers together.


Now take the backing material star and place it on the silver material 'front to front', pin together and stitch round the edges leaving one edge open to turn the star the right way out. Once you've stitched round the edges, clip off any excess round the curves to reduce bulkiness (you can see pictures of how to do this in this bag tutorial from U-handbag: http://u-handbag.typepad.com/uhandblog/2007/03/rather_sexy_wri.html ). Once you done that, you can turn the star the right way out using your fingers or something pointy like a pen (with the lid on) to push out the corners.

Now fold the open edge over (so it's like the other edges) and pin it in place. Normally I would say give it an iron to keep it in place, but I tried that the first time and it melted the silver fabric DOH! I guess it'll depend on what type of fabric you are using. Now top sew all the way around the outside of the star to give it a nice neat edge.

Voila you have created your first star. Now repeat this all again with the second lot of star shaped materials to make the other star.