Finishing a cross-stitch or emboidered bookmark (the lazy way)

Bookmarks are a common project for cross-stitch projects.  They are small, so those into instant gratification (or at least a lot faster than a massive design) and they can make useful little gifts.  But once you finish your work, how do you finish it off and make it look nice?  Even if you are the neatest stitcher in the world, the back of your work is going to look a bit messy.

Well to start with, it will depend somewhat on what you made your cross-stitch bookmark on.  In general, there are two options, ordinary material (either aida cloth or evenweave) or bookmark material (usually aida) which comes in set widths and is already finished on the long sides.  The Medieval garden bookmark bookmark used the later.  If you use the former, you need to finish all four sides

The downside of raw material edges is that it will fray over time.  The threads that run parallel with the cut edge only have to move a tiny bit and they are off the perpendicular threads and flapping freely in the wind.  This ends up looking a messy tangled mess which you don't want for your hard work!  One option is to deliberately fray the cut edge back a set distance (usually at least 1cm).  This means that the remaining parallel threads (relative to the cut edge) will have to travel a lot further to fall off.

Another method is to do some sort of overcast stitching to essentially tie the parallel threads in place.  An overlocking sewing machine, ordinary sewing machine or using overlocking hand stitch can all do this.

And there is the humble hem.  Or in other words, fold the fabric over and iron it to hold the fold in place.  My Medieval Garden bookmark instructions said to do this.  And since I had the ironing board out anyway (for a skirt I'm making- I hate having to iron clothes :P ) I dug it out.

Bookmark with top and bottom folded and ironed down (and then the edges folded under to have a neater finished product).  The felt is the right width for the bookmark but the wrong length so I cut it to size after taking this photo.

This project uses a separate piece of felt to make the back look neat, but if you were making the project up yourself you could plan on using a long enough length of material that you could fold the ends up to hide the back completely.  But there is still the issue of keeping the material there.

Well the instructions said to use a neat line of stitching.  But I hate doing plain hand sewing.  But then, inspiration struck!  I had some hemming tape squirreled away (it's great for making costumes quickly that only need to last a day or so).  It's essentially double sided glue that melts with the heat from your iron.

Cut the hemming tape to size so it covers your backing material.  For the bookmark below I also put a square under each tab at the ends of the bookmark to keep them in place.

Close up view- I ran three strips down the length of the backing and then a short strip at each end for luck

Carefully position your bookmark onto the backing (using a felt backing for this was great as the felt really caught the roughness of the tape).  Once everything is set, use your iron to melt the glue and set everything in place (10 seconds or so should do- if not, just iron it some more).

And that's it!  Five minute job, tops.  Extra tip, if you are like me and glue your back in place and THEN realise that you forgot to add the tassel to the cross stitch layer, it's much easier to separate the layers if you first iron them again to melt the glue.  Then once you've added your tassel, iron again to restick it.

Embroidered card

Here is the first project I acquired from the Melbourne Craft and Quilt fair this year.  Not only the first to post about here, but the first completed (rather impressive if you consider that there are unfinished and unstarted projects from previous years in the cuboard!)

This was such a sweet little kit that I couldn't resist.  It was also a nice quick little project- I picked it up and started it yesterday when I got home from the craft fair and I finished it this morning.  The kit was made by Rowandean and is called Foxgloves at Roadside.

Pros: nice and cheap but provides everything needed including window card, threads, needle and envelope.
Cons: the pattern is printed in permanent ink so when making it up all the printing must be covered which was tricky for the pink flowers.  Also, the instructions for the foxgloves on the left didn't say what sort of stitch to use so I just sort of winged it.

A rather English scene but given how simple it was to do, I'm somewhat curious if a similar scene could be given an Australian feel- just swap the tree to a gum tree and yellow the grass off a bit more.  Perhaps turning the fence into a post and wire fence.  Hmm...

Melbourne Craft fair visit

Hey ho blog readers.  This week is my first week back at uni and already I feel stressed and slightly panicky.  Lots of big assignments, scary talk about job searching, the need to create teaching portfolios, and placements in only four weeks.

So what should I do on my Fridays off.  Get a start on my assignments?  Don't be silly!  I went to the big craft and quilt fair held in Melbourne this weekend.  For those who are not aware, this is a big annual event held at Jeff's Shed (aka Melbourne Exhibition Centre), in Southbank.  It's a massive area filled with stands selling stuff for lots of different crafts from knitting to quilting to beading to embroidery and a few other odd bits and bobs.

There are only a few problems with it.  First of all, it is always PACKED with people.  I got there just as they opened for the day and hoped that being a weekday would make a difference but to no avail.  The aisles fill very quickly and by the time I left, negotiating the crowd involved a great deal of shuffling and human pinball. Sidenote- why do people insist on bringing those wheeled bags along?  They, along with the odd poor child crying in a large stroller, do not help traffic flow!  There is a cloakroom (um, for stuff you buy and bags, not for the small children I mean).

Secondly, I always seem to spend far too much money!  I had to be quite good this year (poor uni student and all that), but even so it's amazing how easy it is to succumb to temptation!

Rather than show all the things I bought, I thought I'd show a few things that are on my wish list because I couldn't justify the expense today.  Partly because this means I can have more posts showing the stuff and my attempts at them in later blog posts but mainly because I put away some of the things and can't be bothered digging them out again right now to photograph them.  It's been a long day, after all.

First of all, I LOVED the Spring Garden beaded lariat necklace that was at the Room for Threads website but they didn't have any kits available at the stand and I couldn't have afforded it today if they did.  The colours in the photo on the site don't do justice to the real thing- not gaudy bright, but a cheerful bright that I could actually see me wearing.  What I did buy was the Cotton Reel tassel in the darker colours.  While I am not sure about the cotton reel part, I do love the little flowers and the technique for the strings of the tassel so I want to learn the technique.

Next on the wish list are a number of quilts from Ann Gadsby Designs, in particular the lovely fairy quilts.  Both the Fairy Garden and the Happy Valley quilts in particular.  The only thing that scares me in any quilt is the high cost of a full quilt means I'm terrified that I'll muck it up in assembly.  I've got to find some good practice projects so I can justify buying one of these lovely kits (I'd hate to buy a kit and then have it live in a box for years if I got it now).

There were lots of other things I loved (any number of other more traditional, standard quilts for instance) but since I didn't get brochures with handy web urls on them I'll leave it there for now.  The Melbourne Craft Fair is on for another couple of days until Sunday so if you are a Melbournian who likes their crafts then it could be a good weekend activity for you.  Plan on at least half a day, more if you want to watch any talks or do any craft workshops (I did quite a few last year, they are great for a quick lesson on a new craft).

Knitted Rose Broach

Or, why some patterns should just not be made.

Knitting is a wonderful craft.  If you think about it, the fact that you can take two sticks and a bit of wool or string and make anything from a delicate lace shawl to a jumper to a pair of socks is quite amazing.  But there are some knitting projects out there that just don't work.  I'm not talking disasters where the tension wasn't right so you produce sleeves more suited to an orangutang than a human or

Jumpers with large images on the front (I think most children from the 80s will relate to having these inflicted on them at some point).  Clothing made in the most eye watering bright clash of multiple colours.  Tops made of yarn so warm that they can only be worn in Antarctica without the owner melting.  And things like this broach.

Now I've seen some jewellery that uses knitting that I think might be great (I have a few queued in my Ravelry queue such as Sea Lace).  But personally, anything that uses large knitted flowers just don't work.  This flower was a kit that came with Simply Knitting, Issue 82 July 2011.  I am trying to break my bad habit of having magazine kits sit around untouched for years (to the point that I loose the magazine they came from) so thought I'd make this up this morning.

The Knitted Rose Broach

The kit and magazine give four different options the materials can be used for- two knitted flower broaches and two crochet flower projects (a headband and a pouch).  I choose to make the rose broach but I think most of the issues would be common for all four projects. 

First issue- the colours.  The pink in particular is a very very very Barbie pink colour.  I am not into pink at the best of times and even as a kid, Barbie pink was more likely to induce shuddering than glee. 

Second issue?  The yarn is REALLY thick!  As a result anything made from it is going to be large.  Great if you are making a jumper and want it to be thick and quick work, terrible for something like jewelry that to me should be delicate and pretty.  The rose ended up being 6-7 cm in diameter.  The length from leaf tip to leaf tip on the finished item was about 11 cm- far bigger than anything I would choose to wear.

Another view along with the magazine issue in question.

The rose also doesn't look all that rose like- if it wasn't for the leaves I'm not sure you would know you were looking at a rose and not just a weird spirally thing.  Now in the interests of fairness and disclosure, after studying the picture after I made mine I think I have the wrong side facing out.  But frankly, after looking at pictures in the magazine I don't think there would be that much difference.

So, are all knitted flowers a waste of time and effort?  Hmm, not sure.  It might be a fun idea to play with if I find the time.  How might flowers be improved?  Well for starters, I'd find some nicer colours.  I'd also scale the size down both in terms of yarn and the finished product.

Any other ideas?  Feel free to leave a comment.

Cross stitch- a medieval garden bookmark

After a full week working (with a cold that gave me laryngitis to boot) all I wanted to do was sit down somewhere nice and warm and do something that didn't require much thought.  So I dug out a unfinished cross stitch project.  I find counted cross stitch lovely and easy because you don't need to do anything other than follow the diagram.  It's like 'paint by numbers' with thread.

The pattern I am doing is 'Medieval Garden' and was a little kit that I bought on holiday in England last year.  I loved the colours in the border, which look like an elaborate calligraphy border and the flowers that are reminiscent of hand painted watercolour flowers.

I also thought I'd point out the great difference that back-stitching can make.  Here is a picture of the bookmark but without any of the back-stitching:
The trouble with most counted cross stitch patterns is that you get to the end of the cross stitches and go 'Yay! I'm done... except for the back-stitch'.  And then you have to spend half as much time again (or so it seems) to get the back-stitching done.  But what a difference it can make-

A bit of backstitch will highlight and enhance an image.  It also allows far more detail than crosses alone.  So if you find yourself sighing when starting what seems like a never ending load of backstitching then just take a big breath and remind yourself it will be worth it in the long run!

One other little tip- don't be tempted to try and do back-stitching as you go unless it is in an area that the crosses are all done in.  When you do back-stitching first and the cross stitches next to the back-stitches, the back-stitching tends to get buried and you loose all that hard work.  It's always best to do the back-stitching after.

Random musing in lieu of having crafty stuff to talk about

This week I picked up a bit of casual work teaching the wonders of genetics to students.  It's lots of fun but the combination of work and a cold means I won't have time to do anything creative this week.  My cold and trying to make my voice heard also means I am rapidly loosing my voice- and I have three days of work left before the weekend.  Argh!

My bag charm fell off my bag, but only because the links failed.  I think I need to invest in better quality links.  Oh well, fixed it for now, let's see how it holds.

Coffee is nectar of the gods but taste horrible with Strepsils.  Which tend to taste horrible anyway.

Urk, just tried to talk.  Today is going to be interesting...

I should not get distracted by looking at coloured jump rings right before I need to walk out the door or I'll not get a parking space at the train station.  Oooh, they come in some very pretty colours....

Whoops, time to go.  Hope the voice lasts, then I can take advantage of the fabric sale this afternoon.

First experiments with free motion quilting

Since I bought a new sewing machine, I've been wanting to find more sewing projects to get my money's worth out of it!  One thing I've always admired but never really gotten into before is quilting.  The only quilt I've made has been a small 1m square art quilt (that I really should do a post about later).  It was made on my old (evil) sewing machine and was quilted using straight lines and a walking foot.

But one of the things I have discovered in my internet wander in search of quilt information was the idea of free motion quilting.  In particular, the awesome Free Motion Quilting Project which has hundreds of different ideas for quilting.  So I bought myself a free motion foot and sat down today for the first quick play.  Below are attempts #1 and 2:  an attempt at Bamboo and Stomach Lining from the Free Motion Quilting Project's large repertoire.

Hmm, I think I'm going to need to do a little practice before sitting down to try a quilt!  Also, trying to free motion on material with a bit of stretch in it (offcuts from a skirt I made last week) adds an extra challenge!

Origami bag charm using stamps

Today was spent sorting out my bead stuff from three overflowing boxes, complete with a couple of exploding containers (and I just vacuumed yesterday... *sigh*).   But now I have things more or less sorted- at least as long as I don't buy any more stuff.

To celebrate I have a new project- a bag charm that uses origami Discworld stamps as decoration.  The stamps I've chosen to use are from the town Bonk and feature bats on the original stamps.  I thought it might be fun to make little bat origami figures with them.  When I trawled the internet I found a number of different bat versions out there so I tried each of them.  I also made a little flapping bird just because I could.

If you wish to turn these into bag or jewelery charms we need to stiffen them up a bit.  But first, let's put a hole in the paper so there is some way of adding them to a jump ring later.  A safety pin does this well.

To stiffen up the origami, you need a sealer of some sort.  Varnish would work, but I like using Mod Podge.  It comes in several different finishes, matte, gloss and satin, which is what I used in this project.  Several coats will probably be necessary and a toothpick through the hole can be a useful stand to hold things while drying.

Once they are dry and firm, pop a small jump ring through the hole you made (you may find it necessary to redo the hole with your safety pin).

At this point you can do all sorts of things!  For the bag charm, I first made a 5 cm full persian chain.  To one end I attached a large lobster clasp so I can easily attach it to my bag zip later.

Then I add three different lengths of chain to the origami and join these to the chain I made.  And that's that!

Origami stamps are great for jewelery and for light use tasks such as this, although I would not try and use it for something like a key chain.  I suspect they would be too battered in a pocket with a bunch of keys to survive long.  We'll see how well they survive on my handbag!

Decoupage stamps

I'm rapidly approaching the end of my holiday.  Lots of projects in intermediate steps but I did manage to get something done to share with you today- another fun project you can do with stamps.

The stamp that's staring in today's project is the latest stamp produced by Strapper's Stupefying Stamp Co.  This stamp shows a lovely picture of Strapper walking through The Fidgety Forest.  The Fidgety Forest is the first book about the tales of Strapper and is written by Peter Yorke, with illustrations by Alan Bailey.   The book is very reminiscent of Enid Blyton's short stories with a dash of The Enchanted Wood series and I do recommend it.

But let's get back to the stamps.  This technique works well with most stamp designs.  I've made many of these using Discworld Cinderellas (because I had spares) but I've also seen it done using cancelled regular stamps.  For most stamps you will need four copies.  This gives you about as much depth as you are going to achieve on something this size (this particular stamp measures 35 x 29 mm).

You will also need:

• silicon-  I use some acid free silicon from a local craft shop (Riot or Lincraft for Melbournians)
• A sharp knife- I use Excel knife.  I think it's this one, but I'm not 100% sure, I bought it several years ago.  I've tried a lot of knives over the years and what you want is something with a nice fine point and SHARP!  You are far more likely to cut yourself and wreck your project with a blunt, cheap knife.
• toothpicks- these make it much easier to apply controlled amounts of silicon
• possibly a metal ruler to let you cut straight lines
• card to make your project on (I like black but that's entirely up to you!)
• A cutting mat
• something to emboss with (either an embossing tool or a blunt pin or toothpick or dried up pen etc)

Step one- if you are using a different stamp to me you will need to analyse the design.  What is in the foreground of the image?  What is at the back?  Once you have that sorted out, it's time to start cutting.  Take your time and go slow.  Below is the image of the four stamp layers I've cut.  The first stamp is left uncut- that's the background layer.  Then going from left to right, top to bottom are layers 2, 3 and 4.

From left to right, top to bottom:  Layer 1(back), 2, 3 and 4

A word of advice at this point- have somewhere safe to keep your bits!  These can fly away horribly fast.  All you need is one sneeze or puff of wind and you'll need some more stamps!

Next step is to emboss and shape the stamp pieces.  You could skip this step if you wanted, but I find it adds a lot of depth and enhances the detail of the stamp.  You first need to know where you want the shaping from the back of the stamp.  If you have a light box, great!  I don't have one though, so I use a good old fashioned torch.  Place the stamp piece, face down and use a pencil to mark any areas you want to emboss.  Below are my pieces with the tree roots marked out, since I know I want to round the tree trunks down to the roots.

When embossing and shaping, what you do is use a rounded tool the back of the stamp piece that is resting on a soft but firm surface (like a pile of paper or a mouse pad).  Harder surfaces will let you have more detailed embossing- experiment with different tools on different surfaces and just play around with your pieces until you are satisfied.  Below is the front and back of the two layers above after I embossed them (click to embiggen).

Once all the pieces are shaped to your satisfaction it's time to start sticking them down.  First stick the uncut stamp onto your piece of card.

Now use the toothpick to put even sized blobs of silicon onto the back of Layer 2.  Even sized blobs mean the layer will stick out the same distance at all points.  And because silicon does not flatten as it dries, the distance the layer sticks up from the bottom layer will not change once it's dry, which gives us the 3D effect.

Carefully position Layer 2 over the background stamp and lightly press to ensure contact but NOT so hard you squash the silicon out.  You want Layer 2 to sit 1-2 mm above the bottom.  Let this dry.

Once each layer is dry, add the following layers the same way.

When I finished the stamp, I decided I wanted the title to be more prominent so I went back and cut out the 'Tales from Fidgety Forest' from the remainder of Layer's 4 stamp (good tip- keep the offcuts until you are done- they can be handy in case of emergencies).  Because paper is hard to manipulate and almost impossible to glue when you get to the size of individual letters, I cut each word out as a single unit.

And it's done.  Have fun- just make sure you don't cut up any rare stamps in the process!

How to make a box and lid for anything

This post is not intended to give you a template to make a box (if you want to do that there are tons of great ones out there in internet land), but to describe how to make the perfect shaped box and lid for any object you like.  You will need some scrap paper, a ruler, pencil, sharp knife and the object you want to make the box for.  You may also like something to line your box with- in this tutorial I use sticky backed felt.

First step is to work out what size box your object is going to need.  I'm making a giftbox for the stamp paper mache plate I made a few weeks ago.  The one on the right (the one on the left has gone walkabout.  It's amazing how a small room can have so many black holes in it...)  You need to have a rough idea of the dimensions of the object to the highest, widest and length...est longest point (it's been a long day!).   Round UP to the nearest centimeter (or more if you want a bit more space around the object or if you have a very thick lining.)  For my box, I decided to have it 5 cm high and 11 cm square.

Now on your piece of scrap paper, measure from the corner along one length of the paper to the height length (5cm in my case).  Make a mark.  Then measure from this point the length of your box (11 cm).  Make a mark.  Then measure the height length again and make a mark.  Do the same thing on opposite end of the paper.  Rule a line between each mark- you should have something that looks a bit like this

H= height of finished box, L= length of finished box

Now do the same thing for the other side so you end up with something like this:

Cut away the excess paper, leaving you just the area you marked out:

Next step is to mark out the tabs to hold your box together.  Where they go doesn't matter too much provided that there is a tab for each corner of your box.  Mark out your tabs and then cut away the excess paper to leave you with your template.

Fold your template along the pencil lines and test your box with your object to ensure that it is the right size.  When you are happy with your template, use it to cut out your box material.

Here's my paper template against my box paper

When your box paper is cut out, again fold it where your pencil lines were on your template.  You may find it easier to fold if you first score the fold lines lightly with a knife or something hard and pointy,  I sometimes use an embossing tool as shown below.

Once all your folds are made you are ready to glue your box together.  Put some glue onto your tabs and glue them against the side.  Bulldog clips or large paperclips are useful at holding the tabs in place while the glue dries.

To make your lid, first make a template the exact same way as the base BUT, increase your length and width dimensions by 5 mm.  And the height of the lid can be anything you like- 1 cm is probably the minimum you would want due to the lip of the lid needing to catch the sides, but otherwise the choice is yours.  For my box, I used a lid height of 3 cm.  Check your template against your box for fit and then cut out your box lid and assemble as before.

Finished box

At this point you could be done but if you want to line your box then read on.  To line the inside use your box template to cut out the lining material minus the tabs.  Check the material inside your box, as you may need to trim it slightly for fit.

My lining marked out, ready to be cut out

If you are using something sticky backed like I am, it's much easier to put it in the box if you score the backing where the fold lines are.  Only expose the sticky of the base, leaving the sides with the backing on until you get the base stuck down.  Trim the side lining as needed.

As to what my box is made out of?  Well I have lots of LBE (Little Brown Envelopes), a familar sight to all Discworld stamp fans. Inside each LBE was a selection of stamps, both common and the odd rare stamp, similar to trading cards.  What better gift box for an object made of stamps?

A decorative way to hide appliance LEDs

At the moment I'm effectively living out of one room- the joys of being a student.  As a result, I have a TV set up- being able to sit and watch movies in bed is great, particularly if you feel sick.  Recently I bought a hard drive recorder for my set up (I was actually intending to buy an external hard drive for my computer but the recorder was such a good deal I... missed).  It's a nice little device- a few annoying tricks, but for $130 I can live with them.

But there is one feature that I cannot stand.  One that causes irritation and frustration at a glance.  One feature that causes me to rant to any and all who will listen.  The dreaded 'blue LED of uselessness'.  You have probably all got something that has this feature- a device with a light to light up, not when it is doing something, or when it is on (although if it is something like a TV there should not be a light needed to show it is on, it should be flaming obvious!).  No, it is the light that lights up to show that something is NOT on.  And on my particular device it seems bright enough at night to guide airplanes in to land.  This is a bad thing if you need total dark to sleep like I do- even the bedside clock has to be covered. And let's not even talk about the horror that was a camp where I was stuck with the top bunk, my nose about 50 cm from the massive EXIT sign that, of course, could not be turned off.

My solution?  To craft an opaque object to over the light and solve the problem for good.  To do this I cut some sticky backed felt I had to an appropriate size.  Step one- hold the felt in position and test that the remote will still work.  If the remote sensor is next to the glowing light you'll need to either have some fancy cutting or give up and go mad (er).

Step two:  Well you could just stick the felt down and call it job done but where's the fun in that?  Yesterday I was playing with making celtic knots.  I have a book that turned out to be confusingly useless that I had bought on holiday in Ireland last year, but what I found really helpful was the site Free Macrame Patterns which also had a section on celitc and chinese knots.  A little playing around and I had a few to choose from.

This I stuck onto my felt, along with another piece of white felt to give the knot-work a nicer background to show it off.  Bit of craft glue later and here's the result:

And here is the finished product at work

If you don't want to risk sticky felt you could use cardboard as your base and Blu-tack to hold it in position. I would not try using Blu-tack directly on felt, it doesn't work very well.  Use felt glued to card backing if you want to go the Blue-tack route.  And there are all sorts of ways you could decorate your blocker- embroidery, ribbons, beads, glitter, stamps, your prized collection of toenail clippings, whatever.

Or you could use a piece of plain black card.  But where's the fun in that?

Chain maille chains

Whew, it's amazing how time flies when you are concentrating on something.  I started playing with rings this morning around ten and I was shocked to realise that I had managed to work through to three.  No wonder my back is currently grumbling at me!

But I've had fun.  I've made chain samplers of a few different sorts of chains- two from the 'Basics of Chain Maille' book and two from a really useful website, http://cgmaille.com/tutorials.shtml.  Oh, and one from me not getting the hang of a Full Persian chain for a rather long time.  Below also demonstrates how much you can expect to produce from three packets of $2 shop jump rings.  I had bought three packs- two of the smaller size with 80 rings/pack (one black, one gold) and one of the larger size and 60/pack in gold.  The rings below (plus the motif I made in the previous post) used up all but 5 gold rings.  While you could make a bracelet or a necklace from these rings, it would not be very economical.  The wire is rather soft however, which does make it a bit easier to practice with since you don't need as much force to open and close the rings.

The short chain lengths also give me a cunning plan to ponder as a way of fixing the zipper pull on my bag.  Hmm, time to plot...

Jump ring chain maille

A few weeks ago I ordered a couple of books (among other things) from http://www.beadsonline.com.au/ (no I don't work for them, get paid by them or am even known by them with the exception as a one time customer!)  The books are a small booklets published by Artistic Wire and called 'The Basics of Chain Maille' and 'Advanced Chain Maille'.  You'll never guess what they are about...

I like beading and wire stuff but I've only dabbled a bit (I made one byzantine chain once including making the rings but that's it).  Since the first book could be bought with a bonus couple of packs of rings I thought 'Woo hoo, making rings was boring'.  And since I was buying anyway, why not get the advanced book too...  But when it came to making something I didn't want to waste the 'good' rings on, I dug out some cheap and cheerful $2 shop jump rings to practice with.

After careful consideration of the booklets (each describes how to do four different chain maille weaves) I decided to jump straight to the advanced book.  Foolish?  Possibly, but I like a challenge.  So here is my first attempt- a Japanese 12-in-2 'flower'.  It's a bit loose.  Turns out when they talk about the gauge for rings, it really does matter for some weaves, particularly when dealing with two different sized rings.  While the book suggested two rings, one with an internal diameter of 4.3mm and the other 2.8, my rings were closer to 6 and 4.  You can see in the hanging up version how it doesn't hold it's shape well as a result.  But I might see if my cardmaking Mum is interested in using it for a card decoration.

One other little tip- my super cheap and easy holder for maille.  There were a few times when I was working that I really wished I had another hand for a second to hold the work in progress while I opened a ring or tried to work out what I was up to.  So I made a holder- take an eraser and a T-pin (you can find them with the pins in the sewing section of your favourite craft/fabric shop).  Stick T-pin in eraser and you have your holder- the T-junction of the T-pin is really useful to hang stuff off.  Now I'm off to try a few other things from the book.  Or maybe the net.  Or perhaps I need to go buy some more rings...

Finished books- showing off the details

Here are my Discworld stamp yearbooks.  I was only going to make the one Year 2 but thanks to the printing error, the purple edition is bounding using perfect binding and the green one using a sewn binding, both of which have starred as the models in my tutorial on how to make a hard cover book.

There are a few things I would do differently (don't worry if you're following the turorial- I went back to edit the odd detail I wished I'd changed!)  I love the texture of the green version, it's the same as my Year 1 volume but since I can't get that paper anymore I have to be thankful that my indecisiveness when buying the original paper meant I had the paper in green (I also have it in blue and black so I'm good for at least 2 more years worth of volumes!)  I also wish I'd left a bit less space between the spine and cover (I used a bigger gap than listed in the tutorial).

All they need now are the stamps!

Two different styles of headband.  Purple pre-stitched on fabric, the green using a more traditional method

I love marbled endpapers.  My own attempts at marbling have not had the same great colour intensity so these are hand marbled papers I bought a few years ago

Hand written spines.  I would love to have a more professional look but it requires rather specialised equipment unfortunately