…compilation of tutorials
When knitting you must sometimes set aside the stitches and then one uses stitch holders.
But if you’re making your own knitting needles, why not also your stitch holders? ;-)
Anyhow, I really liked the instruction and next time I need some, I will make them myself.
Links:
zakka life: How To Make Stitch Holders
Here at unikatissima: Self-made Crochet Hooks And Knitting Needles
Lemonade Award
One month ago Kokopelli nominated me already for the ‘Lemonade award for attitude and gratitude’.
Once again thank you so much, I’m really proud of it!
My entry has been delayed because I thought over and over again to whom I should give the award.
As result of my thinking I reached the decision that I can’t give it further as expected:
I’m presenting here every day instructions, many are published on blogs.
And I think that every single author who bothers to write a blog entry with his or her own instruction deserves the award already!
Thus I want to thank you all out there who provide tutorials just for the fun of it for your attitude (for the award) and for your generosity (for my part ;-))!
However I want to nominate a blog for the ‘Lemonade award for attitude and gratitude’, but not for the tutorials which are the subject of unikatissima, but because Leslie stands up for peace between Israel and Palestine with tireless dedication: The TikkunTree Project.
Perhaps some people like to participate in the project (guidelines of project) with a leaf or a dove.
Anniversary
Well, there’s something else to tell: ‘unikatissima’s compilation of tutorials’ is one year old today!
Last February I startet with the Cloche style hat and the Recycled Card Pillow Box.
It’s sheer lunacy!
;-)
Links:
Kokopelli
The TikkunTree Project
Guidelines of The TikkunTree Project
Here at unikatissima: The beginning ;-)
Fancy some camel cookies? ;-)
I found the instruction great, especially because you can make all sorts of shapes.
For me, a simple flower is enough – hoping that spring will come swifter ;-)
But I haven’t begun yet…
By the way, I assume that you can use the cookie cutters for needle felting, too.
Links:
Make your own cookie cutter from clip-art and a foil pan
via Inhabitat » GREEN GIFT GUIDE: Make Your Own DIY Gifts
via Junk Mail Gems – DIY Christmas Gifts from Inhabitat
Here at unikatissima: Needle felting with cookie cutters
Addendum: This entry is a little longish, if you only want to get the formula, check out the entry ‘Online Cone Calculator’.
Many crafters reach somewhen a point when they need a template for a truncated cone, be it to make cone-shaped lamp shades from patterned vellum, be it for a part of a clown costume for the child, a template for a piece of jewelry from metal or polymer clay or to make a papermaché vase.
I think that most then have a clear idea about the upper and bottom diameter and the height of the cone.
Additionally we know then that the template for the cone must be in a similar shape than one of those besides.
But how to get from the height and the diameters to the template that really makes the desired cone?
I recently pondered on this question and found math central.
There you can ask questions and check the answers to questions already put.
There are several answers to the topic ‘cone’ (simply enter cone’ into the search box) and I tried to compile from the answers a really simple instruction on how to construct cones.
It seems to be a little complicated when reading it first, but if you strictly follow the instructions, it isn’t hard. Admittedly most of us will need a calculator, because we will need later the square root of a value.
I interspersed some basic knowledge in between, because I had to re-collect tediously everything I have learned ages ago and I have completely forgotten ;-)
And I tagged the actual formulas with a 
at the beginning.
Have fun with it!
(Click picture to enlarge)
First of all: what does a cone template consists of?
On the picture on the left you see, that our template consists of an outer and an inner circle and (light orange) a piece that we have to cut away.
First we will fix the sizes of our circles and later how much we have to cut away.
To this end we first identify the diameters of both of our circles for our cone template.
If you look at the diagram (I’ve been geared to a diagram of math central) you see, that both distances PT and PS equate the half of the diameters of our both circles from above.
(If you haven’t understand this, it doesn’t matter, simply go on.)
Therefore we will calculate PT and PS.
We will call the height H, the diameter at the top DiaT and the diameter at the bottom DiaB.
We need the desired radiuses for the formula.
That’s easy because the radius is exactly the half of the desired diameter.
Let’s call the radius at the top Rt and at the bottom Rb.
Let’s see a concrete example: our cone (that’s the one from the photo at the top) should have a height of 7cm, a diameter at the top of 3cm and a diameter at the bottom of 7cm.
Caution: All units must always be the same: they are all mm, or cm or m ;-)
H = QR = 7
DiaT = 3
DiaB = 7
Because a radius always equals the half of a diameter, we know additionally:
Rt = QT = 1,5
Rb = RS = 3,5
Now we need the distances PQ and PR that we must calculate (I found the formula in an answer of math central):
PQ = Rt * H / (Rb – Rt)
This is in our example PQ = 1,5 * 7 / (3,5 – 1,5) = 5,25
PR = PQ + H
This is in our example PR = 5,25 + 7 = 12,25
The formulas for PT and PS are as follows:
PT = sqrt(PQ2 + QT2) = sqrt((PQ * PQ) + (QT * QT))
PS = sqrt(PR2 + RS2) = sqrt((PR * PR) + (RS * RS))
Note: ‘sqrt’ means ‘square root’ (symbol: √).
Personally I don’t know how to extract a root (except for 9 perhaps ;-))), but every calculator provides this function and all computers have a calculator (somewhere!) ;-))
Let’s continue our example:
PT = sqrt((5,25 * 5,25) + (1,5 * 1,5)) = sqrt(27,5625 + 2,25) = sqrt(29,8125) = 5,5
PS = sqrt((12,25 * 12,25) + (3,5 * 3,5)) = sqrt(150,0625 + 12,25) = sqrt(162,3125) = 12,7
Note: In our example one decimal place is fully satisfying, and I’m rounding off up to 5 and up above 5.
Well, now we know that our outer circle has a diameter of 2 * PS = 25,4 and our inner circle a diameter of 2 * PT = 11.
We calculated everything in cm, therefore we have now 25,4cm and 11cm.
Now we can go on finding out how much we must cut away from our ring.
Luckily we don’t have to think too much, because there’s a ready-made formula (that I also found at mathcentral):
We calculate the angel a which identifies the area that we don’t(!) need as follows:
a = 360 * (1 – ((2 * π * Rb) / (2 * π * PS)))
Note: π means ‘Pi’ and I’m using 3,14 although the number goes on forever.
For accuracy fanatics ;-): these are the first 100 decimal places of Pi: 3,14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 06286 20899 86280 34825 34211 70679… ;-)
Let’s continue our calculation.
We thus calculate the angle a as follows:
a = 360 * (1 – ((2 * π * 3,5) / (2 * π * 12,7))) = 360 * (1 – (21,991 / 79,796)
= 360 * (1 – 0,276) = 360 * 0,724 = 260,64 which is approximately 261°
(Click picture to enlarge)
Great!
And what do we do now with the calculated degrees?
We cut them away ;-)
(Click picture to enlarge)
If you don’t have a protractor you can print and cut the degrees disk.
Put the disk exactly centered into the ring and draw straight lines with a ruler from the center to the 0/360° label and (in our example) from the center to the 261° label.
The lines look then like the dotted lines on the previous picture and mark the area we have to cut away.
Note: I suggest to construct the cone template first with news paper or scrap paper.
To find the center you can then simply half fold the uncut circles twice (see the photo). Then it will be easy to place the protractor correctly.
Links:
At math central (English, French, Spanish):
List of already answered questions
Form to ask a question
Search form
Answer for the question with the subject: ‘Constructing a cone’
Answer for the question with the subject: ‘Pattern for a truncated cone’
At Wikipedia (German): The first 100 decimal places of Pi (Die ersten 100 Nachkommastellen von Pi)
At Wikipedia (English): The first 50 decimal places of Pi
Here at unikatissima:
Entries with the tag ‘fimo’
Entries with the tag ‘paper mache’
If you have a lot of scarves or ties (and don’t craft with the latter ;-)), you want to keep them tidy.
I found an instruction on how to make a really nice scarf and tie holder (German). You can make it match your home very easily.
The holder on the photo is faked using my preferred gift wrapping paper, because I owe no more than the three scarves and I think that I will ‘craft‘ my ties ;-)
The making of the holder consists mainly of using a narrow plank, painting it white, glueing the clothespins on (e.g. with PVA glue) and then decorating the item with the printed layer of napkins (decoupage). Best if you check their pictures.
Links:
Scarf and Tie Holder (Tücher- und Krawattenhalter) (German)
Here at unikatissima: Entries with the tag ‘tie’
It’s not long anymore until Valentin’s Day. If you don’t know how best to show your love to your sweetheart let you inspire by the article ‘Valentine’s Day Photo Ideas’ at photojojo.
I just begun with taking a photo from my glass heart, perhaps I’ll make photos from me and my friend and give him the three pictures as message.
Perhaps I won’t ;-)))
Links:
At photojojo: Valentine’s Day Photo Ideas
The instruction on how to make a poor man side flash is really great!
I just made a very quick try. On the left photo you see an indirectly flashed glass and on the right photo a directly flashed glass.
I find the result convincing, especially because I 1. didn’t pay anything for it and it was 2. a very, very quick try!
(The more so as you don’t see so good at the indirectly flashed glass that I didn’t dried the glass too well at the last washing up ;-)))
This indirect flashing is similar to my entry Taking Photos from Jewelry.
Links:
At flickr: Poor Man Side Flash
Here at unikatissima: Taking Photos from Jewelry
I found an instruction on how to make easy gift bags from envelopes. The result looks really nice and I already arranged my envelopes and stamps…
Links:
Very Easy Gift Bagalopes
Here at unikatissima:
Eraser Stamps
More entries with the tag ‘stamping’
Today I present a tutorial on how to make a spinner tutorial on how to make a spinner, which actually is meant for an Altered Book, but which can be used as well for a greeting card.
You can e.g. make a card for Valentine and write ‘I love you’ in different languages or make a gift coupon card with pictures of different plants and the beneficiary may select one of them, etc.
Links:
Spinner How-To: unfortunately the link isn’t available no more.
I found an instruction on how to make glass table lights with translucent mosaic. They are made in an interesting and easy way with Window Colours*, but of course you can do this with translucent polymer clay as well.
* Window Colours are those glass paints that come in plastic bottles and can be used on acetate, I don’t know the exact English name.
That’s how they do it:
(see images on instruction site for better understanding)
One day then… Sigh.
;-))
Links:
Mosaik mit WindowColour (German)
votive
