Tag: unikatissimas

Double Knitted Potholders

unikatissima Double Knitted Potholders Rosebuds

Links of entry

Recently I needed a gift on a quite short notice and then I remembered the double knitted potholders.
After all I still had some cotton thread (thinking of heat resistance and so on) and designed quickly a rosebud pattern (see links below).

 

unikatissima Double Knitted Potholders Rosebuds The potholders have – as double knitted items always have – the pattern on one side …

 

unikatissima Double Knitted Potholders Rosebuds … and the inverted pattern on the other.

 

By the way, the potholders were well received ;-)


Links:
Double Knitted Potholders (Free Knitting Patterns – Heart Double Knit Hot Pad)

Here at unikatissima:
Rose bud pattern (JPG file, ~ 128 KB)

Indian Summer Votive

unikatissima Indian Summer Votive

Links of entry

Recently I had a nice idea, inspired by the nature bracelet and the clip art candles or faux quilt votives, resp.: a quick autum votive.
It became more beautiful than I expected ;-))

 
 
That’s what you do:
unikatissima Indian Summer Votive

    You need:

  • a tealight
  • some cardboard
  • broad transparent tape
  • colourful leaves
 

unikatissima Indian Summer Votive Tape the cardboard to a cylinder that has to be wider than the tealight but not especially beautiful.
Important note: my Votive was too narrow with this circumference and became warm very fast. I suggest strongly to make the cylinder wider!

 

unikatissima Indian Summer Votive Put the transparent tape around the cardboard cylinder with the sticky side outside(!).
My tape is about 5 cm broad therefore I put two on top of each other. The arrow shows where they overlap.

 

unikatissima Indian Summer Votive Now simply tape on colurful leaves. They may even overlap.

 

unikatissima Indian Summer Votive When you’ve finished you can decide whether you want to wrap everything with another layer of tape – this time sticky side inside ;-), then you simply pull your votive from the cardboard cylinder and put a tealight inside.

 

Another important note: The votive is very light and can therefore easily be blown into the flame.
When I will make this again, I think that I will put small tape stripes crosswise from side to side and weigh down everything with sand or a little plate.
Or I will work it directly around a glass, I think that’s smarter, because nothing can be blown away then ;-)
So don’t forget: Never leave burning candles unattended!

By the way, the leaves become brown as fast as ‘untreated’, but it is a beautiful decoration for an autumn table anyway.
Addendum: In the comments of the German entry Menoora writes, that leaves apparently keep their colours when gently ironed.
It’s worth a try, isn’t? ;-)

You can make it even more beautiful by taping a layer of packing tape transfers with interesting texts or comic pictures over the leaves :)
How about e.g. with a beautiful layed autumn table and the votives in place of name cards? The names could be designed in the style of the beautiful labels.

Anyway: Have much fun with this!


Links:
Here at unikatissima:
Nature Bracelets
Clip Art Candles
Faux Quilt Votives
Packing Tape Transfers
Beautiful Labels for the Kitchen

Brioche Pattern Knitting

unikatissima Brioche Pattern Knitting

Links of entry

Recently I busied myself with something very special: brioche pattern knitting.
And now you can try it, too :)))

You can see on the picture a scarf that I knitted with the instruction further below.

 

unikatissima Brioche Pattern Knitting As you can clearly see the pattern is ‘normal’ on one side and inverted on the other.
Because it is brioche knitting nothing curls and the fabric is wonderfully soft.

 

I find brioche pattern knitting fun, even interesting and amazingly fast (but perhaps I only became a much faster knitter with more practice ;-)))

By the way I used one of my random squares as template ;-)


Links:
Brioche Pattern Knitting – Pattern Jade (unikatissima’s brioche pattern jade) (English) – PDF file(~ 620 KB)

Here at unikatissima:
Random Squares Pattern Generator

I have still more brioche knitting patterns in unikatissima’s shop, partly free, partly for purchase.
You may find there something that you like, too :)

You can find my designs now at ravelry

Endless Embroidery

unikatissima Endless Embroidery

Links of entry

Ok, I must admit that the picture doesn’t look like endless embroidery, but it is: I designed the pattern (see links below) so that you can repeat it endlessly.
Besides the others embroideries I told about I like this so much because you can fill shapes with.
What shapes?
Well, you can sew a simple purse and completely embroider the flap. Or the lid of a round box (the item on the picture was meant to cover a lid). Or a pillow. Or along the neckline of a t-shirt. Or a linen tote.
It doesn’t matter what it is, (at the latest:)) after embroidering it it will be a very special item.

 

unikatissima Endless Embroidery Although I liked the item on the photo on top I wanted to see how it looks if I decrease the colour contrast of fabric and embroidery.
Hm, I like both ;-)

 

unikatissima Endless Embroidery Here I’m at work: in the foreground you can see my magazine embroidery hoop: it’s still fully functional ;-)
On the left top you see the iron-on copy of the pattern: I bought such an iron-on transfer pencil to trace the pattern and then iron it on the fabric. I even found a tutorial for this.
Because I’m not a good embroiderer and didn’t really trust the washability of the pencil I simply ironed the pattern on the wrong side of the fabric and embroidered it this way – it worked fine. I only had to turn my work often.
And because I made it on impulse I embroidered with sewing thread. It must look much better with embroidery floss.
By the way, the thick dots are French knots, it was fun to embroider them into the little squares.

 

In the file with the pattern (see links below) you will find the pattern as endless version (simply place side by side in both directions) as well as edging and border.
Now you can embroider all sorts of things to your liking from top to bottom or only partially ;-)

It’s as always: Simply try it out! ;-)

I wish you a lot of fun with it,
Susann


Links:
unikatissima’s endless pattern bulawajo: PDF file (ca. 384 KB)

Google search result for ‘Iron-on Transfer Pencil’
Google search result for ‘Bügelmusterstift’

Iron-on Transfer Pencil Tutorial
via: Iron On Transfer Pencil tutorial

French knots (English)
French knots (German)

Here at unikatissima:
Entries with the tag ’embroidery’
Magazine Embroidery Hoop

Crocheted Stitch Markers

unikatissima Crocheted Stitch Markers

Links of entry

I wanted to present these little, ingenious crocheted stitch markers.
I crocheted mine in less than five minutes!

She offers instructions for small, medium and large ones at ravelry.
Generally speaking it’s ‘only’ a chain ring base crocheted with single crochets – very simple as all ingenious ideas are :)

 

unikatissima Crocheted Stitch Markers I did it a little differently:
– I wrapped a needle 3x too big a couple of times with the crochet thread and
– crocheted single crochets around this tread ring.
That’s because I don’t like rings of chains ;-)

Her stitch markers are more beautiful, but mine are sufficient for me ;-)
And I don’t have to fall back to my usual stitch markers ;-)


Links:
ravelry instructions (Stitch Markers)

Photos of her stitch markers at flickr: photo 1 (IMG_6415[1]), photo 2 (IMG_6411[1]) and photo 3 (IMG_6415[1])

Here at unikatissima:
Little Improvised Knitting Helpers

Wineglass Tea Light Holder

unikatissima Wineglass Tea Light Holder.jpg

Links of entry

Don’t these wineglass tea light holders look nice?
Once I’ve seen an instruction for them (that’s only available now via web archive), which was meant for Christmas with little Christmas ornaments put in the glasses.

I can’t throw away anything and so I thought that it’d look nice to fill the glasses…

 

unikatissima Wineglass Tea Light Holder.jpg… with hand-dyed paper scraps or…

 

unikatissima Wineglass Tea Light Holder.jpg… with yarn and thread scraps that I kept for reasons I can’t understand anymore ;-)

 

I can imagine as well to put flowers into the glasses, or carved vegetables or the apple swan or the little hors d’oeuvres penguin ;-)

Note: Be careful to fix the tea lights or even candles so that they can’t slip or topple over!


Links:
Wineglass Candles in web archive

Here at unikatissima:
Chillie Anthurium
Apple Swan
Penguin Hors d’oeuvres

Quick & Easy Bead Loom

unikatissima Quick Easy Bead Loom

Links of entry
 

Recently I wanted to bead loom two patterns of my random squares pattern generator and needed a bead loom for this.

 

unikatissima Quick Easy Bead Loom I’ve completely forgotten about the tutorial that I presented for my other bead bracelet (well, the entries pile up :)) and simply wound my thread around a cardboard fruit dish and just started.
The advantage is that I have plenty of thread to weave in after cutting the threads on the back of the dish.
And if you don’t have a cardboard fruit dish I’m sure that you can use a box of chocolates, too ;-)
I didn’t need to make little notches with my cardboard fruit dish because it was rough enough, but with a box of chocolates I think it would be better, just as described in the tutorial.

 

unikatissima Quick Easy Bead Loom

 

And that’s it.
I haven’t woven in all threads and have no closure yet – I can’t decide.
It’s done with the random squares pattern 1 further below.

 

unikatissima Quick Easy Bead Loom And here I began another one that I make with the random squares pattern 2 further below.

 


Random Squares Pattern 1
9 squares width
unikatissima Random Square Generator unikatissima Random Square Generator unikatissima Quick Easy Bead Loom

 

unikatissima Random Square Generator unikatissima Random Square Generator

 

unikatissima Random Square Generator

 

unikatissima Random Square Generator

 


Random Squares Pattern 2
9 squares width
unikatissima Random Square Generator unikatissima Random Square Generator unikatissima Quick Easy Bead Loom

 

unikatissima Random Square Generator unikatissima Random Square Generator

 

unikatissima Random Square Generator

 

unikatissima Random Square Generator

 


Links:
Here at unikatissima:
Random Squares Pattern Generator
Loom Woven Bead Bracelet

Here again the linklist of Loom Woven Bead Bracelet:
Make your own bead loom (with explaining pictures)

Tutorial on Bead Loom Weaving
Another tutorial on Bead Loom Weaving
Another tutorial on Bead Loom Weaving

Two very good pictures (in English text): select in the left sidebar ‘Woven Beadwork’ and scroll down
Two very good pictures (in German text): select in the left sidebar ‘Gewebtes’ and scroll down

Tips to bead weaving (German) at Perlenhobby.de: click on ‘Tipps + Tricks’ in the sidebar left and select there ‘Tipps zum Perlenweben’

Crocheted Flower Shawl

junghanswolle Crocheted Flower Shawl

Links of entry

I find this crocheted scarf really cute, it simply consists of lengths of chains and strewn little flowers ;-)
Once I crocheted this pattern, but without the lengths of chains and even though it looks tricky I didn’t found it very difficult.
You just have to follow the diagram carefully ;-))

 

junghanswolle Crocheted Flower ShawlThe pattern isn’t available anymore.

But I found the scarf very cute and so I tried to remember how it worked and wrote my own pattern.
It is much more flexible because it tells you how to modify the length of chains between the little flowers.


Links:
Blümchenschal (German and English)

Crocheted Flower Shawl (Modell 827/8, Gehäkelter Blumenschal aus Aparta) (German)
They suggest another yarn now for this shawl:
Crocheted Flower Shawl (Modell 411/0, Gehäkelter Blumenschal aus Batik) (German)

Read the English translation of the overview page.
The instruction (PDF file, ~270KB) itself contains a good-to-read crochet diagram, the same as before.

Filet Crochet in Rounds

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds

Links of entry
That’s how it works
The used pattern

Filet crochet in rounds? What for?
Well, I find that it looks simply better with symmetrical patterns like those of the random squares pattern generator :)
It can that you don’t see any difference from far away, but from close I find it more beautiful if the stripes pattern made from the double crochets radiates from the center.

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds
And that’s how the same pattern looks if filet crocheted the normal way.
The other one is much more beautiful, isn’t it?
;-)

 

Actually it’s another form of crochet medaillons, that you simply join.

 


That’s how it works:

The start:

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds You can have a filled or empty middle square…

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds …that you crochet the normal way:
You crochet the empty middle square from 4 ch for the ‘bottom’, 3 ch for the right side, 2 ch for the ‘lid’ and 1 dc for the left side (that are 9 chains and one double crochet in the first chain) and
 
you crochet the filled middle square from 4 ch for the ‘bottom’, 3 ch for the right side, 3 dc for the ‘filling’ (these are 7 chains and three double crochets in the first three chains).

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Or you can have four filled or empty middle squares.

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds You can crochet the empty middle squares the normal way, too (7 ch for the bottom of two squares, 3 ch for the right side, 2 ch for the ‘lid’, 1 dc for the side, 2 ch for the ‘lid’ of the left square and 1 dc for the left side), then turn and add two more squares on top.
 
 
 
You should begin the filled middle squares in the center: 4 ch for the bottom of the 1st square, 3 ch for the side of the 1st square, 3 dc for the filling and the other side of the 1st square, then 3 ch for the side of the 2nd square, 3 dc for the filling and the other side of the 2nd square in the last dc of the 1st square, continue this way until you have crocheted all four squares.

 

The rest:

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Here you see using the example of an empty middle square from the top how to continue: you crochet 3 ch for the side of the 2nd square(!) of the 2nd round, 3 dc to fill and finish the 2nd square. For the empty corner square you crochet ‘around the corner’: simply 5 ch and a filled square again by crocheting 4 dc. Continue this way until you join the round with a slip stitch at the end.

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds For filled corner squares you always(!) crochet it to be the first of the side by crocheting 3 ch as for the empty square but then you crochet the following two dc in the last dc of the previous square.

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Here you can see again how a filet crochet square worked in rounds with one middle square is constructed (I turned the numbers so that you also can see the work direction of the actual square).
You can see at squares 2 und 10 that you begin a round always in the same column.

 

unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds And here you can see how a filet crochet square worked in rounds with four middle squares is constructed (here again I turned the numbers so that you also can see the work direction of the actual square).
You can see at squares 5 und 17 that you begin a round always in the same column.

 

The used pattern:

That’s the pattern I used for the swatches, I let it generate with the Random Squares Pattern Generator.
Of course ;-)
(To save the pictures click them with the right mouse button and select ‘Save image as…’ or similar)

The pattern:
unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Pattern unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Pattern

 

The quarter pattern:
unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Pattern unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Pattern

 

The border:
unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Pattern

 

The repeated pattern:
unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds Pattern

 

And perhaps the whole as a summer shawl, straight or triangular:
unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds unikatissima Filet Crochet in Rounds

 

Well, the whole thing is ‘cheated’ from photos of my swatches, especially ‘cheated’ because a single square is crocheted from cotton thread and has only a side length of about 10 cm. As per Pythagoras Calculator the triangular shawl was about 70 cm at the longest side and therefore rather a kerchief ;-))

 


Links:
Here at unikatissima:
Random Squares Pattern Generator
Clothes From Crocheted Medaillons
Entries containing the word ‘medaillon’
Online Pythagoras Calculator

Instructions for filet crochet:
Filethäkel-Anleitung (CROCHET TUTORIAL) (English)
Filethäkeln-Grundanleitung (German)

At both tutorials there are instructions for increasing and decreasing, too, which you can use e.g. for the triangular half squares of the triangular shawl on the photo.

Random Squares Pattern Generator

unikatissima Random Squares Pattern Generator unikatissima Random Squares Pattern Generator

Links of entry
The Random Squares Pattern Generator

I can’t remember why I wanted to let generate square mirrored random patterns: it took me so long to finish my random squares pattern generator ;-)

But I must say now that I’m really amazed of the generated patterns!
I sat already for hours and let make patterns and saved them ;-)
Personally I prefer the patterns of a width from about 15 squares to 35 squares: the patterns are very varied and you can recongnize very well the mirroring of the patterns. The bigger they get the more they seem merely random and then I don’t like them anymore.
By the way: up until now I haven’t had no pattern twice except for the really little ones!

I even tried some patterns already! ;-))
I knitted and filet crocheted some swatches, there was no time for more yet, but I must say as always: you can make muuuch more from the patterns than only filet crochet and cross stich!

Have fun with my random squares pattern generator!

P.S.: By the way, you can find the patterns from the top at the random squares pattern generator under ‘Completed patterns’, they are both 25 squares wide :)


Links:
Here at unikatissima:
Random Squares Pattern Generator
What Can You Do With Filet Crochet/Cross Stitch Embroidery Charts?
crochet medaillon