Tutorial: Flour Paste Batik
Level: Easy
Time taken: Probably only an hour worth of actual work, but there’s a lot of waiting time as well, this isn’t an instant gratification project! Give yourself a full weekend to allow for drying times.
License: N/A
Materials Used: Fabric dyes, spray bottles, frame, flour, water, cotton fabric (I used cheap homespun from Lincraft at $4pm).

Changes Made

• I didn’t have any cornflour to hand and so used plain old self raising, I didn’t notice any problems arise from this.
• For the dye I used “Designline Soft Fabric Paint” that I bought from my local Riot for $10 a bottle, one bottle of red and one of yellow meant that I could also get an orange layer in there. I watered it down about half and half and then put it in a spray bottle from a dollar store. Using paint as opposed to dye made it a little “crunchier” than I would have liked, but after a couple of washes it seems to have softened up.

Tips

• I thought it would be a fabulous idea to pin my fabric to the frame of an old pinboard. What I didn’t think about was the cardboard on the back. The fabric obviously became wet with the dye and firmly attached itself to the cardboard and ripped it off when I took it off. It’s come out with a couple of washes so it’s not the end of the world, just not the smartest idea on my part! What would be awesome for this is this Stretcher Frame from Ikea, it’s 50×50 so would give you a decent size of fabric, and at only $5 it’s not going to blow your budget.
• I used a squeezy ketchup bottle, and my lines aren’t as fine as I would like, right after I finished my husband asked me why I didn’t just use a ziplock bag, the same way I ice cookies – snip off a corner and pack it in and squeeze. Duh. Using this method would give you far greater control of the line size – to make it wider just snip the corner higher up, and once you’re done you can just chuck the bag away so there’s no messy clean up. It doesn’t look terrible with the squeezy bottle, I would have just liked a finer line on the finished product.

I LOVE this project, waxless batik FTW! Particularly for children (assuming you have fairly patient kids who don’t mind a bit of waiting in between stages!), it’s an excellent way to introduce children to the art and concept behind batik without having the risk of hot elements and melted wax around. Plus, it’s cheap! My favourite crafts are ones that I can do with what I have laying around the house. I could see this as a great way to make some personalised artwork for your home, or design your own fabric for cushion covers. Why pay $20pm for batik quilting fabrics when you can make your own?

Related posts:

1. Tutorial Review – Watercolour Flowers
2. Tutorial Review – The Purl Frog
3. Toddler Safe Paint Recipe

Pattern: Mr Funky’s Pretty Little Kitty from Super Crochet Wonderful, the pattern is also available at Narumi Ogawa’s Etsy shop, although I feel that I should say that I find it very odd that she’s selling the “Spunky Funky Monkey” and “Pretty Little Kitty” as separate patterns at $5 each, they are exactly the same pattern other than the addition of a circle for the monkey’s face and the slight difference in the ears. In her book they are listed as one pattern with slight modifications.
Level: Intermediate
Time taken: I crochet slowly and usually whilst watching telly, so this is no gauge, but it took me about three hours, maybe slightly more.
License: In the book permission is given to sell the finished product at “fairs, bazaars and craft shows”, however on the individual pattern for sale on Narumi’s Etsy store it states “Please do not use this pattern for commercial or retail purpose”, so I’m not 100% sure what the go is there.
Yarn Used: A worsted weight (12 ply) yarn is recommended, but I’m stash busting so my kitty is made from an acrylic baby yarn I picked up over two years ago that has been dying a slow death at the bottom of my stash basket.

Alterations

• The change of yarn is probably the most obvious, the baby/sport weight yarn combined with a 3mm hook leaves the kitty sitting about 6 inches high at the very most. This design translates very nicely to the thinner yarn, and I’ll even say that it’s kind of cute being so small.
• No safety eyes! Ack, this is annoying me so much, I had a brain fart and attached the head to the body before I attached the eyes, meaning I had to sew on seed beads. I think the eyes (and the curled whiskers) totally make the pattern and I’m a bit bummed about this.
• No whiskers, I haven’t seen “cotton covered wire” anywhere, but I may have just missed it, I plan to go to the local craft store later in the week and will see if I can find any to finish the kitty off.

Tips

• Put your safety eyes in before sewing the head to the body!
• I think the addition of a pipe cleaner in the tail so you can mirror the curls in the whiskers would be awesome, unfortunately, I only thought of this after attaching the tail.
• I love the addition of the clothes crocheted into the body of the kitty in the middle of this picture, this is one of the reasons I love Ravelry, it’s great seeing the same pattern coming out in so many different ways. The way the pattern is done also means that it would be fairly simply to do, the only difference would be a yarn change midway through the body.

Overall it’s a nice pattern, I didn’t find any errors in the directions or the counts, there are a few things that did bother me but I’ll save them for the complete book review in a couple of weeks – I want to make a few more items from the book before I make up my mind. The finished object is cute and it’s a great pattern to move from beginner to more advanced Amigurumi. The only real negative I think is the discrepancies in the licensing, but if you’re only interested in making this for yourself then that isn’t even an issue.

Related posts:

1. Tutorial Review – The Purl Frog
2. Getting Started With Amigurumi
3. Tutorial Review – Watercolour Flowers

All of Arounna’s tutorials can be found here. I’m sure you’ll see a couple more of these turn up on CraftBlog in the future, there are some awesome ideas!

Tutorial: #12 Water Colour Flowers
Level: Easy – great for kids!
Time taken: Half an hour
License: N/A
Materials Used: Canvas board, watercolours and a permanent marker.

Changes Made

• Arounna used watercolour paper, I couldn’t find mine anywhere so ended up using canvas board instead, this is more suited for acrylic work, so I think it affected the spread of the paint, I think the blobs would be more “blobby” if I’d have used watercolour paper as it would have saturated properly, but overall using canvas didn’t make a huge difference.
• I don’t have any india ink, in my first piece I used a fine sharpie to create the contrasting lines, it led to more of a sketchy effect which I wasn’t too keen on. For the second one I used a thick black permanent marker and it really made the colours pop out of the canvas, originally I think I was worried about making the lines too heavy and overwhelming but I think the thicker lines work really well.

Tips

• Let loose! The first piece I did I was fairly uptight that my paint was doing exactly what I wanted and that everything was going to look perfect, I think that’s a product of being a grown up though. Let your inner child come through and have fun instead of worrying that everything is precise.
• As I said above, don’t be worried about the heavy lines, the contrast is what makes this piece look so great.

I love the effect that you end up with for such a small amount of work, I could see a collection of these used to brighten up a hallway or even if done on a smaller scale to make very cute handmade greeting cards, I’m sure kids would be more interested in writing thank you cards to long lost relatives if they get to blob paint everywhere first!

You can see other people’s versions of this tut here.

If you would like your tutorial reviewed by someone on the CraftBlog team, please contact us with a link and brief description and we’ll find the person best suited to take it on!

Related posts:

1. Tutorial Review: Flour Paste Batik
2. Tutorial Review – The Purl Frog
3. Toddler Safe Paint Recipe

The Purl Frog Pattern is from The Purl Bee, the blog created to accompany an NYC based patchwork and craft store. It’s a blog full of tutorials, class information (great if you’re local!), and a huge amount of inspiration for sewing, crochet and knitting projects.

Pattern: The Purl Frog
Level: Easy
Time taken: Half an hour
License: For personal use only
Fabric Used: Frog print from Timeless Treasures

The free pattern is in PDF format, with both printable PDF instructions and written instructions on the website. It’s such a simple project the instructions aren’t really needed, but they are still very clear and understandable for those that do need them.

Alterations

• I don’t have a printer at home so all PDF patterns I trace my screen, meaning that they usually come out a little smaller, even if I’m viewing at 100%, so this is slightly smaller than then 7.5 inches given.
• The thought of a frog without webbed feet just didn’t sit right with me, so I added a few webs on each feet as I was sewing him together – I wouldn’t recommend this! It made it a real beast to turn inside out, and although the front feet do look cute, the back feet just look awkward.
• My 18 month old son will probably end up with this, so beads for eyes weren’t an option, and I seem to have misplaced my jar of safety eyes, felt came to the rescue and they still look great. I would love to remake this pattern with some really big green bulgy safety eyes.
• I filled mine with rice as opposed to mung beans or lentils, so far no dramas, but I’ll update the post if I have issues with this later.

Tips

• Be obsessive about that 1/4 inch seam, don’t make it any less, and use pinking shears on the seam once you’re finished, this is one project you really don’t want to split whilst it’s being played with, lentils covering the floor is not a good thing

It’s definitely a begininers project, not that that’s a bad thing, I do these often just because I know that I can complete them in one of my son’s naps and fill the urge to sew without getting too bogged down in something. It’s a cute little toy for any child, although I would love to remake it using a combination of sand and roving so I could have a little pincushion, once I got over the aspect of sticking pins into a frog I think it would be sweet addition to my sewing room.

Have you made The Purl Frog? Let us know your thoughts via the comments.

Related posts:

1. Pattern Review: Mr Funky’s Pretty Little Kitty
2. Tutorial Review – Watercolour Flowers
3. French Seams Tutorial