Looms

So I have totally failed at crochet and knitting.  I am a big enough woman to admit this fact.  I have issues with my hands. I watch the instructional videos and think "AHA! I get this one" Then I go to try it and eh, somehow between my brain and my hands something gets lost or my hands just cannot cooperate. Or the instructions on other videos just aren't clear enough.  I wasn't going to give up though, nooooo.  Yarn crafts seemed like they'd be ideal for me. Frustration or not, I was moving forward. Also my cat loved me attempting them -- heck she even loves when I play with wire, it looks too much like yarn for her liking.

So what did I do? I hit the web, Pinterest, Amazon. I finally settled on these two items to start with:

The Clover "Hana-Ami" Flower Loom

and

 
The Martha Stewart Crafts Lion Brand Yarn Knit and Weave Loom Kit.


I was able to jump right in with the Hana-Ami flower loom and make flowers no problem.  Using yarn, wire, whatever you can wrap, knit, weave on the small loom -- it really is easy to figure out.

Some of my first flowers are shown here - one wrapped using their "Hana-Ami" directions out of wire and then sort of lazily darned best I could with yarn.   The Second was weaved on the loom out of just yarn.

The Martha Stewart loom is taking a bit more practice as I am actually attempting knitting on it.  It's taking me an adjustment period, playing around with getting the tension just right.  Still I am knitting.  I'm just not making anything yet -- more like making practice squares and rounds -- but that's so much better than I ever did with traditional knitting needles where I got exactly nothing done.

So far, I'm sold on looms.  We'll see if I feel that way in a week or two.  I lean more toward weaving as it's faster and easier, but the knitting is getting there, slowly.

Mama Cat v2.0

My cat likes to help me sketch so she ends up in a lot of them.

Sun

Mom likes sun faces, so made this one for her.

Fabric and metal robot wall hanging

My nephew still likes robots so for his birthday, in addition to his presents, I made him this fabric and metal robot wallhanging.

Froggie fabric wall hanging

My sister loves froggies and wanted this froggie saying on her wall, so she gets this. The background and lily pad were a pre-printed fabric, the froggie is muslin fabric that I drew on and painted using Inktense colored pencils. Still gotta attach it to a canvas.

Another ring

This time made of buttons and Twisteez .

Button / wire ring

I got a Bucket 'o buttons today so what to do first? Twist some wire together (this is 4 pieces of 22 gauge copper), wrap that around my finger twice, slip on a button and then a smaller one, wrap the two ends of wire together in circle.