Weaving Mats

Materials Required :

1. Wool (Different shades)
2. Frame
3. Big Needle
4. Ordinary material of any shade
5. Wool brush

Frames can be round, hexagon or square. You can make beautiful mats by weaving the wool on the square and hexagon frames. With the round frame you can make flower patterns and join them to make a shawl or table cloth according to your choice.

Procedure for round shaped frame : 

Click on the pictures to see an enlarged and clear version.

1. Hold the frame and the end of the wool below with your hand as shown in the figure on the right. Take one strand of the wool up from below through the inside opening of the frame.
2.  Wind it through the opposite nails of the outer circle in the shape of number eight (8) thrice.
3. After finishing the three winds, take the wool to the next opposite pair of nails in the outer circle. Repeat the process till all the nails in the outer circle are completed. The end of the wool should be brought down and tied. 
4. Take a contrast colour wool and follow the same procedure to weave the inner circle.  
5. Tie all the ends of wool below, together .
6. Insert a strand of wool through the needle. Pass the needle alternatively through the gap between the windings bring it back through the middle gap of the two windings.  Repeat the stitch till all the windings are fastened. Put a knot in the end. This fastens the flower pattern in place. 
7. Carefully remove the windings from the frame. Now one flower is ready. You can make more flowers and join them to make a table cloth or shawl according to your choice.

Procedure for Hexagon / Square shaped Frame:

Click on the pictures to see an enlarged and clear version.

1. For a hexagon shaped frame, the number of nails should be odd numbers. Here the frame used has 9 nails on all sides. 
2. Take the wool, put one knot at a corner with the wool and immediately take it to the second nail as in figure.
3.  Then wind the wool thrice through the opposite nails tightly (the windings can be three or six or more according to your choice). After finishing the three winds, continue with the next opposite nails. Repeat this process until the whole frame is completed.
4. Take any contrast shade wool and repeat the above procedure once more.
5. Take another shade and repeat the same. Altogether at least three shades of wool should be wound on the frame.
6. Insert a thread in a needle to tighten all joints, of windings of the three shades of wool.  Tighten all the joints continuously without putting knots after each joint. After tying, you will get a star shape in each joints as shown in figure.
7. Without cutting the base colour (first shade winding), cut all the other layers around the joints. After cutting you will get a shape of a flower.
8. Take the wool brush and brush the flowers with it to make the mat bushy.
9.  Remove the mat carefully from the frame by cutting the base shade wool, along the nails around the frame. 
10. You can fix the mat on any ordinary shade of material.

 

My Patterns

Clay Molding

We see a lot of beautiful things around us. With little creativity and effort we can make wonderful things with clay. By using the following method and materials we can  make a clay basket and different types of fruits, well arranged in the basket.
 

What you need:

1. China clay - 1/2 kg (approx.)
2. Ceramic Powder- 1/2kg(approx)
3. Ceramic Tile - 1 piece (12x8 or 12x12 size)
4. Fabric Paint -Different Colours 
5. Varnish -1 bottle
6. Glue.

 Tools / Accessories:

1. Brushes
2. Roller
3. Knife

How to Mould: 

1. Mix together China clay, ceramic powder and glue. Make it into a dough. 
2. Take small quantity of this dough and roll them into balls of various sizes to make grapes. Make 40-50 of them and paint purple.
3. Same way shape up apples, bananas, oranges and whatever fruits you want to make, colour them and once the colour dries up, varnish them.
4. To make leaves, take small quantity of the dough and roll it using the roller. Cut it in the shapes of leaves (various shapes) and paint them green when dry,  varnish them.
5.  To make a basket take a portion of dough and flatten it and cut it out in the shape shown in the picture, place it over a glass as shown in the picture. Few horizontal lines and in between few vertical lines are pressed over the dough to get the exterior of the basket. Two small strings should be made with the dough and it  should be twisted or plaited neatly and pasted to the top and bottom of the basket. 
6. Now paint the basket with brown and black colours and varnish it.

Finishing Touches:
Take a Ceramic plate. Wash it and let it dry. First using glue, stick the three sides of your basket on the tile. The top portion should be kept open. Fill the basket with clay dough to the brim.
Now arrange the fruits on the top portion of the basket. Stick them in a beautiful way. If a small piece of magnet is stuck at the back of each fruit it can be put up can separately  on any metal  piece. This  can even decorate our refrigerators.

Keep this fruit basket on a wooden stand. It will add decor to your dining or kitchen or even living room.
It can also be gifted to someone you love.
Try it and come out with beautiful creations.

Nib Painting

Painting

is the art in which colours and lines make the visual impression. Besides painting with brushes, knives, spatula, nibs and even twigs are used for painting.
Here, we are going to do a nib painting.
What You need.

1. Design
2. Felt
3. Hard board
4. Oil paint
5. Tracing Paper
6. Pencil Carbon
7. Glue

Tools/Accessories Nibs- 3 types of nibs are available.

1. Rounded tip to do circle designs
2. Long tip to do lines
3. Short pointed tip to draw small sharp lines.

How to Do:

Using glue stick the felt on the hard board. Trace down the design on the felt. Now you are ready to paint the design. Two things should be always taken care while doing nib painting. One, you should always start painting from top so as to move your hand freely towards down part. Secondly, you should move your hand evenly while doing your painting. This gives the painting a real look.

Decide on the shade scheme of your design.  Since the petals are not of the same shade, white and pink paint should be used in good combination to get the double shade. Put the paint straight onto the felt. Press on it or score on the paint using the nib. Wherever a round design is required use the nib with round tip and wherever the small sharp lines are drawn short pointed tip nip is used. Generally long tip nib is used  to do the lines. You can also take the paint on the nib and press it against the surface to create the design. You may take 2-3 days to finish off with a design. But do it patiently. You will enjoy this. The design will dry off very slowly, say by 10- days or more. The consistency of the paint is very thick. After the design is fully dried, get it framed.

Soft Toy - Pompon Bear

Materials Required

• Double Knit Wool
• A rod of diameter 1/2 inch (Approx) and length 12" approx.
• A big needle
• Eyes, Nose
• Fevi Bond.

Method
The Pom Pon Bear consists of several wool balls (of various sizes) joined together appropriately to make the bear. So first lets see how to make the balls. The basic procedure to make the balls is the same.

1. First take four strands of the wool, each of approx 12" in length.
2. Now keep the 4 strands along the length of the rod.
3. Now using the wool ball wind it over the 4 strands and rod
4. After completing a single layer repeat the process over and over again

For a normal size Pom Pon:

• Body  will have 12-14  windings.
• Legs   will have 09- 10 windings.
• Hands will have 08 windings.
• Head  will have 10  windings.
• Ears    will have 06  windings.
• Snout  will have 06  windings. 
• Tail will have 06 winding.

 5. After completing the required windings, slide off the wool. Now using the 4 strands tie a knot which brings the two ends of the windings together.
 
  6. Now cut off the folded edges neatly. After this, roll the piece between your palms and make it into a small ball. Similarly make the rest of the balls.
7. Join the head and the body using the 2 strands, by tying a knot.
8. Next Join the hands, legs, ears and snout accordingly using needle and wool.
9. Stick the eyes and nose to complete the Bear. You can also tie a bow around its neck.

To make a bigger bear, you can increase the windings accordingly.

Check Out My Other PomPon Toys Here.

Soft Toy - Rabbit

Materials Required

• Fur cloth
• Fibre Cotton
• Felt cloth
• Chart Paper
• Marker Pen
• Scissors
• Eyes, Nose
• Needle and Thread
• Fevi Bond or glue

Method The designs of the body, ears and the base needed to make a rabbit is given below. You must draw bigger versions of the designs as required.

1. Draw the figure of the body on the wrong side of the fur material. Cut it. You need 2 such pieces.
2. Draw the ears on the wrong side of the fur. You need 4 such pieces.
3. Draw the figure of the base of the rabbit on the felt cloth and cut it.
4. Now join the top part of the body piece with the other similar piece on the wrong side.
5. The unstitched part of the body is fixed on to the base. Thus you get a sitting rabbit.
6. Now what we have is a rabbit with the right side of the fur inside.
7. In order to get the right side, cut, approx 4" on the felt cloth at the centre without cutting the fur.
8. Using this cut, reverse it, (pull the right side out) to get the right side outside. Now fill in the fibre cotton and close the slit.
9. Similarly do the ears. Do not fill in fibre cotton, in the ear.
10. Fix the ear on the body using thread and needle. The stitches won't be seen outside as they will be covered with fur.
11. Stick the eyes and nose with fevibond or glue.

Sauce Bottle Dog

A simple but cute looking dog can be made from a glass bottle and some wool. This is an easy to do craft requiring maybe an hour of your time. So get going.. have a cute dog waiting on your table when your loved ones come back home. 

Materials:

• Sauce Bottle or any other medium size glass bottle
• Double Knit wool ( any colour of your choice)
• A Plastic Bangle (diameter same as or less than the base of the bottle)
• Two eyes, 1 nose
• Glue ( Fevicol)

Procedure:

First make an external cover to the bottle with the woolen thread. Cut out a long thread of wool say four times the length of the bottle. Fold the thread two fold and tie knots around the plastic bangle at intervals say around nine knots. Now you have nine pairs of wool thread hanging from the bangle. Take one thread from a pair and another from the adjacent pair and tie them together. Repeat all around the bangle and now we have nine triangles with nine pairs of wool thread hanging from it. Then again tie one thread from a pair together with another thread from the adjacent pair and so on all around to get nine diamond shapes. Repeat the process till it reaches almost the length of the bottle. Insert the bottle into the thread cover with the bangle at the bottom. Tie together all the hanging threads at the top of the bottle tightly.

Those who know crochet can alternatively make the covering on the bottle with crochet stitches. 

To make the legs, hair and tail of the dog, cut out threads, say 12inches or more depending on the length of the bottle. Hold them together uniformly and tie a small thread around in the middle to make a bundle. Make four such bundles of equal length and two more lengthier bundles. Tie one of the 12inch bundle in the middle at the top of the bottle to form the hair. Tie two bundles on either sides around the mid portion of the bottle to form the hind legs and one at the back for the tail. Then tie the lengthier bundles on either side as the front legs.

To make the face, make two balls; one slightly bigger than the other. Wind 6'inch length thread around the hands for a number of times, slip off the windings from the hand, tie with a thread in the middle and cut off the folded ends. Let this be the bigger ball, then make a smaller one in the same way. Tie the balls together. Stick the eyes with glue on either sides of the bigger ball and the mouth in the middle of the small ball. Tie the face at the top of the bottle just below the hair.  Now your cute sauce bottle dog is ready. 

URL : http://www.webindia123.com/craft/toy/botdog/puppy.htm

Shell Ganesha