Mini fruits tart completed and unwrapping cat amigurumi crochet daiso kit

I was reluctant to do the felt mini fruits tart because wanted to do something else and left it for couple of days as I was busy organizing and decluttering my room. Still not finished as need shelves to display my handmade objects well the mini fruits tart is completed.

Each daiso kit does have instructions in both English and Japanese I fell geared towards the American market. Extra equipments are embroidery need I used size 10 and has wide eye, recommend using pva tacky glue as hold fast and does stick properly, dress making scissors plus little small kind used for cutting and fabric markers. The instructions says to make photocopies of pieces I suggest you make 2.

It doesn't look like on cover as I wasn't happy with the pastry base and was messy gluing the pieces together. I have been feeling tired for numbers of days this didn't help.

I can make this again as there some leftovers but the felt available tends to be a lot thicker.

Mean while I started opening this amigurumi cat charm kit. Amigurumi means knitted doll even though it is crochet as knitting involves 2 needles didn't technique all together. I prefer crochet so much easier but won't give up on the knitting.

Comes with wadding which is polyester not cotton as I thought, yarn, thread, eyes without the washer and ball chain. It says will take 6 hours and you need crochet hook-2.30 to 3, I used 2.50, yarn needle, marking pins, scissors, 2 pliers, glue, ruler and tweezers(if you have them).

Started this kit straight away unusual for me to buy amigurumi kit as I get my project recipes from the internet and print them out plus I have Japanese book on making similar mascot charms.

There is daiso needle felting kit on order and waiting for it arrive hopefully this cat with very short tail will be completed if not I'll add to stuff to do pile. Image editing program keeps dying on me so may have to get photoshop elements I use program for other things besides editing photos.

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Unwrapping the bear bead kit by Daiso

I picked up this bead kit by Daiso while shopping in Mong Kok, Hong Kong. In the past I used to do a lot of beading either from Japanese project books or Miyuki beading kits I love. But the problem is sourcing the beads themselves quite often have to buy them in small amounts or substituting for something else. I guess ebay and amazon are best places to look.

Brought this for $12 HKD which is bargain and comes with earjack plug as recent development with smart phones there is no place to attach mobile phone charm. I use them to dangle on bags or USB sticks.

On closer inspection it wasn't Daiso store I brought probally due to set jet lag. This is third day since my return to reality. Further research I believe it is Living Plaza by AEON, Mong Kok. 3/F Chong Hing Square, 601 Nathan Road, Kowloon. AEON is company who import Daiso products they are much nicer than Poundland, 99p, Pound World and other discount stores here in UK. Some Poundland papercraft products are okay but rather buy in Works.

This come with selection of plastic beads, Nylon monofilament and cotton wadding which is new. I never come across beading project which uses cotton as stuffing as normally large or small clear beads. It suppose to take 2-3 hours. I'll start this kit tonight, the instructions are very clear comes with diagrams and multiple languages and photograph the finished project.

Also I noticed an image of one my tatted motifs has been on Squidoo tatting website and not incited. I believe it is one created by 12# Flora white/purple with red beads. It would be polite to link where you take pictures from when searching on google. Even in pinterest they link back the source, I heard in flickr a person's zentangle drawing as uploaded to facebook without their permission. Yea it happens so makes sense to add watermark in everything I upload to flickr and my blogs. I may of been away for 3 years but doesn't mean I won't find out.

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Tatted projects completed so far

I haven't been tatting much because I started to learn crochet which is closest thing to knitting and much easier. I brought this book from Hobbycraft and turns out to be useless despite the fact aimed at skills at all level. The reason for crochet because  I have found a amigurumi chart of rabbit and bear in Gothic and Lolita bible extra. Amigurumi is knitted stuffed dolls there are loads on images and patterns on the net, all the skills you need is magic ring, single crochet stitch, increasing and decreasing single crochet and slip stitch plus darning/sewing skills. Waste of money buying that book because I can learn from watching videos on the net. Pfft! In general Japanese craft book have clear diagrams why can't English books do the same. Following written instructions is difficult- more show and less tell. Below is the Onion Ring butterfly by Hope Green. The original term is doppelringe which means double ring. Where exactly is the onion in this ring did they use babelfish to translate the term.

On larger rings additional picots can be added on the small ring for stability. This is my suggestion.

I adapted this pattern by using a single shuttle, yes I tried needle tatt the motif become uneven when removed from the needle and the stitches were large as well. So shuttle tat ftw. Free pattern by Iris Niebach.

Here is completed work, says 5 days took me 7 days because I was er gaming inbetween. Crochet like tatting is addictive can't stop and two can be compatible I have seen tatting patterns with crochet symbols and love the try them out. Still doing a motif for mignonette with the current pattern it's mostly composed of rings and is autonomous. I'll see if I can adapt another tatting pattern and the mignonette netting.

Recently acquired a book called The tatted Artistry of Teiko Fujito translated version from Japanese to English. Don't normally buy tatting books because majority of the pattern comes from the net or my head. Just as I suspect it has clear diagrams and new technique called split stitch it requires a separate thread and eliminates the need for cut and tie. There's some pattern involving twisted picot and crochet patters to try once I have finish the dimple ring angel (there's an easy way to make a dimple ring). With the short crochet adventure over it's back with tatting and gaming. Heh heh.

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Crafting with felt

I'm becoming less interested in Grand Fantasia and using much of my time crafting. Above is one of few cards I created for the year. This was for my cousin's birthday I'm influenced by mandalas and patterns. Would like to create more beaded or paper embroidery cards/artist trading cards (atcs). Now the World cup is on, I'm only watching a few matches, Italy, Spain and England (Even though the first match was dismal). I acquired an another Japanese Crafting book - かわいいフェルトの小物たち (Cure felt goods), ISBN ISBN9784418092192. You can buy from yesasia.

I have worked with felt before and found the material fragile, piles easily. At first glance I noticed the patterns resembles those of stuffed animals. These are my early attempts, a rabbit and chibi panda. Not a good idea to use salvage felt because it splits and pencil is not recommended for drawing around the paper template because it shows up in the sewing. I noticed a lot of other people's felt work the stitching is loose whereas my stitches are tight because this is how I hand sew. Have not yet mastered the sewing machine. Most of felt projects in the craft shops are too simple in design.

Projects become more advance further on through the book, the patterns for the deer are on the cover. The felt deer plush appears on the book cover. It was the reason why I wanted to buy the book in the first place. There was a lot of sewing involved and took me 2 days to complete. I used rose and cream felt because the pink I found in the craft store was very bright. As with all Japanese books I found the diagrams clear if in doubt I check the kanji -Japanese Chinese ideograms for any clues but some part you can make an intelligent guess. I despise people who moan or complain it's no in English. Make some effort to learn Japanese or any other language it's not difficult. Besides there was no body to help me I learnt thorough trial and error. In all I found the felt projects very easy to sew and off to make more.

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