CARLA’S ‘QUILTS’ – THE SPECS – PART THREE

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Here’s what the back of one of Carla’s completed, hand-tied afghan quilts looks like. This is exactly the same technique used by ‘conventional’ quilters to make hand-tied quilts. The quilt is always a ’sandwich’ consisting of the pieced (in this case crocheted squares joined together) design, the middle layer of batting (fleece, fiberfill, an old blanket, toweling, or just another piece of fabric), and the backing which is either quilted in a decorative style or tied like this one. A crocheted ‘quilt’ is has much more stretch than a quilt made from woven fabric, thus the wrinkles in the back of carla’s quilt will disappear when the quilt is in use. There must be excess fabric on the back to allow the flexibility of the crocheted front.

For the most part, Carla uses a 2.5 mm hook with DK weight yarn to make squares that measure from 5X5 cm to 10 X 10 cm. Using these sizes of squares, Carla is a talented artist who creates these lovely, unique afghans. Each blanket is almost 7 feet square and weighs about 5 kilograms – a whopping 11 pounds! That should keep anyone warm – from his toes to the crown of his head. I have a son at home who’d love to receive an afghan this large AND with this much weight AND with no holes. A dream come true for my 25 year old son. Maybe I should ship him to Amstelveen near Amsterdam, Netherlands where Carla resides…..

Some of Carla’s intricate designs are made using an embroidery graph as a guide. This is the case for the wonderful orangutan afghan picture in Part One of this series. Carla likes the work of Elizabeth Bradley in the UK for these graphs. http://www.elizabethbradley.com/

Finished back of Carla’s completed afghan ‘quilt’.

Here’s a picture of the back of one of Carla’s completed afghans, before she has added the backing. Anyone like loose ends??? Here’s Carla’s DEEP DARK SECRET: one of the reasons Carla applies the backing to her quilts is so she won’t have to weave in all these loose ends. Smart lady!

This prolific artist also has a nature blog – and her photos there provide a lot of the inspiration for her crochet. She’s as good at photography as she is at crochet. Check it out!

http://www.carladebruijn.nl/#

Although the text is in Dutch, we can ALL enjoy photographs no matter what language the photographer speaks.

To view more of Carla’s work, please visit her website:

http://www.carladebruijn.nl/

I’m so happy she offered to share her artistry with the rest of us! Thanks, Carla.

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Whether you have snow where you live or are on the wrong side of the world for that, these snow glob crafts for kids are a lot of fun to put together at home or in the classroom.

If you want to keep it super basic, you can download some snow globe coloring pages from Monday Mandala and have kids drawn in their own images (or color in what is there for the ones that are already filled). This could be a fun way to play with different media, having kids paint in one, draw in another, or use crayons in one, colored pencils in another, etc.

Or you can add your kid (or a classroom full of kids) to snowglobes with this craft from Twitchetts. It’s easy to make and fun for kids to help with, too.

You can also make snow globes with paper plates pretty easily, and there are lots of different options out there that should give you some ideas. This one from In the Playroom uses blue glittery pompoms as the snow and has a snowman in the background (though you can use whatever you want).

Mas and Pas uses a clear plate on top of a regular plate to make its snow globe, and Daydream into Reality just uses a paper plate to make the snow globe shape but there’s no snow involved. Their template includes different images you can put in the snow globe, or draw your own.

If you want to make a snow globe without the watery (so potentially less mess) you can make a waterless snow globe out of a plastic cup with this tutorial from The Pragmatic Parent. It uses tiny foam balls as the snow. Tidy Mom’s version uses a real glass jar and fake snow to flurry around.

And if you’re OK with using liquids in your snow globe, which will allow the snow to flutter like in a real snow globe, check out this version from 123 Homeschool 4 Me, which uses water and baby oil.

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