Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

Rowenta Focus Iron {Review & Giveaway}

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In celebration of National Craft Month, Craft Gossip is offering its readers 2 chances to win a Rowenta Focus iron! A good iron is an essential tool for a wide variety of crafts, so I was happy to receive one of these irons to review. I use lots of fabrics, trims, and ribbons for my mixed media art, so I gathered a pile of vintage lace trim, a variety of ribbons, along with a piece of freshly laundered cotton fabric and started ironing!

The Rowenta Focus has several crafter-friendly features:

A non-auto off function that allows the iron to remain on for extended periods of time at the same temperature. This is very helpful if your project takes a little extra time or has lots of details.

An extra large water tank with a covered filling inlet: a great feature that allows for plenty of steam, while the covering prevents water from being spilled on delicate fabrics or other craft materials like paper. Best of all it uses tap water, so it’s very easy to refill!

A high precision tip that makes ironing tiny details incredibly easy.

One of my favorite features of the iron is the precision tip. It proved very effective for smoothing out even the most crumpled of my vintage trims and restoring them to their original beauty. The burst of hot steam helped remove stubborn wrinkles from cotton fabric, but there were no problems with leaking when I turned the steam feature off to iron some delicate silk ribbon. I found the Rowenta Focus to be a valuable addition to my crafting tools. For a chance to win your own iron, please visit the giveaway post on Craft Gossip for all the details. The giveaway ends March 31, 2011 so enter soon!

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Pencil Knitting Patterns

Getting ready for back to school makes me think about pencil crafts, so let’s take a look at some pencil themed knitting patterns! 

I recently made a pencil on a circular knitting machine, and it was a fun, quick, easy project that uses little bits of leftover yarn (and if you don’t have yellow you can make it a colored pencil using whatever color’s your favorite). And if you want to make a bigger version check out this pattern from Orange Olive Road on Etsy.

If you want to knit a pencil pillow by hand, check out Sketchy, available on Ravelry from Shana S. Cohen. This one uses worsted weight yarn and has two size options and the choice to make a pencil with an eraser or a colored pencil. 

Pencil scarves seem to be the most popular kind of pencil knitting pattern, and there are lot of cute ones. This one from Cosy Craft UK mostly uses garter stitch, with some welts to add texture and what looks like an I-cord edging. It calls for DK weight yarn. 

If you want to go all garter stitch try this version from Emsley Co Creations, which uses five colors of DK weight yarn and just a little shaping to make the point of the pencil.

There’s also this fun, mostly stockinette so it looks like it curls a bit, pencil pattern that looks like it’s worked in chunky yarn from Little Knits Studio. This one uses just a little garter stitch and easy shaping for the point. 

If you don’t want a pencil scarf, how about some pencil socks? The No. 2 Pencil Socks from The Yarn Enabler are available from Ravelry and use five colors of sock yarn. They feature wide ribs to mimic the texture of a pencil and have options to be worked from the top down or the toe up. 

Needs Sharpening by Alexander Walker is a free pattern on Ravelry that uses five colors of sock yarn to make a sort of shortie sock. The little bit of black at the tips of the toes inspired the name. These, too, can be worked in either direction and are available in three sizes.