Craft Gossip

Independent craft blog since 2007

The most hysterical craft tutorial-make front and backside wall mounts

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front and backside wall mounts OK, have you seen the commercial where the big executive has the front half of the mounted animal in his office and the camera pans to the opposite side of the wall and it’s the back half of the animal in the “little office worker” office? It is one of my absolute favorites. Well, when I saw this tutorial for making them I nearly dropped my computer. I think I will be running around cutting all sorts of things in half and recycling them into new wall art! Thanks to My Eva For Eva for this great idea and tutorial!

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Learn a Flower Bobble Technique to Knit a Fun Shawl

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier. 

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project. 

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible. 

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge. 

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects. 

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy. 

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project. 

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Xandy Peters]