Hi Guys!
It’s been a few months, and while I still don’t think coming back to this blog is right for me right now, I have started an Instagram account!
My handle is @helenanutshell. I think this link will take you there.
https://www.instagram.com/helenanutshell/?hl=en
For now, in order to continue following my work, please find me there.
Love,
Helena
Posted in Miscellaneous
Hi. I’m writing this specifically for those of you who are following me: all 46 of you. I am baffled and delighted by you guys, simply because for the 4+ years I’ve kept this blog I’ve never been writing for outside recognition. I started this blog because I was starting to get tired of shoving every single thing I made at my college roommate and shouting HERE LOOK WHAT I MADE. At the time I also thought I might give Etsy a go, simply because I was making more jewelry than I could get rid of without some kind of outlet like that. I have had some success selling in other venues in the past after all.
Etsy, unfortunately, requires a lot of time and a solid brand to be profitable, and as a college student I had neither of those. But I kept writing posts because I like hearing myself talk, and I like to be able to share my work. And slowly, people started following me (although my mom remains my biggest commenter by a wide margin [HI MOM!!!]). This has always blown my mind, because the blog is so personal, and so self-centered, and I’ve never really tried to market it in any way.
But I have done a lot of projects with wider appeal, fan projects for Doctor Who, Sassy Cross Stitches which are very en vogue right now, lots of Holiday stuff. I’ve dabbled in putting my prop work on the blog, especially when I did the Not Food Project which was such a big endeavor.
Since I’ve moved to NYC, and have been working consistently in props (and by consistently I mean that I’ve got a 40 hour work week), I’ve found my need for the creative outlet of this blog has dried up a bit. I’m making a lot of stuff every day, but almost none of it ends up here. And I’ve found that thinking about my blog makes me feel a little guilty, like I’m neglecting something which other people are relying on me to provide, which has never been the point of the blog in the first place.
So, I’m going to take an indefinite half-hiatus. I call it a half-hiatus because I’m both giving myself permission to ignore the blog for as long as I need to, and giving myself permission to come back and post sporadically, if I ever want to share my work again. It is possible that by the time the fall rolls around, and my employment situation shifts, I will find writing for this blog and sharing my work as fulfilling as I have in the past, and because it is my blog I am giving myself permission to do so. In the mean-time, please feel free to follow along with my ideas and inspiration boards on Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/whipstitchdear/). You can also follow my professional work at (http://helenamestenhauser.wix.com/propertiesartisan). And I’ll still get an email every time someone comments, so I promise not to ignore any new movement on the blog. Until next time, Happy Crafting everyone!
Posted in Miscellaneous
There’s a 10 year long story behind these earrings, and it starts, as so many of my bead stories do, with Diane Fitzgerald. When I was 12 I saw her at the Upper Midwest Bead Society show, and she had her ginko leaf necklace with her. Every time I’ve met her, she’s been so nice and so sweet but this first meeting was special because she sold me not only my first set of Delicas but also her Beading with Brick Stitch book.
I’ve never been one to follow a pattern, but I used the book to learn the basics of brick stitch, and eventually had made this bouquet of beaded flowers (and hey look, the edging on the peach colored carnation and on the purple carnation were both from that original packet of Delicas she sold me)
This was a big project for me, and I had planned to add other kinds of flowers, but I stalled on the lily. I had wanted to add some really large, lovely white calla-lillies but couldn’t work out the shaping in either peyote or brick stitch, so I set aside the project and moved on to other things.
Then, this summer, I saw this pin, a pattern by Linda Richmond.
I’d been working on this shape for about 8 years at this point, off and on. It was always in the back of my mind, so I bought the pattern. And promptly failed at figuring it out.
Then I moved around a bunch and didn’t have time to tackle it. Finally, over my Christmas time off, I managed to figure it out… sort of.
They’re a lot smaller, and not really the same shape, and instead of doing the center stamens and the rest of the pattern I did something similar to these earrings and just used chain. (I told you I rarely follow the pattern). I’m a little bit in love with these ones though, they’re very elegant.
Next time I’ll mess with the counts and the increases a little more to get the larger flowers shaped correctly. The saga of the lily shape continues….
Posted in Beadwork
This revamp marks probably the first New Year’s Resolution I’ve ever actually completed! I didn’t skip a single month, and I’m pretty proud of many of the projects and posts I’ve improved and re-done over the last year. Check out the full, year-long project here!
This month, I am proud both of the project I am revamping and the project I produced. I’ve made several of these floppy, flippable hats in the past and now I’m happy to add one more to that number.
My brother wore the last one down to rags, so I’m hoping that he’ll like the new one as much as the old.
Also, I made a matching scarf. Merry Christmas Everyone!
Posted in Knitting, Re-visited
Last year I did a lot for Christmas. We threw a party and there were place cards and everything. This year I anticipate being fairly busy, and I doubt I’ll have time to do nearly as much, but I did have the evening free and I figured, first of December, I’m definitely meant to get my Christmas Cards for the year put together. And look, I even had the inspiration already.
They’re fairly simple this year. All I needed was the blank cards themselves, thread in three colors (green, lighter green, and red) and a needle which could handle three threads through the eye.
I grabbed my handy triangle and drew dots where I wanted there to be stitches, so that my stitches would be even.
Then I anchored my thread with a knot, stitched back and anchored, stitched forth and anchored, stitched back and anchored, ect.
Once I had a fully formed tree, the card was finished. Super cute!
Posted in Papercraft, Sewing
Just a quick post today, I’ve got this great piece of art from a flea market.
I looked at it and immediately it clicked: I knew I had to do something like this.
The greyish flowers were so drab after all, and the painting needed something to bring it to life. A little bit of white and brown paint later, and I have a fresh piece of art for the living room.
I especially love how well it works with the frame. No extra paint needed!
Posted in Miscellaneous
This post is revamped from all the way in 2011. I made trivets having just moved into a school dorm apartment which had a kitchen, so it appears history is repeating itself since I’ve made some trivets to go with my new kitchen in my first real-person apartment. I did the curtains first, and built/painted furniture to bring down some of the colors from the curtains. When all was said and done I still had some curtain fabric left over, and some fabric from the cushions on the chairs, so I did now what I did then and made a set of trivets for my new kitchen.
This project was originally inspired by a trivet we had at home as a child. My mom had gotten it from a friend a long time ago, and I reverse engineered the process to figure out how to do it. Since then I’ve done it many times, and so I’m revisiting my tutorial to share the technique, because it’s fun and easy, and really cute.
Because bottle caps are so easy to gather and recycle, the effective cost of this project comes down to the fabric- which I already had because of the curtains. Basically what you need are a sewing kit, so a needle, thread, and something to cut the thread with, and the bottle caps and fabric.
You’ll be essentially covering the bottle caps in fabric, creating little fabric “yo-yo’s” which you’ll then sew together. For a simple circle trivet you’ll need 19 bottle caps. More if you want to make it longer, or a larger size.
Cut out a nice circle of fabric, with maybe a 1″ larger diameter than a bottle cap.
Your circle does not have to be perfect. Almost none of mine were. It doesn’t matter anyway, because (in a technique similar to these Fabric Yo-yos from About.com) you’ll start by stitching loosely around the edge in a circle.
Flip your fabric over, and put your bottle cap on it, top down. Start to pull on the thread, cinching in the stitches.
Pull the thread tight, and if you feel the need to, stitch a second round in the bottle cap, to secure the “yo-yo”. Here’s a finished one.
The front of your bottle cap should be covered in one smooth, nice looking layer of fabric.
Wash rinse repeat however many times you need to until you have enough fabric covered bottle caps for the trivet you want. You may decide to lay them out before you start stitching to make sure you like the final result. I usually do.
Start sewing together your bottle caps. I use a simple running stitch, adjusting tension wherever I need to to make the fabric lay properly. Sorry I didn’t stitch this in black so you could see it better- I didn’t want to have to unpick my stitches and re-do the whole project later.
The stitching process can be a little bit tedious but it is really rewarding to watch the pieces build together into something recognizable.
My one piece of real advice is to make sure you don’t miss any seams- think of each piece as if it were a hexagon, and make sure that even the corner pieces have at least three seams connecting them to each other. This will give you a really solid trivet. The back should look like this.
The finished trivet from the top will look like this.
Of course I am nothing if not thorough, so I made a set of three with different patterns. I think the striped one is my favorite!
Posted in Re-visited, Sewing, Tutorials
I was inspired by a pair of earrings I saw on a girl in an elevator this week, and felt like I could really use a similar pair.
… then I made two pairs. Viola.
I am really in love with the pearl and copper ones especially.
Looks like today I’m hitting the 2/5 mark for my fall 2015 to-do list!
I finally finished stitching the top of my embroidery thread tin, a project which was originally inspired by this…
and subsequently inspired by these bangles.
Using my experience from the bangles project, I set out to embroider the top of the tin, so that there would never again be any question as to what was meant to be stored inside.
First I set out a grid in pencil, and then marked over it in permanent marker.
Then I realized that I didn’t like the pattern which I had started with and so chose a different pattern (one of the rosebuds from this pattern, if you’re curious. I’ve also got another project using this pattern in the works so you’ll see it again soon!)
Then I drilled the holes, having realized that I *actually* wanted the new pattern approximately two stitches lower on the lid of the tin than they were. It was a process. I had some trouble getting the holes to land precisely on the grid marks, though I did try really hard. It occurred to me as I was finishing the stitching that I should have just used the drill press to make the holes instead of a hand held drill. Learn from my mistakes people! a) Make sure the pattern you choose is the pattern you *actually* want and don’t use permanent marker until you’re certain. Maybe then don’t use permanent marker. More on that later. b) use a drill press if you have access to one! I didn’t and that was stupid.
The insides of your holes will be sharp. Consider using a dremel to cut them down, but be aware that this will leave marks on the inside of your tin. *The more you know!*
Also, washing off the permanent marker was a pain. It did come off with nail polish remover since it is an alcohol based ink, but it also took off a good section of the “finish” on the tin, making the area around the stitching much shinier.
When all is said and done you can only sort of tell so it’s fine. The stitching process itself was fairly painless. I used the full 6 strands of the thread to get fuller stitches, and while the insides of some of the holes were sharp enough to sheer the thread, most of the time it wasn’t an issue.
As you can see I got pretty excited about the stitching process.
One other interesting thing about the process was that I did a lot of bad-technique backtracking in order to make the back side of the piece look decent.
I tried to make all the stitches run the same way. I didn’t want it looking messy because you can definitely see both sides, so the back is just as important as the front.
My thread is so pretty! Nothing quite like seeing a rainbow gradient. No question about what this box holds now, either!
I love using old techniques in new and surprising ways!
Posted in Cross Stitch, Miscellaneous
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