Patchwork Underground

Ok, so I’m pretty much vegan these days.

BUT I have a serious weakness for leather.

RANT ALERT. Seriously, it’s no secret that I’m not into killing and/or mistreating our animal friends. I think the way the meat industry works in this day and age is straight up sick and wrong.

Now, if I were starving out in the woods would I rather die than kill and eat an animal? Certainly not.

Here’s what a lot of folks don’t understand: The whole starving-in-the-woods situation is totally different than choosing to pay someone to raise mistreated animals only to kill them for you so you can eat meat and not think about or deal with the animal you are consuming. As a consumer, it’s impossible to honor the animal when you are totally removed from its life and death. This store-bought disconnect is just so sad for the animal AND the meat eater.

Oh yeah - and that’s not even including the whole host of nasty environmental issues that arise from the unnecessary over-population and over-concentration of certain “livestock” on our planet.

Anyway, it’s for these reasons that I never buy new leather. I usually get it second hand. Politics aside, it is a superior material in a lot of ways and I figure it’s better not to waste it once its already been created. (Yes – people do see me wearing it and no - they don’t know that it’s recycled and, yes, this theoretically does encourage other people in their consumption of meat/leather products. No comment. Don’t really know what to do about it.)

My one request: Please, if you’re going to use this pattern, DON’T use brand new leather that you bought anonymously from the store. Find it, recycle it, hunt it and tan it yourself -whatever. Just be connected to and ok with where it came from. Or, heck, use the fake stuff. =)

Finally! The Tutorial!

Stuff you’ll need:

Medium-sized scraps of leather
Leather punch
Scissors

Step 1: Stand in front of a mirror with your leather. Hold the biggest piece up to your torso and decide which side is up. Often times the extreme edges of the hide will be the most interesting-looking and the least desirable to serious leatherworkers because of the (neato) inconsistencies. I used one of these edges for the bottom of my top.

Step 2: Cut a flattened triangular yoke from a smaller scrap. Make the top and the bottom about an inch longer than you’d like the finished product to be. You will be folding these edges over.

Step 3: Make a leather thong. No, not the underwear kind. A leather thong is a piece of leather “thread” that you use to sew pieces of leather together. The good news is you don’t need to buy this separately because you can make it yourself from a scrap of leather! Basically, you cut the scrap into a circle and start cutting it into a spiral shape – eventually ending up with a long strip of leather. I found a very nifty picture of this process on PaleoPlanet:

Stretch the cord out once you’re done cutting. Leather is very stretchy (especially in small pieces) and if you don’t stretch it out ahead of time, it’ll stretch out by itself. If it does this after you’ve sewn with it, all your seams will gap open. Bad.

Step 3: Now you’re ready to attach the yoke to the body of your top. I had to cut a straight line into the top of my halter where I wanted my yoke to be attached so that the seam would be a straight one. Once you have that worked out, fold the bottom edge of your yoke up (to the right side). Place the folded-over edge on top of the top edge of the body of your top. (I said top three times!) Use your hole punch to pre-punch the holes you are going to be sewing into to attach the yoke to the body.

I used a fancy embroidery stitch to give the top some pizzazz. It’s a modified lazy daisy stitch. I found good tutorials for this stitch here and here.

(Tip: If you’re having difficulty pushing the thong through your pre-punched holes, you can use your scissors to shape the end of your thong into a point. This can help smooth things along.)

Step 4: Make another leather thong for the halter part. Fold the top edge of yoke back (to the wrong side) over your halter thong, creating an encasement for it. I used a simple slip stitch to secure this part of my halter. You can see the pattern in this picture:

Step 5: Secure the back ties. I used a natural hole in the hide as one of my securement points. You can do this or punch a hole yourself in either side. Using another leather thong, fold the thong in half and push the fold through one of the holes about half way. Take the tail ends of your thong and poke them through the loop that should be sticking out of the hole. Pull the ends tight. Repeat for the other side.

ALL DONE!! Each one of these will look different depending on the hide you use, the shape you cut it, the length you choose for the bodice, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Let me know how it goes for you if you decide to give this a try. =)

This is a sweet little summer project! I got the itch to make it when I found this interesting granny square in my mother-in-law’s old 1967 Mon Tricot needlework book…..

I like that the open cross granny square in this project is bit different than your run-of-the-mill granny square. Unfortunately, the instructions in my mother-in-law’s book were written in British crochet notation. I only speak American, so I just made mine up and wrote it down to share with ya’ll. It looks a little different than the one in the book, but it’s definitely working with the same idea.

(Pssst! Stash-addict: This top is a great opportunity to use up all that random, sorta ugly, funky-feeling acrylic yarn you’ve managed to accumulate, too. Even though it is made of acrylic yarn, this top will never give you that weird I’m-Wearing-Spun-Plastic feeling because its fully lined with your favorite old tee-shirt.)

Stuff you’ll need:

Good ol’ fashioned acrylic yarn.
G crochet hook
Donor tee or tank top (or other scrap of complimentary knit material)
Handsewing needle
Matching thread

Step #1: Crochet your granny square. Here’s what you’re going for:

Round 1
CH 7, sl st into circle.

Round 2
CH 2, 2 DC into center circle.
*CH 1, 3 DC into center circle.
CH 3, 3 DC into center circle.*
Repeat from * to * 2 more times.
CH 1, 3 DC into center circle, CH 3 and sl st to close round.

Round 3
Ch 3,
*3 DC into Round 2’s CH 1 (the small space inbetween sets of 3 DC), Ch 1
3 DC into CH3 loop, CH 3, 3 DC into same loop, CH 1*
Repeat from * to * 2 more times.
Ch 1, 3 DC into Round 2’s CH 1 (the small space inbetween sets of 3 DC), Ch 1
3 DC into CH3 loop, CH 3, 2 DC into same loop, sl st to close round.

Careful! This is where things start to change!!!

Round 4

Ch 3,* 2 DC into 1 CH space. 1 DC into each of the 3 DCs below, 2 DC into 1 CH space below.
CH 1, 3 DC into 3 CH loop, CH 3, 3 DC into same 3 CH loop, CH 1.*
Repeat from * to * sl st to close round.

Round 5

Work the same way as round 4, except this time work 1 DC into each of the 7 DCs below, ultimately forming 11 DCs (2 new ones + 7 old ones + 2 new ones) on each side. The corners stay the same with each round - the only thing that changes is the number of DCs on each side.

How many rows until I’m done?!

For my top, I worked a total of 10 rows. You could add a row or two to make the top bigger or subtract a row or two to make it smaller. I recommend holding the work up to your body as you go (preferably in front of a mirror) so that you can get a better idea of how big it will need to be.

Step # 2 – Add Straps.

Once you’re happy with the size it’s time to add the halter part. Starting at one corner, CH 25 and sl st closed at about 18 stitches in from the corner. (See the pic for clarification!) Try it on before you snip the yarn to see if it’s working on your body. Too long would mean that your top is exposing parts of you meant to be covered up and too short would mean that you can’t get your head through the hole.

My halter strap looks like this:

For the tie closure in the back, I just looped about 7 or so inches of spare yarn around either corner. You could braid the ties or even crochet them if you felt like it. You’re just looking for something you can tie in the back to hold the top closed.

Done? Now you’re ready to….

Step #3 – Attach the lining.

Lay your donor tank or tee on a flat surface. Whatever you use, make sure it’s a knit (i.e. stretchy) NOT woven.

Cut one side of your tank/tee open and lay it flat if you need a bigger piece of fabric to work with.

Use your granny square as a template and cut the lining to size. (Don’t cut into your granny square!!!!)

Using a slip stitch, sew the lining to the granny square.

Don’t worry about finishing the edges of the knit fabric – knits don’t unravel and if you sew it right, the unfinished edges won’t be visable when you’re wearing the top anyway.

All Done! Wear dangle earrings and rock it.

Back View!…….

mmm…crochet photography…so much pattern….

Enjoy!!!!!

Here’s two of the ones I made. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the blow-by-blow tutorial or just read on for the full story.

It all started when I bought this cutie at the Bins…..

I was inspired. I needed more. Living in our solar powered school bus has made me a serious power miser. Running our lights during the nighttime when we’re just hanging out and playing music is kinda silly. Why waste battery power when we could just light up a bunch of candles for an even better lighting scenario?

I set to work thinking of ways to make more.

I started at the ReBuilding Center in Portland.  (It’s a lot like Bring Recycling in Eugene.) I bought a buncha random glass pieces off of old light fixtures, some ornamental random pieces and some copper wire. The first one I made was kinda silly because I was reluctant to hammer holes into the jar lid which makes up the hanging base where the candle sits. Instead, I used a ton of my precious copper wire to form a web underneath the lid. Dumb move.

But it’s still cute. Here’s a closeup of the burner piece I used for the top cap….

The second time around I saved a lot of wire by just poking holes into the lid with a nail and using those as hook spots.

Here’s a closeup of the second one I made the smart way. I used a nail to hammer 4 evenly spaced holes into the corners of the lid.

~**TUTORIAL**~

1. Get yer pieces together. You’ll need:

• 3-4 feet of wire (copper is $$ but really soft to work with…i got it used so it was affordable)
• a metal piece for the bottom (a mason jar lid is good)
• a metal thingie for the top cap (I used a gas burner piece one time and a drawer pull another time)
• and a fluted glass thingie from an old light fixture (MUST be flared - not a cylinder)

you’ll probably need the following tools, too:

• pliers
• metal snips/crappy scissors you don’t care about ruining
• hammer and nail

2. Start by going around the “waist” of the fluted glass thingie with the wire and twisting the ends together.

2. Using a hammer and nail, make 4 evenly spaced holes in the lid.

3. Thread a new piece of wire through one of the holes in the lid and twist to secure. then thread it under the loop you made around the waist of the fluted glass thingie.

4. Next, bring the copper back down to the lid and through the next hole. Twist and keep going around the lantern until you reach the point where you started, twist it off and cut the wire.

5. To form the handle, take another piece of wire and thread it through your top piece so that a loop is sticking up through it. I twisted my loop around itself to make it prettier but you can really do whatever you feel at this point.

6. When you’ve got the top piece the way you want it, you should have two ends of copper wire sticking down out of the top piece. I just hooked these around the “waist” belt of the fluted glass thingie and called it done.

Getting your tea light into these babies is a little tricky. I dropped it in and then lighted it with a match through the space between the lid and the shade. You could also invest in one of those stick lighters (refillable please!!) that people use for their BBQs. Hang them in bunches for an extra cute effect.

Enjoy!