Spinning Galaxy Crafts

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Robyn's crafting story

Crafts have always been a big part of our family life.

Many hours were spent sitting at the family table with Mum and my 2 sisters engaged in creative endeavours of all kinds.

Mum had endless patience and was always encouraging. She taught the 3 of us how to knit and that is something we all do to this day. My eldest sister used to do tatting taught to her by our Aunty.

As a child I would collect and categorise different things, now I collect craft techniques, among other things, and find a lot of enjoyment in sharing these with others. The crafting community are generous with their knowledge and as a group we want to pass the techniques along to the next generation.

We are also incredibly inspired by the work of others.

There is so much to learn and try.

My sister and her grandaughter enjoying some family sewing time.

Amish knot rag rug, also known as a toothbrush rag rug.

Made with a repurposed duvet cover.

You can use a safety pin instead of the locker hook that you see in the pic.

One strip of material acts as a cord that goes round the outside of the rug and the other, in the locker hook, is knotted around it, a little like tatting.

The knot is also attached to the previous row and this holds it all together.

Makes a nice low cushion for a hard seat also useful as a pet bed.

Denim jeans cut into strips and stitched together in a method like a coiled basket.

Stitched using high twist variegated crochet cotton in light blue and cream, size 20.

This is a little more portable than the rag rugs and very meditative to do, as quite a lot of crafts are.

The denim strips are twisted and then stitched, other materials could also be wrapped over the top so you can change the colour of your material strips, could also do this colour changing by using different colour threads.

There will be some experimenting with these ideas...

Rag rug, woven on rigid heddle loom, yarn is spun material. I love this one, has a lovely gold thread running through it. Material was a colourful plaid.

The cloth yarn was spun on my Louet S7 spinning wheel and is 2 singles plied together.

InfinityMicro macrame bag handle. Black cord and some silver and black beads.

The bag was found in an op shop and had no handle.

Micro macrame is a technique often used for making bracelets, necklaces and key chains.

Tatting - the blue and the green are injury recovery projects, the dark blue tatting with beads is based on a pattern from Marie Konior.