Yarn Cup Revisited

I received a question about the yarn cup weaving project I posted about some time ago. The instructions are a bit unclear so I thought I would give a more detailed tutorial on the project. I enlisted the help of my older girl, she looks jazzed!

Supplies:

Variety of yarn pieces

Plastic Cup

Scissors

Sharpie

Template

You can create a template by tracing the top of your plastic cup. You need an odd number of strips to weave the yarn through. My template was for a 16 oz cup. You can use a variety of cup sizes just create a template where there are an odd number of equally spaced strips. The more strips you have the tighter the weave, but if you have a younger child then you may want fewer strips.

mark on the cup with a sharpie where each line should be cut.

Cut straight lines down the side of cup to the bottom. This is how you create the strips you will use to weave.

Once all the strips are cut you can choose your yarn. I like to begin with smooth yarns because they are easier to work with. Save the bumpy, frizzy, speciality yarns for when you have the hang of it. Always start with the yarn tail on the inside of the cup.

Now that you have your start you can weave the yarn in and out of the strips of plastic.

the first length of yarn can be frustrating. The first couple of rows may look like the one above. Take a break after every row or two to tighten the rows by pushing the yarn down.

When you run out of the first yarn piece end with the tail tucked inside the cup. Start the new piece of yarn where the last piece should have come out.

Keep on weaving. Now that you have some experience add the fun yarn if you like. You may think it works up really fast but really you will need to tighten it up often. Keep pushing the yarn down in order to have a nice tight weave.
My girl finished her cup in under 2 hours.

when you are done simply clean up the inside of the cup by trimming all the tails with scissors. With the wide variety of speciality yarns the options are endless.

Tips:

the plastic may splinter causing these little thorns that will catch on the yarn. Pull or cut them off.

The beginning can be frustrating. It just takes a bit to get accustomed. I did this project with our Girl Scout Troop and all 11 girls finished a cup and then another. Just a bit hairy to begin with.

I got the cup started and then remembered my daughter is left handed and started it out weaving right. If you have a lefty just weave in the left direction.

Washer Dial

You know when you buy a shirt and it's the perfect length and fit then after laundry day it's 2 inches shorter and all snug? Maddening!

So I end up line drying a majority of my shirts which brings me to my real problem, I constantly forget to line dry things! I miss something, or I swear it wasn't in the washer to begin with, or I left them in the washer so long I really can't remember what's all in there. All of which leads me to tears in the laundry room because I had found the perfect black tee only to shrink it up!

Well, I made a little tool to help and want to share in case there are others out there like me. Poor souls tormented by the shrinking tee.

You can download the templates from my flickr page here.

Use a brad as a pointer. Then you can keep up with how many items are in the washer that need to line dry. I used some handitak to stick it to the washer.

I want to laminate it but haven't gotten that far yet.

Sculpey Fun

I was looking through the Dick Blick site again and I noticed this project. I liked the idea of pressing crayons into the sculpey and then melting it but wanted something my toddler could do.

I took balls of sculpey and let my 3 year old just pick up crayon shavings with it. I took several pictures of the process that you can see here you can click on the photo for a description if you like. Once the pieces are ready I baked them at 325 degrees for around 10-15 min.

It was fun for Allison and super easy to do. They can make a lovely pendant or stones to place in flower pots. I especially like the metallic green crayon one.

Glue Fun

My oldest daughter is going into the 4th grade. As she gets older it's fun to share things from my elementary school experience. When she emptied out her old school supplies she had scraped off all the pencil paint down the the natural wood and it reminded me of how I use to do the same. I shared with her how I would paint glue all over my hand and then peel it off like skin. Good times. It also reminded me of how we use to change the color of our glue. Doing this took me way back.

First you need regular school glue and a marker

Then pry off the end of the marker using your scissors

Pull out the marker fiber inside. I sniped the plastic wrapping a few times to help the process along.

Insert maker tube into glue container

Wait a little while and then shake, shake, shake.

Voila purple glue.

***My daughter tried making some more this morning and they didn't turn out as vibrant, We realized for the purple (above) we used crayola non washable markers. I think it made a difference. For the washable marker kind we ended up adding two marker innards. We really sniped the marker tube up to let the fiber hang out (it's where all the juice is).

Quite a Bit

Sometimes you fail to blog for a bit and then it turns into quite a bit.

It's been an eventful several weeks. I turned 30, my little one broke her elbow, we took a lovely vacation to California.

I was unable to hold my summer art classes but want to share the projects I had planned. My niece is in for a visit so we will have a guest artist to work with.