Hello Friday!

A few months ago my coffee maker broke, it was a small Mr.Coffee and I was quite sad. Luckly my parents were nice enough to give me an extra french press they had. I'm loving french pressed coffee SO much more than from that old machine! Sadly being glass it would be cold and sad within two minutes. A few weeks ago I decided I needed to fix this and thus made up my own pattern and started knitting. Sometimes I love doing that, it's really encouraging to see something you sketched out come to life from your own mind.

Rasberry Chocolate Coffee Press

There were issues and a false start. I may re-knit it and produce it as a free pattern cause it was fun and I was able to knit it in a weekend. Best part is by using 2 yarns (SWS & Wool of the Andes) it insulates really well and keeps my coffee warm much longer.

Oh, and it's Friday, so here's my inspiration for the week. I really don't need anything else because I want this jacket a seen on Hermione in the Deathly Hallows trailer so much! Sadly I can't find any other images and will thus have to wait for more before I can make my own. It will be mine though!
♥ Freckled Crafter

Fixing a Circular and a WIP

I guess I'm hard on my needles, particularly my circulars. Instead of going out and buy another pair I thought I'd try my hand at fixing them, what was there to lose? Well it worked and here's a quick tute. It's really quite easy but it might help someone anyways.

Tute: Fixing a broken circular

As you can see the cable ripped itself out of the metal portion of the needle. It fit back in pretty snuggly. So quick go find sand paper or an emery board. I had an emery board on hand so that's what I used.

Step 1: sand down the portion of the cable that fits into the metal casing. keep sanding around, decreasing the diameter and trying it on till it fits but is a little lose, this will leave room for glue and enough maneuvering. The little nub on mine was quite long so I also sanded it down a bit shorter.
Step 2: Now you want to do this quickly. Put on some super glue and slide the nub inside the metal part. If it's still not fitting and you can't get a flush fit (no gaps for the yarn to get stuck) quick pull it back out before the glue dries! Then go back to sanding and remove the glue along with a little more. This is the point I realized my nub was a little too long to easily stuff it in.


I used a binder clip to make grasping it easier. This way I could quickly shove the cable in and make sure it was flush with the metal.


Step 3: Marvel at how easy that was and how much money you just saved!

And here's why I wanted my needles back!

Toe up socks of my own design in Felici Time Traveler!

Look ma, no ladders!

♥ Freckled Crafter

Friday Inspiration

I recently stumbled upon a very popular designer I'd never heard of before. She's known as Mori Girl and I find her designs so sweet. They're the kind of thing I'd love to wear all the time; comfy, cute, girly, and cozy! You should check out her blog, it's full of great things!








♥ Freckled Crafter

Blog Award

Erin of Dropped Stitches awarded the versatile blogger award to Freckled Crafts. I'm quite honored, since all I see are the flaws and areas I'm lacking in. To accept the award I have to tell you seven things about myself, so here we go:

1. I'm working towards a degree in art history and museum studies but eventually I want to go back to school and become a college professor, teaching women's art history.
2. I'm really bad about starting projects and then never finishing them, my basket of knitting UFOs over there will attest to this.
3. I met my boyfriend of five years at the library, we were both shelvers.
4. I'm addicted to coffee, the day has not begun without that first cup!
5. I just made a sale on my etsy today! Go me!
6. Fourth through senior year of high school I went to catholic school, I still don't look back on it very fondly but one thing it has done is given me a good vocabulary and the ability to write. If I'd gone to public school this probably wouldn't have happened.
7. I have a habit of saving ball bands, thinking I'll need them sometime, inevitably when I clean out my yarn there's about 20 billion old labels I just end up tossing.

Thanks so much Erin!
♥ Freckled Crafter

Project peek

I just finished a test knit I'd been working on for a while for a friend. I'm so excited because not only is it an awesome pattern that's going to be on Knipicks but also I got the awesome chance to be her model!

Here's some sneak peak pics, I'll do a formal post once it's up on knitpicks with all the info and a full review.


Today is full of reading my favorite subject, female artists, and working on my newest costuming project.

♥ Freckled Crafter

Inspiring people

I've always loved weaving and I'd love to learn, especially from someone as awesome as this!



♥ Freckled Crafts

Things are growing!

YAY! Cucumbers are on their way people!!!! These little flowers are popping up all over!


My greenbeans were doing really really well but they hated the move over to the new apartment and have had a hard time adjusting to less light. Looks like they're going to make it though! I keep finding green beans all over it.


And I absolutely love my little dining table in front of the windowsill full of my other plants!

♥ Freckled Crafts

PS: Lots of new stuff in the shop and tons more on the way!

Adventures with my knitting machine...

A while back my friend Beth gave me her old EZ Knitter knitting machine. I just got around to trying it out last night and after a good deal of false starts, dropped stitches, and swears I finally created my first machine knit item, for a costume no less!



That's right! I knit myself some suspenders!!! My fem!eleven is almost done and I'm soooo excited!

And although machine knitting has been fun and I can accomplish a lot in a small amount of time it'll never take the place of hand knitting!

♥ Freckled Crafts

Because there's no such thing as too much Classic Who!

When I go to conventions or do things in costume one thing that always bugs me is not having a bag that matches my costume to carry all my stuff in. And I don't end up putting pockets in a lot of things so I decided to solve my dilemma, well at least for Doctor Who related things.


So I made myself a K-9 bag! I used it a few weeks ago for a group Whovian visit to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, it worked great! Just big enough to hold all my necessary things and cute enough to actually want in pictures! I especially can't wait to use it with my femme!four since he's the Doctor who traveled with K-9.

I think it turned out well, although FAR from perfect.

♥ Freckled Crafter

It's a sad day

Today I learned when my podcasts updated that one of my favorite shows is ending. Okay, so they're not ending but my three favorite people are mysteriously leaving.

This makes me sad becuase I've been watching Threadbanger for years. They started out really indie and a tiny budget but as the years went on I watched them gain popularity and their videos just kept getting better and better. That being said even their first video was brilliant, they always seemed to teach me awesome things and give me ideas for my next project.

Although it's sad to see Rob, Corinne, and Meg leaving I know there will always be hundreds of episodes I can revisit, and I really should, I barely remember the early day episodes and projects.


Luckily all is not lost, Meg Allen still has a follow worthy blog, EnderbyNest is totally worth checking out!

So don't worry, even if you've never heard of Threadbanger it's not too late to check out all their awesome videos, I know personally there are still tons of projects I have yet to get to.

Farewell Threadbanger, you guys will be SO missed,
♥ Freckled Crafter

This is how my days go:

♥ Freckled Crafter

I swear I haven't abandoned everyone! I've got one more day of my super intense printmaking class and then I'll have time to post more. But for now here's one of the prints I made today. I love it and I totally get into the groove and realize I've printed 5 or 10.

♥ Freckled Crafter