Abigails Crafts bookstore

undersea

"Undersea Tawashi Collection"

6 patterns, $4.50

flowers

"3 Flower Tawashi"

3 patterns, $3.50

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As featured on…

How to make a nalbinding needle

Although you can successfully work nalebinding with any large blunt needle, such as a yarn needle, nalebinding is traditionally done with a wide flat needle. These needles are generally made of wood, bone, or other natural materials. Today, we’ll learn how you can make your own needle from wood or bamboo.

You’ll need:

A length [...]

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Junk store score :D

Whee, don’t you just love junk shops? The perfect Sunday afternoon adventure, and you never know what treasures you’ll find.

I owe big thanks to Craftybloke, his eagle eyes spotted this rather nifty gadget. Has anyone seen anything like this? It’s an attachment for an ordinary sewing machine to enable it to be used as [...]

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How to make beaded stitch markers

On Wednesday, we took a look at lace knitting, for which stitch markers are a real help. Of course, you can get plain ones fairly cheaply – they are basically little plastic rings that you slide onto the knitting needle between the two stitches you want to mark. As you knit past those stitches, you [...]

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How to carve a custom rubber stamp

Making your own stamps can be so much fun, to add a personalised touch to cards, gift tags, scrapbook pages and other craft projects. Small and medium-sized stamps can be carved from erasers, which are easy to obtain, and have the advantage that they don’t need mounting on a wooden block to be used.

To [...]

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Make a heddle bead loom from cardboard

When loom beading is mentioned, most people think of tension looms, such as the box lid beadloom I posted a while ago. Beadweaving can, however, also be done on a loom with a rigid heddle. The advantage of weaving in this way is that unlike tension looms, where the thread has to pass through each [...]

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How to make designer knitting needles from chopsticks

knitting needles from chopsticks tutorial

I have so many pairs of disposable chopsticks lying around – no matter how many times I say I don’t need them, the convenience store clerks will still almost automatically put a pair in. Instead of throwing them away, I decided to make knitting needles from them instead.

For this project you’ll need:

Disposable chopsticks [...]

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Make a DIY rigid heddle loom

On Wednesday, we learned how to make a miniature frame loom for weaving small pieces. Frame looms can be made in many sizes, from coaster size, right up to looms a metre or two in height, such as Navajo looms. You can make a DIY frame loom from various materials – a cardboard box, PVC [...]

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Weaving basics - make a miniature frame loom

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to weave, but don’t have space or money, then you’ll like today’s project. Today we’ll make an ultra-portable miniature frame loom (more like a peg loom) suitable for weaving small pieces such as coasters or quilt blocks.

You’ll need:

Craft wire – I used 2mm aluminium wire from the [...]

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Spindle Physics - how drop spindles work

Cedar and rosewood abalone-inlaid spindle by 'Falls-Down-Laughing'

How does a drop spindle work? Why do some spindles spin longer or faster than others? How does the type of spindle relate to what kind of yarn I want to spin?

Today we’re going to go into the physics of drop-spindles. I apologise if this post [...]

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Adding or repairing scotch tension on a spinning wheel

You’re learning to spin, and you come across a real bargain of a spinning wheel in a thrift store or garage sale – but it has bits missing, or it’s a double drive wheel and you’re finding it hard to manage.

Today, building on a conversation on Craftster, I’ll show you how to make a [...]

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