One final wool craft, something that hopefully you can do with supplies you already have at home...

You can make this sort of fairy in any colour, and style. Christmas ones look lovely, and I've even made some very simple, all white versions when I needed some quick decorations for a Christmas tree our guild were asked to decorate. 
The tutorial here is really easy to follow. This pinterest board is filled with lovely inspiration. 

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.


And that brings our calendar to an end. Hopefully it's bought you a small piece of joy, and a few ideas.
May your holiday period be filled with wool, creativity, and the opportunity to learn new things. 

Another request, this time for  a very ancient fibre art.  Naalbinding, sometimes seen as nalbinding, predates knitting and crochet as a way of making fabric. 
Instead of using a continuous length, you use shorter pieces and a needle, and form the stitches by making loops, a little like sewing, but not...

This tutorial seems like a nice way to get started, and this has the same information presented as drawings rather than pictures. 

This Pinterest board has a nice selection of inspiration as well. 

This is probably another thing that might be best saved for better weather... but you never know, there's a surpring amount of green stuff still in our garden, and even some flowers.

Eco Printing is a form of dyeing where you roll up natural plant material in fabric, and use the shape of the plant, and the dye-stuff it releases to form patterns. The results are quirky, unexpected, and beautifully subtle. 
This blog is delightful reading, as the writer spends a weekend learning how to do this craft. The tutorials here are more comprehensive. 
The Eco Colour book by India Flint also comes highly recomended. 

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

When you have fibre based hobbies there are always things that need a home...
And baskets suit perfectly, they look pretty enough to be out, but contain all the detritus that needed tidying away. 

This kit looks like a good starting point in the UK, or if you're in the US I'm struggling to pick a favourite from this selection!

If a basket seems like a step too far, then willow is great to make in to decorations.


This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

Crochet works really well at making a dense fabric, so it's perfect for making toys. One of the best in the business is Kerry Lord of Toft Alpaca. 
The designs she creates are funny, realistic, and uses non-petroleum based fibres that are spun in the UK. Alpaca is great for toys like this beause it's beautifully soft, but lots of other fibres work just as well. 

The Edward's Menagerie Book is filled with lovely patterns, that are easy enough for beginners. 

If you want to spin you own yarn then it's worth trying out reversing your directions... the action of crochet tends to un-ply yarn, so you might find it better to spin s direction singles, and ply them with z twist.... Confused? In short it's the opposite way round to the way most of us use. So when you spin your singles it will be with the wheel turning anti-clockwise, and then ply with it going clockwise. 
Toys  are great for using up odds and ends, because you need contrast colours for hooves, eyes, ears, manes...

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

Right at the start of the calendar we covered making batts... now it's time to spin them. This time I'm not sending you off to someone else, because I've already got this one covered!
Yes it's a video, but in 13 minutes I cover lots of different techniques, and one of the commenters described it as bring brisk! (I am not a fan of videos full of waffle, and the joy of internet videos is the ase at which you can stop, rewind and re-watch). 

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

So far there's been a post that coveres rigid heddle weaving, but that's by no means the only small-scale weaving craft. 
Back at the start of December I asked for suggestions, and Tablet Weaving was suggested by Elly.
She even did my research for me!

Tablet Weaving, or Card Weaving is great for making thin, strong strips. They're great for handles, straps, belts and trims. 

This site, and this site have lovely clear line drawings explaining how to set up to weave, and how to weave. 
If you going to do some tablet weaving, you need to have some cards to create the shed and patterns, so this site explaining how to make them out of playing cards may come in handy. 

Once you've got the hang of it, and fancy making your own sheep patterned band, then Elly kindly sent me the chart she used, and you can download it by clicking on the link below. 
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This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

An activity based on sunshine is maybe a little optimistic for midwinter in the northern hemisphere, but this will still work, though might take a while longer. 
If you've seen the old fashioned blue-prints then you'll be familiar with the effects of this process.
In essence, you used an object to provide a resist on paper of fabric that has been treated with a light sensitive chemical. The sunlight can't get to the area beneath the object, so that part stays pale. The areas exposed to sunlight turn blue. When you rinse the paper the reaction is halted, and the image is permanent. 

You can buy paper pre-treated from Amazon, or if you're in the US direct from a company called Sunprint. If you fancy doing this to fabric, or just making your own it's also possible to buy the chemicals you need.

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

Another great use for bits and pieces of yarn!

And another reason I love going to fibre shows. The above photo is by Hooked by Design, and is an example of hooking. You can do it with fabric strips, or with yarn. You can mke rugs, cushions, bags... 
Basically you just pull loops through a piece of hessian to form the pattern you want. 

There are some very simple instructions here, and Carole also sells kits to get you started. 

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.

I do love a bit of colourwork (it's only fair isle if it uses certain specific motifs native to the Shetland Islands, notably Fair Isle (yes, it is an actual island). It works wonderfully in handspun because it stretches handspun yarn further and you can use leftover skeins as the accent colour in other projects. 

So when Dawn at my Wednesday night spinning group showed me a new pattern she'd found, and raved about I was slightly sceptical. One of the issues people often have with stranded colourwork is keeping their floats loose enough.  The pattern that Dawn found was an unvented solution to this issue, particularly when the floats run over long spreads of stitches. It's called "It's Not About the Hat" and the pattern is basically a tutorial for a technique of securing long floats, and reducing puckering.

If you enoy geeky solutions to knitting quirks, and a real discussion about how things work, their pro's, con's and alternative methods then head over to the TECHknitter blog. She has a few alternative methods of securing longer floats, and not just by twisting them, which is what producs the effect on the right hand hat in smooth, high contrasting yarns. I love this blog, I could read it for hours, so many smart solutions.

This post is part of my advent calendar 2016. Every day in December we're saying so long to 2016 by embracing learning, knowledge and creativity. Each day there will be a new post with a new skill or craft. You can read all the past posts here.