Projects update

Chunky Yarn: White Winter Hat

Color Explosion Hat #1. My favorite hat of all time.

Color Explosion Hat #2! 

Crocheted sock monkey

Crocheted sock monkey hat.

Skirt revamp from a goodwill find.- Sold to my sister.

I used the leftover material to make a headband.

Summer Projects!

As apart of my spring cleaning I decided to get rid of a lot of clothes and what better way to get rid of some old t-shirts than to revamp them into something else? So here I'm working on a crocheted rug and i'm loving the look of it so far! Ill post a picture of the final product too.

Stop Motion Animation!

For the time it takes to put together a stop motion film to the results it gives, 

I give mad props to the people who come up with these creative animations! 

Graffiti Stop Motion by Bue!  

Big Bang Boom Evolution of Dinosaurs. 

This is so neat- you need to watch this!

The graffiti style on this one is a little different 

and I kind of like the lyrics to this song

I really wish I knew how they did this!

 I think i'm going to try one on a white board.

Update of projects

Pajama pants I made my senior year of high school that I still wear and adore!

Brightly colored mustache.

My favorite hat and my personal ski beard 'spaghetti on the hill'

The golden beard. A new color addition

I also made a pair of black slippers for a friend I forgot to get a good picture of.

Also, i've been really into making granny squares. They're super easy and there's so many things you can make from them. I've decided to try and attempt to make a crocheted granny square poncho so this will be the biggest project i've ever worked on- mainly because I don't have the patience for these kind of projects. It's going to take a while but i'm going to try and post pictures of my progress throughout the project. So far I have about five granny squares made. On top of that I need to make a few crocheted items to donate for my school's wildlife club raffle. 

Mushroom Hunting!

It's spring time now! Serviceberry and Eastern Redbud have already come into flower, along with Flowering Dogwood. I have been seeing quite a few herbaceous plants such as Bluets, Wood Anemone, Wild Geranium, and Red Trillium out in flower as well. Another exciting activity I got into a little bit last year is discovering wild edible plants. I hope to make my own tea concoctions and make a master list of every plant i've eaten! I've already started munching down on dandelions and ramps so now I'm working on hunting for fungi! Not to mention right now is a good time for morel hunting and if you don't know anything about morels they only come out for a limited time each year and are valued for their taste. Mushrooms are really beautiful in my opinion and i've always been curious about identifying and eating them. I'm going to make a big list of all the mushrooms I've identify and eat this year too. Below is my first mushroom identified Polyporus squamosus or more commonly called 'Pheasant's Back' or 'Dryad's Saddles' which also grows around the same time as morels- both are edible but I need to read more into false morels.  

Please don't go by my pictures for identifying edible plants and fungi. You really need a guide to make sure you arn't mistaking one plant for another of a similar species. The growing conditions are based on both on my own observations and guide books. 

Polyporus squamosus- The genus Polyporus stands for 'many pores'. The name squamosis came from the word Squamules which refers to the scales noticed on the cap of the mushroom. From what i've heard most edible mushrooms will have pores- not gills. Usually you will see Polyporus squamosis growing on old logs in mixed forested stands of poplars, ashes, and oaks. I hear the trunk of elms are a good hosting site to find them on too. The species above was pretty young because it was so soft, while more mature species are found tough and woody. Some squamosus species can be more shelf-like in appearance but they all have a distinct pattern and are only found growing on wood (and we did find some more of the same species that were more shelf-like). It's good to find them young and soft if you're planning on eating them too although they're not as tasty as morels.  I hear its basically useless to try and eat them once they become too old and hard, but it's still edible and good to know for a survival situation. The picture below shows a better example of the scales on top which could be more common and easily identifiable. 

Crocheted hat!

Black crocheted hat with blue and brown accents

LED Hooping!

Gotta love supporting Etsy sellers! Just bought my first LED Hula Hoop! Its super addicting to play with and learn new tricks on. Glad I went with the multicolor option for my hoop! Also, I should be posting things on my stringandthread Etsy site for people to buy soon.

First set of beards sold!!!

So it's been a little while since i've updated due to schooling but I have started on a few projects which I will be posting soon!  Here are some pictures I forgot to put up of some beards that I sold! Enjoy!

First beard sold visiting a friend in CO!

Second beard I sold to someone while I was in CO!

First Time Dying Yarn!

Thanks to the wonderful tutorial seen on youtube, I have dyed my own yarn! The food coloring method I used was super fast, easy, and cheap. Im hoping to experiment with Kool-Aid soon and would love to find a way to dye acrylic yarn instead of wool. If anyone knows of any other methods, I'd love to hear about them!

I also experimented dying with multiflora rose- an invasive plant. Ive also heard boiling onion peels, tea, and coffee make a nice dyes. I hope to get more into 'natural' dying as well.
Here's the video tutorial I used for dying my yarn:

Handmade Chalk Bags For Climbing!

For Christmas I made chalk bags for two close friends of mine!  I crocheted the outter part along with the handle that way they could easily attatch it to a carabiner. I didn't have a model to look at when I was making these chalk bags but i'm pretty sure they are lined with fleece. I then used fleece for my inner lining, sewing it in. The only thing I had to buy for this project were the cord stops, which came in a set for about $2. The only thing I would do differently is have the elastic be hidden between the fleece and outter crocheted layer instead of being exposed where it could agitate against a rock while climbing. But, since this was my first attempt I am really proud of how they turned out!

Cut-away paper and leaf artwork

Rob Ryan and his beautiful work.
I also enjoyed these leaf cut-outs by Lorenzo Duran.

Homemade Hacky Sack!

Here's a hacky sack I made for my friends and I to play with. I really like the color of the fine yarn I used and none of the beans that I used to fill it with are falling out!

More Crocheted Beard Pictures

Extreme Crocheted Beards!

Recently I just got back visiting a friend in Colorado so I decided to make my friends some beards to keep our faces warm! They actually worked really well with keeping your face warm and we received a lot of compliments on the slopes! While I was up in Colorado I also had my first customer buy a beard! Now I have to start working on a multicolored red, white, and black beard that I will be shipping back off to Colorado. I havn't made a multicolored beard yet so i'm pretty excited. I hope to send more beards out and start an actual partnership with their store!

Welcome to stringandthread!

Welcome to stringandthread! This is a place where I share all of my unique DIY craft ideas along with my other personal inspirations. To read more about how I started crafting please see the 'About me' tab. Most of the crafts that will be featured will either be sewn or crocheted. I also like to experiment with other crafts and have recently been wanting to try some natural tie dying with t-shirts and yarn. I have also been teaching myself how to felt! I hope to have some new posts including a lot of random craft projects very shortly!