My name is julia. I'm married to the most wonderful man and we have three children: a boy, a girl and another baby boy. I love being a mother, a wife and a creative person. I knit socks and crochet dolls. I make books, cards and work on mixed media projects - mainly canvas and when the mood strikes me, I art journal and sometimes I sew.
my ever changing sock yarn scrap basket. i just love this thing...
i keep the smaller balls of left overs in this wooden bowl on the edge of our sofa table - they just get lost in the basket. next to it i have some colours picked out to use next in my blanket.
i've just finished row five and i just adore watching it grow and i can't wait for it to get bigger and bigger...
this is where i left off after christmas. i actually pulled out the square you see in progress there and used a different yarn for it. during the middle half of january i took a break from blanket knitting because i needed the needles for another project and i only have one set of these.
isn't the variety just awesome? i love it so much! so far i've only used the same yarn more than once when the colourway or pattern repeat was much longer than i needed for one square. i will see how far i get this way. i may use colours that i've used in the beginning again much later when it's not immediately obvious - as it would be if they were only one or two rows apart. this works for me and it keeps me working on my socks as well. i don't use yarns for the blanket that i haven't made socks with yet. (except for the minis that were in my advent calendar of course.)
well, i'm off to do a little house work (and more knitting - we'll see what gets done first)...
i hope you are all well and enjoy whatever you are up to! lots of love!
p.s.: i use 3mm needles, cast on 55 stitches per square and decrease two stitches on every right-side row.
before i show you all the many socks i've made (or finally managed to photograph) since the last sock post, i want to show you my project journal:
this is where i keep track of all the socks i knit: which yarn and pattern i use, how many stitches i cast on, how many rounds i do for the cuff, leg and foot, what type of toe or heel i use and if there's anything special in general that needs to be noted down so i don't get the second sock wrong. i like to tape in snippets of the yarn and the ball band. as you can see it got quite chunky but there's still lots of room. i had to do a little spine surgery because it just wouldn't close any more. it went from this
to this
and i'm very pleased with how it's working and how it's looking - i just love seeing how it gets filled up with yarny memories... (you can find out more about these leporello books here.)
now, let's sock:
pair #79 is a pair of kid's mojos for T. i changed the mojo pattern a little to make it fit small feet better. he picked out the yarn: Woll Butt "Christmas Magic" 6408, a seasonal release by Buttinette.
for pair #80 i used Drops Fabel print nr. 677. i only had a 50g ball but wanted them more longish so i used two shades of Drops Fabel uni - applegreen 112 and petrol 105 - for the stripy legs. this yarn is rather voluminous. i made the socks exactly the same as i normaly do for a perfect fit and they turned out about 1,5cm too long for me. i gave them to a friend who wears turquoise, teal and petrol a lot and she loved them.
pair #81 is a pair of tiny mojos for R. i changed the pattern even more. since we all had sparkly christmas socks she needed a pair too of course. the yarn is "Christmas Magic" 6408 again - same as T's.
pair #82 is a pair of scrahappy socks my mum ordered for a colleague of hers. i had a hard time giving them away - they are so full of memories...(i apologize for the bad lighting.)
pair #83 is made using opal Hundertwasser yarn. this one is called "Regen auf Regentag" but i only used it for the foot and made the legs with solids in stripes again as i did for the Drops Fabel socks. these went to live with my aunt.
pair #84 is my 2016 pair of christmas socks. i finished them on christmas day and got to wear them during the christmas holidays. the yarn is Woll Butt "Christmas Magic" 6406.
pair #85 was my mum's christmas present this - well, actually last - year. last summer i made a short pair of ankle socklets with the left overs from two different rainbow yarns. my mum really liked them but they were too small for her so i ordered more of the rainbow yarns and made her a pair. they weren't finished for christmas but she got them on new year's eve instead. the yarns i used are Schoppel Wolle Zauberball "Frische Fische" and Next Yarns "Samba" 4254. i changed yarns every seven rounds.
pair #86 was for my brother. i can't believe how long it took me to make a pair of socks for him! i guess it's because i don't really like making socks for men... i always feel like it takes so long. but for these i used 6-ply yarn so it wasn't that much slower than socks for my mum or sister or myself... the yarn is Austermann Step Irish Rainbow Colours 629.
this is pair #87. i have a fight going on with these socks. i made these using my collection of solid coloured sock yarn. i used the exact same number of stripes and the exact same number of rounds per stripe in both socks and one of them is about 2cm longer than the other! i don't know what to do with them now... i assume it is because even though the yarns are all 4-ply they have a difference in volume and fluffyness. on one of the feet i must have used more of the fluffier colours than on the other... i guess i will have to find someone who has different feet or make 2 more socks that match each of the mismatched ones and hope that i will end up with two differently sized matching pairs...
pair #88 is the pair of happy socks. i finished them on new years eve, more than nine months! after i started them. i feel bad about that, especially since knitting them went so well until just past the heel... then i got bored with them a little and made lots of other things and then the little cotton bag i kept them in went missing during moving. terrible, i know! but it re-surfaced again and i finished them. they fit very well and i like the colours a lot.
pair #89 was cast on on new year's eve. i picked this yarn because it made me think of colourful fireworks... it's opal sweet&spicy 3 - Fruchtgummi (nr. 9127). the pattern is called Mojo Light Socks and it's a free ravelry download.
for pair #90 i used a Schoppel Wolle Crazy Zauberball "Papagei" that i bought with some of my christmas money. i've been wanting one for ages and i love all the funky colour combinations... the pattern i used is called Tennarisukka and is a free ravelry download too. it's actually for sneaker socks - i just made them with long legs. the combination of knit and purl stitches creates a lovely texture.
for pair #91 i use opal Funny... with silver sparkle "Spaßig" (nr. 9330). the pattern is Hermione's Everyday Socks (free ravelry download). it's a very simple pattern with such a great effect - i love these socks. i made them with an afterthought heel.
i made pair #92 for my mum because she liked the yarn so much. it's opal Schafpate VIII "Blickfang" (nr. 9206). there was a mini ball of this yarn in my opal advent calendar and i really wanted a whole ball of it to make socks with... the pattern is called Ecken und Kanten (free ravelry download). it's in german but there are charts for the pattern and the only other thing you need to know is that it only works with 64 stitches. you can do whatever cuff, heel or toe you like and repeat the pattern for the leg as many times as you want to. i did only one pattern repeat before the heel as i wanted to keep them short. this was the first time i ever really worked with a chart and after a little confusion at the start it worked quite well. i also tried a garter stitch short row heel for the first time and it sits really nicely.
for pair #93 i used what was left of my opal sweet2&spicy2 "chilli". i used a solid beige yarn for the roll-down edge, heel and toe to make the most of the little that was left. i love wearing knitted socks even in summer.
this is pair #94. if you've read through my other sock ramblings - congratulations if you've managed! - you may know that this yarn, Atelier Zitron Trekking XXL nr. 550, is my most favourite yarn of all. (very closely followed by all the sweet&spicy yarns.) i've knitted two pairs of socks with this yarn before: the first turned out too big so i opened it and made a smaller one which turned out too small so i gave it away. this one finally fits! i chose the mojo pattern for them because i love to wear it and mojos always fit - even when made with "difficult" yarn. (do you know the kind of yarn that makes the socks turn out a little loose when cast on with your usual number of stitches but too tight when you go down by four? that's what i'm talking about when i say "difficult" yarns.)
pair #95 is a tiny little pair for my little girl R. she loves her little handknitted socks but it's really hard to get a picture of her feet while she wears them... for these i used some leftover opal sweet2&spicy2 "Honig" and a Drops Fabel Uni (nr. 110).
pair #96 is another short one. i used the left over opal Hundertwasser "Regen auf Regentag" from my aunt's socks. i like the length of them - really nice to wear.
pair #97 is a pair of caterpillar socks made with opal Hundertwasser "Der Blaue Mond". i made it exactly the same as another pair of Hundertwasser socks i have. i could mix and match them if i wanted to...
almost twenty pairs of socks made between the middle of november 2016 and the middle of february 2017. there was a lot of catching up to do... i'll try and post more regularly again - i promise...
have a wonderful day and week everyone! happy knitting and crafting!
you can find the patterns for the mojo and caterpillar socks in the right side bar under "tutorials and guides".
here is how you can add tags or other kinds of single pages in the joint between the two parts of the leporello book base. you have to do this before you connect the two base pieces with the connection piece because it hides the flaps that hold your inserts in.
you don't have to use tags for this. it could be a full size page with a decorative edge (or not), it could be another little accordion fold, it could be an envelope, it could be acetate or vellum or even fabric, it could be a shaped page that creates an image when folded open, etc.
this example has an acetate insert with a decorative edge.
this example has butterfly shaped inserts, inked with dylusions ink sprays and distress ink.
first you need to pick out what sort of insert you would like to have. i'm using two tags here. if you want to ink, paint, spray or in any way alter your material you should do so before you glue them to your leporello base.
make sure your insert won't stick out of your leporello - unless you want that of course. in this example each one of the leporello "pages" (when folded up) measures 20x12,5cm - 7 7/8" x 4 7/8".
score and fold about 7mm - 1/4" from the edge.
place your leporello base in front of you - facing the right way. remove the masking tape that holds the two pieces together and sandwich your insert between the two middle "ends" like i'm doing here. this is how your insert will be attached. since i have two tags, one flap will be glued to one of the leporello halves and the other flap to the other half. you can do the same with two full sized inserts. if you only want one insert piece, you can either just glue it to one of the leporello halves or prepare it like this:
this is the acetate example - and because acetate does not get used to being folded as paper does, it folds a little stiffer than a paper/card stock insert would but it's fun to use anyway.
i've divided the flap into three parts, tapered the corners (= cut them at an angle) and put double sided tape on all three flaps - but be careful: the tape goes one the same side on the two outer flaps, but on the other side of the middle one.
sandwich the insert between the leporello base pieces and make sure everything is perfectly aligned. the two outside flaps will fold forward, the middle one will fold back.
this way of attaching your insert will join the two leporello base pieces already, which is why it's so important that the base pieces are well aligned.
now you could just cover the flaps with a strip of decorative paper or tape...
...but i made a connection piece with a pocket on each side anyway.
now back to the example with the two tags:
place double sided tape on the flaps of our insert pieces and position them between your base pieces - again with the pieces of tape facing away from each other. if your insert has a direction - a top and bottom - double check to see if everything's right side up.
remove the tape backing and fold the flaps over. this way of attaching your insert does not join the two base pieces yet. it should look something like this:
line up the two pieces like this:
and tape them together with masking tape while you prepare your connection piece.
this is just to make sure nothing gets lost while you work on other things. please double check if everything is in the right place, right side up and goes into your cover as it should.
i have talked about the story of my leporello books in this post and you can find part 1 of the guide - making the cover - here. part 3 - signatures and finishing - can be found here. instructions for optional inserts can be found here:
for part 2 of this guide - making the leporello insert - please keep in mind that the measurements i'm working with fit my cover. just as with part 1 you can customize the measurements and materials you use to whatever suits you and to fit whatever you have on hand. this is how i do it - you are very welcome to follow step-by-step but if it inspires you to go crazy and do your own thing - great!
this is what you will most likely need: scissors, bone folder, pencil (and eraser), x-acto knife, double sided tape (and/or glue if you prefer), paper trimmer and/or t-ruler, awl (pokey tool) and waxed linen thread (for sewing in signatures later).
for the leporello base you need heavy card stock. i get it in those big sheets at the craft store - they measure 50x70cm - 19 5/8" x 27 1/2". they come in lots of different colours and also with patterns. (i have only used the rainbow one for a leporello book though because the other patterned ones are white on the back side.)
this card stock is really heavy: it's 300 gms and it really is best to use something heavy like this since it's supposed to hold all the signatures and embellishments.
with card stock this heavy it's important to pay attention to the machine direction of the fibers that make the paper. there's an easy way to find out: take the sheet of paper/card stock you want to use and gently bend it as if you wanted to fold it - without actually creasing it - once horizontally and once vertically. you will find that one way offers less resistance than the other way. the heavier the material the easier the difference is to notice. (with regular printer paper it's hardly noticable at all.)
the side with less resistance runs parallel with the fibers of the paper which means it folds easier and the fibers don't break. this usually doesn't matter so much when you fold paper to make pages in a journal or card stock for a card base.
with heavy 300 gms card stock it matters because you don't want your folds to break like this:
this is the journal i used the rainbow cardstock for and i knew i folded it against the fiber direction, but i wanted to use the whole rainbow sequence. (you can see it two pictures above.) it's easily visible that the paper is not just folded but broken. it would be less obvious with solid coloured card stock but still noticable because of the fraying. a lot of use makes the damage worse - i will have to use tape to reinforce the folds on this journal soon. the rainbow colours are printed on white card stock which is now visible through the broken top layers.
with the papers i can get here (in austria), finding the fiber direction is rather easy because they usually run with the longer side of the paper. (if you want to make sure you can find the right direction of your paper, practice on square sheets to see if you can determine how best to fold.)
to make sure the folds of my leporello go in the right direction, i cut the strips i need for the book from the 50cm - 19 5/8" side of my card stock sheet. my cover is 20,5cm - 8" tall. i want my book insert to be sightly shorter so i cut the card stock to be 20cm - 7 7/8" (x 50cm). you need 2 of these.
measure 20cm - 7 7/8" on both sides and cut using a long ruler and an x-acto knife. i use a metal ruler and i have to place the card stock diagonally on my cutting mat to make it fit. cut 2 strips. (i use the rest of the card stock sheet to make card bases.)
now measure half of your strip and score using either a ruler and bone folder or a scoring board if you have one. then flip the strip over and score each half in half again. you'll end up with 3 score lines - the 2 outside ones done from one side of the card stock, the middle one done from the other side. fold along the score lines - from the sides that you scored from - and crease the folds with your bone folder.
this creates a mountain fold and 2 valley folds (or the other way round). DO NOT score and fold from both sides, as it weakens the card stock and makes it break/tear faster!
if you want to ink the edges and mountain folds of your card stock - now is the time to do it.
place your two pieces on your work surface just like i did here. now take a piece of masking tape or washi tape - anything that's removable - and tape the two loose ends in the middle together so that they can still fold open as if the whole strip were one continuous piece.
this will be how the leporello insert will go into the cover. we will make a piece that connects the two pieces, covers the joint and is useful all at the same time.
the next part is very important. it determines whether or not your book will be properly usable in the end.
here are pictures of the first leporello book i made. notice how the last fold opens to the left. the whole of the leporello with all the signatures has no room because the spine is in the way and the fact that the last "page" of the leporello is glued to the back cover. it's not able to lie flat which is rather irritating to work with.
can you see how the book insert seems to lever the last fold off the cover? and there's not much in this book. imagine if the book were filled with ephemera, photos and maybe even dimensional embellishments! no room to move or do anything!
with this journal i glued the leporello insert so that the last fold opens to the right.
see how the right edge of the cover positions itself neatly between the folds and nothing is in the way of each other? with a leporello you have the option of working from every side which is why it is convenient if it opens flat.
take your leporello insert and place it, all folded up, in front of you so that the first fold opens to the left. close it again. take a pencil and mark the "page" facing you something like this:
(i only added the "fold" and "open" with the arrows for orientation - you don't have to do that.) you will have to refer to your markings a few times to make sure you don't attach your connection piece and/or the whole insert (with signatures and pockets and everything) upside down.
place your insert in your cover like this and double check that you put your "top" and "bottom" marks in the right place. (i'm repeating this so many times not because i think you don't understand or can't keep up with me, but because i've made several of these and still managed to stick something upside down, which usually meant i had to start over again or be very, very creative in covering up the mess i made when i had to rip it apart. it's always better to double check...)
by the way: in part 1 of this guide i covered both inside covers with decorative paper to show how to make a whole cover from scratch, because you can use book covers in more ways than just this (such as sewing signatures right through the spine, easy twine binding, making a ring binder, etc.). if you make your cover with the intention of making a leporello book you don't have to cover the inside of your back cover since it will be covered by the leporello - like this:
now let's move on to the connection piece that will hold the two strips of card stock together and also create pockets to keep ephemera. here are some options:
this is the insert that will go into the cover i showed you just above. the whole book (previous 3 pictures) is much smaller than the one we are working on. it has only one pocket slot on one side, and because the piece of design paper i used for it was a left over it was too short to cover the whole of the other side and i turned it into a side pocket. you can do this with every size of book of course.
this one is the same size as our project but it has three pockets on each side - the other side looks basically the same. personally i find the pockets too shallow but that really depends on what you want to keep in them. you could also have three on one side and two on the other if you wanted to.
the above three examples all have two pockets on each side but i used different kinds of paper to create them.
for the first one i used vellum, which i very much like the look of. the double sided tape is visible around the edges but personally i don't have a problem with that since the tape gives it a clean look and everything is straight and aligned.
for the second one i used card stock that i spray inked through a stencil and then doodled on a little. you can completely customize your connection piece to whatever theme and colours fit your project.
for the third one i used a page from a wall calendar with a flower bouquet on it. this calendar paper is thinner than card stock, which makes it a little harder to work with and it tears easier but it's totally possible to do and i think it looks really pretty. as you can see i've reinforced the fold with washi tape because this gloss coated paper wants to break when folded.
this is what the other side of the connected card stock strips looks like:
here i've covered the joint with washi tape. you could also run a marker along the joint if your connection piece has a different colour than your leporello base.
in this book the connection piece has the same colour as the leporello base, which makes it basically invisible.
this is OPTIONAL: you can attach hinged insert pages/tags to the inside of the joint between the two parts of the leporello base before you attach the connection piece. you can find a seperate tutorial for that here.
cut the paper or card stock you want to use as your connection piece to size: 20x24,7cm - 7 7/8" x 9 3/4" and fold it in half.
place double sided tape all the way around and to the left and right of the fold - don't get too close to the fold with the tape. i'm creating two pockets on each side, so i place tape along the middle. if you want three pockets on each side you have to divide the height in three parts and place your tape there.
fold your connection piece so the pretty sides face each other. lightly mark where you want your slots to be. i like mine to be slightly angled and i'm not too bothered about them being exactly the same angle or distance from their respective above tape lines. yours can be straight, more angled or even along the sides to create side pockets.
take a hole punch and punch a hole at the end of each line, going through both layers at once. (if you have a hole punch with long reach - like a BigBite - you can punch all the holes seperately.)
when i first started making these books i used to just cut a slit between the holes and leave it at that. but i found that to be rather impractical when inserting my keepsakes and the paper tends to rip at the hole.
take your ruler and x-acto knife and carefully remove a strip as wide as the punched holes are. you can go through both layers at once or unfold your piece and cut each slot seperately. be careful: your ruler might want to slide on the the tape backing.
you can correct your slot with scissors if you have to. you can ink the edges of your slots and if you want them to be wider or narrower just use a bigger or smaller hole punch.
if the mirrored symetry bothers you when you look at the spread like this, don't worry about it: you will hardly ever see it like this when you use your finished book.
this would be your tape and punch/cut layout if you wanted different numbers of pockets on each side. you'd need a long reach hole punch for this though - or one of those eyelet setters that can be placed anywhere on the page and require a hammer to punch the hole.
pop up your leporello base on your work surface - facing the right way - and position your connection piece where it's supposed to go - all the tape backing still on.
taping the connection piece in the right possition is a little fiddly. (i often position and re-position, flip and turn everything for a while before i actually remove any tape backing.) just go slow and do one bit at a time.
hold everything together and place it, folded open, slots facing down, on your work surface. set the right leporello base piece aside for now. (i have an additional butterfly insert in this book - so i can easily see that both the base piece and the connection piece are right side up.)
remove the tape backing from the tape to the left of the fold and tape the base piece into place, aligning it with the top and bottom edge of the connection piece - but not too close to the fold. it still needs to fold with ease.
turn everything over and remove the backing from the rest of the tape on this side for the connection piece. gently smooth the connection piece down from the fold to the edge.
turn everything slots facing down again, remove the backing from the tape to the right of the fold and lift up the ends of the other tapes as well.
line up the right half of the leporello base with the left half - again: don't place anything right on top of the fold.
remove all the rest of the tape backing and glue everything in place.
there will be a gap between the two leporello pieces. i admitt that this gap it a tad wider than i would like it to be, but the flaps that the butterfly inserts are attached with add a bit of additional bulk that has to be taken into account. if we didn't leave a gap the connection piece would not be able to fold properly - the heavy card stock from the leporello pieces would be in the way of each other. if you don't want any visible gap at all, you'd have to have a connection piece that has the same colour as the leporello base and you could have no hinged inserts or would have to use very thin material for them.
this is the pocket side of my connection piece. note how the left and right edges don't go all the way to the fold. if you want your edges a little closer to the fold just add a tiny bit more when you cut your paper - they must not overlap the fold though.
i like to take my bone folder and run it along the edges and the middle and center where the tape is, just to make sure everything is properly adhered.
if the connection piece sticks out over the top and/or bottom edge of the leporello base, just trim the exess with your scissors or x-acto knife.
now have fun embellishing your pockets to your heart's content. i like to doodle in the slots or just stick down file tabs for a little definition.
there is one more thing you can do if you'd like to give your slots an extra touch of colour:
before you adhere your connection piece, lightly mark where your slots will be on your leporello base and cover that area with washi tape or strips of pattern paper.
the design will peek through your slot. (please excuse my fingernails...)
gluing your leporello base to your cover, sewing in the signatures and more finishing touches will be the subject of part 3 of the leporello book guide.
if you have any questions or need help with anything, please feel free to contact me via my facebook page.
the german word for "witchhazel",
which is a plant, is "zaubernuss".
the literal translation back to english would be "magic nut".
that kind of appealed to me.