The zipper on my first Angel Swap gift is no longer naked. I dressed it up a little with some embroidery floss and a few beads.
Would you like to see how I did it?
I decided I would make a twisted rope with light blue and white embroidery floss so I took a length of each, probably about 24 inches or so, and separated them into six strands and put them back together as shown in this video. Then I put the two colors together and tied a knot about an inch or so from one end.
Next I taped the blue end to the edge of my sewing machine cabinet and held the white end straight out so that the knot tying the two colors together was in the middle. I moistened my thumb and index finger (kinda gross, I know, but this part will be trimmed off in the end!) and rolled the white end between them somewhere around about 60 or 70 times to twist the floss tightly together. Then, keeping the white end pulled tight in one hand, I took the knot in the other hand and slowly brought the white end towards the blue end. I pulled the blue end from under the tape and held it together with the white end, and then the fun part...I let go of the knot! After it all twisted up on itself, I stretched it out smooth, knotted the loose ends together, and look what I got...
Isn't that pretty? I love twisting thread and string and yarn and anything else together to make different kinds of rope. It's so easy and so pretty.
Then I twisted the already-twisted length again using the same method, so that it would be half the length with a loop in the middle as you can see in the picture above. I put a knot about an inch or so from the end so it wouldn't untwist.
Then I started rummaging through my bead stash. Ooooh, pretty beads! So much potential! I settled on what you see above, but how to get it onto the twice-twisted thread? I pulled out my handy dandy never-ending spool of multi-purpose monofilament and cut off a short piece. I threaded that through the looped end of the rope and brought the ends together to feed through the beads. Then I pulled the monofilament and fished the rope right through the beads! I knotted the rope above the beads and there it was, pretty as could be.
I threaded the loop end of the rope through the hole in the zipper handle thingy, loosened up the loop just a bit and pulled the bead end of the rope through the loop to attach it to the zipper. But I discovered it was a tad too long to be practical. So I loosened up the knot over the beads and moved it up a few inches, slid the beads up to meet it, tied a new knot beneath the beads, trimmed off the excess rope, knotted the two loose ends so they wouldn't come untwisted, and there it was again!
A fancy and feminine way to dress up a boring zipper.
If you like pretty beaded accessories for your stitching, keep checking in here every day this week. My 100th post is coming up soon and to celebrate I will have a few fancy beaded things to give away!
Click here to return to HookedOnNeedles.com
Would you like to see how I did it?
I decided I would make a twisted rope with light blue and white embroidery floss so I took a length of each, probably about 24 inches or so, and separated them into six strands and put them back together as shown in this video. Then I put the two colors together and tied a knot about an inch or so from one end.
Next I taped the blue end to the edge of my sewing machine cabinet and held the white end straight out so that the knot tying the two colors together was in the middle. I moistened my thumb and index finger (kinda gross, I know, but this part will be trimmed off in the end!) and rolled the white end between them somewhere around about 60 or 70 times to twist the floss tightly together. Then, keeping the white end pulled tight in one hand, I took the knot in the other hand and slowly brought the white end towards the blue end. I pulled the blue end from under the tape and held it together with the white end, and then the fun part...I let go of the knot! After it all twisted up on itself, I stretched it out smooth, knotted the loose ends together, and look what I got...
Isn't that pretty? I love twisting thread and string and yarn and anything else together to make different kinds of rope. It's so easy and so pretty.
Then I twisted the already-twisted length again using the same method, so that it would be half the length with a loop in the middle as you can see in the picture above. I put a knot about an inch or so from the end so it wouldn't untwist.
Then I started rummaging through my bead stash. Ooooh, pretty beads! So much potential! I settled on what you see above, but how to get it onto the twice-twisted thread? I pulled out my handy dandy never-ending spool of multi-purpose monofilament and cut off a short piece. I threaded that through the looped end of the rope and brought the ends together to feed through the beads. Then I pulled the monofilament and fished the rope right through the beads! I knotted the rope above the beads and there it was, pretty as could be.
I threaded the loop end of the rope through the hole in the zipper handle thingy, loosened up the loop just a bit and pulled the bead end of the rope through the loop to attach it to the zipper. But I discovered it was a tad too long to be practical. So I loosened up the knot over the beads and moved it up a few inches, slid the beads up to meet it, tied a new knot beneath the beads, trimmed off the excess rope, knotted the two loose ends so they wouldn't come untwisted, and there it was again!
A fancy and feminine way to dress up a boring zipper.If you like pretty beaded accessories for your stitching, keep checking in here every day this week. My 100th post is coming up soon and to celebrate I will have a few fancy beaded things to give away!
Click here to return to HookedOnNeedles.com
Labels: bead work, beads, stranded floss, swap, zipper pull
posted by Mary Grace McNamara on Tuesday, September 9, 2008
PermaLink |
0 comments |
Click to comment
