Custom belts!

I recently made this belt as a commission for a member of a forum I'm part of. It's 43" long, and features Baphomet encircled by tiny skulls on the buckle.
He had these words to say upon receiving it:
"The belt is here. The belt fits well. The belt is now controlling me. Seriously, the second I cinched the belt closed, I felt the eerie dark power emanate down my crotch into my nether regions, imbuing my junk with a mystical ability to totally kick ass. IT. IS. FUCKING. METAL."

Not bad, eh?

~Alex, The Metal Artisan

Knitting, Block Prints and Notepads

Amanda here. I'm sorry it's been so long. Things are crazy around here. Brandon and I are still trying to get settled in the new apartment, I'm getting used to my new job and working 5 and 6 days a week, and I'm also rebuilding the rat cage. Of course this is all on top of rewriting my resume and researching grad schools. So I haven't had much time for crafting.

But I do have a few new projects to show you. Starting with a piece of merchandise I hope to post in the etsy shop very soon. I wanted to learn a new knitting technique, so I tried circular knitting. I had never done it before, and it turns out it's quite simple. In many ways, it's actually simpler than regular knitting.

I found a small ball of yarn that I had been saving for a special project. It's got that great knobbly texture, and check out the lovely fall colors:

Turquoise, crimson, tan, light purple and brown.

It's pinched off at the side, and tied down with some lace that I cut into a little flower.

I was thinking it would be cool to use the same pattern for a shawl or wrap, with a different closure.

So, I'm going to try to get some better pictures, then that cowl will be on sale in our etsy shop!

Next up, I made a couple of green obi-style belts. This one is for Val, so I may have her model it for pictures for the etsy shop, because it doesn't fit me.

This is the same yarn I used for the bracelets that are now on sale in our etsy shop. I just love the color.

This belt is WAY too small on me, but it should look awesome on Val. I also made one in my size that I plan to sell. As soon as it's finished I can photograph it and post it on etsy.

I have a ton more of this yarn left, so if you want to order a belt, please send me a message, either on etsy or by email!

Lastly, I'm very excited to post the beginning stages of my Dad's birthday present. It's a new project for me, I just got the materials in the mail last week. I'm making him a personalized notepad. Here is one of the pages:

I'm really proud of how this linoleum print came out.

Of course, cutting the block print is the hard part. But now that I've finished that, I just need to cut all the pages to size, print them, then paint on the padding compound. This is my new material. It's used for book binding, and I've never used it before. I'm very excited to start.

Despite the fact that cutting the pages should be the easy part, I've been running into problems with the type of paper I chose, as well as the paper cutter at the local Kinko's. So, I might change my strategy. But once I've worked out the problems with the paper, it should be done in no time.

The exciting announcement here is that, once I have my process down, I am going to be making lots of these little notepads and putting them in the etsy shop. They're totally customizable, so think of a print you would want on your notepad, and send me a message! I can't wait to start carving all kinds of block prints and making all these little notepads. It's a really great way to get my block prints out there and advertise what I can do. Hopefully soon I will be able to make some bigger paper products as well, but for now I'm starting small.

Here's another picture with my thumb as a size reference:

But I can make the notepads any size. Just tell me what you're looking for and I can come up with something unique, just for you!

I can also make books, I just don't have any examples to post right now. The limiting factor right now is time. It's frustrating being so busy, when I have so many projects I want to work on.

I really hope my dad likes his birthday present. That block print is probably one of my best ones yet.

Well, back to work. Happy crafting, everyone!

Logo Announcement!

Amanda here.

Sorry I've been so absent. I've been busy moving and starting my new job. I'm glad to see the rest of the team is picking up the slack for me while I'm gone. There are a bunch of new blog posts, and the Etsy shop is filling up fast! There is lots of exciting crafting going on around here, and I have exciting news to commemorate it!

The last missing piece we've been waiting on to make Nimble Toad a legitimate company is its logo. We commissioned illustrator and dear friend Melissa VanVaerenbergh of Two For Joy Studios to design our logo and site banner. She sent me an almost-final-draft yesterday and as you can see, it is at the top of the blog as well as the Etsy shop! When she's all done polishing it and fiddling with details, I'll post the final version. But I just couldn't wait that long.

As you can see, I've also been fiddling with the site layout. I'm afraid this isn't my forte, so I will probably ask the other members to give it a try until we find something we like. So, expect a lot of change around here for a while.

And while you're at it, check out the shop! There's new merchandise every day. In case I haven't linked it enough, here it is again.

Happy crafting. ^_^

Polymer clay fun

Hey all!

I discovered today/last night the fun of playing with polymer clay and old bottle caps! I love playing with polymer clay, but adding the bottle caps (of which my roommates and I have dozens) was the icing on the cake.

Seven new pendants! Or key chains, if you will. I'm taking the drifloon one to put on my key chain. And just put up two of the pokeballs. The third is sitting in Gini's computer waiting for her to come home from work.

Besides poly clay, I'm going to start up again with the crocheting in earnest. I've decided to tackle Dawn's hat from Pokemon diamond/pearl/platinum and need to do another hobo phoenix hat from the fourth Phoenix Wright game. I made one a couple summers ago for my at the time boyfriend (now fiance).

Time to go yarn hunting!

A mighty work!

A few weeks ago, I produced what I consider to be my journeyman project: A chainmail shirt. I had been working on it for about eight months, but the vast majority of the work was done between January and April. Altogether, I'd estimate it at about 40-50 man hours of labor.
The end result is naught but one thing: beauty.


This photo has a bit more glare than I'd like, but it gives a decent front overview of the shirt.



This back shot highlights what I consider to be the Pièce de résistance of the shirt: the scale mail shoulders. Each contains about two hundred scales, and is fastened to the shirt all along the edges to prevent them from flopping around.


Both the side laces and the belt serve the same dual function: firstly, they tighten the shirt around the body so as that less of the weight rests of the shoulders. Given the weight of chainmail, it makes for a tremendous difference in comfort depending on whether the belt is fasthened and the laces are tightened or not.
Secondly, it makes the shirt look more interesting and be something other than endless expanses of gray steel. My main inspiration for these additions were old-school motorycle jackets, and their plethora of fasteners and tighteners to keep wind out. I figured it should work for keeping weight off as well; and I was correct.



Well I couldn't very well not take a picture like this, could I?



After all that hard work, there's nothing quite like a refreshing bowl of cornflakes.

Val: Experimental Knitting and more!

Alright, so. Life has been a bit crazy lately, what with the wedding and moving and all. But, we're finally settled in, and still unemployed, so there's been an explosion of crafting.

First, before we moved, Mike and I spent a few days with Amanda and did some shopping. We found this great, huge, old desk for $20 at a university surplus sale!

Getting it the hour and a half back home with us was an interesting challenge, but Amanda generously loaned us the back of her pretend SUV and drove the hour and a half to drop it off at our house.

It obviously needs some work, but it's turning into a fun project for us. We're currently in the stripping/sanding stage, and we discovered a beautiful reddish wood underneath the gobs of light finish. More details as the project progresses.


Next up, I've been playing around with knitting. I'm really, really new to it - this is only my second project - but I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. I wanted to play around with knitting and purling, so I was planning on making a scarf using stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row). Well ... only a third of the way through it, I was getting a bit tired of the project and I realized that I wouldn't have enough yarn to make a proper scarf, so instead I turned it into the Etsy favorite: a cowl!

So, here's the process. I totally made this up as I went along, so no guarantees that I found the easiest way to do it.

The would-be scarf:


I had a lot of fun when I started knitting with this yarn because I had no idea how it was going to knit up. Once I decided to make my piece into a cowl, I knit a few more rows to make sure it would be large enough to go around my neck with a bit of overlap. When it seemed long enough, I cast off from my needles and sewed the extra yarn into the ends of the scarf. Just a warning, since it's stockinette stitch, the edges naturally curl a lot.

The cowl would have tried to suffocate me if I'd worked with it as is, not to mention being unruly from the curl, so I folded it in half (wrong side in) and bound the edges together essentially making a tube. I was lucky that my yarn made a striped pattern, because I was able to match up the lines and make sure that I was sewing evenly. When I was done with the side, I also bound one of the ends.


All bound up and ready for buttons:


I apologize for the slightly blurry photos, it wasn't until the next picture that I realized my camera has a manual focus that makes shots like these so much easier!


I had no idea how to make button holes, and I had a tiny inkling that I needed to have knit them into the piece itself, so I decided to use loops to secure my buttons instead. I braided three strands of the yarn together and eyeballed how long they needed to be to hook around my buttons (which I hadn't attached yet). I pulled the braid around a stitch and made sure both ends were tightly knotted. As an afterthought, I used normal sewing thread and sewed the knots together so they wouldn't pull back through the knitting.

To attach the buttons, I just threaded one short length of yarn through the button and the knitting and tied it tightly on the inside.

A note: While you're working on the loops and buttons, one hand needs to be inside the tube, so it can get a little awkward at times, but it isn't too bad. For the most part, I worked with my tube inside out so I could get to the knots easier.


Turn your work right-side out and you're done!


The next step is to put your cowl away somewhere safe and enjoy the rest of the summer!







Let me know if you have any questions!

Next up: A long sleeved t-shirt refashion.

Gini: Hats, Hats, Hats

I love making hats. They are my favourite thing to knit/crochet. I crocheted two hats this week, here they are:
This one I call my Rockin' Rainbow Hat. It is made of years of saved up Sugar n' Cream scraps, so it is 100% cotton. Great for summer! I can't decide if I want to sell it or keep it. It came out a bit larger than I planned. What do you think?






This hat is made out some some Lion Brand Vana's Choice that my mom picked up on clearance for a dollar at Wal-Mart. I plan on finding some funky/cheap ribbon to weave in the holes. It should be pretty rockin' itself when it is done.




And last but not least, here is a sneak preview of what Will has been working on for the shop: