Designing Decor: Project Balcony, Lighting It Up.

First of all I wanted to show you my finished blanket. It started about a year ago, a friend of mine was crocheting a baby blanket for a friend who was expecting in a basket weave stitch and I was inspired. However my crocheting skills are rough to say the least so I decided to knit a basket weave blanket and so it began. Well now I’ve finished. I decided to only use the basket weave pattern around the edge with a cuff stitch all around the edge. Et voilà!

Back To The Tutorial

I’ve finally managed to get myself together and bring you a tutorial. The results of which will be making an appearance on my re-decorated balcony. The idea for this tutorial came whilst I was looking for inspiration on Pinterest. If you want to see all of the photos from my blog, and from this post including the photo that inspired me, please click here.

I wanted to recreate a candle holder, it had to have a nautical feel about it and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.I haven’t finished exactly, I want to make one more, but here’s the two I’ve made so far.

So Let’s See How:

You are going to need:

• Twine.
• A jam jar or other jar.
• Sticky tape
• A glass, with a smaller mouth than the base of the jar.
• A pair of scissors.

Cut a long piece of twine and make a circle. Don’t tie it off, wind the ends around the first circle of twine until the entire circle is twisted two pieces of twine.

 

So it looks something like this. And you should end up with something like this.

Next you might need a tube of cream or a slim cylinder to shape the first hoops. This is my second one and I have acquired an eye for the size, so I didn’t use a spacer on this one. 

So make a hoop, follow the twine, it will tell you which direction it wants to go in. Then tie a knot.

The first jar was a bit bigger than this one, so on the first jar I did 9 hoops to start with, but on this one I only needed 6. The great thing about this is if you find that you needed one or two less hoops you can unpick a few knots and take one of the hoops away and push the other hoops along to fill the gap.

So by now you should have something like this. Tie off the last one and make sure its secure. This is your first row. Now the real fun begins!

Turn your jar upside down and place your twine flower on top of the base. Then take a piece of sticky tape and tape it to the jar. Its a temporary fix to hold the twine in place while you continue making the hoops.

Lets make the next row. Cut another length of twine. Its hard to use a spacer here, at least I found it hard, so I just eyed it up. I made it about the same size as the row before. I tied the twine to the middle of the first hoop. Every new hoop I stuck to the glass with sticky tape.

It just made it much easier to make the hoops more evenly sized. I also unstuck the tape and used it for the next row after that.

Tie off every hoop to the centre of the hoop of the row before and when you get to the end tie off like you did with the very first row. Because this jar is smaller I didn’t need more than three rows, on the first jar that was bigger I needed four rows. The third row I made so that it reached the shoulder of the jar, tying every new hoop to the hoop of the previous row. So now you have your last row, turn your jar the right way around.

Unstick the hoops from the jar and thread another piece of twine, long enough to tie around the jar mouth twice through the hoops of the top row. Tie off tight. I made a handle by braiding the twine together. I tied the twine braid to the twine around the jar mouth.

I put a tea-light candle inside it. Now its ready for my balcony, I’m really pleased with it.

I hope you like it and try it. If you’re in Norway and trying to source the twine, I bought mine at Stoff og Stil. It was only 19 kr.

Please comment and share any photos of your own attempts. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any posts.

Until next time.

Davita