Saturday 5 November 2011

A Stiff Upper Lip

The other day I made this little star...

Crocheted star

...from this pattern.

I want to make a garland to hang in the shop window, but I know from experience that the garland will be better if the stars could be stiffened.  So I bought some spray starch (the sort for ironing)...

spray starch

...but it didn't seem to make the star any stiffer, so I looked on the Net for a product and found something (excuse my sniggers) called Stiffy...


Now I know this must be a USA product, because stiffy, in English, has an entirely different meaning...

Anyway, they won't post it to me in France, so I'm just going to have to find another way - I'm thinking I'll dilute some PVA adhesive and dip the stars in that.  Got to make more stars first, though.

Pink Chicken


I'm still working on my birdies and keep on tweaking Lucy's pattern. The latest - done in a rather thinner 4ply cotton, turned out quite large and threatened to be a vulture before calming down and hatching into a pink chicken...

Pink Chicken

Now I'm working on a much denser crochet fabric for the bird, so that the stuffing doesn't show through.  I'll post a picture when it's finished!

5 comments:

Annie said...

Try checking out this link Penny...
http://www.ehow.com/how_5018991_stiffen-doilies.html

Hope you find something helpful here.
Hugs,
A x

Annie said...

Or there are more suggestions here
http://www.crafterslovecrafts.com/stiffen-crochet.html

Good luck.
A x

Stocki said...

I've been working on little stars too... I went down the same route and almost used a tin of spray starch on just a few stars! Now I'm trying out another liquid product called, "Dylon - Easy wash starch"... I'll let you know if it any good..:)x

Debra in France said...

Hi Penny, I have been looking at snowflake patterns, and they said to stiffen them by making a sugar/water solution, dipping the item in it and them leaving them too dry.

quilterliz said...

G'day Penny. Your little star is lovely. The PVA will work. Good luck with it all. Take care. Liz...