Toe guards for my derby skates

Hello! Exciting news! This week I'm Cut Out + Keep's Crafty Superstar - yay! I've got a project going live on their site every single day this week; some are from my archives but others are brand new, never been seen before projects! It's been so hard keeping them a secret so I hope you check them out during the week and let me know what you think ^____^

Now, on to my most recent project: do you, like me, always want to craft something anytime you get a new hobby or interest (or see a new movie, or read a new book, or play a new video game ...)? I've been threatening for ages to make myself something for use in Roller Derby - and I finally have! Yay!

The front of my roller skates were looking a little scratched up, so I decided I better make myself a pair of toe guards. DIY Roller Derby have a free pattern for boot covers so I printed it out and got started! A while ago I tried to crochet some toe guards but didn't have much luck - the test run of this sewing pattern confirmed my theory as to why: my Riedell R3s need more cover at the top than they do at the bottom. Luckily, this is much easier to fix when sewing than it is with crochet! I added three centimeters to the top of the pattern, making sure to curve the edges down to meet the top of the original pattern smoothly, shifted the holes for the laces, made the toe stop bolt hole larger, and added darts on either side of the aforementioned hole.

Unfortunately, I can't make a pattern for you at the moment since my computer died, taking all my graphic design programs with it! I'm currently using my ancient laptop, which struggles when running one internet tab so I'm currently rather limited in that regard. When I have Illustrator again though, I shall edit this post to include a pattern! Edited to add: Well, my computer is still down, but with the help of the library's scanner and my old friend Paint, I made a pattern for you! Yay! You can download it from my Google Drive here.
 

The darts on either side of the top stop hole make the cover fit a little more snugly around the trucks. They aren't the most perfect darts ever, but since they're underneath the skate they aren't that visible. 

 When I sewed up the sides of the cover, I also sewed across the front. This meant that when I turned the cover right way out, they didn't have little pointed horns from the seam. The holes in my cover aren't that visible, but to make them I poked a pair of sharp scissors through the pleather and then widened the holes with a crochet hook handle which was the same thickness as my laces.

To make them look a little fancier, I also sewed on some red leather hearts. I think they look really cute, and hopefully they'll add a little more reinforcement to the covers. The pleather I used isn't very thick, so I'm not sure how well they'll hold up; but I shall simply have to wait and see!

 

Overall, I'm happy with the fit and very happy with the price. Since I already had the pleather and red leather scraps in my stash, this project cost me nothing at all! Huzzah!

 

I've got a Pinterest board of more Roller Derby crafts to do, but I haven't decided which one I will do next. What do you think?

- Lisa xx

P.S. Don't forget to enter my tiny beanie giveaway!

New paracord handles for my skating bag

Hello! One thing about roller derby and, I assume, all skating to some extent, is that you accumulate a lot of stuff. When I go to training I have my skates, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, a helmet, mouthguard, tape, a skate tool, a couple of water bottles, a small towel, and an extra set of wheels. Plus usually a couple of pairs of socks which I've forgotten to take out and wash (yup, I'm gross!). Which means my bag is pretty heavy, which means this happens:

Ugh! Fake leather bag straps are the worst! I brought this bag from the opshop since it was a) pretty, b) cheap, and c) big, but it's handles have not coped with the amount of stuff I lug around in it.

So, I decided it was time to replace them. Luckily, although the handles are pretty ruined, the rings and other hardware attaching them to the bag were still in pretty good shape. So I brought two bundles of 5.4m long black paracord, cut off the old handles, and started tying some knots!

 

The knot that I did is called a Solomon Bar, and this video was a huge help in teaching me how to do it. I started off by folding my paracord in half and putting the folded end through one of my bag rings, then I pulled the loose ends through the folded end to knot the paracord onto the ring.

I used the old handles as a guide for how long I should leave the paracord hanging between the rings, and then threaded the loose ends through the other ring. Then it's just a case of doing the knots until you have reached the first ring again. To do one handle look me about 15 minutes, so this is a pretty quick and easy fix!

 

My Solomon's Bar is not as tight as it could be, but I quite like how it looks looser and anyway, that was all the paracord I had!  ~____^

To finish it off, I cut off the long loose ends of the paracord, and then used a tea light candle to melt the ends and help secure them.

 

A lighter probably would be better for this, but I don't have a lighter and I do have an overabundance of tea light candles. Seriously, I think they breed when I'm not looking. As long as you hold your tea light steady and move your cord around (instead of vice versa!) you will not drop hot wax on yourself. I got distracted and dripped some wax on my bag, but it wiped off easily so no harm done! ^___^ When you're doing this, the important thing to remember is that you are not touching the paracord with your flame; just use the heat generated by the candle to gently melt the paracord.

Melting the cord gives a neat finish, and should ensure that the knots don't come loose ^____^

 

Since the paracord is quite soft, these handles are still comfortable to use, and hopefully a lot stronger than the original ones!

I have given up on so many bags because of split and stretched handles (I obviously ask a lot from my baggage!), so I'm really happy to have found a solution! My craft store has a lovely range of colourful paracord which means that finding a matching cord to make handles shouldn't be too tricky! And, if in doubt, I can simply remember that black goes with everything ~____^

- Lisa xx

Roller skate baby booties

Hello! I'm a big believer in the idea that mini things are just somehow cuter than regular sized things. I don't know why, but they just are. These baby booties that I made prove this rule; they are SO TINY and SO ADORABLE. I can barely even stand it.

I made these for my friend Toni, who is also my Skate Fit instructor. Skate Fit is pretty awesome; it's kind of like a circuit class mixed with a skills lesson and is super helpful if you want to improve your skating and fitness and bit quicker than just going to social skates (which I also love, by the way!). This week was our last Skate Fit class for a while though because, as you may have guessed, Toni is having a baby! Toni is an artistic skater by trade, so she wears those sweet high topped white skate boots that derby freshies like me lust after. When I found this pattern I knew it would be perfect, since the booties look really similar to Toni's skates!

 

I used a pattern by Andrea Collins to make these and they turned out perfectly; I'm very pleased with them and would definitely recommend the pattern. The only thing that I would have liked was a guideline for size customisation. As I mentioned, these are tiny; probably really only good for newborns (I'm not positive as I don't know many babies, but they are only about 7cm long so pretty small!) and I would have liked to have the option to make them a little bigger (cough *to fit me* cough).

The pattern recommends black yarn for the trucks/ sole but I went with grey because Toni's trucks are silver. It also suggests hot pink for the trim and laces, but I had this gorgeous mint green yarn which I desperately wanted to use for something; plus, it's pastel, so perfect for babies, right? I kept the boots white, but I did the wheels in the same mint green instead of grey because I thought it would be cuter. Toni's wheels are actually transparent with glitter, but I didn't think I'd be able to recreate that, unfortunately!

The wheels are sewn onto the sole which meant, for me at least, that in the inside of the boot some of the stitching was visible. To fix this, I crocheted a little insole for each skate, just by doing the first three rounds of the sole pattern. I also added a little non-toxic glue to the tops of the stitches inside the boot to hopefully prevent them from fraying or coming loose. Loose wheels are never a good thing!

 

The pom-poms on the ends of the laces are possibly one of my favourite things about this pattern. They're so tiny and cute! The smallest size of my pom-pom maker was way too big for this project, so I made these tiny pom-poms using a fork! 

I used 100% acrylic in DK weight for all of yarns in this project, and a 4mm hook. Baby wool would probably be a good option for it too, but I didn't want to use any of my wool yarn as I thought it could be too itchy. I personally can't stand the feel of wool on my skin, so I avoid it unless it's super super soft.

 

The wheels were the worst part of this project. Basically you have to crochet tiny spheres, which really hurt my poor fingers! If I was doing this again, I might resort to needle-felting them! They do look good though, so I'm pleased I stuck with it.

I gave these to Toni today at our (last *crying*) Skate Fit session and she really liked them! I hope that her little one will get some use out of them ... until they're ready for proper skates anyway! ~___^

I'm mostly definitely sold on baby booties as a gift now though, as I did these in only a couple of hours over two days; gotta love a nice quick project!

- Lisa xx