Scrappy Chenille Scarf

One of the participants from my scarf-making challenge made a chenille scarf that I really liked.  Her name is Linda and she wrote a great tutorial for her scarf that you can find HERE.  

Linda's scarf is made up of 7 layers of fabric.  The center layer of fabric is never cut and serves as a background color (black, in Linda's case)  for both sides of the scarf.  After I got 6 pieces of fabric cut, I thought my scarf was already looking very thick.  It's hard to tie and twist a really thick scarf, so I figured out a slightly different method to cut the scarf using only 6 layers of fabric.  

This is a diagram of a cross section of my scarf.
The center layers are grey flannel.
The white vertical lines show the stitching which goes through all 6 layers of fabric.
The black vertical lines show where I cut through 2 and sometimes 3 layers of fabric.
This is how I got away with using an even number of fabric layers.

The center layers were grey flannel.  The outer most layers were a blue/violet tie-dye pattern.
The top photo shows the royal purple I used under the tie-dye on one side.
The bottom photo shows the bright blue I used on the other side.
The sides are different, but the difference is very subtle.
Next time I try this I'm going to make the 2 sides much more different.

As you might be able to guess, I spent almost as much time taking photos of the scarf as I did making it!  I'm trying really hard to learn the manual settings on my camera.  I took a few photography courses in college, but those were years ago and we used real film.  I remember just knowing which adjustments to make to change the focal length and shutterspeed to use to get the photo I wanted.  Now it's a lot of hit and miss, referring back to my manual a million times, and head-scratching.  My biggest trouble now is with focusing.  Maybe my up-close vision is deteriorating as I approach 40.....?  I can't see well enough through my little camera view finder to know if my image is sharp or not.     

Linda said she made her scarf in 2.5 hours.  It took me more like 4 hours.  But I was dealing with very odd-shaped pieces of fabric and had some trouble finding the bias.  The grey flannel is from a set of sheets I bought at the thrift store.  That was a rather large piece of material to deal with.  The other fabrics were in small enough pieces that I had to piece it together to make them long enough.  

Overall I am very pleased with this scarf.  I love the softness and warmth provided by both the chenille effect and the flannel.  I spent no money making the scarf either.  I love to be able to finish a project without having to run to the store to buy supplies.  I chose not to make the tassels on the ends, opting for a simpler look.  But I love the way Linda's tassels look like twisty little caterpillars.....I may slice in some tassels down the road!

I'm curious to hear your comments on this post.  What do you think of this technique?  Would you ever try it?  Any tips on switching your camera over to manual settings would be greatly appreciated as well!

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,

Before you click away, I'd like to invite you to join in my current sewing/craft challenge.  

A Christmas card & giveaway to my readers:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ways to increase your blog traffic

Hello and welcome to my little blog!  I've been publishing Ricochet and Away for one year now.  Happy bloggerversary to me!!!  Ricochet and Away hasn't become an overnight sensation or a household name over the last year.  However, I am now finally enjoying a steady, respectable amount of traffic that I am super proud of.  I have learned, mainly through trial and error, what works best for me and my abilities.  Today I'm going to share with you a few guidelines that I follow to make my blog feature-friendly and pin-able.

First, I'd like to go over some of my stats about where I'm at right now traffic-wise.  If you aren't already paying attention, you should be checking out your blog stats regularly.  Here's how I keep track of my referral traffic:

• If you have a blogspot blog, this chart will look familiar.  Here are my top 10 referring sites of all time (basically my entire first year of blogging) as of July 9, 2012:

• And here is all the above data put into a nifty pie chart:

[source]

Just in case you're wondering, referral traffic refers to other sites that have links 

to your blog and how many pageviews you get as a result of those links.  

• I've been using Google Analytics since Novemeber 2011 and their top 10 referral sites differ only slightly:

There are some discrepancies between the two charts, especially in the numbers concerning google.  Any ideas why?  What I can confidently glean from all this data is that my top 3 referral sites are:

1. Craftgawker
2. CraftGossip
3. Pinterest 

Why is it good to be square?

Craftgawker.com is a tough nut to crack.  I have torn out my hair over that stinkin' site and I know I'm not alone.  My current stats with Craftgawker are 11 accepted and 40 declined submissions.  The photo you submit must be very good and have specific dimensions.  This is reason #1 why I always try to have one good square photo in every one of my instructional posts.

CraftGossip.com is probably my all time fave craft site.  They have a little something for every type of crafter.  They frequently feature small-time bloggers like myself, and they are so nice!  Please take a minute and scroll down a few pages of CraftGossip.com.  Take special notice of the images and photos.  The photos that were rectangular and wide end up looking pretty tiny on the narrow format.  This is reason #2 why I strive to have nice square-shaped photos--especially titles--in all my new posts.

My pinterest.com referrals are growing at a very fast rate, and I expect them to overtake my Craftgawker and CraftGossip referrals eventually.  If you're familiar with the site, you know how important a pin's image and description are in its chances of being re-pinned.  You also know that wide rectangle shaped images end up being pretty small once they're pinned.  In response to those facts, I've been trying to make post title graphics that are both pin-worthy and re-pin-worthy.  This is reason #3 why I'm loving the square format for my post images and graphics.

Link parties are great ways to meet other bloggers and add a few new followers to your blog.  I have been getting a respectable amount of traffic from Threading My Way's ongoing link parties.  I suggest you give them a try because there are no time limits or specific days in which to participate.  When I join a link party, I like it when I don't need to take the extra time to crop an image to go with my link.    This is reason #4 why having a square photo in all my crafty posts just makes life easier for me.

So, now do you know why it's good to be square?  Could you share some of your blogging tips?

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,

picnik, puppy, and purse...

Have you heard of the free online photo editing program called picnik?  I started using it when I switched over to google Chrome from Windows Explorer.

Why I think picnik is so cool:

My rather expensive photo editing program either doesn't have these features or if it does, the ones on picnik are just easier to use.

Picnik has always offered "premium" features for a small monthly fee.  Now, because picnik is closing soon, it is handing out refunds and allowing EVERYONE to use all the premium features for FREE!

Picnik closes for good on April 19th, so get over there and check it out!  I urge all of you, my sweet blogging friends, to please take advantage of this opportunity.  I know that I am eager to make some wicked cool collages for future posts.  I am also going to make some neato-torpedo graphics for the final Naughty Notions voting page.

We just got a new dog so that's been eating up my blogging time.  She's a 8 month old cockapoo that we rescued from the local animal shelter.  Our whole family is totally in love with her!  We named her Pippa.  Just look how cute she is:

  

Here's a sneak peak of my nearly finished Naughty Notions clutch.  I made the collage using the premium feature on picnik.

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,