A Craftload of Crafty

Aprons and Kitchen Spruciness - Part 1.

2010-08-15T17:12:00.005-05:00

The first part of 2010 has made this the year of the aprons for me. So fun! I've always wanted to make an apron and finally made the first apron from Anna Maria Horner's book, Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing. It was for Jenny's birthday - the "Cup Half Full" pattern, thus a half apron. The fabric I've had for a while and really screamed Jenny to me, so I went for it - it's bold and vibrant just like Jenny-Jen. I hope this apron will help spark her creative spirit in the kitchen - not that her artsy self needs any help.. she's an artist and a teacher and a lover of cooking by nature. The fabric is by Alexander Henry, Pink Zinnia - purchased from Etsy. The pattern was very well written and detailed. There was no confusion.. or cursing .at all. which is not normal for me. I'm not the best with sewing patterns even when they're well-written and mistake-free. The waistband and tie design was very clever, I thought. You'll see what I mean when you try it - I'll definitely make another apron with this pattern.

The embroidered apron was made for Emery's 10th birthday. It was really fun to plan out, since she's a very crafty young lady and has many interests. Her #1 interest since a very young age is cats, so that was a no-brainer. The rest of the pattern pieces came from a sheet of kitchen designs, "Krazy Kitchen". All of the pattern pieces were the iron-ons from Sublime Stitching.

I've really enjoyed embroidery lately - love picking the bright, lively colors, love choosing a stitch for each segment. It's relaxing and allows for creativity - even when led by an iron-on pattern, you can add as much or little as you like for the look you want. Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching is so inspiring with her stitching - as are the many stitchers who post to her website and flickr group - they must be a lot quicker with their stitching than I am or at least much more patient, adding the accents and level of detail to take an embroidered piece from a project to a work of art.

Ollie Blanket and Felted Tote.

2010-08-15T15:35:00.009-05:00

These projects are completely unrelated, but had to throw the felted tote in somewhere. I'll start with the baby blanket, though, since babies are more fun and I'm excited to introduce baby Oliver (Ollie) - Wade & Eve's little one. Meet Oliver (held by daddy)! He's a wee bit bigger now - this pic shows him around 2 months old and he's nearly 6 mos now. Crazy how time flies...

I delivered his baby blanket very late. Don't know how I got so behind with it, but I really liked how it turned out despite all the lateness. Very soft yarn and nice, simple pattern. J'adore the pale yellow edging around the boyish blue. The pattern is for the Hooded Baby Blanket from the Lion Brand site - you have to register to get it, but it's free. I didn't do the hood, but used the pattern for the square blanket, then added a few rows of crocheted shell edging to pretty it up. It turned out rather large, but seemed more appropriate since I didn't get it to them until he was nearly 3 mos old. Yikes. Hopefully he's getting plenty of belly time with it as more of a floor play blanket than a swaddler. :-)

This tote has been years in the making. Seriously. Years. I got the yarn and pattern from Knitch in Atlanta with Danielle ages ago and started on it immediately. The knitting took a long time, since the bag has to be at least twice the size before felting. It was enormous and like a fool, I naturally forgot to take a pic before throwing it in the machine. I knitted the first half within the first few months, then let a few other projects jump in, and before I knew it I had only handles to go for a year. Then, finished a handle and another year goes by with one handle to go. Finally, the week before heading to Renegade with Danielle this year (in May), I gave myself a good kick in the arse. It was ridiculous really. I just sat down, took about 20 minutes to finish the other strap, then threw it in the washing machine. In hindsight, I think I was really nervous about the felting - terrified that all that pretty yarn and all that knitting would be going down the drain as I somehow screwed up the final stage. Well, it really wasn't that big of a deal. Put in a just a touch of mild/natural soap and HOT water, then just keep agitating and don't let it drain until you can see that it's either the size you want it or not shrinking anymore - then you're done. I had one little mishap when I was running around doing something else and heard the machine start spinning the water out. Aagh! I ran in and stopped it, but basically had to refill the water and keep going - no real biggie, but a pain and waste of water. My machine doesn't have a convenient cycle for felting - obviously not designed by a crafty lady.

I couldn't be happier with the finished product. I LOVE my bag. It's not often that I start (much less finish) a project for myself, so it was really fun to finish this bag and take it to Austin to show it off a bit. This is the pattern for the bag and the yarn is from Cascade Yarns - not sure Knitch carries it anymore - the orange colorway is called burnt orange, but has some little speckles of color mixed in - the blue matches one of the color specks, but they don't show up so much with the felting. No matter, though, I still love the colors together. The first pic is of the drying/blocking process - the size wasn't a concern, so I just stuffed it with a ton of plastic grocery bags to shape it a little. It took a couple days to fully dry and I kept it in a room underneath a ceiling fan and turned it over a couple times a day.

In a perfect world, I would use the nearly full skein of orange yarn I have left to knit two large rectangles, then felt and sew them into a zipper pouch. I do have this plan, but it's not even on the official project list at the moment. Ang and I need to make make up some new project lists at our next craft night to focus ourselves. She's about to have a baby, so may not really have a list of projects for a while, but it'll be fun to think about anyway.

Birthdays - Scarf and Afghan.

2010-05-02T12:30:00.013-05:00

So, this post is a birthday post - I'm combining a scarf I made for Kendra's birthday in February, an afghan I finished for my grandmother's birthday in March, and some slippers I just finished for Angela's birthday in early June.

The scarf was a nice, simple knitting project with super soft yarn I found at In The Making - a yarn store in Cahaba Heights. The pattern was free with the purchase of yarn - they had a great scarf display in the winter with many different yarns knitted up and labeled with yarn and pattern - many of the patterns were free which is how I found this one. I love this yarn - so sorry I'm so disorganized, but I did actually get up and look for the yarn tag so I could post the info - can't find it. I promise to be better about this in the future - keeping track of yarn and fabric stats with every project so I can post details. The yarn is bulky, super soft, and hand-dyed - very rich, warm colors. It was such a quick project that I actually delivered on time for the birthday and just in time for her to take it on her birthday NYC trip. :)

The afghan squares are from the PBS show Knit and Crochet Now. The link is to their website where they provide all patterns from the show for free. They have either a knitted or crochet square every week to eventually make up an entire afghan. I printed the pattern for the whole afghan (last year's), then picked four or five of the squares I really liked and repeated them with the colorways mixed up some. I wasn't crazy about every square in the blanket, so that was my solution. I really liked the fancy edging from this pattern, but I ended up shorting it a round, since I was out of time. I would apologize for this blurry and not-so-flattering photo of my grandmother with her new afghan, but she's still so cute blurry and un-smiling that I'm sure noone will mind. ;) I didn't get a photo before taking it to her for her big birthday bash, so this pic is from my sister's fancy phone. I cut it so close with time that I was embroidering and sewing in a fabric tag on the plane. Ha!

I LOVE these slippers. Saw them on the PurlBee blog (from Purl Soho) and knew I wanted to make them for Ang's birthday. I'll eventually make some for myself. They didn't take too long to make - it was fun to finish each of the granny square sets then seam them all together. The arrangement was a bit tricky and I ended up having to make a little sketch for myself to clear up my confusion, but not sure if my doodling would help anyone else. The instructions on the blog were very good, but I still had trouble visualizing. Wahoo! I actually have these yarn tags - three colorways from Manos del Uruguay (Wool Clasica), colors: Q (blue), 68, goldish-green, and 57 (fuchsia).

Handwarmers.

2010-05-02T12:05:00.011-05:00

While looking for handwarmer patterns, I stumbled across this blog by an Italian chick who has quite the handwarmer obsession. I love her designs and really appreciate that she shares the patterns. She also sells handwarmers in her Etsy shop for those that don't care to or don't have the time to make their own. Both of the handwarmer styles I tried for Christmas gifts this year were using or based on her patterns, which can be found in the Free Patterns section of her Creative Yarn blog.

The first pic is of Angela's Christmas present this past year - they're a knit/crochet combo pattern that has a soft, fuzzy mohair for the knitted, cuff portion and a mid-weight yarn for the hand portion. The other pics are of the style I made these for Meg and Jules. It's a straight knitting pattern working mostly in a take on my favorite stitch - she's calling the double moss (aka seed) stitch. Both patterns involve knitting/crocheting a rectangle, then sewing together lengthwise to make a seam and leaving a gap in seam stitches for the thumb.

I'll admit that it took me a couple of months this past fall to really figure out handwarmers. I initially tried increasing and decreasing to make them more fitted and struggled with the weight, doubling light-weight yarns or using a heavier weight, then experimented with smaller vs larger hooks. With the to-shape-or-not-to-shape question, I decided on not, since most yarns have enough stretch to make them fit nicely. The thicker the yarn, though, the more it might be nicer to have some shaping, since the fabric won't hang as nicely. For Meg and Jules, I ended up doubling hand-dyed, sock weight yarn from Kitchen Sink Dyeworks. KSD is owned by Mercedes, who used to own Knit Nouveau in Homewood - was my favorite yarn shop. She's online only now and devotes most of her time to hand-dying wool.

I'm not always (ok, rarely) good about taking pics before I send gifts, so the best I came up with for the Meg/Jules style were these pics of us goofing off. One is of Meg (donning handwarmers) and me at our Elementary School... oh, the nastalgia - we all walked there from my grandmother's house. The other is of Jules stylin' it up with her handwarmers when they were on a hike. Oh yeah. There isn't a long handwarmer season in Phoenix, but these globetrotting girls will have plenty of handwarmer appropriate weather in other places.

Christmas Packages '09 - Part 2.

2010-02-23T13:23:00.024-06:00

The rest of our Christmas packages were mostly completed in a single night. We did get the vanilla extract going about four weeks before the intended ship date, since it needs plenty of time and shaking to do it's thing. The big night was spent pouring extract into little 2 oz bottles, making peppermint bark, and wrapping up the gift sets. We had several helpers who should be mentioned. Casey and Ben were our candy cane crushers, Tim helped us temper the chocolate, and Nick helped us taste the chocolate.

The first task of the night was pouring the extract into the bottles. While I poured, Ang removed the vanilla beans and cut them into pieces that we could stick down into the little bottles to give it a more homemade feel and to allow the bean to continue strengthening the vanilla flavor. After sealing up the bottles, we cut out pieces of pretty paper with handwritten "Vanilla Extract" labels to glue onto the bottles. The vanilla beans were the most expensive part of this project - we used the Madagascar variety. With the rest of the extract (bottles and vodka) adding very reasonable cost, the total extract cost came to less than three and a half dollars per 2 oz bottle - much lower cost and higher quality than the stuff you can get in the store!

Tim's job was definitely the most challenging - he, Ang, and I worked together to heat, stir, monitor temps, stir, cool in ice bath, monitor temps, and more stirring - Tim doing most of the stirring. We all read about tempering chocolate from several sources before showtime, so we knew if we didn't get the temps just right that the whole process should be started over. We tempered the chocolate in two batches onto three cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. The dark chocolate layer was first, then a white chocolate layer, then the crushed candy canes. We repeated the tempering process for the second batch, since we weren't positive we hit all the temps right. The heating and cooling happens quickly and it takes some anticipation to prevent over-heating or cooling.

The finished product was gorgeous! Now I'm remembering (with the help of the photos) that we actually let it cool and set for a day. I came over the next day to help break up the peppermint bark and package it up before we arranged and wrapped the completed gift sets.

I would never pass up a chance to read books with Nick, and it's definitely become a holiday tradition to curl up in a chair by the Christmas tree to read books at bedtime. Can't beat that sweet end to a fun-filled evening!

Christmas Packages '09 - Part 1.

2010-02-23T12:12:00.017-06:00

Our Christmas packages were SO fun this year. We decided to sew pretty fabrics on dishtowels, then package them with some homemade vanilla extract and peppermint bark. They all turned out great and we learned a ton in the process.

The kitchen towels were very manageable. Angela always makes more gift sets than I do - more family members to make for, and this year with all I already had going on, I only made packages for out-of-town relatives (mom, sisters, grandmother, great-aunt), plus Casey's mom and sis. This plan with a more realistic goal (for a change) was a great stress-reducer for me around the normally-stressful holidays. I found an amazing deal on the kitchen towels on this site and we shared fabric from our stashes, so this part of our packages was very budget friendly.

Ang and I read and browsed blogs and talked a lot about applique before starting on our towels. I decided that I wouldn't have time to fancy mine up with applique this time, but Angela went for it and did an incredible job. She had several different designs - pears, birds, trees, and even a coffee cup and saucer. We both used the basic technique of cutting strips of fabric, sewing them together right sides together on a machine, ironing the edges under, then either using the zigzag stitch to attach to the towels or using embroidery thread to stitch onto the towels. I mainly embroidered the fabric onto the towels, since it was a portable crafting activity in between our craft nights and I like the handmade look of the embroidered running stitches in contrasting or matching colors. It's funny how sometimes we want things to look or feel homemade and other
times we really don't. :-) Ang made so many towels, but they are all so unique and different that I wanted to post all of the different styles and designs.

Part 2 of the Christmas packages will come next. For now, I'm going to show off the rest of the recent crafting from Angela. My favorite thing she made this past year was for her son Nick's birthday this past October - it's a pillowcase with the top-side covered with all of his favorite book characters. It turned out amazing! It has Thomas and Percy, Pooh, Owl, and.. oh, I can't remember the bear's name. Nick so, so loves his pillow! :D He knew his mom was working on something for him and was so excited opening it - so sweet. Ang also made a pillow last year for the daughter of her best friend from college. It turned out really cute - perfect for a little girl and something I'm sure she will have for many years. I love the little ladybug and the bee. I got the tracing supplies from Sublime Stitching and we both use the transfer paper and tracing stylus to transfer images from books or anything else with a good design.

Also crafted by Angela were a baby hat and booty set for her sister who just had a baby in January. This was her second baby set and the neat speckled effect is created by holding a multi-colored sock-weight yarn with a mid-weight (not sure exactly which yarns she used).

Baby gift and sister's bday.

2010-01-08T12:23:00.001-06:00

This blanket was made for the baby of an old, dear friend. Her baby was born in late July - very healthy and lovely. I loved this pattern when I saw it on the Purl Bee blog. I especially loved the seed stitch version, which is the one I used. I don't normally go for the yarn they use on the Purl blog because they are usually rather extravagant, yet luxurious. I couldn't resist this yarn - it's organic cotton and the softest yarn I've ever worked with (yarn details are in pattern - link above). The Spud & Chloe yarn also comes in amazing colors - I loved this bright orange color so much! For the edging, I searched and read around on people's blogs to find general instructions for a shell or fan edge on a blanket. My method for this type of thing is to decide how large/long I want the fan to be (matching the size of the overall project), then adjust around the corners as necessary to make a longer fan come around each corner. Basically, a fan on either side of a corner may need to be shorter or longer to make the corner fan occur at just the right place. Hopefully that makes sense - it's not an exact science by any means (for me, anyway).

The cute little piggy I found at a booth of Renegade Brooklyn with Danielle last summer. I only mailed the blanket to my friend around Thanksgiving (running a bit behind as usual), so have been hanging onto the piggy since then. I should know and report the name of the vendor, but I apologetically can't recall. There are several other great baby blanket patterns on the Purl blog site that I'm planning to try out soon - the stork is returning in the spring and then again in the summer among our friends.

I made this hat for my sister's birthday. It's made with Lorna's Laces Swirl Chunky ("Watercolor" colorway, I believe). It was the first hat I crocheted, and it was trying for many reasons... I can't seem to find the pattern link anymore - I was using the Droid in the car to search for patterns. Doesn't matter really, since the pattern wasn't good at all - I ripped out and started over three times before the sizing was right (much too large initially) and didn't even end up following the same stitch pattern. In the end, I used the pattern to get an idea of how to design the top and crown of the hat, then went rogue from there. I have a habit of just winging it with hats, which works most of the time with a knitted hat if you do just a bit of math up front, but this one was definitely a learning experience - with no method to my madness. I was happy with how the whole thing ended up and really loved the edging - seemed to tone down the color just enough and make it look more finished.

The edging is a worsted weight wool yarn - pretty standard spin with a gorgeous dye, but I can't recall the brand - picked it up at a yarn store, Broad Ripple Knits, in Indianapolis that I love visiting when we pass through. It's a really cute shop with a good yarn selection and in a great neighborhood - college area with fun shops, cafes, bars, breweries, etc. We've been to the Broad Ripple Brewpub twice now and enjoy their beers - they also have great food. We normally try to add in some couple fun to our holiday family vacationing, and have stopped through Indianapolis for a night the past two years on the way to or from Wisconsin to visit my mom's side of the family. This year, we also stopped in Cincinnati to visit from friends and that city is amazing! If it wasn't so dang cold in the winter, it would make it on a list of cities where I think I could live.

Wow. Ok, so this post pretty much catches me up to the recent holiday crafting, so that will be coming up very soon. Exciting. :)

Bread and Stew.

2010-01-07T12:31:00.000-06:00

This post is a bit mismatched, since the bread pic is from the summer and the stew pic is from this recent holiday season. Oh well.

The purpose ties them together, which is that I love food. Love cooking. Last summer I started to get into baking bread and made some progress just before a new dimension in my life was begun, and I took a hiatus from bread-baking, crafting, cooking, blogging, etc. to focus on something new for about six months. Before all that, I read Amy's Bread by Amy Scherber (well, a good bit of it anyway) and borrowed Bread Alone by Dan Leader from Tim (which I still have and may be pushing the limits of the term borrow). Tim is an excellent bread-maker, so as I get more into the craft, I will continue to bounce ideas off him and see what he's experienced.

I really enjoyed trying the autolyse (resting period amidst the kneading and rising) that is championed in most bread books. I also tried the pan of water in the oven, but didn't mist as some people recommend. I thought this made a wonderful crust, but had tried so many things, it was hard to tell what made these loaves turn out so great... but they did and it was really exciting! Tim shared that he hasn't experienced a noticeable crust improvement from the water-in-oven technique, so who knows what really made the difference - will require more experimentation. :D

We've been making homemade pizza dough for a while now, which is really simple, and have tried several bread recipes with unimpressive results. This was a whole-grain bread with walnuts and it turned out amazing - I was proud enough of it to share a loaf with a new neighbor as a welcoming gift. One thing the recipe (from Amy's book) recommended was to let the loaves rest in the fride overnight after kneading the nuts to allow the nut oils to permeate the dough and give the bread a nuttier flavor. I did this and don't know how much nuttier that made it since I had no reference point, but it was nice and nutty, and Tim has mentioned that in his opinion any bread will turn out nicer after at least a night hanging out in the frige. All that said, I hope to dive more into the art of bread-making this year and share more hits and misses. :)

I heart soups and stews and cold weather that makes it feel right to slow cook a big pot of anything and fill the kitchen with the incredible aromas. It's so fun to throw all kinds of yummy things into a pot, cook it all down, spice it all up, and have a hearty meal. I usually freeze part of the batch for later and we'll eat the rest through the week, mixing small bowls with different wraps or sammies to mix it up a little, but the first meal is usually just a big bowl o' stew.

My SO's parents gave me this nice stew pot for Christmas and this is the first meal I made in it the very next week. It's a really great pot that can do double-duty in the oven, if desired. I partly followed a celery stew recipe, but really only used it for inspiration, since a friend brought me a bunch of celery and a head of cabbage from her farmer's market basket that she knew she wouldn't get around to using. In this stew is a pound of ground sirloin, a bunch of celery, a half head of cabbage, a few carrots that were in the frige, a whole onion, a can of crushed tomatoes, and some veggie stock. The main flavor of this stew for me is the cabbage, which I really enjoy. The beautiful thing about stews is how free-form they are, just go for it and throw anything you like in the pot - it'll turn out rich, hearty, and super tasty.

Birthdays '09.

2010-01-04T12:30:00.000-06:00

Several birthday gifts were crafted in spring / summer of '09. I quite characteristically didn't get pics of everything before wrapping and sending, so this is just a sample. :)

The zipper pouch is actually one I kept - made another at the same time for Kristin and stuck some jewelry inside - a bracelet that I didn't get photographed. Her birthday was in March - the big 4-0. ;-)

The fabric used for the pouch shown is Joel Dewberry. I bought a zipper pouch at Renegade Brooklyn with Danielle last summer and discovered a much simpler way to sew the pouch without sewing the lining by hand - much too slow for me. It completely simplifies the process and creates a 5-minute zipper pouch! Awesome. I just used a rotary cutter / mat to cut four pieces of fabric at once - two for the outside and two for the lining, then ironed under a hem one side side of each piece (to be the top). Next, sew the lining pieces to the underside of the zipper. Then, sew the outer pieces to the topside of the zipper. Last, align all four fabric pieces so that the outer ones have right sides together and the lining pieces have their right sides facing out so you can see them. Sew all the way around and through both sides of the zipper, trim fabric and zipper pieces, flip right side out, and Voila - finito!

This wallet is from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing. I know I talk about this book a lot, but sheesh, it's such a good book with great projects. The instructions are not always the most clear, but there's a flickr group where notes, tips, errata, etc. are shared and discussed - can't beat that. So, the wallet was really fun to make and fairly simple - just a lot of steps. The flickr group is really a must with most of the projects in this book - in the case of this wallet, people pointed out that the dimensions should be adjusted slightly to properly fit your ID and/or plastic. I also kept checking this dimension while positioning the pockets and testing the folds.

I found some sew-on snaps in the sewing machine cabinet I recently acquired from my grandmother and gave it my best shot, but I attached the snap after the rest of the wallet was finished and it should really be incorporated at an earlier step to make the sewing easier and the snap more solidly attached. I was afraid that lining up the snap pieces would be frustrating, so opted to add it last. Next time I will think more about how to add it to the raw fabric pieces early on. This wallet was for Jenny's birthday in June. Included was a necklace that I was really proud of, but again forgot to take a pic.

These coasters were a super cute project I saw on the Purl Bee blog - creations of the Purl Soho creative people. Danielle and I visited their stores while in NYC for Renegade and it was so incredible to see them in person. There's a fabric store with a yarn store next door. The colors and displays are amazing to see.

The coaster pattern was for knit and crochet, but I only made the crochet pattern because I liked them better and have been loving crochet lately. The tops are a simple pattern that naturally roll up on the edges, but they need to be blocked before attaching to the fabric bottoms. That's what this picture is showing - I just pinned down the tops in the desired shape and sprayed them with a water & tea tree oil solution.

For the bottoms, you can use little pretty fabric scraps. I mix-matched different fabrics with the different colored tops. Each bottom has two fabric scraps, since one will show on the very bottom and one will show through a bit through the crocheted

top. Arrange fabric pieces with right sides together, sew around the edge leaving an opening, trim if necessary, and flip right side out through the opening you left. Easy-peasy. Then, iron and pin to the crocheted top piece. For these coasters, I used a sewing machine for this part going around a small circle in the center, then going around another circle close to the outer edge. This was tres difficult pour moi. Next time, I would definitely use embroidery thread to attach the tops to the bottoms, but however you have luck and enjoy the process more, go for it. I tend to lean toward the machine, when possible, because I guess I'll admit that I don't so much like hand sewing, but I don't mind it when it's the best method and sometimes even enjoy the relaxing and mobile aspect of hand sewing - you can take it anywhere. Anyway, these turned out perfectly fine for me, but were a touch sloppy because I wasn't that impressive with my machine circles. :) Oh! and these coasters were for our lovely friend, Sara, who had a big 4-0 party in DC last August. We were so very happy to be there with her to celebrate.

Moms - All they do for us and all we do for them.

2009-12-14T13:50:00.011-06:00

This post is a very late homage to mothers that was due last May when all of this crafting took place, but will be delivered with the 'better late than never'
mindset. ;)

This quilt was designed by Sheri's son, Asher, who spent last year traveling the world before heading off to college this past fall. He took a quilting class in high school (ASFA) and made this amazing quilt with his T-shirt collection. He finished the quilt top and quilted it before leaving to travel, but didn't quite get it finished. It still needed binding, and that's where his mom came in... She asked around the holidays last year if I would help her finish the quilt, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Her thought was that Asher would be so busy with the minimal and very overscheduled time he would have in between traveling and going to college that he wouldn't have time to finish the quilt, so she would finish it and have it ready for him to pack into his college things.

The next wave of brilliance came when Sheri was sorting through some of his things and came across all of his old karate belts. She declared that we should use the belts for the binding. Amazing idea! Neither one of us knows much about karate, but we knew the black belts were the most special, so we put those aside and dug into the orange and blue and yellow and green - all colors that were also in the quilt, so it seemed perfect. We calculated how many belts we would need, then divvied them up to rip out all of the seams and the layer of batting inside the belts. This was a little time-consuming, since there are multiple seams sewn into those karate belts - at least six from what I recall!

Then, we sewed together the belts into one long strip of binding and applied it to the quilt. We did have to trim up the edges of the quilt before this step to give the binding an even application edge. It was great! I finished most of this sewing, but ran out of time, so left Sheri on her own to finish up, and she did an incredible job. This pic is her posing with the mostly finished quilt before I left that night. She had it laid out on his bed as a surprise when he came home and he loved it (of course). ;) I really love the T-shirt quilt idea and originally heard of doing this from Sara Leah, who has a ton of band T-shirts and always planned to make a quilt with them. Such a fun project and a way to keep the old T-shirts that mean a lot to you, but aren't worn much anymore.

This should probably be a separate post, since it was such an event, but I'll keep with the mom theme and move along to my mom's 60th birthday that past May. I made the above placemats for her using the trusty pattern from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing book - they are just like the robot placemats Ang and I made for Sara Leah and Jim in '08. I really heart these placemats - love the colors and the clean, bright look. The placemat creation involves a LOT of cutting, so it was much nicer this time to use a mat and rotary cutter to get several layers of fabric cut at once. Thanks to Asher for lending me his mat and rotary cutter - I'll keep it safe for you while you're away at college! :)

My sisters and I planned a big birthday extravaganza for my mom's 60th. We all came out to Oregon to climb Mt. St. Helens with mom on her birthday. I came out several days early and we did a ton of great hikes in the Columbia River Gorge area, hit some favorite Portland and Hood River eating and drinking spots, and checked out some new ones. It was a really kickass vacation and so fun to spend this special birthday with such a special lady who is known to rock the hiking, snowboarding, and cross-country skiing like nobody's business. For this birthday, we set out on a challenging adventure that tested her determination, but she made it and impressed the hell out of the other hikers and skiiers at the top (she also impressed her daughters!). By the time we hopped off the summit to glissade down the mountain, she had quite the fan club. :-)

That's my mom. She's fun to design crafty gifts for and even more fun to explore the outdoors with. Happy uber-belated mothers' day to all the moms out there! It's never really a bad time to celebrate our moms and our friends who are moms.

More Knitted Hats.

2009-12-14T13:30:00.000-06:00

I have regrettably been out of the blogging loop for some time now and have a ton of projects to get posted in the next few weeks to catch up with all of our crafting. These pics are from last winter. I swear I remember working on these just after Thanksgiving, so these are ridiculously old, but never posted as far as I can tell.

So, let the catching up begin!

I love knitting hats. They're relatively quick and the pattern possibilities are endless.

The hat with all of the "bobbles" was gifted to Angela. It was a great pattern and seemed perfect for her. The sizing didn't turn out right because I'm sure I was lazy with the swatch, but whatever the reason, it was much too big. We ended up seaming it up along the back, sewing a section out to make it fit better, then just cut out the excess knitted fabric. That tactic worked surprisingly well, but I will know next time to be more vigilant with the swatching. This pattern was from a magazine, so I don't have a pattern to link. I'm sure I could find the mag if anyone wants the pattern.

It's funny that with a standard hat pattern, I've gotten fairly good at testing the size as I go and knitting without a pattern. There are standard diameters to reference for hat sizes, so a normal pattern is easy to adjust for a good fit. I knitted this cabled hat for myself and intentionally went for a loose fit, but once again was a little off with the size and it's a bit larger than desired. I still love it, though - LOVE the yarn and the colors, and it was my first time to work with full-fledged cables. The hat I knitted for my step-dad (also last winter) was a pattern with a play on cables in a nice green cotton yarn - kinda mini-cables, but only in one direction, so more like ripples than cables. I apologize that I don't have this pattern either, but for this one, I just googled for a cable hat pattern, then adjusted it as needed to get the rim and top look I wanted.

For hats, it's just a little math to get the stitch counts to work out for the size you want - for example, if the rows are multiples of 9, plus 3, round up or down based on the number of stitches needed to make the diameter - based on the test swatch that tells you how many stitches you will knit per inch. So, if you have 4 stitches per inch (from the swatch), and want a 20" hat in diameter (at the ears), you want around 80 stitches, so you could either choose to start a little on the smaller size and have the stitch pattern repeated 8 times to start (9*8+3 = 75) or could round up to repeat 9 times (9*9+3 = 84). Then, for most of the hat patterns you'll see a series of decreases once the hat is knitted straight up from the ears to the crown of the head - really you will learn to decrease as aggressively as you want to suit your own personal preference (more baggy or more fitted look), but you basically do a series of decreases every other row until you get to a minimum number of stitches - usually in the neighborhood of 8 - then, draw the yarn through all the remaining stiches into the hat, turn hat inside out to finish, cinch the opening closed, knot, and weave in all the ends. For cables, there's one more layer of complexity, since it looks much nicer to gradually reduce the size of the overall cables, decreasing the number of stitches involved in the cable over a certain number of rows. By the end, for a full cable with both left and right leaning twists, you'll only want one stitch twisted on each side (this is at the very top).

Anyway, noone necessarily wants to know all that, but if you'd like to get into designing your own hats, that's the basic formula - no formal pattern needed! :)

Up next - crafting from spring '09.

Henna Night - a different kind of crafty.

2009-03-03T11:48:00.009-06:00

With Eve's help, Angela and I became red-heads for the next month (give or take). She uses henna a lot on her hair and we've been planning to give it a try for a while now.

We had so much fun! The henna itself was a surprise for me since I've never seen it before. It was a green powder - I assume since it is the ground leaves, since this is where the orange-red dye is stored in the leaves of the henna plant.

So, the process is really simple - you basically boil a bit of water, stir the water into the henna in batches until you get the consistency you want - Eve was going for a slightly runny paste since she knew it would thicken up as she worked.

We used the Rainbow brand of henna and had great results. Angela's brown hair looked had a very red tint afterward in the light, but wasn't as bold as she wanted, so we will likely try some other techniques next time to make it set better. We were all a bit skeptical that my hair would take the henna very well, since I've been on a no-shampoo (only baking soda and vinegar) kick with my hair for a few months, which has made my hair extremely oily and horrible. I wasn't ready to give up my experiment yet for henna night, so we ignored the instructions to have very clean hair and went with it. It really took to my hair despite the oiliness - was very bright orange-red when we finished! The orange has faded out mostly after a few weeks, and it's not near as bold (or maybe I'm just used to it now), but is still plenty red.

As a disclaimer, I've since read that any henna that isn't red is not really pure henna. This info is from the Henna for Hair site, which says to use only "body art quality henna". I haven't done enough research to know how true this is or how worried we should be that there could be additives that aren't listed on the label, some of which could be harmful things to your hair (according to Henna for Hair) and/or agitating to the scalp. After reading this, I'm in the category of 'slightly alarmed' that the Rainbow brand comes in a wide array of colors yet claims to have "no additives, chemicals or pesticides". I may look for this so-called body art quality henna next time just out of curiosity, but have no idea whether this is mislabeled or misrepresented henna by Rainbow or not.

Ok, so back to the process. Oh, did I mention that it smells very planty - like green tea - which is a good thing to me, since that provides more confidence in the all-natural aspect. The smell remained for quite a while - a week or so. Disclaimer numero deux: this could also be due to my hair cleansing methods or lack therof, since I broke down and switched back to shampoo last weekend and don't smell the henna any longer.

My hair is dry now, but I couldn't take the oily any more and would rather work to fix the dry dilemna than the greasy, wet look I've had for several months. Ugh. That's a whole 'notha story, though.

Ok, so Eve pasted away - using a basting brush for hair to apply the henna paste to as much hair as possible - starting at the roots, then going down the length of hair. Once she was done pasting, we covered our heads with plastic shower caps and a towel, then went off to the bathroom to use low heat from a hairdryer all over our heads. This heat is to help the henna take to the hair. After about an hour, it was time to rinse out and give the new henna hair a shampoo (or whatever crazy concoction you choose to use).

Voila! Red hair. It's that easy.

I didn't get a front shot of Angela after, so you will just have to know to identify Angela's after pic by her lovely wavy locks.

There are some hints on the Rainbow site for getting the henna to take better to gray hair - like coffee and vinegar and olive oil... - I'm wondering whether that will actually help with any hair color. That leaves us room to experiment next time!

Métiers d'Angela.

2009-01-13T11:52:00.016-06:00

So... finally a post dedicated to all the craftiness of the fellow craft night cohort. I am so very excited about this one. There's so much damn good stuff you're gonna see here. ;-)

I mean, this chica really did it up for the holidays. She crafted like a mad-woman and made really awesome things - and she went the extra mile whenever possible (you'll see what I mean a little further in..). Some of these photos are from projects that were completed quite a while ago, so this will be some major fun catching up with Angelina.

A while back, we started adding some crocheted edging to our dishcloths, so the first pic is showing a couple dishcloths she made to go with some yummy soap for her sister's birthday. She always packages things up very prettily and this post will be especially good because she takes much better pictures than I. :D

The hat and scarf very handsomely modeled by Sir Tim was her very first knitting project - can you believe it? It turned out really great. Nice colors ta boot.

The hat was really special craftwise, since it was her very first pattern and first time in the round, first time on double-points, first time with ribbing,... lots o' firsts. I tried to help design the number of stitches for the pattern and think I inadvertently helped make it a little big, but I'm sure we can all agree that this is better than too small, and hey, no hat head for this guy - just better hang on in the wind. hahaha.

The hat was kind of a surprise for his birthday. The scarf was no surprise since he had to try it on several times before it was decided that the length was good and it was finito.

His outfit is so complete with the short-sleeves because his birthday is in August- whew, hot. Though, just in time for fall?!? :)

The lovely blueish/purpleish (I think it's more of a true purple in person) is modeled by Ang's lovely mother. It was her birthday gift this year. It was so dang soft. I tried it on a couple times and it was hard to pry from my neck each time. hehe. kidding (sort of).

It looks from the picture like her mom was relatively happy with it. ;) Great color on her, too!

Oh! Next are the clutches. She made four of them for Christmas!

Outstanding. The fabrics are all amazing. The one on the left is the one that I talked about in the previous post - she seriously surprised me with it at the beach. :D Hooray for surprises - I love it!!! Now we gotta get one going for her. Every girl needs a clutch, right?

This tote is living with Becky now. I can't remember if I know who Becky is, but that makes no difference of course. She adjusted the simple tote pattern from that Bend the Rules book to make it a bit bigger - more like a traditional tote size. The outer handles match the lining and vice versa. She also added a pocket on the inside - a little of that extra mile thing I was talking about. ;)

The apron is truly one of my favorite things she's made so far.

It turned out incredibly gorgeous and really shows off the extra mile factor with the embroidery she added to the pocket fabric. Great touch. Gorgeous main fabric that just pleads to be an apron. I'm pretty sure most of the fabrics are Anna Maria Horner - some aren't, I'll bet, but I know the apron fabric is for sure.

So now to show off some more of her embroidery from this past year. She really loved it and completely took off with every embroidery project. Each one had new and different stitches with neat design elements she came up with on the fly. This dishtowel on the right is the very first embroidery project. I really loved what she did with the margarita glasses - you can't see the stitching too well in the photo, but she improved on a basic satin stitch to bring margaritaness flowing through the glass. Very cool.

Oh, and each of her dishtowels is edged with handmade binding - the neat binding fabrics really make the the gifts one more level of special and unique! We used the continuous strip method described in an earlier post for all of her binding and mine, too.

The last towel is for Ang's little sis, Adrienne, and her husband, Tyler, for Christmas.

Most, if not all, of the pattern is from the Sublime Stitching "Rock-n-Roll" iron-on. It's perfect for them since they're in a band (a great band) - she plays guitar and sings, he plays drums. They live in cheese country and beer country and sausage country...

Anyhoo, I digress - back to the crafts. I was really blown away with this one - the lettering looks awesome and there was some rockin' details on the instruments. She ends up creating her own stitches a lot - gotta love that!

Well, let's hope it isn't quite so long before we see things from Angela again - I'll try to keep up better with her finished projects along the way with mine. We are both in the middle of several things, so there should be another post relatively soon - ya know, maybe before summer. ;)

Court turns 26, and crafty gifting from the holidays.

2009-01-12T11:44:00.022-06:00

Wow. It's been a while, but not for a lack of crafting. Some of the holiday gift pics had to be held until after the season passed, so now that these have been received, I can finally show them off. :) Oh, I couldn't resist putting a pic of the kitties even though it's a fuzzy one - they were helping me finish wrapping up gifts before shipping the box off to Oregon and were quite mesmerized by the candle.

This clutch went to my sister, Courtney, for Christmas. The pattern is once again from the Bend the Rules Sewing book by Amy Karol. It was actually relatively quick easy to make - in hindsight, I guess. The whole process always takes longer than you think from choosing the fabrics, doing all the marking and cutting, then finally getting to the fun part - the sewing. :)

It was really fun to figure out the fabrics to use with this project - for the inside and out. I ended up going with a more 'evening' look and dressed it up some with the satin and suede on the outside, then some pretty Joel Dewberry fabric (Aviary collection) for the lining. I had a lot of super cool buttons to choose from thanks to Danielle's button donation last year (thanks, Dan!).

Angela made several of these clutches for girls in her family, and she surprised me with one at Christmas! It's gorgeous and come to find out, I helped pick out the fabric for my own present - ha! Apparently, she just chose the fabric I had uber-gushed over when we were helping each other match up outer and lining fabrics from the stash. I'll post a pic of it soon - hopefully along with more of Angela's holiday gifts.

We did have a tad bit of trouble (again) with the turning / flipping aspect, but maybe practice makes perfect because I really think we have it now. It took some time looking at the discussion threads of the BTR flickr group and reading some of the other BTR patterns in the book to get it. I'll report with our interpretation of the instructions in the next post with Angela's clutches to explain where our confusion was and hopefully explain it in a different way that people like us can understand. ;-)

This scarf also went to Court - for her 26th birthday. I felt so ahead of the game working on it for quite some time before her birthday, but somehow ended up blocking it at my uncle's house in Wisconsin over Thanksgiving and mailing it from there, since her birthday is very early in December. I really liked the way it turned out - it's the most complicated pattern I've attempted thus far and the bobbles were wacky fun.

The free pattern is from the Jimmy Beans Wool site and I used the same brand of yarn, Lorna Laces Shepherd Worsted, that comes in incredibly rad color combos. I love their solid colors, but especially covet all of the multicolored colorways. One skein is enough for most of the free 'scarf of the month' patterns on Jimmy Beans.

I probably shouldn't point out mistakes, but in this case a mistake was designed in thanks to Angela's suggestion after I realized several pattern repeats into the scarf that somehow the first pattern instance was reversed - right side stitch on the wrong side, etc. Since it was the first section, I just left it that way and made sure to make the last section reversed to match. Gotta love the merging of mistakes with a pattern to make it even better! :D

This hat was finished several months ago. I found the yarn and knew I would make something for my mom with it - it's really the most gorgeous yarn I've ever owned - it's a Berroco Jasper yarn. Originally, I guess I was thinking scarf because I bought two skeins and balled both of them. The hat only used one skein, so I still have one to use for something else one day - maybe a little neck wrap for mom - we shall see.

So, the pattern is just a standard hat pattern, but with a bit of a different band at the bottom - a wider band with the seed stitch. I've been lovin' on the seed stitch lately - it really adds nice texture. It feels a bit feminine to me, but that could just be me. You can't even really see the seed stitch in this pic, but trust me, it's cool. ha.

While the actual hat was finished months ago, I ended up adding a little to it, since the original plan for my mom's gift was to have more with it - but I'm holding off with that project for her birthday. So.. I decided to just amp up the hat with some fleece lining around the ears. A friend has a hat with fleece lining and she has always raved about it, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It was really easy - just cut out a strip of fleece (first I measure all the way around the inside bottom of the hat), sew the strip together to make a band (by hand or machine), then handstitch the band into the hat. This stitch is a rolled stitch that I learned from this tutorial on the purl bee site. Just grab stitches that show on the inside of the hat and use any color thread, since it won't show with this stitch. You could also use a blind stitch or any other stitch that won't show - or you could use a contrasting thread and purposely show it, for that matter - go wild! ;-)

A girly tote and new hat pattern.

2008-10-23T12:53:00.008-05:00

As promised, shown is a photo of my grandmother's name embroidered (by her) in the quilt shown in a previous post. Ima Jean understandably went by plain ole Jean. ha. The embroidery seriously amplifies my love for the quilt many times - such a special reminder that the entire thing was handmade by my grandma.

It would be so very fun to make a quilt one day - pretty sure I would act selfishly and make it for myself (and Mr. Casey, of course). ;) Sara Leah and I had big plans for some quilting last winter / spring. Her grandmother had even volunteered to hold some quilting sessions and show us the ropes. We shamefully never took advantage and now Sara is living in Cincinnati, which will just make it a tad more challenging to craft together. I still have high hopes that we will manage to find some time to quilt one day - maybe cutting and piecing the top piece on our own and meeting up for a weekend to do the actual quilting. We shall see.

On another note, this is a little tote bag I made back in September for a coworker's birthday. The pattern is once again from Amy Karol's, Bend-the-Rules Sewing book. I slightly changed the dimensions of the pattern, but kept it the general size, which is really the size of a smallish purse. The fabrics are 100% Kelly - bright and funky - so I knew it would be a hit with her.

It's hard to see in the picture 'cause I'm certainly no photographer, but there are three different fabrics - one for the outside, one for the inside and one side of the straps, then the last one makes the other side of the straps and a pocket in the inside. I took another photo of the bag hanging, but can't seem to locate that one.

The lining is cotton flannel - a light color, so it doesn't show through. Amy suggests in her book to use cotton flannel in place of the various interfacings called for in most patterns, and so far I love it. It's a natural fiber, gives good structure and brillianty handles heavy washing and drying. For even more structure, I've also heard people talk of using a heavier weight fabric, like a cotton fleece, but haven't tried that yet myself.

Once again, I had much frustration at the very end of this project with the turning and flipping of the inside / outside pieces to be right-side out, lining-in. It wouldn't have been quite so bad, but this time I had handles to really throw me off. When everything is turned wrong-side, you insert the handles and sew around the top, then turn/flip through a small hole you leave. Well, the first attempt was really amusing - the handles somehow ended up on the inside of the bag. Good grief! It was so sad I had to laugh. This all naturally occurred around midnight on the day of her birthday, so I was pressed to finish and get it to her the next day at work. Of course, it wouldn't have been the end of the world if this didn't happen, but I was SO close, so had to give it another try.

After much thinking, the second try produced handles in the right location, but flipped the wrong way - the fabric I meant to be on the outside/top on the shoulder was facing into the shoulder. Ugh. My brain just doesn't turn and flip. I feel that it should, but it just doesn't. Now closer to 1am, I decide that while I'm not exceedingly happy with this result, Kelly won't know what my original intentions were, so I decide to just go with it. The truly sad thing is that I tried to write some notes to myself for next time, but I feel pretty sure that I could make the same mistakes all over again - it never really clicked, since like i said, no brain flipping and hardly any turning. Oh well.

For me, knitting is quite the confidence booster when compared with sewing. I guess there are just fewer foundational things to learn. With knitting, you learn the knit stitch and the purl stitch and everything else is just putting those together in different combinations to make some sort of pattern. Of course, I've never tried anything as challenging as say, a sweater, that has to be fitted is so many ways - the length, the neck, the torso, the sleeves. Gives me hives thinking about it, actually. Taylor is great at taking these leaps without so much as a blink - check out this sweater she recently finished for Marley (so cute!). Not sure if she's added the wooden buttons yet that Marley picked out in a NYC button shop - one is an etched Minnie Mouse, of course. :D

This hat was knitted for my stepdad's birthday and is so handsomely modeled by Senor Casey. Sometimes I forget to get a pic of things before wrapping and shipping them off, so was proud of myself for snapping this before it headed out west. Since my mom and Peter live in Oregon and have frigid winters, I doubled the yarn to make the hat extra thick and bulky and warm. It was also my first cable pattern, so finally used the cable needles purchased way back when. The pattern is from a book Angela picked up at the library - pretty sure it's this one. There are several fun cable patterns in this book, and I'm finally getting to the point that I can kinda make my own hat patterns - just doing a little math can translate any pattern to something you can use. I hate to even say this, but the key really is checking your gauge with a swatch, especially when you double your yarn or use a different weight yarn as I always seem to do.

Ok, so more on all that later. Maybe I'll do a pattern converting post for a hat one day to demonstrate. I could actually use a hat for myself - not that it really gets cold enough here to wear one, but you know, for traveling to cold places and such. ;)

Next, I'll post some pics to update on Ang's crafting. She has finished a couple of scarves - at least one that has already been gifted, so pics can post, and she just started a kickass embroidery project that I can't wait to post - might have to wait until after the holidays for that one - I have no idea if her sis knows about this blog.

Coolio.

The Kitchen Post, Chapter 1 - with special craft room guest, Around the World Quilt a la Ima Jean.

2008-09-02T13:47:00.023-05:00

So, first off, thought I'd post a pic of the finished kitchen towel - dubbed, the alien towel. It has the bias tape applied - 'the making of' detailed in the previous bloglet. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the finishing is done with a zigzag stitch in yellow thread for a fun, easy accent.

I have some other (comletely borrowed) ideas for more embroidered kitchen towels in the future, but these aren't even on my list o' craft projects, so we'll just hope I remember them years from now when the list is up for parole and happens to make it out on good behavior.

'The Kitchen Post' will document efforts to create a greener kitchen. This undertaking was begun many months ago and basically involved ridding the kitchen of paper products, most notably paper towels and paper napkins. Somewhere between 5 & 10 dishcloths have been finished one by one - usuallly an afternoon break from a larger knitting project. These were just finished during a long drive to and fro Oklahoma to visit my dad, grandparents and great-aunt. The unique and nifty thing about them is the knitting / crochet combo - first time for that (for me). I bought a crochet needle a while pack from Purl Soho with plans to learn some edging / finishing techniques, and I love the look of the dishcloth edged with a contrasting color - so fun!

The edging stitch shown on the dishcloths is a simple single crochet stitch. Examples, tutorials, etc are all over the web and I'm feeling too lazy to locate and post one right now (sorry!) - the one I used was printed out a while ago - pretty sure it also came from purlsoho.com - there are great tutorials and free patterns on that site.

Also, you probably can't help but notice the beautimous quilt in the background.? The dishcloths were purposely staged on the quilt to draw attention to my newly most prized item --- a blanket, hand-quilted by my grandmother, Ima Jean Gray (maiden name Kyle). I had to lay on some daughterly guilt to persuade my dad to go ahead and pass it one more generation down the line. I'm so glad he gave it up to finally be used instead of just sitting in protective plastic - it's so gorgeous! It's already living in the spare bedroom at our house - I love it so much!!

One of the best things about it is the hand embroidered name and date she put inside, on the lining. It was finished in '81 - she's 88 years old this year. She doesn't remember putting her name in it, so that was an even more special surprise - I think I actually shrieked with joy when I saw her name inside. :-)

I'd like to show her embroidered name for sentimental as well as historical value, ;) but I seem to be having photography difficulty, so won't bother with it just now - will very soon do a follow-up post with this quilted-embroidery treasure, an update on the to-be-felted tote bag, and a photo of Angela's major knitting accomplishments as of late - she finished the scarf and matching hat for Tim, so look out for this new fall fashion when the weather turns a little cooler.

On another note, it was a bit alarming today to hang a complete and lengthy list of craft projects either started or planned for the near future. Two realizations have already come from this - one, I'm going to have to refrain from adding any more projects until a few are knocked out - ideally starting on xmas gifts by the end of the month; two, it's actually inspiring to see these project ideas, even if only a show of momentary motivation. It's a bit like wishful thinking to believe that all of these would ever be completed, but it's a great record on which to reflect later (in the least).

Finish Line for Sewing Machine Cover, plus Bias Tape Reborn.

2008-08-25T12:15:00.009-05:00

I don't really think it's quite sunk in yet. Feels almost a bit miraculous. This project has been dang close to finished for SO many months. Extreme silliness. This was my very first sewing project - had several lessons from a wonderfully experienced sewing guru in the neighborhood and this is what I chose to learn with - she showed me how to read the patterns, mark and cut the fabric, gather the corners, sew on the bias tape, and so, so much more. It was great! Then, somehow with projects of all sorts popping up all over the place, it fell to the wayside. Now, everytime I've been in the craft room for the past several months, the mostly finished machine cover would get a pained glance followed by feelings of regret and determination to one day finish - and always with a sooner than later plan, especially on the days where the machine actually seemed most unfortunately and quite avoidably dusty.

So, now it's complete... ahhh. It only needs a quick final pressing just to finish it off and make it hang better. I really, really love it and had to take a pic asap to proudly show it off. Funny thing - I go in to take a photo and the battery is dead; camera shuts off; so, I go swap the battery pack and turn it back on; that battery is also dead - damn! so, I eject the battery, try turning it back on and quickly switch off the display to the screen and manage to eek out one last picture before the camera again shuts off with a message insisting that I replace the battery with one having charge. I count this eek out as a victory and load the photos with plans to do the posting on my lunch break tomorrow, but I'm still so excited to be finished with this project that I couldn't resist starting the post right away. ha! so not like me, really. Anyway, I will finish tomorrow with talk of the new bias tape making method that is super cool and much faster than the way I did it before.

Ok, so this method is actually from one of the packets Ms. Peggy Sue brought for me on a sewing lesson day. It explains how to make a continuous piece of bias tape, which I've read before, but just didn't really get it until this past Saturday.

First of all, the way I did it one other time was to cut sections of fabric wide enough for a double fold, but then ending up with a stack of bias tape segments needing to be joined. VERY long process. ugh! Plus, last time I did not actually make "bias tape" - it is simply "binding" unless you cut it on the bias, which means that is is diagonal to the selvage edge. Cutting something on the bias gives it some strength and stretch and allows it to move and hang better - it is most always used when making clothing or edging anything with a curve. I read that it's not really necessary to cut on the bias when edging something flat with straight 90 degree corners such as a kitchen towel - it annoys some people that you will tend to waste some fabric since you're marking on a diagonal and start with the first full strip between selvages for a continuous strip, thus discarding the excess on the ends. (Note: That last sentence to may not make much sense until the end of this little walk-through.)

Ok, so the first thing you do is mark the strips on the diagonal to the selvage. The easiest way to do this is to fold the fabric from one corner at the end of the selvage over to the other selvage side. This creates a 45 degree angle to guide the marking. I wanted 1/2" double-fold bias tape, so marked strips in 2" segments. Before marking, measure the edges of the kitchen towel that will be bound with the bias tape to figure out how long the continuous strip will need to be. After measuring the length of one strip, I figured that I would need a total of four long bias strips to make up the entire continuous length.

Now, for the fun part. So, you mark the strips, then cut off the excess (triangles on either side of the angled strips), then also cut 1/4" off each selvage edge (short strip ends) just to tidy up. This gets you to the photo above.

Next, you match up the short ends of the strips with right sides facing (or markings on the outside). Arrange them so one strip overlaps at each end - so they're offset by one strip width - and pin. The photo doesn't show it too well, so if it's not clear yet, hopefully it will be after the next step.

So, the whole point of the overlapping strips is to create a spiral of sorts. Once happy with the way the short strip edges are lined up, sew a 1/4" seam on this edge and press the seam open. Now, if you start at either end and cut following the line markings, you will cut in a spiral pattern creating one very long piece of 2" bias strip. When cutting over the seam, just focus on getting from the end of one mark cross-wise to the beginning of the next mark - it's a little awkward that it doesn't seem straight across the seam after sewing and pressing open, but I promise it turns out perfectly fine once you cut the long piece and press in the foldings.

The last part takes some practice and some patience, but basically you have your iron set on the hottest setting for the fabric you're using and pull the strip(s) slowly while pressing on the folded end as it comes through. You can either use a bias tape making tool or I've just been marking the right width and setting up a makeshift tool with a long, straight pin on the ironing board. This first fold has each side tucked inward to meet in the center.

From time to time, the folds start to get off (uneven) and you just have to set down the iron, pull it backward a bit, straighten the fold with your fingers, then start pulling through and pressing the fold again. Once the entire strip length is pressed once, press the last fold by just halving once more. See last pic of finished product wrapped around another package of the store-bought stuff.

Now, it's ready to apply. I won't post those general bias tape instructions here, since I don't have pics to go with, but the Posie Gets Cozy blog has this tutorial I learned from and she even gives clear instructions for mitering the corners.

Maybe the bound and finished kitchen towel will make it into a future post - I'll try and remember to do that.

Buttons galore, and Felted tote - Part I

2008-08-25T11:55:00.008-05:00

There are two things I've wanted to do for quite a while now - one, somehow straighten the photo diplay on the shelves in our den and two, craft with buttons. So, decided to kill 2 birds, as they say... ;) Danielle so generously shared her button supply with me earlier in the year - she gave me this entire enormous jar of assorted buttons - so awesome!!! I love buttons and this jar o' buttons was especially fun since it contains every size and shape you could possibly imagine.

Several months ago, I started wondering more about button crafts - searched around online some to see what people have done with them before and found a post (have no idea where anymore) where someone made a sort of bulletin board decorated with buttons. I thought it was interesting, but had no use for a bulletin board really.

Then, it hit me a while later while looking at the hodge podge of picture frames jumbled and crammed all together on the little built-in bookcase of our den. I felt like I had to get the pics out of the frames and displayed another way - there were just too many frames all stuck together that it was starting to hurt my brain to pass by that area. (Ok, so I'm feeling a tad dramatic about it at this point...) Anyway, I loved that the photos were in the den - it makes me happy to have all the photos out in our main hang-out area, but it was just too dang messy, the frame clutter distracting from the photos themselves.

So, back to where it hit me... well, once I realized that I wanted the pics out of the frames, I remembered the buttony bulletin boards and started gathering supplies. I bought the el-cheapo set of cookie sheets (3 different sizes in one pack for like $3.99), some cement glue from the craft section and some magnets also in the craft section - oh, plus a roll of contact paper and some spray paint (everything in one trip to walmart).

I actually bought one can of primer spray paint and one of color, since the paint was going on metal cookie sheets. I wasn't very happy with the color selection in the spray paint section or the choice in contact paper, but all these things were really just the supporting actors to the pretty buttons, so I tried not to care as much.

The actual assembly was easy peasy. After the spray paint is dry, just mark and cut a piece of contact paper to go in the cookie sheet center, then glue buttons all around the edge of the sheet, .. and presto, on to the really fun part - arranging the pics! Then, just made sure to have enough magnets topped with buttons to hold the photo collage securely in place, cleaned off the shelf and set up shop.

I really love having all my favorite photos arranged this way! It's obviously still very busy, but now I feel like it draws your attention into the photos and makes it more fun to look at them. There's still one more sheet to go, but that means I also have to clean off the most messy, cluttery shelf of them all, plus print off some more recent photos to display, so that could be a little further down the road - we'll see.

Some things I did differently for the second sheet after learning from the mistakes of the first - put the tinest buttons on the bottom edge so that the buttons don't get in the way of the display sitting on the shelf. The sheet on the top shelf is actually propped up a bit on a couple decks of cards right now, since I overlooked this potential problem. Also, the buttons adhere best with a dab of cement glue on both surfaces; i.e., on the back of the button and on the edge of the sheet where the button will be placed.

Now, the last photo deserves some chatter. First of all, you won't be able to help noticing my rockin' new knitting bag. How cool is that? Sara Leah made it for my birthday and I love it very much - it housed this latest knitting project over our recent trip to the left coast, so is already rather well-traveled. It's really the perfect knitting bag with plenty of room for tons of yarn and plenty of pockets for misc other supplies. I actually used it as my carry-all bag for the trip, complete with yarn, wallet, maps and a pullover.

Also, in the pic is the beginning of what will eventually be a felted tote bag - yippee! The bottom and a smidge of the sides were done on the plane to and fro SF. I'm about halfway finished at this point and can't wait to try my hand at felting - wahoo!!! I will of course be devastated if it doesn't go well after all the knitting with all the gorgeous yarn, but surely that won't happen. ;-) This yarn was purchased last summer in a really cool shop in Atlanta called Knitch. Once through last year's holiday crafting season, it took me this long to clear out some other projects and get set up for this one. So, I'll keep posting the progress for this one - would love to be ready to felt in another month or so - here's hoping. :)

Dueling Machines, and The Spawning of the Robots.

2008-08-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

Yay, Robots!!!!!

Angela and I worked on a set of gifts for Jim and Sara Leah off and on for several months - finally gifting the entire crafty accomplishment the night of Jim's birthday party.

The whole set is for their new kitchen and includes two decoupaged bottles for olive oil and soap (or whatever they want to use them for), four placemats and four napkins. We had so very much fun making everything and learned some kick-ass sewing techniques along the way.

We've done the bottle decoupage once before and have both wanted to give it another whirl. Once the robot ribbon was discovered, it sealed the deal that this craft would be part of the wedding gift extravaganza.

So, the bottles shown first are after the fabric decoupage, but before the "glazing" process - basically, a bazillion coats of polyurethane. We didn't look into it too much before-hand, but now know there are better options out there for sealing and glazing the bottles - would get more serious about that next time for sure. It was a little scary at first to see the dramatic robot ribbon fade into the background after the poly. started soaking in, but you can definitely still see the little guys and we thought the bottles turned out great overall. :-)

Of course, the most fun part of the process is cutting out the fabric pieces, then piecing together the colors and patterns on the bottles. It's simple enough to be a kid-friendly craft, I think - the fabric pieces being pre-cut for the littler ones.

As for the placemats and napkins - the core tips, techniques and patterns came (once again) from Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. We mostly followed her instructions for the placemats, but naturally, the patterns were modified some to fit our needs - with most of the creative juices going into the napkin-making.

To me, the best part of the whole affair was the dueling sewing machines. Mine is portable, so I brought it over to Ang's and we set up in their dining room where her super rockin' Singer lives in a beautiful antique machine table. I love her machine - it's so simple and solid and no-frills, yet has every single feature you really need... and it's quirky - that's likely what I like about it the most.

So, several times, we brought the machines together, pulled the ironing board out of the laundry room and set up a mini sweat shop. Fun stuff. It was so dang cool to see the little oddities introduced to the project by our unique sewing styles. ..and it was freaking hilarious to see our different ways of handling mistakes - and oh, there were a plenty.

We really wanted the napkins to feel like napkins - not too thick - but wanted the robot fabric top pieces backed in order to hide the seams. So.. we decided to sew a top piece with red fabric framing blue robot sections and use another thin bottom piece for backing. Then, really going wild, decided to go with bias tape on the seams and some random-ish zigzag stitches across the top of the entire napkin in a few lines.

This random topstitch method has the dual-purpose of a fun, decorative detail with the bright yellow accenting zigzags, and most importantly, it's intended to keep the napkins from bunching up through the washing / drying process. These items are for the kitchen and above all things must be functional. We've all had those things you love, but you never want to use - always dreading the time when a washing is in order, and even (eek!) a pressing to make it look good again.

In the end, all of the pieces were tied together with red, since that's the main color they picked for the kitchen, AND robots, of course. Sara Leah LOVES robots!! (and we trust Jim loves them, too.) ;D

June Birthdays, plus an Oh-So-Crafty Boyfriend!

2008-07-23T23:15:00.000-05:00

Two of my favorite ladies have birthdays in June - Angela is the 8th and Sabrina is the 21st. For me, birthdays inspire crafty giving - it's so fun to tailor a gift to a special friend.

This zipper pouch was a ton o' fun to make for Ang! The pattern is from Amy Karol's, Bend the Rules Sewing. It's a great book with a ton of simple projects and has neat tricks for each one. If you use the book, be sure to get connected with the flickr group - there you'll find invaluable discussions on errata and techniques. If you're a sewing beginner like me, a little 'oops' in the book can really throw you off, so the group helps give you a sanity check before spending too much time freaking out and cursing. ;-)

I made a 'practice' zipper pouch before going for it with the one planned for Ang. I'm glad I did, but maybe should have made 2 practice ones (lol!) because I still had trouble with the lining the second time around - slip-stitched it too close to the zipper, so the zipper was terribly hard to open/close. So, had to gift it on her birthday, then had to 'borrow' it back and adjust it next time she was over for craft night. (Ha.) It still ended up a little closer than desired, but I figured out that it's because of how closely the outer fabric pieces were sewn onto the zipper - something to make note of for the next round of zip pouches. On another note - I just love the fabric! It's from Amy Butler's "Belle Collection" line. The earthy tones mixed with bright eye-popping colors are great.

Sabrina turned 30 this year - WOOHOO!!! Pretty crazy. We were out of town when her actual birthday transpired, but we met up soon after (the next weekend) in Athens, Ga - home of UGA, her Alma Mater - for a fun-filled weekend of brewery touring and bar hopping. This was finally our chance to visit the Terrapin Brewery, and it was awesome! We spent several hours there, listening to music, tasting some brews and touring the facility with our rockin' tour guide, Kelly.

I found biology themed embroidery patterns from this gal's etsy store quite a while back and bought them with Sabrina's bday in mind. The pattern came in pdf form, so I printed, then traced onto a tea towel to embroider.

I intended to give her two towels - one for each pattern - but didn't get that far along. The second towel is still in the works - should get to her by the end of summer (ok, so that's an optimistic estimate). :D I wanted to do some decorative edging to both, but didn't have time, so will definitely add some sort of stitch all the way around the edge of the second towel. Maybe a simple blanket stitch, or possibly the triangle stitch that they used to edge some napkins in this tutorial. We shall see...

On the homefront, one of the best thing we've done all year thus far is to build a "kitty gymnasium". I actually can't take much credit - we both drafted the design together, but Casey gathered all the materials and did most of the construction - I only helped hold things in place while he drilled and such, late in the process. He did an incredible job and the kitties LOVE it!!!

So, it's basically constructed of a base covered in carpet with three long posts (mailing tubes) covered in sisal rope in three corners of the base holding up the top level. The top level has a corner cut off which will eventually sit on top of a shorter post (about half the height) jutting from the fourth corner of the base. Hopefully that makes sense.

Sim can jump effortlessly from the floor to the top (which is a little over 3 feet high) and he'll sit up there all day. We were having so much trouble keeping him off the counters and knew he needed an elevated place where he is allowed to hang out - it's especially great to have him satisfied and out of my way when I'm trying to cook dinner. They both use the posts to preen their claws and also to climb up to the top level. Anyway, it's so freaking awesome! Many kudos to Casey, the oh-so-crafty boyfriend. ;-)

Wedding Preparations.

2008-06-16T00:15:00.000-05:00

Whoa nelly - it's been a long time since the last post. If only you could see how many are in my 'Drafts' - just can't seem to get them rolled out - but no worries, eh?

So... we had a blast getting ready for Jim and Sara Leah's wedding. We've been hiding all sorts of crafty gifting projects from her, helping some with the little wedding necessities, and squeezing in some regular 'ole trusty craftiness in between.

On the left is a prime example of the numero uno crafty lady's product (for lack of a better word). She designed and crafted bride and groom fingerpuppets to top the weddin g cake - they turned out perfectly, plus were a lovely and unique addition all of the weddingness that ensued.

In between wedding invitation week and wedding cake topper week, Lester Friedrich Francisco was born. Natalie gave SL a sock puppet making kit for her last birthday, and she been birthing sock creatures ever since. :-) I'm pretty sure this is the second one... ah, here we go - found the first little guy - pretty sure it's 'Mr. Fitzcreature' to me. ;)

The latest and final wedding craft was magnet making. We made a ton for wedding party favors and they turned out really cute. Sara Leah gathered a bunch of sketches she made over the months of her and Jim. She scanned and copied, then we cut, pasted to poster board, pasted to slightly larger sized color paper, then backed with strips of magnets. Sunni and Leah came over to help and with five people, we got an assembly line going and churned out gobs and gobs of magnets. So fun!

It seems like ages now since the wedding - Jim and Sara must be old married folk by now. haha. It was a dreamy day that deserves a final pic - congrats to Mr and Mrs Pihakis! :D

Knitting Progress.

2008-05-05T23:25:00.008-05:00

So, there has actually been a TON of progress with our knitting projects - it's just been a tad gradual. :D

Finally finished Casey's scarf. He's pretty excited. It went something like this: Me, "Your scarf is finished! Woo-hoo!"; Him, "Great! I'll wear it to brew this weekend." Then, the room fills with laughter because, of course, it is May and no longer scarf season... Haha. Oh well. For now, he's thrilled to wear it around the house, and with any luck, he'll have a hat to go with it come next winter - now that's exciting! :-)

Holly is working on a blanket. None of us were quite sure how blankets go on knitting needles. I looked it up later, and it seems most people do larger ones on longer, circular needles, but for a small one it's fine to scrunch it up on a long, straight needle. Her colors are wonderful - I'm impressed at her color changin', too. When thinking of changing colors like that my mind gets bogged down with thoughts of weaving in millions of ends. Ha. How's that for lazy?

Anyway, plans were made to start a sort of hat knitalong - once everyone is ready to start a new project, we'll all start it together. Shouldn't be too far off. If Taylor isn't finished with her tank yet, it's gotta be close, and Angela is practically finished with her scarf for Tim - will post pics of Tim modeling very soon, so get ready. ;-) Also need a tank pic and will get the finished Holly blanket. We may need a brief break from knitting after that.. there's talk of an embroidery interlude. More on that later.

In other knitting news... my sock enthusiasm is missing - or maybe I just misplaced it. After ripping out the half-finished kiddie sock and starting a larger kid / adult size and managing to knit on the wrong side after turning the heel, I'm not much in the mood to finish the half-inside-out sock before trying to get the mate right. Plus, I'm finally seeing the difference between toe-up and top-down sock knitting. This one is supposedly a childrens size large. Naturally, I didn't knit a swatch or anything, so it happens to look like a giant hobbit's sock at the moment. I'm really mostly ok with it. This will be my first sock (if I ever finish it), so it's bound to have issues. When first reading about the toe-up method, it sounded ridiculous to constantly try on the sock for fitting purposes - I mean, can't you just measure and calculate and count? Not if you want it to actually fit your foot, it seems. I'm determined to find some resolve to finish this pair before moving on to the next one - thus rediscovering sock fanaticism... or that's the plan anyway. For now, it's back to the good 'ole dishcloths. Will be sticking with them until the sock fervor returns.

Craft Night - Crashed.

2008-04-12T16:28:00.016-05:00

Since I'm quite behind in posting, this is from a couple weeks ago...

We wouldn't even be able to refer to that night as a craft night if not for the super craftiness that Julie brought over. She toted in some metal art pieces that were recently poured, then finished them up with some paint. Very cool!

So.. Julie saved the integrity of craft night :) - and John, Tim, Ben, Jim, Casey and Ditchell crashed it. Haha. And we're oh, so happy they did! :D As if one needs a reason to drink and be merry with friends... John was back in town for a week, nearly a month after his move to Cincinnati - he has been missed and his visit prompted a gathering. (I know - shocker.)

Aside from Julie's metal art, the celebrated craft of the night was definitely of the brewing variety. John made a beer run on his way back to Bham, so we dedicated the night to craft-y brews. An impressive Belgian selection was hit pretty hard by the boys the night before, so we mostly enjoyed the harder to come by (in Bham anyway) American craft brews. I think my favorite was the super-crafty (hehe) Two-Hearted Ale from Bell's. Also from Bell's, the Expedition Stout was a close 2nd - that beer rocks! We always try to pick up some of their beer when we're up north - usually visiting my family in Wisconsin.. it's nice to know that it can be found in the Cincinnati area so the boys can pick it up any time they head up to visit Sir Springer.

Since this night, a number of special craft projects have been started. Some of those will have to remain a mystery for a little while, but there are several sewing projects in progress that will deserve posting when they're finished, or at least further along. :) So, more soon...

Cheers - to crafting of all sorts!!!

Embroidery Obsessed.

2008-04-11T15:57:00.020-05:00

So much has been going on! Not surprisingly really, since it's been a month since the last post. I'll have to break up the craftiness into a couple of posts, so will start with an embroidery update.

For a couple of weeks, I was totally mad for embroidery! Finally finished this tea towel for myself that was started several months ago and then moved on to a huge project for my grandmother's 88th birthday. By huge, I mean literally huge. I ordered some of the flour sack towels from P.O.S.H., and they are enormous compared to the tea towels from Sublime Stitching. I ended up liking them really well, but it kinda freaked me out at first - a very expansive embroidery landscape. ha. So, I folded it in quarters and ironed on patterns all over the dang thing. It took a couple weeks of seriously focused craft time to finish the embroidery, but it was well worth the effort. I was thrilled with the end result and truly enjoyed the whole process - picking the colors and just sitting wherever to chill and stitch - back patio, front porch swing, bed, sofa, ... it was relaxing and satisfying to just hang out while making progress and feeling increasingly excited to finish and send my work to grandma.

Speaking of my grandma, she is quite the crafty lady herself - painting and cross-stitching in her prime, plus she crocheted lord knows how many afghans and sewed enough clothing and costumes for my sisters and me to fill a closet. I think it's obvious where I got the crafting gene - and maybe even the too-many-hobbies-at-once gene - I'll have to see what she has to say about that. ;-)

Another exciting endeavor that was mixed into the embroidered towel project was homemade binding - so fun! I followed the tutorials for folding bias tape without a tool and binding towels (plus general binding/bias tape discussion). Pretty sure I've linked to these before, but this was the first time I tried either. I was mostly pleased with the outcome - the corner mitering didn't work out exactly as intended and the binding folding was a little sloppy from time to time (it was a whole lotta binding to fold), but overall I was pleased with the first go. Since I was edging a towel, I just cut the fabric straight on the perpendicular to the selvage edge, so not really making bias tape. One of my next projects will be binding the edges of what I'm calling the 'alien invasion towel' with some cotton linen fabric, so will try cutting the fabric for that one on the bias. After cutting all those strips for the enormous flour sack towel, there was some major coveting of quilting mats and rotary cutters going on... this tea towel should certainly be a snap after that undertaking.

Also on the sewing front are the nearly finished sewing machine cover and hanging organizer. Whew, this project has been major in every way. I should be ready for the final stage by Sunday when the next sewing lesson is scheduled.

Aside from that, I'll be purchasing a zipper this evening for the cat tuffet and plan to have the outer piece sewed to the that point before Sunday, so Peggy Sue can give some zipper tips while she's here. Or who knows, maybe I'll be able to swing this one on my own after some reading and re-reading of this tutorial. There are actually a ton of cool tutorial links down on the right where the zipper tute came from - so neato that all those crafty people out there take the time to teach others, complete with great step-by-step instructions and photographs - love it!

Ok. So, will post more pics of finished projects one day. :-)

Oh, and before I forget - one more embroidery note.. I followed this tutorial to finally figure out french knots and now I love them - my newfound skill is definitely well-represented on grandma's towel. :) It was the only stitch I just couldn't seem to figure out from the little booklet in the Sublime Stitching starter kit - I needed a little somethin' extra and got it from The Purl Bee.

Craft Central @ Chez MoniCasey.

2008-03-04T21:15:00.013-06:00

This little squirtblossom recently set me into action. He helped me realize that his room was overflowing with purpose. It began as my music room / craft room - although the only crafting taking place in there before was jewelry, as knitting requires no dedicated room. It seemed the most logical space to morph into kitty's room when he arrived a few months ago. Then, once sewing began after the holidays, it was obvious that fabric, patterns, and mr. purr-bucket do not mesh well.

.. and so the new craft room was born! A couple of hours were spent packing everything up and Casey helped move the furniture. Then, it was time to unpack and start arranging the goods (all to Sim's dismay - who isn't allowed in the guest bedroom, aka craft central).

I gotta say, it's great having a space to sew - spreading out fabric and patterns and leaving them there undisturbed as long as I want. This pic was taken right after moving into the new area and getting things ready for some marking and cutting - just in time for sewing lesson, part deux.

Notice the room post-lesson - already ripe with use. Since then, I've finished sewing the pieces for the sewing machine cover - wahoo! Now, time to get moving with the hanging organizer - need the pieces marked, cut and sewed for lesson 3 this Sunday. I'll post more pics once the bias tape adventure has begun.

Speaking of bias tape - I should link to some great tutorials Danielle pointed me to..

This one explains the difference between binding and bias tape, plus gives an excellent explanation of the process. This has some great ideas for binding / bias tape - very innovative. I haven't actually tried it yet, so can't give a first-hand account, but it can potentially save you from spending 10 bucks a piece for each size bias maker tool - gotta love that!

I actually bought some of that boring, solid color bias tape you find at Hancock Fabrics and imagine I'll use that for this first project. It'll save some time right now, but I can't wait to try out these other tricks and techniques for the next project that uses binding.

Mostly knitting.

2008-03-04T20:12:00.010-06:00

Knitting was the big hit at craft night a few weeks ago (yes, I'm very behind in posting). Taylor is daringly making a gorgeous tank top with this very soft and colorful yarn. She is taking on a challenge that would be much too intimidating to me - a tank for her 2nd knitting project ever, using mostly a book with photos to guide her through new stitches - amazing!

It's so cool how people have such different crafting styles. Taylor is easily bored with simple projects - the girl needs a challenge, so she goes for it - so cool. I, on the other hand, take baby steps - learning new skills one at a time, slowly integrating them into new projects, usually after practicing a bit first and most certainly reading the directions a thousand times - pretty funny.

I also tend to have a million different craft projects going at once.. which honestly doesn't bother me, but I've learned from others that they could never work this way. Sara, the knitter of all knitters, for example, works one project at a time. I've not only got a scarf, socks and a dishcloth on needles right now, but have yarn bought for two other projects... not to mention embroidery that's loosely on a hoop and sewing that's always in the works. Ha. I feel it gives me options - I can decide day to day what I feel like working on and know they will all eventually get finished (theoretically). :-)

Taylor also brought over some tag blankets she's been making for a couple friends with new babies. What a great idea! Very silky - just what the new little ones need. (Disclaimer: please excuse the most unflattering pictures I have managed to take - photography is obviously not my forte, but you get the idea.)

So, I also had to post this pic of Simcoe getting into Taylor's bag - he found a little hole on the side and before we knew it he was working his way in... he is also quite crafty it seems.

Future Craft.

2008-02-14T17:59:00.014-06:00

Angela had the great idea to do a post about future craft plans, so here goes..

First on the list would probably be embroidery. Danielle got me into it this past fall. She made that rockin' dishtowel in the pic. There's a really great website devoted to all things embroidery - they have incredible patterns (super cool designs) and fantastic kits for those of us who are just starting out. It's called Sublime Stitching and their tagline is, "This ain't your gramma's embroidery!" (pretty fun). I made a dishtowel (actually embroidered on a tea towel) for my mom for xmas, but forgot to take a pic as always, so maybe I'll get one posted of it eventually after a visit to the northwest. I'd like to back the stitching with fabric like Danielle did - it's a great way to protect your stitches if you feel like you should (I like the idea, although Jenny @ Sublime say it's unnecessary and she absolutely knows best), plus it adds a nice accent to your work. :-)

Oh, and I found a website through someone's blog (can't remember right now, who's it was) for some flour sack towels to embroider on at P.O.S.H. - they're 30 x 36" vs. the 26 x 28" tea towels - and a bit thicker cotton.

Next on the list is bottle decoupage. Angela and I did some a while back - we each did two, gifting one and keeping the other for ourselves. The one shown in the pic is the one I did and kept for myself - using it for dish soap. I sent the other one to my mom for her birthday with some olive oil (whoa, just realized how long ago we did those - my mom's bday is in May). Anyhoo, we 'borrowed' the idea from an artist at Naked Art in Forest Park. We just kinda guessed at what they did and tried a couple things until they turned out how we intended. I think they turned out great! I'm sure they'll be even better the second go 'round. The bottles are just plain clear ones from World Market - they have all shapes and sizes.

We also have chair recovering plans. Casey and I inherited a dining room set from the former owners of our house when we moved in, and one of the first home projects we did was recover those chairs. My mom actually did most of them with me when I was still looking for a job and she was visiting. She went with me to pick out a different fabric for each chair. I think we finished four out of the six before she had to fly home, and Casey helped me with the rest. It was so fun b/c it completely transformed the beautiful chairs. You can't tell from the photo, but the woodworking details on the chair are really nice - they just needed a fresh start. They're scattered around the house and I love them! :D Angela's ready for some recovering at her house, so we'll go at it whenever she says the word.

We also have plans to do some photoshoots with Eve. She's into photography, so we're hoping we'll learn a thing or two from her while participating in her process. Her photos are amazing - I've just started checking her stuff out on flickr and am uber impressed.

Knitting.

2008-02-12T21:33:00.020-06:00

Knitting has been the object of my affection since the summer. First project was (naturally) a scarf in garter stitch. My first chance at sporting it came with a chilly weekend in Chicago (Sept. '07) for the Renegade Craft Festival, but the first pic I can find right now with it on is from the Holiday Ale Fest in Portland (Dec. '07).

After that I made a ridiculous 'To Do' list of knitting for xmas gifts. (Silly me.) I didn't cross off everything on that list, but did manage to take a hat class and knit a hat for little sis, Meg, then made legwarmers for littlest sis, Court (hope to post photos of those one day soon). Also, knitted 3 dishcloths for my mom to go with an embroidered kitchen towel (more on embroidery in another post). For some crazy reason, in the midst of all the holiday knitting I took a sock class... haven't even finished that first sock yet, but it's on the list. hehe. I wanted to make some socks for my grandma, but am now aiming to have some done by her birthday (mid-March).

Other than that I just finished some legwarmers for Danielle's birthday. I was so thrilled to see some Lamb's Pride at Knit Nouveau in exactly her color - vibrant aqua! I loved how they turned out - used the same pattern as I did with Court's, but made them a bit smaller in an effort to prevent them from sliding down. Courtney's were sliders for sure, and for a number of reasons.. I loved how hers were so soft with washable wool, but the weight was heavier, so that combined with a loose fit made them sag down below the calf after a few steps. I'm hoping a little shrinkage from a washing and drying will solve that problem. If not, Sara Z in DC made a brilliant suggestion - a little strip of elastic at the top.. The other pic is of the gorgeous bag Sara had just finished knitting - she felted it at her sisters when we went to Baltimore that Sunday. It turned out terrific - fantastic shade of blue, scalloped edges, pretty ribbed strap and complete with a pocket inside. I was very impressed!

Angela and I have been trying to get together once a week for a craft night. We decided a couple months ago to try and organize a 'Circle of Craftiness' with the idea that we wouldn't confine the group to one craft (like knitting).. everyone brings the project of their choice, whatever they are inspired to work on for the night. It's been a ton of fun so far! Eve joined us one night for some sewing - she hemmed her first pair of pants while we looked on with interest. Sara Leah made it another time and worked on her second sock puppet. I need to get a pic from her - a friend gave her a kit for her birthday (will try and find out the name) and it turned out so very cute. Taylor should be joining us now that we switched to Mondays - can't wait to see what crafty things she's up to...

So, Ang and I have been knitting away. She's working on a scarf (first knitting project) for her husband. I have picked up, torn out and reinvented a scarf for Casey that sadly took a backburner to the frenzy of holiday knitting. She took a couple pics last night to show our progress. We're both about a third of the way there - not too shabby, I'd say. ;)

Hi there.

2008-02-12T19:26:00.011-06:00

So, I've decided to give this blog thing a whirl...

Feeling immersed in and surrounded by craftiness, it seemed the right time to begin documenting and sharing. Consequently, these posts will be dedicated to the ideas, progress, successes and failures of crafting - by me and the crafty ladies I have the pleasure of knowing.

Ok, for the first bloggy photo, I'm posting a pic of my very first stack of fabric to introduce my latest crafting craze - sewing!!! It will soon be washed, marked and cut to prepare for sewing lesson no. 2 this Sunday. It was so satisfying opening those packages to see and feel the fabric. We'll see soon enough if I ordered the right amounts - it really twisted my brain in a knot trying to mentally lay out the sections, then convert between yards, fat quarters, inches .., then calculate the necessary quantity while keeping in mind shrinkage post-washing/drying, orientation to selvage edge... Of course, I had to really make it interesting by deciding to use two complimentary colorways - one being the primary fabric for piece #1 with the other as the contrasting colorway, then reversing the combination for piece #2 - that really got the drawings and formulas going. haha.

One of the two sewing projects planned for the near future involves following a pattern -- very scary.. and complicated (more on all that later)! This will be helped along with the lessons.

The other project comes from a kickass book that was gifted to me by a great friend and very crafty lady - it's called Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. I highly recommend this book - it really simplifies the sewing process, gives great tips and has quite a few fun sewing projects, most of which challenge you with different techniques.

Ain't that fabric lovely? ;)