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

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.

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 wedding 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.