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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.