Swap goodness!! September 28, 2006

Ach so here is what my absolutely wonderful swap partner sent me…I swear she has been spying on me!!

how else could she have made such perfect stuff? First, a monster wreath… a seriously awesome huge teeth filled monster….Hee hee I LOOVE him and he is currently resident on my front door, just waiting to eat the next magazine selling schoolkid who shows up!!! ‘

 

Next up, I asked for a candy bowl, and boy did whe deliver….meet….the mummy….look at his eyes and just tell me he isn’t mad you are takin his candy…so awesome….

 

And finally (here is where I think she is truly stalking me) a halloween banner…..my kitche and living room are the same room with that little top wall divider in the middle….I hang lots of banners and what not there for various seasons….and this one is PERFECT for that….I didn’t even have to put up new nails…..

 

SO YAY for swappy goodness!!!

 

 

Hemming Jeans and other nonsense September 25, 2006

OK, tell me why on earth do I continue to tell people I will hem their jeans. 

I HATE hemming jeans. Really.  Are you wearing jeans?? Feel your jueans.  They are thick. VERY thick.  Which is OK until you get to the sideseam where they are horribly layered into even thicker behemoths.  SO I load the damn jeans thread into my machine (notice it to is thick, VERY thick) which I might add my machine HATES….(OK, maybe it doesn’t hate it, but I do!) and I hem jeans.  I play with tension, iron the heck out the hem, fight it every step of the way, and wonder why on earth can’t people just buy jeans the right length….which is completely horrible, because my son has short legs, so I will be hemming jeans FOREVER>>>>>>>>>>>

sigh.

Jeans hems always turn out to clean looking…no lighter spots, no variation, they just never look like jeans hems. SO I am never happy with them.

SO since I hemmed a pair of jeans this weekend, I did all sorts of fluffy non necessary crafting. 

I made a hat, some wristwarmers and a BIGGER puzzle ball. 

Hat and wristwarmers are Caron Simply soft in berry blue, the wristwarmers are loosely based on these http://www.raquelmontoyadane.com/rebeca/Little_Miss_Sassy_Hands.pdf and the hat is from the Vogue book of crocheted hats.  

Everything is all from stash… not stashbusting by any means, but hey every bit counts right 🙂

 

On the puzzleball, it would seem logical you could achieve the same results in a large on as in a small one just by scaling up the pattern, so I decided to try it.  Oddly enough, that is just not true.  See the pics yourself.  While the larger one is charming, it leaves "windows" the smaller one doesn’t have.  WOndering if it is possible to get the same effect and how to change the ration of length of pattern piece to width of pattern piece to achive this….

 

Pics below:

 

Amish Puzzle ball pincushion :-) September 22, 2006

OK, this little bugger is hand sewn…..36 tiny pieces of fabric, two nights of TV watching….

 

I can hardly bring myself to poke pins in it.  (which is nonsense really, if I don’t poke pins in it soon, I will find it outside being used for a toy!!)

 

Not sure why the Halloween theme, except I immedietly saw this material and that the little shapes would highlight them…and next up was a Halloween theme.

 

I am thinking these would make LOVELY Christmas ornaments……..Yet another reason to stalk the remnant section.

Yet another Sublime Stitching September 19, 2006

OK, so I decided I needed to stop carrying the elmo lunch bag to work.  And I made my self a new lunch bag 🙂

 

The pattern is again a Sublime Stitching pattern (I love veggies)

 

Almost had a total disaster with this one, turns out the handles on these bags are not just chaep nylon, they are really cheap melt at a low temp material…so when ironing the lining in the bag, I almost melted the handles.  I guess I could have put new ones on, but they didn’t melt too badly.

 

I have committed myself to donating crafted items for a craft fair my sons preschool has as a fundraiser, and really this is kind of a prototype for that, I think I will do two or three cute bags and fill them will dollar store toys as kind of to go totes…. still fleshing that one out though.  Fortuneately these go fast, catering to the procastinator in me 🙂

 

Alright, enough already, on th the pics 🙂 

Another Sublime Stitching item :-) September 18, 2006

No pics, just a scan, because all my stupic cameras refuse to take pictures…..

THis however is now the bottom of a T-shirt for my son 🙂

He calls it his magic faster shirt 🙂

 

Hopefully I will have action shots soon…..

 

Edited 9-19-06 more pictures added 🙂

Pretty Embroidered Sweater September 12, 2006

Well, I got the new Sublime Stitching book by Jenny Hart…

And I just couldn’t help myself.  I had to find something to embroider right away…

This is only half of a twinset, and I think I will finish the other half eventually…..but I have not worn it in

FOREVER, not sure why….anyway, now it is NEW again…lovely and floral and feminine and dare I say flattering even.

Hmm. Apparently humble is not my thing today.  Ah well. 

Anyway, this was also a trial in stabilizers for hand embroidery.  Freezer paper worked, but you had to have a lot of patience with it, stitches had to be pretty precise, because the paper does rip easily.  I had a Floriani brand wet and stick, which also worked ok, but felt kind of like it "grabbed" the needle, lastly I tried a Floriani Iron On tear away, which I must say I liked best.  The thing about the tear away though is tearing it away…I was so afraid it was gonna break my pretty little stitches…which is absurd, because they are done with all six strands of embroidery thread…..

Also learned that some stitches I just can not pull off….I actually took out the leaves twice.  I tried a couple of "leafy" looking stitches and was just never happy with them, so eventually I just ended up using the split stitch.

I also had thorns at one time, but they just looked like such a tradional neck outline, I ditched them.  I think if I could get a better line, I would add them in again….and I will definately use them on the sleeves of the other sweater 🙂 I do however like the variegated thread.  When I seperated the strands I actually did half from light to dark, and the other half dark to light, so it was like using two colors of thread with a varieageted effect. 

Anyway…

Pictures below….

 

Halloween Swap September 11, 2006

So YAY, I am doing swaps again....I used to do a ton when I was pregnant with my son, but I have not done any for a while now.  Anyway, when I saw the Halloween swap on Crafstster I just KNEW I had to be in.  It took all my restraint not to craft prior to being assigned a partner 🙂 Anyway, My partner has finally received all the goofy Halloween stuff I made, so I can post  I sent: Sorry for the cruddy pictures, I guess I forgot how to focus my camera..... A skirt peeker apron with a witches bottom on it two potholders an embroidered dish towel a crocheted candy corn doodad a printed cook book of Halloween recipes Some vintage Halloween magnets (printed on magnet paper) Some pumkin face post it flags (because I use post it flags for everything) And since she has an adorable nephew, I printed wome coloring books for him made on of those cute mask kits, and made a little drawstring bag with a cute iron on to hold stuff in.

   

Thumb Drive pocket :-) September 6, 2006

OK, so this is tiny, but cute….even cuter before I had to switch buttons, the old button was a terrific little vintage thing that actually had little cherries on it, but the shank broke.  This was the only one I had that would fit the bottonhole I made.

 

Anyway, I had a USB stick forever and it turns out DD could use on for school, the problem was mine had no case, lid, strap anything.  (It did used to have those 🙂

 

There was no way a sixth grader, especially mine, could take that thing to school without losing it.

 

My original inspiration is from here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=97503.0

 

I used a heart shaped plastic caribiner instead, and made mine a little larger, plus I didn’t have any snaps, so I went with a button.

 

Anyway if all works out well, this should help her keep track of the thumb drive 

(and I am ALMOST out of this fabric 🙂

Stupid Computer, and finished item September 2, 2006

OK, so I have been meaning to post this FOREVER, but my stupid computer won’t let me upload pictures.

 

 

So, lets see where to start…

 

Ages ago mom and I went to a craft show I had intended to blog about, it was pretty cool, and like always I got a few new ideas.  Funny though, last year the hot new thing was needle felting, and practically no one had heard of it.  This year I think every booth had something to do with needle felting 🙂

 

One of my favorites every year is CNT patterns, http://www.cntpattern.com/ 

Not sure why, I just love her stuff, maybe it is because I am a sucker for those gorgeous cotton batiks….

Anyway, the reason this all comes up is because I finally used the fabric I bought from her this year to make the swing jacket. 

This thing is so comfortable it isn’t even right.  It is the second one I have made, the first was polar fleece.

Anyway, this one is perfect for our over air conditioned office.  I guess some people are comfortable there, but I feel like I am living in a stinkin’ igloo. 

The super nice thing about this pattern is that you can NOT mess it up 🙂 Seriously, it is EASY.  And she writes instructions WELL. Not only can I follow them, but there are illustrations so that I understand them 🙂

I wish the big pattern companies could take a hint and at least write good instructions on their easy patterns 😦

 

Anyway, this fabric was a bit of a splurge for me, so of course I could not let any go to waste, hence…the matching bag.  I tried to leave the flower off, but it wouldn’t let me.  I am posting a picture of the purse, and a hijacked picture.  Just for the record, for every item I take a picture of I usually have a picture like this.  It is where you click the button, and the only child in the vicinity pops their head in the room JUST IN TIME to make it into the picture .  

 

OH and since I mentioned the craft show, I also must link to www.birdbraindesigns.net  Awful cute stuff, WARNING HIP PEOPLE: site has county style charm….still check out their Christmas snowmen, they are soooo cute I could just eat them up. 

 

Also finished up some serious crafting for a swap.  Hopefully she receives her package soon and then I can post pictures!!

 

OH and look closely at the swing jacket picture, I have a new model:  Introducing Brunhilda!!

Hubby was tricked into wrapping me in duct tape, so he got naming honors.  Google duct tape dummy or duct tape double for multitudes of pages with instructions….easy project, so worthwhile, and WAY cheap.