Make-A-Long
Ok, first project done! I used the Classic Tote Tutorial from Sew Mama Sew and some inexpensive fabric for a test run.
I learned how to make gussets, what a French seam was and how to make one, and the triple stitch on my sewing machine! I also learned that if something seams a bit daunting at first, I can chug on through it as long as I go slow and read the directions carefully. :)
Here are a few more photos of the inside, back, and front.
There ya go.
Now, off to the next project. Finishing afghans!!
Crafters, Start Your Engines!
Well, I haven’t been in the mood for blogging lately. As you may have noticed. Oddly, I haven’t been in the crafting mood either. I have started early morning gym visits and that means that I don’t get any lattes in the morning. Therefore, by the time I get home, I am ready to crash. Anyways, enough of the excuses. They end here.
Tomorrow is the big day. THIS big day! Yep, you read that right. A 24 HOUR MAKE-A-LONG! :O Holy crap, I just got the heebie jeebies. Now, in all honesty, I won’t be attempting the full 24 hours. I have such a love of sleep that I just would not be able to do it. It would be unpleasant to be around me. To say the least. ;) Well, that being said, I am going to be crafting a hell of alot. And updating all along the way. On here, Twitter, maybe even Facebook or Ravelry.
What will I be working on? Well, the bags to begin with. And then probably going to finish up my loose crochetting projects. And then after that… well, we’ll see if there is an after that.
I suppose I should rest up. Wish the weather wasn’t so ugly here. I would sure appreciate a nice morning walk to wake me up for the day.
Anything is possible after a crisp spring morning walk.
Sunday Afternoons…
Hello again, all. It has been awhile for me to find some time to post about all my crafting ventures. Unfortunately, that also means I haven’t had much time for crafting!
Last weekend, I took a trip to Fabricland with my uber crafty aunt. I needed some help picking out “home decor cotton” for a bag I hope to make soon. I found enough for quite a few bags! It was 50% off everything for members so I got some discount fabric for $2 a meter! I love sales. I also found some fabric for a sewing machine cover tutorial that I have been looking at for awhile. I finally got around to it today!
Here is the tutorial and here is the finished product:
Cute fabric, right? Perfect for a sewing machine cover! I was surprised that I managed to cut the pieces straight to the lines in the pattern, except the sewing machines had to go sideways because the fabric wasn’t wide enough to accommodate it otherwise. Oh well.
Overall, it was a very fast put together. The only complaint I had was doing the corners. I haven’t done them before so it was pretty hard on the first side. Then, nothing lined up so I had to take it all apart and start over. The tutorial doesn’t explain how to do corners so if you decide to do this yourself, I highly recommend figuring out the corners ahead of time. I have the problem of not fully reading over a tutorial before I dive in. Whups! It isn’t as sturdy as I expected it to be. But I think that is my fault in expecting otherwise, since it is only one layer of cotton fabric. I suppose I could have used thicker “home decor” fabric and it would have been alot more rigid. And probably harder to do the corners too.
You may have noticed by now the… interesting… window coverings I have. Orange, Yellow, White and Purple geometric squares/diagonals. I have had them since I was in Grade 12. I went to a boarding school and we needed curtains to cover our cubicle-type bedroom entrances. These were mine! I find it hard to get rid of them, they have been with me ever since. They are tacky but I love them.
Well, I have looked through my photos and found that I have actually done more crafting than I thought! Such a good blogger I am, taking pictures of everything. Only to forget about it all.
Here is a picture of the fabric I got to make these bags:
I really wish that the date and time would go away.
Anyways, the left fabric (bright and almost on the tickytacky side of things, kind of like my curtains) is the sale fabric (surprised?) and the right fabric is the regular fabric. I love them both, perfect for spring and summer. You won’t lose the left fabric bag, that is for sure. I will be able to make 2 bags out of it, lots there!
I also made a rice heat therapy bag that has come in handy lately. I made one mistake with this one though, I put in too much essential oil. The whole house smells like cranberries when I heat it up!
Anyways, here is the tutorial and here is the finished product:
I used scrap fabric from my first bag and a grey fat quarter. Easy and fast, yet again.
As for yarn crafts, I have been dyeing a few more skeins to test the waters. I have found that I absolutely love dyeing yarn and I could really get into it. Real dyes and even painting all types of fibers. But, I keep telling myself that it is something I will have to wait to do. Once I get a house with a backyard and a bigger kitchen, I will dabble it a bit more. And then if I am very very lucky, I will someday live on an acreage and have my own llamas and sheep. We can all have a dream, right?
I have begun a crochetted rug for in front of the kitchen sink. I borrowed a few pattern pamphlets from my aunt and picked out one that both I and the BF decided on. The yarns being used are the brown from the sweater I got and unravelled, white that my Grandma gave me a long time ago, and sage green that a friend gave me because she didn’t like the color. She won’t like my rug I guess, but I’m ok with that. ;)
I have also tossed around the idea of picking up knitting again, as well. I have found that there are so much cuter patterns for knitting clothes, purses, anything, rather than crochetting. Knitting is much more time consuming, but it would be nice to have a decent skill set in both methods.
Now, on a final note. I have decided that I WILL NOT LET MYSELF BUY MORE FABRIC OR YARN UNTIL I FINISH UP ALL THE PROJECTS I HAVE ON THE GO. I must use up all (or close to) the yarn and fabric that I have before I can buy more. I live in an apartment with storage restrictions that keep me from buying and storing caches of yarn/fabric. Also, my pocket book has restrictions. ;)
Hope everyone had a crafty weekend! I will spend my evening on the couch with my crochet hook and rug in hand. Looking forward to it!
She’s Alive!
I know, I have been missing for almost a week now. But you can probably guess why…. Yep, that is right. I got my sewing machine!! Its beautiful. Here is a few pictures. Pictures like “the big belly”, “the new baby!”, “baby’s first steps!” Well, you get the idea. Here we go.
In the box, waiting to emerge into the world!
Out and in place, with all of her pretty accessories.
On and ready to ruuuuuummmmble!
Off to the races!
First project, some very very simple bookmarks with some remnant fabric. Kind of ticky tacky fabric, but at least you won’t lose it! I made the mistake of thinking that I would finish them up and then pick up a pinking shear and do that last. Uh, ya. Can’t do that. I would cut off the ribbon. It will be more work for me now to do the top, lining up both sides of the ribbon. Oh well, no one expects perfection from me! Well, I hope not anyways.
These are a few finished bookmarks. I tried to get a bit creative with the ribbon placements. Either way, I won’t be keeping them. They will be given away or kept for the day I have a table at the market. I have another small white bookmark with a spring color ribbon, but it is currently holding a spot in my purse book and I don’t feel like getting up to get it. :P
Next project was iPod and camera cozies! These were also very easy. Again, with some remnant fabric. I would rather mess up and practice on remnant pieces from Fabricland than beautiful Amy Butler fabric! The white one with the red button is actually in use, holding my trust iPod Classic. I will probably make another one of these, when I have black scrap material, for my camera. The rest, again, will either be gifted or sold.
I have quite a few bookmarks and cozies that are cut out (I kind of got excited with my new cutter, ruler, and mat) and waiting to be sewn. Easy, fast, and pretty mindless to put together. So, they are nice in an evening when I don’t want to get started on something bigger.
Speaking of something bigger, my friend and I made some purses this weekend! I forgot to get a decent picture of hers, my apologies. These were extremely simple (and fun!) to put together, and would recommend them to anyone. The tutorial is very easy to modify to suit your fancy. They call for fat quarters so it takes all the question out of how much fabric to buy. The only modifications we made to our purses is that we made them narrower, they were a bit too wide for our handles. The handles we got from Fabricland as well as the white lining fabric and interfacing. Well, my interfacing came second hand from my Mom. It is more of a batting, hence the puffy look of the purse. There are also magnetic snaps inside, also from Fabricland. The snaps are pretty dang strong, which I like. I hate having my purse not close. Anyways, here is a picture of the cute little thang:
I like it. It’s cute. :)
Well, that’s about it that I have for now. In the near future, I will update you on some of my past projects. Sewing, crochetting, and cross stitching. But not tonight because my laptop battery is almost dead. :)
The First is Always the Worst
The first post in a blog is usually the hardest to write. I would know, I have written about 10 of them, only to give up on nearly all of the blogs soon after. So I’m going to jump on in and pretend like you all know what is going on. If there is a “you all”. Anyways.
My sewing machine is still floating around in “being ordered” land. It was supposed to be here a few days ago but I am still left waiting. And NOT enjoying it, might I add. It will be a Janome 4030 QDC. Its a base-model computerized machine but that is all that I need. I don’t need fancy schmancy stitches or sewing without the pedal. I used to have an old, solid as a rock, Singer Touch n Sew. Only God knows how old it was. But a couple weeks ago, I sewed its last stitch. As much as I loved the old gal, it will be nice to be able to not have to baby my machine into working. That will be a nice change. Also, I will have to think of a name. I like to name inanimate objects. Except my Jeep, she is nameless. Wonderful and nameless. :)
I have a few projects ready to go for when she finally arrives. A few bookmarks and iPod/camera cozies. I will post the links to the tutorials I used when I finish them up and post their pictures. I just used some remnant fabric from Fabricland. Its nothing fancy, but it was nice and cheap. I also got a new cutting board, ruler, and rotary cutter while I was there. All OLFA products were 50% off, so that is always an excellent time to get it. And solid fat quarters were 4 for $10. Another excellent price. I have problems buying things at full price these days. There are so many places that you can get good deals, or just wait a little while and maybe it will go on sale.
As for crochetting, I am writing my very first pattern! I have yet to finish the project, but I will be posting the pattern as soon as its done. Just a hint, its a hood/scarf combo. I know I have seen them before, but I haven’t found one with a hood that is this large. I love huge hoods. Hide yourself away and cuddle up in a scarf. Perfect. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, so I just used a 1lb bag of yarn from WalMart (again, super cheap). It is 100% “unknown fibre”. But really, these bags are just machine ends so are decent yarn, but have a few flaws so they sell them in 1lb bags for $6(ish). How am I supposed to pass that up??
Knitting: I don’t do much of it anymore, now that I have been crochetting. I like to see progress. Instant gratification. And knitting is so time consuming that I don’t find it as appealing anymore.
Cross Stitching - I have a modified rug hooking-to-cross stitch pattern on the go. But since it is all solid, it is taking awhile. I have put it aside so that I can get started on my cross stitch/suede bookmarks. Another photo or two or twenty will be posted when those are in the process!
Well, I think that will suffice for now. Still no call for the sewing machine today. :(
