Vintage Beauty

How I wish this would fit me. Well, also that it was in a style I would wear, but one little wish at a time. This was an (obviously) beginning of one of my grandmother's projects if I remember correctly. And it is gorgeous! 

The work put into this amazing. It is a layer of linen fabric (or at least that is what it feels like) and a layer of fine muslin machine basted together. If I ever get around to doing a burn test on some of the extra fabric fashion and I'm wrong, I'll fix that. The designs are a combination of lace motifs and thin cording machine stitched onto both layers. The cording also continues around the collar all the way to center back. There back zipper allowances are already folded and ironed and the hook and bar tack are at the very top. I have to admit I almost didn't see the bar tack at first because the thread matches the fabric so well.

I'm hoping to turn this into something wearable in the future, but I'm not going to do anything until I'm completely positive on what to do and have it be something that doesn't mess with the cording and lace too much. 

Please pardon the color change between the first two and second two photos. The first pictures of the bodice top and center front motifs didn't come out. The color is closer to the first two.

Shirred Shirt

A really old pillow case got a new life today. This poor silky pillowcase was from my grandparents' house when we cleaned it out almost three years ago. For some reason it was always my favorite and even though it was in not so good condition I snagged it and used it to the point it was starting to fall apart at the seams. And as always I forgot to take a before picture, hopefully one day I will remember, but if you know what a pillowcase looks like then you know how it started.

Six rows of shirring, one side seam, two little slits and some fun with the ruffler foot later, I have a fully functional, although slightly sheer tube top. I want to add straps, but ran out of fabric so I'll go digging for some lace later. And the shot of me wearing the garment which is abysmal at best (the photo, not the top). Somehow things always look frumpy and unflattering on me when I take my own photos. It is loose, but not as bad as the picture looks (probably didn't help that I had a shirt on under it). I'm planning on belting it around the waist when I wear it.

And of course there is a funky flash reflection.

Man I was so excited because I hadn't seen this done before, but then I googled and found Shirred pillowcase top. Now did I come up with it or had i seen this post forever ago? Meh.

My Kindle's New Home

It took a while, but here is my kindle cover. I couldn't find fabrics to compliment the zebra in my stash so I dug into my Moda Buttercup charm pack and used three of the squares, two pint and the white solid. The fabric for the rest of the outer is the same oatmeal colored linen that I used for my mom's kindle cover. The second time around the sewing went a lot quicker probably due to less mistakes though it wasn't entirely mistake free. Right before I started top stitching around the opening I noticed that I hadn't sew in the ribbons to close it. Noticing it then meant that I only had to do a tiny bit of seam ripping.

The cover is padded with some cotton batting, but not quilted. And the lining is some Anna Marie Horner blue and white voile print that I'm in love with and hiding away until I can find the pattern I bought if for originally.

Close up to show stitching detail

Kindle Cover Part 1

So I still haven't gotten around to making a cover for my Kindle, but I did manage to make one for my mom for her birthday. It is one of those projects that should have been easy, but having a scatter brained mind made it more complicated than it should have been. But that was totally my fault...So here is my mom's cover.

For mine I have a bunch of fabric scraps I got from Sweet Flavor on Etsy. There are so many fun scraps that I want to use but...

I think I might have to find a way to show off this scrap because it is interesting...

Noodlehead Zippy Wallet Love

Yesterday I decided to get an item on my list done. A little wallet to take with me to ballet because hey, ballet was this morning. I decided to go ahead and use Noodlehead's Zippy Wallet tutorial because it looked like it would fit everything that I need to take in it. And it does! It fits everything I need and there is still space left over! Not like I'm taking that much to class: driver's license, credit card/cash (depending on if I need to get another class card) and my class card. See? Lots of space left. And I managed to stick two lip glosses, a small box of hooks and eyes, a seam ripper AND my zipper foot in all of that extra space. And the other random dollar I found on my desk

Ok, I'll admit that it isn't totally finished. I still need to add a snap to it, or maybe a button, but all that fun stuff is at home. I'm heading home in 2 weeks and will snag them then and finish it, but for now I claim that it is finished. And I also attached my fabric closer to the zipper because I didn't like it showing. Yes, I'm weird, but in a good way. Anyway, back on topic, I love this little wallet and am going to have to make more though I'm thinking of adding a loop onto the next one that I make so I can attach my keys to it.

Look how thin it is with my ballet items in it!

Stuff with all the goodies above (please ignore the cat paw)

Crafty Goals for the Year

Yes sir, here are my crafty goals for the year. I may not accomplish everything on the list and things will be added, but I figure I'd give myself a starting point. It also might help me to remember projects that I might forget about otherwise. I'm slightly ADD when it comes to crafts and have quite a few half finished projects hanging around.

- Finish the 1000 cranes project

- Kindle cover

- Halloween bags and zipper bags from this post (yeah...they will get done, though there was some switching around as to what is going to who)

- The infamous Weekender bag by Amy Butler (have had the pattern and outer fabric for quite a while)

- Some clothes for me

- Cloth napkins

- A quilt for me

- Start planning a special project for my cousin's bat mitzvah gift (and get working on it)

- Holiday cards

- Some sort of small zipper pouch/wallet to take with me to ballet
- More hair bows

Do any of you keep a list of crafts you want to accomplish during the year/month/whatever or do you just craft as the inspiration hits you?

Jan 2007 Photo by my good friend Katie

Sneak Peek Part 2!

I finally ran to the store today to grab the things I need to finish up my project for Florida. 9 days! I'm getting a lot quicker at the four strand braid and finished the blue one in about an hour. 43 inches! That's more than I needed by 14 inches! Now I can make matching bows or something. All the ribbons are going to be braided except for the wide antique white grosgrain which is part of the waist band.

One thing that didn't make it into the photo is the new seam ripper that I desperately needed. I have been at a stand still the past few days due to my old seam ripper needing to be replaced. It was only, um, 20+ years old since I got it from my grandmother's craft stuff.

I was hoping to get a sketch of the project up today, but haven't done one yet. As soon as I get it done I will post it.

Also my second ballet class was today and it was no where near as painful as Monday's. YAY!

Sneak Peek!

Because heaven forbid I don't have enough projects going on at once, I got an idea for another project the other night and just had to start it right then and there. Never mind the fact that it was about 10pm and I didn't have any similar weight fabric to make a mock up with. And let's not forget that I had no pattern either, just the idea in my head. Sounds like the perfect project!

A couple of nights ago was night two of working on the project and I really am starting to think I'm slightly masochistic when it comes to my sewing projects because I spent about three hours on a small piece of the project, mind you there were a few cursing breaks when I managed to iron my fingers or just get them a little too close to the steam. I am determined to have this project finished in the next week so that I can wear it once to make sure there are no issues before packing it to take to Florida! In the mean time since all other projects have been put slightly on hold, I leave you with some pictures.

 So I learned a new way of braiding today and have decided to keep the pieces the way that they are after much though about redoing them. However I had no way of figuring how much initial length I needed for each strand and how long the finished result would be due to the initial length so this one is too short for the strap. By about an inch. So more time at the iron soon!

Close up with funky coloring

Kusudama

I finished! Instead of watching bad movies on Netflix, I noticed that Ghost Whisperer was on and decided to watch that instead. I think this took me around two hours total, but there was some waiting for glue to dry, making sure the cookies in the oven didn't burn, getting rice cooking and a few other distractions along the way. But it is done! And Tangie took a bite out of it, but it was fixable as well! 

The biggest challenge that I ran into while working was that some of the pages were so darn fragile! But I guess you can't expect too much from a falling apart book that was printed in 1844. Yep, 1844. It is one old book. My apologies to anyone who is offended by reusing a book that is already damaged beyond repair and yes, I do know some people who are offended by stuff like this. Seriously though, if I tried to fold some of the 2 inch by 2 inch squares it just fell to pieces. Lucky for me, I cut some extra squares so all was good. I think I am going to use the two ribbon tails to tie a bow at the bottom.

And because I just can't leave you with a single picture, or rather the only one that came out halfway descent (thank you rainy weather), here is a picture of my stays mockup.

I am going to need to take the side seams in a tiny bit from the front piece so I get a gap between center front because it meets and you need the gap to get the lift/shelf effect of the time period. But that's easy and I might wait until after I cut the fashion fabric and get the lining together because it might just be that the mockup fabric stretched some.

The trouble with batteries

Is that they like to die. The even bigger trouble with batteries is that car use them. Meh. So instead of running to the store to get the materials you need to work on holiday gifts, you end up being stuck at home waiting for AAA to come. Some how I don't think I will be making it to the store tonight, how sad. So instead you get to see the many different projects in the works and the new books that I got.

Books!

If any of you are into costuming I highly, HIGHLY suggest the book on the left, Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail. It has amazing pictures of garments from the Victoria and Albert Museum and sketches of the entire garment with descriptions on every page. The textiles in the 19th century were amazing and I am seriously beginning to think I was born in the wrong time period. The Macarons book, I'm planning on tackling and attempting to make some this coming week when I invade my brother's place to use his oven. There will be some pictures and notes from the attempt. Finally, the cupcake book it just adorable!

Modular origami pieces and fabric for a bags

I'm out of glue AND thread at the moment since someone decided that my thread spools were toys and managed to put them in her water bowl. Not to point any fingers or anything, Tangie....The fabric is from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane collection and is for a few little clutch type bags for my friend and possibly a little wallet with the leftover scraps. Or depending on what I feel like I might just make a wallet and a larger bag. We'll see what the fabric wants me to do when I get thread. Does that happen to anyone else? You think you know what you want to do with a certain fabric, but when you finally get to it it wants to be something else? Maybe it's just me...

Either late or absurdly early for Halloween

I'm going to go with absurdly early for next year. These wonderful little squares are slated to be split up into two different Halloween bags for my little sister and one of my cousins. There are two squares of each print, originally of 50 pints, but I snagged two sets for some bows. I haven't decided whether I'm going to split up the sets or keep them together. Luckily my little sis's doesn't have to be done until the end of January and my cousin and I are exchanging gifts in mid-January when we see each other so I have a bit of time left on these two.

Pants of Doom

The pants of doom, or the butterfly pants, depending on who you ask. There are two stories behind these pants one on how they got their name and the other on their creation.

I had to enhance the color to show it correctly so other than the pants, everything looks a bit funny in color. Sorry!

Freshman year of college I had a roommate who was in love with the color pink and by that I mean the bright, radioactive pink color. And everything she owned was pink: bedding, storage, desk stuff, binders, heck, even her TV was pink. Now, I'm not a pink person to begin with, but after a year of that I really couldn't stand the bright color. And aside from small amounts of pink in fabric prints and pink ballet tights, I haven't worn the color since. I also swore at the time that if I ever wore anything bright pink that the apocalypse was sure to come and the earth was doomed. So....

Nicely washed out colors showing the front

What is a girl to do when she got out of rehearsal after midnight and had to be back at the theatre a 8 am the next morning and she has no clean warm pants? Well, she could do a load of laundry in the awful machines in the dorm which take 2-3 cycles through the dryer for anything to be dry or if she happens to have some ridiculous fleece laying around she could make a pair of pants quickly and then get lots of sleep. So I went for option two. In all honesty, I can't for the life of me figure out where I got this fleece because I sure as heck didn't buy it, but whatever. And 45 minutes after I got back to my dorm I was in bed asleep with a pair of pants ready for the next day instead of being up until around 3 doing laundry and hoping the dryer was going to play nice. The pants would have been 30 minutes-ish, but I made a mistake and had to seam rip. Great thing is these pants can be worn in 20-ish degree weather and your legs will be perfectly nice and toasty!

And even though they aren't the most flattering pants in the world they are comfy and that is all that really mattered. Plus I had a rehearsal skirt that went over them. And those are my pants of doom.

Regency Fabric

I now have the fabric to begin making the Regency dress and I'm rather excited. Being on a slight budget I decided to go look at curtains at Target and managed to snag two white sheers. Just have to toss them in the wash and I'm ready to go. Now I really wanted cotton, but they only had polyester (ick), but what could I do? Oh well, I figure if it turns out looking good then I know that the pattern will work and if it goes disastrously wrong then I didn't waste good materials.

Crinkly texture fabric which I like

Wow

Let me just start this by saying I am one rather unlucky person when it comes to things and I have never won anything in my life (not even those crane games). But I recently entered a giveaway over at Blaze 'n' Crochet and won. *Gasp* Shana has tons of amazing photos on her blog and she has a horse!  

On another note, I was all geared up to get some sewing done for me this past weekend during the football games and had all the patterns and fabric pulled and I had three people call asking about alterations. Now I don't mind alterations because it means I get paid, but I want to make something for me. So today you get pictures of the fabric and patterns.

They really are the same color, just different textures.

Black with blue contrast. Hey look! Cat fur!

Navy blue and white stripe

I have got to find a better place to take pictures, maybe outside, so the colors look like they should. Oh well, first I would have to clean off the porch, it's rather messy at the moment. You know, leaves, some dead plants in pots, plants outgrowing their pots...yeah. There is also a white with light blue stripes that I want to use for the last pattern, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.


There are also a few of my grandmother's dresses that I have and love and want to remake in different material so I need to take a pattern from them. I really think clothing-wise I was born in the wrong time. The clothing now is blah (a technical term) and I can't stand wearing most of it. My new idea is that we should all dress in whatever time period looks best on us. So you might see someone walking down the street in victorian garb while someone else is in 50's clothing is having a conversation with someone wearing a toga. Could be fun. Sorry for the rambling, I'm going to post before this gets and more crazy.