May 12 2010

Botox & Butterflies

Posted on 12 May 2010 by Kim

Botox is not for me!
I have determined that, no matter how wrinkly I may get, botox will never be a part of my life. How did I discover this? Last night, while sitting on the couch watching Glee with Donovan and Ashley, something apparently bit me on the left side of my lower lip. I think it was one of the wannabe ladybugs that swarm northern NY in the spring. Whatever it was, it hurt like hell and made my lip swell up unattractively within mere moments. I was numb and swollen from my lip to almost my chin. So sexy. Drinking iced tea was an adventure in skill and coordination, so as not to be wearing it. I thought Cheerios sounded good, but I got about 4 spoonfuls in me before I decided that it hurt too much to male it worth it!! So, I popped a Benedryl and I am mostly okay again. I am still a little swollen and a little numb, but I won’t scare small children. And most importantly, drinking is no longer a gymnastic feat so I can drink coffee to my heart’s content! ♥

Reusing butterflies!
No, that is not nearly as weird as it sounds. I have these jeans, cheap ones from WalMart, that started to wear at the side of one of the back pockets not long after I bought them. Being a crafter and seeing potential for reuse, I tossed them into my “make something out of this crap” pile and there they have sat for several months. Then yesterday, in a burst of creative thought, I realized that the stitching on the back pocket kind of resembled a butterfly and that I had fabric with butterflies with accent colors in the same goldish color. I saw a bag in the making! The thumbnail below is clickable so you can actually see said stitching.

I thought for a moment about stitching in some color between some of the dotted line stitching and the main satin stitching of the design, but decided that would probably be more trouble than it is worth. So, instead I think I am going to remove the pocket, complete with the part of the jeans it is attached to, using that as seam allowance fabric. Then I am going to back it with some of the pink fabric (in the clickable thumbnail below) wrong sides together, leaving the top open to form a second pocket attached to the jean one. When I attach that whole thing to the bag, I am going to add a button to the front of the jean pocket and a tab between the backing fabric and the bag itself to form a closure for the now 2-slotted pocket. I think I am going to cut long strips out of the jeans to make into handles. My inspiration for my bag is the canvas boat tote from LL Bean here. Only mine will be funkier and not made of canvas, although I do use a super heavy interfacing. I think the butterflies will be the outside of the bag, the pink the lining, and the green will be the accent color for an inside pocket. Purty!

And this shall become a purse!

Apr 23 2010

Craftastic endeavors ♥

Posted on 23 April 2010 by Kim

Now that I have my table back, I have been doing lots of crafty stuff again, especially sewing. I made a nifty little drawstring bag that I LOVE. It is the perfect size to hold my wallet (one of those new hard ones with the clasp), my Sony Reader, my Black Berry, the necessary Altoids, and a few random small things, too. The only ones I ever see out there are the ones made out of nylon, intended for gym or beach stuff. I wanted one that was made of cute fabric and lined to use as a purse. So I winged it and I love how it turned out. Most bags like this use grommets on the lower edges that the cords run through and knot in place. I didn’t want to use grommets because the fabric could pull and tear around them with use so I came up with a way to sew them in place, which was actually more difficult than I would have though, especially when adding a lining to the mix! But once I figured it out, it was easy to do, and I have made a couple since. I posted the tutorial here, complete with pictures showing it in progress and finished. I also turned all my patterns in my “crafty stuff” section into PDF files so that they are easier to download, save and print.

Yesterday, I got a whim to make myself a new top with some funky skully fabric I got last year from J and O Fabrics. I saw a pillowcase dress on Craftster and it got me looking for patterns to make an adult version in the same style. I found a few tutorials, but I didn’t want the ties to tie over my shoulders. I have a halter-style shirt that I really love that ties the way I wanted the new top to tie, so I kind of combined the style of the pillowcase dress with the ties of the halter and worked out my own top. I have everything cut, pressed, and pinned so my job for the day is to sew it all together. It only has 4 pieces of fabric that are all rectangles. There is one for the front, 2 for the back, and 1 for a lining for the boob area. I think it would be just as easy to do it with a single piece in the back, though. It took 3 pieces of elastic and some bias tape and some ribbon for the ties and some trim along the neckline and that is it. I made it so that I only have to actually sew in elastic (which is my personal nightmare) in one place. The other two are slipped through casings, as is the ribbon tie. I have been writing the tutorial as I go so I will post it when it is done. I only needed a few measurements to make the top, too, which was nice,… all of which is explained in detail in the upcoming tutorial. The beauty of this top is that, because of the style, it doesn’t need to be exact and perfect!

Sep 25 2009

Adventures in yarn,…

Posted on 25 September 2009 by Kim

Sometimes I think I am an idiot!
I bought some cheap, but yummy feeling yarn from JoAnn Fabrics a few weeks ago and I have been using it to make a simple v-stitch scarf. Well, I finished it last night and started putting the fringe on it. This morning, I picked it back up to finish it and continued to fringe it on the end I had finished with. When I was done, I flipped it to the other end, the end where I had started and realized I had made a boo boo. I had started it with a single row of single crochet before starting the v-stitch. But the mistake was minimal and I decided not to worry about it. But then I realized there there was a significant size difference between the two ends of the scarf. Upon further investigation, I realized that about 2/3 of the way through it, I had managed to somehow add an extra v-stitch to the rows, adding 3 extra stitches. So, I frogged and frogged and frogged and finally got it back to where I made the mistake. And that was not the end of it. As I started to type this, I realized that I had made yet another mistake that I can now fix. I had forgotten that not only had I done that row of single crochet at the beginning, but I had followed it with 4 rows of v-stitch, and 2 more rows of single crochet before v-stitching again. So I need to add that single crocheting in and finally finish the damn thing! Maybe I can actually do it without all the stupid errors!

May 27 2009

I anti-♥ thieves, but I ♥ cool crafty stuff!

Posted on 27 May 2009 by Kim

I anti-♥ thieves!
Nothing pisses me off more than someone with no integrity or honor. Donovan and I both play World of Warcraft, and he recently started a guild. He funded it and set it all up and had a great set of people to start with,… for the most part. When he set it up, he set different limits on each of the ranks within the guild. That meant that there was a limit as to how much money could be withdrawn each day and how many items could be withdrawn. Somehow, one of the guildies hacked past those limits, changed all the settings, took 100 gold (a lot) and a bunch of high level items (he was a low level player) and boogied on out of there. Wiped us right out. So Donovan lodged a complaint against him with the GM and I got an email this morning that the gold had been replaced, which is good. However, it just ticks me off that someone would take the time to be a thief in a freakin’ game. It just seems pathetic to me.

I ♥ funky crafty stuff!
I saw an ad on Facebook this morning for a business called Urban Threads. So, I clicked on it and went to visit. I LOVE this store! They have some great designs, for hand or machine embroidery or for digital art use. The designs are either downloaded or sent via email and are really cheap. There are a ton of categories of art and a great project section with lots of ideas. I completely ♥ Urban Threads!

Feb 24 2009

Ginny & Her Baubles

Posted on 24 February 2009 by Kim

I recently reconnected with my friend Ginny from high school through Facebook and have now become a devoted stalker of her blog, Luna’s Baublebilities. Her blog is devoted to her crafty endeavors, namely beadwork. Her jewelry is beyond amazing and I love reading about her pieces and how she creates them. She has an amazing eye for color and design and I love seeing her photos of her works in progress as she creates the pieces. She is currently working on a piece for a wedding set and it is a really interesting piece. It is necklace, done asymetrically and I love the look and the colors she chose for it. She sells a lot of her pieces on Etsy in a shop of the same name HERE. I am completely jonesing for the Oread bracelet, which I think is simply gorgeous! I bought a pair of earrings this morning, called Hot Pink Go-Go earrings, and I can’t wait to get them! She also has a beading supply store on Etsy, Goblin’s Market, which has a TON of great things! Go check her stuff out; it is beautiful!