Sewing Adventures and Mishaps

I really love to sew and I have really acquired quite a pattern collection that is always growing thanks to $.99 pattern sales.  I recently fell in love with Butterick 5329.

It is a really cute caftan style dress or top and I thought it would camouflage some of my middle “trouble spots”.  The pattern itself is very interesting and the pieces are all unusually shaped.  I was a little annoyed that the pattern pieces had to be cut one at a time, as opposed to folding the fabric in half and cutting two at a time.  It takes a large amount of concentration to keep from cutting two left sleeves, if you know what I mean. 

The instructions were great and it went together easily, I made view B, the knee length dress.  When I got to the point of trying it on I was a little disappointed, it is not as flattering as I had hoped and view B was a very bad choice.  I cut it down to tunic length and that helped a little.  Sadly it seems to make me even fuller through the middle.  It is very comfortable though. 

Surprisingly it looks better on me than it does on Boobzilla (my duct tape dummy).  I think it would be a super cute maternity top, but I don’t know how much wear I’ll get out of it, we’ll see, maybe it will grow on me.  I asked my husband, should I wear this or find something else and after a long pause he said I should find something else, so it’s not just me.  It is a nice pattern and the problem is my figure is not the meant for this design, so if you’re super skinny or need a cute maternity top this one’s for you!

I also had a bit of luck at a yard sale this Saturday, I bought a vintage sewing machine in a wood cabinet for $5.00, the sewing machine doesn’t work, but I was really interested in the cabinet.  Oh, and the cabinet was full of vintage sewing notions and wooden spools!

I have removed the machine from the cabinet and now my sewing machine has a new home, it’s too big to fit into the cabinet, but I don’t care, it can sit on top.  I also found the instruction manual and a box full of different feet for the machine, I think I’ll put it on Craig’s list.  I also have a good collection of vintage notions to make a shadow box with.  It was such a great find, I can’t stop talking about it!!!

Fabulous Felt

I think I may have mentioned my love of inexpensive craft felt before, but I’ll say it again, I love this stuff!!!  As I was checking in with some of my favorite blogs this week I saw these adorable felt hair clippies on Treasure for Tots and was dying to give them a try.  FYI, hair clips are on sale this week at Hobby Lobby, I got regular sized ones and extra large one. 

I ended up just experimenting with the larger ones, my embroidery skills are very basic and having a bit more space to work on made it easier.  This is a little, quick project and bonus, I had all the supplies on hand except for the clippies!  Note the squares on my cutting mat are 1” to give you an idea of the size of these things, I think one will be enough hair decoration.

Okay, the clippie on the top center, with the sequined sugar skull may be a bit much, but I got the idea in my head and had to see it through! 

I really like the purple one and it perfectly matches one of Little Miss’s sweaters, so yay!  I have also used felt to cover other things, like bottle cap pin cushions and fabric tape measures, can you tell I was going for a Halloween theme?  I would like to make little sets that include a pin cushion, tape measure, and needle book, it’s on the never ending list.

The real question is what else can I cover with felt and primitive embroidery? any suggestions would be appreciated :)

The Prizes have Arrived

My Crafty Chica bobble head arrived today, apparently it was a rough trip.

Don’t worry a little tacky glue fixed her right up.  I thought about using glitter glue, but I was afraid it wouldn’t hold. ;)

  I have also picked and received my prize from MakerShed, it’s a knitting/felting kit.  I’ll share more about that once I get the chance to knit it up.  Now I just need some shelves to keep all my crafty pretties on, I think I’ll have to check the thrift stores.

Friday Favorites

I feel a Halloween vibe here.

From Left to Right, top to bottom:

Creature of the Swamp Mask – SkinzNhydez

Molotov Velvet Heart Eye Patch – gothfoxdesigns

Skeleton Peg Doll – QuirkyK

Halloween Creature Set (beads) – flamingheart921

CaPTureD Bat Boy Assemblage Jar – cedarjunction

Vintage Altered Halloween Collage on Canvas – QueenBe

Vampire Fangs – JL67

Evening Web Etsy Shop Set – bearcengic

Cottage Witch Oils your Choice - Vermorlian

Nothing Crafty to Report

Hi everyone, just thought I would take a moment and let everyone know that I have nothing crafty to report.  This week our new house is being weatherized (Yay!), but it is absolute chaos here and there is no crafting taking place.  Our new home will be toasty warm this winter, but I have no projects to share.  This is my living room and dining room:You’ll notice that everything is pulled out from the walls and heaped up everywhere.  That table on the bottom right, (there’s a table under that basket) is where I normally do my crafting.

They have drilled holes in all the outer walls and blown in insulation made from recycled newspapers.

The holes are being patched and I will be retouching the paint in Little Miss’s room, I’m glad I haven’t gotten around to doing more painting.

They’ll be back again tomorrow fixing windows, putting in a new front door and adding some more insulation to our basement.  I’m hoping to have the house back to somewhat normal by next Monday.

The only semi-crafty thing I can report is that my Instant Cemetery was included in another Storque article, Yay again!!!

I’ll be back next week and back to being crafty and I’ll be securely insulated!!! 

Carnivorous Plants

Carnivorous plants have always reminded me of Halloween and I have had a Venus fly trap before and it is really fascinating!  I found these kits at Hobby Lobby.

I just had to have it!  I bought an apothecary type jar for mine to grow in because I wanted something nicer than the plastic dome the kit came with.  There are seeds for Venus fly traps, pitcher plants, sundew plants, cobra plants, and trumpet plants.  Part of the seeds can be planted right away and part of the seed have to go through “Stratification” in the fridge.  I have planted the first batch of seeds and the rest are in the fridge for the next six weeks.  I guess I won’t have a flourishing carnivorous garden this year, buy next year it will be awesome!  The Dune Craft Company makes several different plant kits, if this one grows well I will be trying a few more, they have some really interesting ones.

Speaking of creepy plants, you may remember the Poison Tree Ornament that I made last year and finally this year they are available in my etsy store, get them now, only three available!!!

Ladies Top to Girly Dress

On one of my recent trips to my local thrift store I found this adorable super small top.  It was $.99 day and I really liked the fabric, I was thinking it would make a cute tote. I was looking through all of my finds and Little Miss saw this and thought it was a dress for her.  After trying it on her I realized that with only a little alteration it would be just perfect.

I removed one row of the elastic smocking about 2 inches from the “skirt” and then chopped the top off, I finished the edge with a stitch on my machine that looks like a blanket stitch (I’ve lost my manual and I have no idea what it’s called).  I did the same thing to the smocking about 2 inches from the top and cut off and finished the edges.  I used this strip to make the straps.  I also cut another strip of smocking off of the scrap to make a headband, I just stitched a seam at the correct size and ta-da, matching headband!

So here’s my super cute $.99 dress, I had brown thread on hand.  The great thing is that she will be able to wear this for several years, the smocking is loose fitting, with room to grow and the length is generous.  I will definitely keep on the look out for smocked tube tops, this was just to easy!

Command Center

I have been trying to get my house in order for months.  I used to be so organized and my life was sooooooo much easier, I really need to get everything back under control!  I have been reading and watching some of those organizing shows on TV and they always recommend that you have a command center or launch pad, where you keep keys, backpacks, purses, out going mail, etc. and so I decided I needed one too!  Here is the area I decided to work with, technically this isn’t the real before shot, before there was a shoe rack and a pile of shoes here.  Yeah, it looked worse than this and yes that is an entire tote full of fabric.

I was shocked at my local office supply store to see that a combination marker board/magnetic board/cork board was $35.00 – $75.00! (you know I wanted the $75.00 one) and that did not include markers, push pins, or magnets, yikes!  I made a quick trip to my local “mart” store and found a magnetic marker board and some cork tiles fairly inexpensively.  At Hobby Lobby I found a nice upholstery fabric remnant for a couple of dollars and ta-daaaaa, a spiffy new command center.

First I cut the fabric into squares a little larger than the cork tiles.  The fabric I used was super easy to cut because it has a pattern of small dots on it (they’re black and not showing up on the photo)  Using spray adhesive I attached the fabric to the front of the cork.  I trimmed the corners diagonally, leaving a little fabric in the corners for turning.  I then used tacky glue to glue the edges of fabric to the backs of the tiles.  The marker board and cork tiles came with mounting squares to stick them on the wall with and I just eyeballed where I wanted them an stuck them up.  I think I need to move the key rack to above that tile on the top right to make it more symmetrical.

Obviously I still have some work to do, like draw up a calendar and tack up some more stuff, sort all the mail, and organize the basket of doom there on the left, but I think it’s really going to help.  I’m also going to make some covered milk crates to hold library books and backpacks/purses.  I would also be really cute to make some customized magnets and push pins.  The rest of my house is still a giant mess, but I’m working on it, little by little :)