10 posts tagged “sewing”
Just wanted to remind everyone, in case they were interested. Signup ends tomorrow, May 25th! I'll be assigning partners on the 26th.
Here are some links for ideas. Go to my crochet and knitting links page if you want more links:
Knitting Pattern Central
Crochet Pattern Central
I've got this thing against bacteria. I know, I'm all about letting your immune system toughen itself up, but I cannot stand the thought of sponges and dishclothes being used for more than one day. What can I say, I'm a bit OCD that way. So I bought a giant cone of kitchen cotten and began making my own. I've had such fun with it, I've decided to host a swap for them.
I'm hosting my first swap over at Swapbot! I've been having so much fun over there, (so much so, that I've neglected blogging, sorry!) and wanted to host my own swap.
The swap will be for dishclothes, dishtowels, washclothes and scrubbies. Knitted, crocheted, sewn, whatever, they must be handcrafted.
Sign-up ends May 25th, just in time for some crafting over the long weekend. I'll try to assign partners ASAP so that you can get right on it while you're waiting for your brats and burgers to grill while the TV's blaring the Indy 500! Yay Hoosiers! Mail-out isn't until June 15th 30th, which gives you 3 5 weeks to craft your little heart out.
Anywhoo, here's the requirements:
I have recently become addicted to making and using hand-crocheted dish scrubbers, dishclothes and washclothes. I love all the fun patterns that are out there, lots of them are even for free. They can be crocheted, knitted, or even sew. But please, make sure that they can actually be used for their intended purpose. Who needs an extra-special mohair/angora scrubbie? Not me!
These items must be hand-crafted. Cotton and nylon are usually good choices, but I saw one where someone had put wool in the center of the scrubbie and it felted up nicely to clean really well. I leave it to your discretion with the exception of no fun fur! Please!
You will have two partners. You must make one set to send to each partner.
Sets will contain any combination of two items from the following list:
-one (1) dish scrubbie
-one (1) dishtowel
-one (1) dishcloth (at least 6" x 6")
-one (1) washcloth (at least 4" x 4")This swap is international as well. Please remember to give international senders adequate time for their packages to arrive, especially as this package will probably not be a flat envie.
Ratings of 4.5 or higher only. If you're a newbie, join one of the newbie swaps like Gram's Button Box's Fast Turnaround, Jessica Fancy!'s Weekend Newbie Swap #3, or Kimmie's Ratings Booster to get yourself some ratings. Newbies will need to have a FULLY filled out profile AND contact me to join. I'll be watching ratings closely and will ban those whose ratings drop close to the signup time.
Join in the fun! If you don't have an account over at swap-bot, get one, it's free!
Does a rotary cutter get dull rather quickly? I think I got about 15 cuts out of mine before it got absolutely dull and won't cut a thing anymore? Is there a tutorial on these things? I really love it and it's great for cutting felt, I even made a little case for it with a nifty pocket on the back for spare blades, but can't seem to get the hang of it. What did I do wrong? Can someone help a girl out? I'd probably use it all the time, but the blades are a bit pricey to have to change constantly.
I knew it! Earlier this week, when I had my car serviced, I was killing time at the mall where the shuttle dropped me off. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Here's S riding one of the lions at the mall.
She really is the biggest ham in the world. Anyway, we were there and I was at B&N looking through the sewing books because I'm due for a couple of Amazon gift certificates pretty soon and was looking at what I might buy with them. Some of you might know that my new year's resolution this year was to teach myself to sew. It's going okay, I'm certainly no expert seamstress, but I'm working on it slowly but surely. I've had my eye on a few books, one of which is Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing book. I got to thinking about my last post after Clippedwings was so sweet to look up pics for me from my earlier brainfart and thought maybe I had seen the bag in one of the books I was looking at. Sure as sh*t, I found it! Look! Isn't it cute?
So to complete randomness of this post, I leave you with a picture of a very silly VW beetle the Iceman and I saw the other day. It was stopped at a light in the opposite direction right next to us. It was so very, very cute! I can't remember exactly, but I think it had a little curly tail in the back, too!
Although I did sign up for the craft challenge, I have not been very good at keeping up, although I have been crafting pretty much everyday, a little bit here, a little bit there, so I thought I'd post some of my finished objects.
I'm totally addicted to embroidery. I used to do cross-stitch when I was younger, but something about the very precise nature of it left me a little cold. So now, I've taken up with embroidery. I started with a few things, like a couple of needle cases and as soon as I figured out french knots, boy, I was ready to have a good old time. This is the one I made for myself. It's already seen scads of action. I made another one for Jane of Art with a cute little skull and glittery red bow, but forgot to take a pic of it! I just love Jenny Hart's patterns, so kicky and cute! I ordered her Stitch-It Kit to get me started.
Next up, I finished up another Sweet Magnolia Scarflette. I just love these things. I've already made two and given them away as gifts for others. It's one of Jennifer's patterns from Fable Handmade Goods. She's freakin' brilliant! Have you seen her crocheted Marie Antoinette wig? Yes, it is crocheted! I also bought her poinsetta bunting pattern and she has some of the best free patterns. So cute and definitely not retro. I have my eye on the Might Oak Scarflette for autumn as my next purchase. I totally chintzed out and used Caron's Simply Soft for the neck part, and Bernat Softee Chunkee for the magnolia and some left-over Lion Brand Suede for the flower center.
I know, I've been gone. It's been a wacky week, trying to get adjusted having my MIL back to living with us. But a good one. It just feels right, having her here, even though it is sometimes tough to deal with the Alzheimer's. But I don't mind...only sometimes I just get tired out. Me, hyper Lynda, tired. Yes! Pigs do fly!
Anyway, here's a pic of some of the loot that was passed around by DH and I. The girls got really cute Hello Kitty! pencil boxes and a little grab bag of Sanrio candy from Daddy. I called him earlier in the day and asked him to bring home two Hershey's bars as A had informed me that that was her favorite chocolate. But no, once again, he had to go all ridiculous and brought home two Vosges bars for them. Crazy! Those things cost 7x as much as a Hershey's bar! But dang, they're good. Too good. Despite their highly exotic taste in cheese (link to their favorite cheese shop!) their chocolate taste buds are not as highly developed. And that is lucky for me. Because guess who's been eating away steadily at their chocolate bars while they've been tapping into the left-over Dum-Dums from A's classroom valentine's giveaways? Moi! I've been enjoying A's Goji bar (Tibetan goji berries + pink Himalayan salt + deep milk chocolate) and S' Naga bar. (sweet Indian curry powder + coconut flakes + deep milk chocolate) Mmmmmm! So good!
So along with the chocolate bars, I gave them cute little felt hearts that I stuffed and embellished. The one shown is S', but A's is totally cute too, it was hot pink felt with a pale blue heart and a hot pink button in the middle, embroidered with pale blue thread. I'm new to embroidery, so it was a bit of a rig job, but I think they turned out cute. A's is not shown because when I told her that is was a hug from me, she quickly stuffed it into her new pencil box to take to school! They loved everything. I didn't put pics of the Sanrio candy because it was too quickly consumed and I plumb forgot to take a pic of the pencil boxes, not that you don't already know what a pencil box looks like, but it's really cute, with a ballerina Kitty and it locks and has a little tray with compartments that sits in the top.
Ta-Da! My Otto Titslinger Hipslinger! Although I had this almost completed for quite a while, I couldn't bring myself to finish it up. I needed to add the velcro, find big enough D-rings and attach the pouch onto the belt. Well, I gave up on the velcro, instead attaching 2 d-rings and instead of using belt-loops to attach the pouch, went ahead and zig-zag stitched it directly on the the belt. Some of you might know that I have a love/hate relationship with my machine, a Euro-Poo. Precisely, I love it because I own a sewing machine, but hate it because it sucks ass.
Anyway, it's finally done. It was relatively easy, and I'm sure that if I had a thimble-ful of sewing knowledge, it would have been even easier. I got all brave because I finally figured out the correct way to put in the bobbin (see, I'm a sewing retard) and decided to figure out how to make a button hole. I did it!
I love this thing. I've been wearing it non-stop. It holds my Sony Clie, where I can listen to my multitudinous podcasts of which makes the housework go LOTS quicker.
If you have any podcasts to recommend, I'd appreciate it as I am always looking for more as housework never seems to needing to happen. Leave a comment below to do so. Thanks!
Just took a pic of me sporting the
I finally finished up that hobo bag I was working on. I hand-sewed the lining in, which was no small feat considering I have NEVER handsewed a thing in my life. It was a bit shaky, then I got into the groove, then when I hit the end, it just fell to pieces, but whatever, it's in there now! Here's a pic of it already stuffed to the gills. I used it yesterday to go on an all-day expedition to the Chicago Children's Museum, one of our favorite places to hang out. I like the way it's set up. Most of the exhibits are hands-on and in a room with only one entrance. So I could just plop myself down while the girls played...and played...and played for hours. FIVE to be precise, with breaks for crafting (them), snacks (rainbow popcorn anyone?) and lunch. The scarf tied on is because I'm always cold and sometimes like to supplement with some neckwear. You can really see the contrasting fabric. I love it! I had a little butterfly pin embellishing it, but the pin is overall just too small proportionally. I plan on either crocheting a flower or making one out of scrap fabric. and attaching. I'm not really very pleased with the handle, as I think it is too skinny and therefore looks all long and funny. I'll probably change that out at some point, but for now? I just want to use the dang thing.
The bag turned out pleasingly large, as I had wished it to be. It's 19" wide, 14" tall and there's a 13" drop from the handle. It can hold ALOT! Check it out! Yes, that is a giant cone of kitchen cotton. I knew we'd be there forever so I brought some crocheting to do while the girls were playing. I finished a dish scrubbie. My first. I forgot to include it in the pic. Also, two bags of popcorn that we were eating while watching the unicycle show at Navy Pier where the museum is located. We tooks some fun photo-booth pics at the museum together and my daughter had ballet, hence the little ballet tutu. But I'm just glad it's done. The handsewing was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The bag was lots of fun to make. It was very, very easy and the hardest part was making the lining, which I've never done before.
So the choices are between a gold and green that are scraps. The gold floral fabric is a little fabric memo from an interior design source. The pink and bright floral fabric are from Joann. There's no competition really, because the green and gold are really too small to work with unless I do some sort of serious rig job to make a belt. No thanks. My sewing skills are shoddy as is without that kind of foolishness going on. I'm off to pack my sewing machine and crafty bag and going to crafty girls just as soon as I change my clothes.
I have been trying ever so hard to finish this hobo bag. I got the super-easy pattern from shortylam over at Crochetville.org and used Lion Thick n' Quick to make it bigger. I was able to stumble through the making of the lining thanks to a very helpful friend but have frozen now that I must sew the lining into the bag. Then it's just a few quick stitches to get the handle on and I can obsess about the closure mechanism some other day. I think I'm going to try to finish it today, if I ever get off Vox! ; p
Well, since no one has done much of anything in the craft group at all, I'll start it out...
Would anyone like to participate in a SAL (sew-a-long) with me? I want to make this cute "Hipslinger" fanny pack. Now before you think I'm all 80's and whatnot, check it out. It's pretty cute and I think even my non-existent sewing skills will be able to handle it. The tutorial can be found at Craftster.org right here:
