As a minor update, last night I added a new feature to my blog. On the sidebar, there will be a featured cool artist. I’ve thought about doing that- keeping a however infrequently rotating link/info/maybe a picture/whatever to some brilliant artist who has caught my eye, and now I’ve finally started doing it. I haven’t worked out the bugs, but whatever. I added a new category for “Cool Artists,” to go with it. While posting about Vhils two days ago, I decided I just needed to start doing that- there are so many of them, it seemed appropriate to have their own category. Now they’re organized into a category and will get rotated on the sidebar. Currently it’s Giuseppi.
Another thing that probably should have it’s own category is “Projects I pick up and will most likely never finish in this lifetime or at least not without a few months of being picked up and put back down for weeks at a time.” There would be a lot LOT LOT of entries. A depressing lot. Never mind.
I’m mentioning it though because I’m getting the sewing bug again, and I believe I will make the dress pictured above. I got it in a sale bin at JoAnne Fabrics for three bucks. It was one of the more pricey ones- they were all in the price range of $1.99-$2.99. Yaaaay. I got four of them! And then I took them home and put them in a pile and there they remain to this day, but I believe I’m gonna give that dress a shot.
I made some arm warmers last year and was very happy with them. I have since attempted to make another set for a friend, but I haven’t found the right fabric, although the onslaught of cold weather has made me renew my efforts at hunting down the material I will need. They’ll probably never get done at this rate, but oh well. Meanwhile, Burdastyle has some other really nifty winter accessory DIYs that I can distract myself with…
I wanna make some spats. Definitely spats, but maybe also the headwrap and that awesome bomber hat. I think the spats are actually gonna happen.
Yaaaaay!
This past week was awesome! My two brothers and their families have come through town, and all in all, it was great. My sister in law brought me a set of quilting quarters and this little Heather Bailey Plush Elephant kit. I just finished my first elephant, and here she is. I’ve named her Esther.
The instructions have little hearts and stars you can make to stitch onto her side, but I decided that wasn’t complicated enough and made a little pocket instead.
It was pretty easy to follow the directions, but sufficiently challenging to make it feel like an accomlishment now that it’s done. I’d say it took me about four hours from start to finish, understanding that I start and stop a lot. The end product is satisfyingly cute, although I used bad scissors to cut the panels and made them slightly uneven, which showed up a little in the finished elephant. Overall, I would say this was a very good little pattern- I wanna get one of her other ones now and make it, although I may make a few more elephants now.
Thanks to my sis for the gift!
Since I post music on Mondays, I thought today’s post deserved something joyful and lighthearted. I give you Camille’s Le Festin from the soundtrack for the movie Ratatouille. Enjoy!
After finding this set on etsy or ebay or wherever it was, I made these. I have no idea where I will ever be able to wear them, but I just finished them a few hours ago and can’t stop putting them on and taking them off again. Maybe some nerdy convention where it’s okay to be an adult dressed up in comic book clothes? I don’t know… I need to find a neo-victorian crowd to hang out with so I can wear these things around. I am so giddy about this right now!
As for the specs, I used t-shirt knit for the gray fabric and cotton flannel for the green. The five strips of cloth are 12″ long and 2.5″ wide except for the upper-most stripe, which is 3.5″. I used 1/8″ brushed nickel eyelets from some scrapbooking store and the cord is cotton. There are 16 eyelets on each arm warmer, and the fold in which I embedded them is about 3/4″, but really I didn’t measure that- I put them on my arm and pinched them to a tightness that looked and felt right, pinned them there, and then ironed it before hammering in the eyelets with a setter that is pretty close to this one.
As per usual with my sewing projects, I started this thinking it would be as easy as 1-2-3. It ended up taking several days, and this is now my fourth set, but I finally got them done and am quite pleased with the outcome.
I saw a good giraffe print polyester at Hancock Fabrics a few days ago and believe it would make a great dress. I kind of like this dress idea, what with the vintagey look it has.
Some other ideas I had though like a fold-over collar type thing with a placket front with big buttons. Maybe a belted waist. Sort of Safari Girl.
Christmas is coming… the geese are getting fat;
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat.
If you haven’t got a penny, a half-penny will do.
If you haven’t got a half-penny, God bless you!
My mom used to sing that to us around Christmastime when we were kids, and I find myself singing it off and on all through the month of December. It’s almost here! Yay! My husband and I are exchanging wish lists, and this is a slightly edited version of mine. Edited in that some of these are things I don’t think really merit the cost- it isn’t a very realistic list- it’s more like a collection of things I think are cool/wouldn’t mind owning. But people can buy me this stuff if they want to.
This is not the image from the cover of their cd, but I can't find the real thing. Giraffe Attack is this amazing band in Maine with BNL kinda material with a Raconteurs kinda sound and... um... well they call themselves Giraffe Attack. I like all the stuff they've uploaded thus far and have every intention of aqcuiring this album one day. Hopefully for Christmas.
The Babylock Imagine! My sewing skills have not yet reached the point where I feel like I can justify purchasing a serger, but I waaaant one...
The Dansko Marcelle. I own a pair of these already and have been so happy with them that I want to get some new ones to replace them when they go. They're like a hundred and fifty dollars for a pair, but believe me- they're worth it.
Subtle enough that I could avoid the embarassment of blurting out that I'm a Harry Potter fan. I don't know why I should feel embarassed. There are plenty of respectable adults who like this. This tripe. Okay, it's official. I'm coming out of the closet and saying- I like Harry Potter. And I'd probably have ended up in Slytherin. The arm warmers were sold on EBay a while back. I think I would have to make my own to get another pair just like them, and I'm considering doing just that. They're sooo rad.
Footie pajamas! These have SOCK MONKEY FEET! Available in Target- I ask you, who wouldn't want them? Okay, it's probably a pain to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but still. Pajamas with sock monkey feet!
Some magazines I like. I've never been sure if I liked them enough to subscribe, though (especially when twelve issues runs $75...)
Reblogging- I still really want this. I am trying not to mention it too much to my husband, but this hat is making me drool on myself.
This little cutie has started showing up on Red Carpets everywhere; I kind of hope someone starts making a knock-off for non-rich people, and I also kind of want to make my own out of a beat up old book.
Somehow I now feel like this is a selfish post. Oh well… the stuff was cool… Hey, if Oprah can do her favorite things, why can’t I?
This was posted a little bit ago on the Blog/Flikr Group “Feeling Stitchy.” I do not always like stitched words… home and hearth type proverbs surrounded by embroidered flowers don’t call me at all, but sometimes I see a thing like this and it’s awesome. A pillow cover that looks like notebook paper. Trust the universe. Well, okay. I guess I’ll do that, then. Not quite sure what that means- it has kind of a zen ring to it. Isn’t it cool?
What I don’t need is another project to start and not finish, but this is seriously making me want to make a hand-stitched… um… something… that looks like a sheet of lined notebook paper with words of some kind on it. I am open to suggestions as to what the words should be.
I couldn’t narrow down my image selection any further than this– these are all so beautiful! I discovered Kat OSullivan today on Etsy and quickly grew to want a piece of her clothing. Each one is so joyful and promises such sweaterly comfort. I know it’s not really a good thing to allow yourself to crave something- allowing yourself to develop a new “need” in your life based on a picture- but… hooo boy. I may start “needing” a $400 elf hoodie. I don’t know if I would wear it everywhere, every day, or if I would keep it in a display case, or if I would pack it up for emergencies when I needed some quick happinness… aren’t they wonderful?
I was initially just intending to post about the clothes, but I found some giraffe art on her website and had to include a few drawings.
This one was made to be more like a cross-body handbag.
Well, I have produced another purse shaped like an owl! Hooray! It was meant to be a birthday present for a friend, but in actuality became a belated birthday present for a friend. (Sorry, Friend.) I did this one with a red, black, white and cherry-pink color scheme and am happy with the finished product.
A front shot of the purse.
The back side of the purse.
I tried to show the pocket on the inside- made to be cell phone sized- but the lighting is not great and this system has no graphics editing software that could adjust the light appropriately. The lining inside is all polka-dotted, as the visible bit shows, and the pocket is about four inches deep.
I’m so excited about this, although not enough to make me wanna get married to crafting. I feel an inner urge to perfect this pattern and start mass-producing them. Wouldn’t they be great? I know I’m talking about my own work here, but I can’t help loving this purse. My friend mentioned something smart the other day, though- a craft fair! A bunch of the girls who like making schmultzy crafty stuff could produce a table full of goods and sell them together… Smart idea, no? The Renegade Craft Fair comes to Chicago once a year (I think), and there are a few others like it. A group of us could collaborate on a booth or something. That could be really cool.
Also, in case you haven’t seen this yet, you should watch it now.
Crafty stuff about working with fabrics and dyes- more project-oriented than textbook style, and quite fun.
I think I want to go live with the Angry Chicken lady (that’s her book above).This was her post from a few days ago. Oh my. What a cool person- I wanna make lip balm and home made shampoo and stuff! Someone just gave me a Ritchie Havens CD as a gift and now I’m feeling very hippie and indie. I wanna make my own deodorant and go protest something now. I am seriously getting email order #11.
As for my own inventiveness, I’m on and off working at figuring out how to dye and print my own fabric. I got these books out of the library and they are super late and need to go back, but are too cool to give back just yet. Portabella Pixie wrote a very informative post about designing textiles, and I’ve been sort of looking at her experience in my own attempts at producing a good cotton pattern set. I guess it would be more profitable all around to try to have a textile producer actually,um, produce the stuff, but I want to try to print it myself. Cuz I’m like that. Complicated just isn’t good enough- it has to be ridiculously complicated! I’m working on a sort of Asian-themed pattern set based on a drawing of a Japanese doll I made a while back. I’m pretty happy with the pattern ideas that I’m coming up with, but printing and dyeing them will be a whole separate challenge, unless I just opted for Spoonflower, which is really pretty pricey.
This book describes and has clear illustrations of different fabrics and gives guidelines for identifying them.
Very useful text- includes guidelines on building your own screenprinter.
This is the one I've spent the least amount of time on, but it has some good illustrations and info on working with resists and block printing.
Giuseppi Giraffe
My first featured artist will be a personal favorite. This young giraffe has accomplished many great works of greatness and makes an excellent placeholder until I decide who's going to go in this spot in his place.
Here he is pictured with one of his mosaics. If you squint, you can see it's his name.
