craftlog

Lisa posted some cute felt flowers the other day that made me want a colorful felt pin for my gray wool winter jacket.  It’s gray enough here as it is.  Then I remembered that I had this silly thing I made this summer (at the same kids’ craft tent as the vinyl wallpaper wallet).  It’s just thin strips of craft felt wrapped around each other with a dab of fabric glue at the end and a pinback hotglued to the back.  I’m debating whether I should add leaf cutouts or leave it as is.

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I finally found Stitch at a bookstore the other day.  What a pretty magazine.  I hope they keep publishing it. I want one of every skirt in it.  My only complaint is that some of it reads almost like promotional material.

First pattern tried is the mobius cowl, a Christmas present for my friend Carole.  The fabrics are the body of a hole-y cashmere sweater and some wool jersey I got at a nice fabric store on Bainbridge Island (also seen as the lining in the hood scarf).  It’s very soft and drapy.  The pattern was reasonably clear to follow, with nice use of diagrams.

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New year, new bag.  I’ve been wanting something with a long enough strap to go cross-ways.  Fabrics are a “tapestry” from Urban Outfitters I got crazy on sale a few weeks ago and charcoal wool felt.  Pattern is the Margaret Sling by oh fransson.  It’s a well-done pattern, though the strap is maybe a little too wide for my taste.  The only mistake I made was not noticing that the seam allowance is supposed to be slightly larger on the lining, which turned out to be a fortuitous error, as you’ll see below.

The pattern includes interior patch pockets, which I made from the flower repeats in the fabric.  Well, after putting the whole thing together, I like the inside-out version better!

The button is vintage.  iirc, I got it at an antiques store in Ithaca, NY.

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I haven’t been posting inspiration-y things for some unknown reason (last one was 2005 according to my archives!), so maybe I’ll do more of that this year.

I have a bad habit of accumulating piles of magazines.  Once the piles get too big, I file the ones I might ever refer back to (Readymades, all things Martha, and one-offs of select design and craft mags) and rip out pages I like from the rest.  I’ll eventually come up with a good system for organizing the loose pages, but for now they get thrown into a bin.  I rifle through the pile every once in a while when I’m looking for ideas.

Anyway, on today’s spree, I came across an issue of Wallpaper from a few months ago and was reminded of a pair of portraits commissioned from Hiroshi Tanabi (who I think is the same person as Hiroshi Tanabe, though this particular drawing isn’t listed on his site anywhere).  I like his line-work, and especially the mix of black pen with fluorescent marker.

The other one is the same drawing but with an orange highlighter instead of yellow.  I love love love the fluorescence against the brown background.  I think there’s some garish embroidery thread in my collection, hmmm.

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My mom is a very accomplished seamstress, and I’m fortunate that she still enjoys sewing for me. There is nothing like a custom-made garment! Since we live so far apart, fit has always been a challenge. There have been a lot of phone calls asking, “could you measure the circumference of your left bicep?” Mom decided she’d like to have a dress form of me, and while looking into commercial options, she stumbled on the many great descriptions of duct tape dress forms. Using the instructions at Threads Magazine and another duct form dress form description at Etsy, she hit the hardware store and we got to work.

We wanted to make sure there was some neck coverage, so I began with an old, close-fitting turtleneck and lengthened it by serging on an old t-shirt. Then, we started wrapping, 3 layers in total.

Once the wrapping was done, we cut it off (be careful not to cut your bra strap!) and stuffed it with the combination of an old pillow and fiberfill. Dad traced the bottom and cut a piece of plywood to fit, and mounted it on a pipe. The stand was recycled from a high school award plaque. We cut the pipe so that it would be my height.

Mom’s innovation was the addition of the arm. We find that the armscye is typically a tough region to fit (especially if you are from hearty Midwestern stock like me!) She has sewed for me since we made this, and she said that it really increased her confidence. And, a shirt she made recently proved the usefulness-it fit perfectly!

We also did one for mom (these are also a big help when sewing for yourself!)  We realized each has its own personality, so we named mine “Rhonda”, and hers “Lulu”!

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Ghosts of crafting past! While I was home, I took a picture of this cross stitch I must’ve done when I was in high school.  The pattern is out of the book 100 Cross-Stitch Gifts from Nature by the Vanessa-Ann Collection. I still have the book, and I bet that I’ve done more projects from it than any other single craft book. Only the tulip napkins ever got posted to craftlog, but I also made a big rose pattern that was used to reupholster a rocking chair seat, a set of placemats with flowers on the corners, and a sampler for latin class (ars longa vita brevis, iirc).  I guess that’s why the binding’s broken.  My how my tastes have changed!

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At home, I finally had enough free time to fashion a few pairs of earrings from some shank buttons I had collected. The most difficult part is removing the shank! The stars were plastic, and Dad ground them down for me using a bench grinder.

The little flowers turned out to be metal, and they are slightly curved, so after I cut off the shank using a Dremel cutoff wheel it was still too much shank, so Dad used a round grinding stone on his drill press, and we ground off the shank. In the process, we managed to mar the buttons a bit (we were holding them with pliers), so I ground out the scratches on the Dremel and then used Crocus Cloth to give them an all-over treatment.  I had never used this metal polishing cloth before, but it was flexible enough to fit into the small corners of the piece. The cloth gave them a matte finish that looks a bit like sterling. It turned out that underneath the surface, the metal was reddish, which I really like- it brings out the detail. We used straight wire cutters to modify the earring backs so they wouldn’t show through (and I smoothed them out with the Dremel). It’s fun to be home with Dad’s amazing tool collection for something like this.

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Present for my brother-in-law. It’s a super soft yarn I got either from my sister or my sister-in-law, I can’t remember.  Very nice to crochet with.  For a change of pace, and since my crochet edges are rarely very even, as you can see in the picture, I did it long-ways, just doing a random assortment of the basic stitches to make stripes of various widths.  It’s long enough to wrap around a few times.

I’ve almost made scarves for the entire family now, though my other sister and her fiance don’t need them what with the living in Miami and all.  I guess I’ll have to start on my sisters-in-law and their families next.

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Yay, guest posts are fun.  Since Becket started her own blog, it’s nice to have Amy add some of her creations from time to time.  Virtual craft night.

My sister asked for necklaces for Christmas, so I went rummaging in my resin bits drawer for ideas and ended up making one for my mom too.

This one was molded in a piece of tubing.  I sanded the ends to be sort of rounded and even.  I think I need to either get one step finer sandpaper for the last step, or coat with gloss or something to get them shiny.  I drilled holes in either end using a dremel tool.  Unfortunately they were too big for the headpins I had, so I added the beads, which I ended up liking more than if I’d just used the headpins.  Twisted ends into little loops, attached chain, done.  It looks pretty good on, but I can’t help thinking that it needs something else.

Another 2-layer cube like my yellow one.  I sanded this one all over because I like the way it kind of mutes the color.  Hole dremelled and threaded on weed-whacker line.

For the clasp, I threaded both ends through 2 beads that fit pretty tight.  Then you can put it over your head and still adjust it to whatever length you want.  The picture has the ends fastened with knots, but Radha noticed they were poke-y after wearing it.  Turns out that melting the ends until they balled up worked great!

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Mom and I spent Christmas Day working on a throw pillow for her couch.

She’d initially planned to use buttons to spice it up, but after a big search across many states (!) we couldn’t find anything quite right. Instead, we decided to embellish it with embroidery. I sketched a number of options on black construction paper, and we chose this geometric.

Then, we copied it on the all-in-one scanner, and tried out the layout with the fabric.  Although we had initially planned to use the elements horizontally, we realized changing them to the vertical gave a nice contrast with the horizontal pattern of the fabric.  We transferred the design, and decided to add symmetry by making the side elements mirror images.

Fortunately, we had two embroidery hoops, so we each worked one of the outside motifs using random odds and ends from her knitting basket. What a fun way to spend Christmas afternoon, needleworking side by side! Once we were done with the two side motifs, we realized that the center motif needed to be more symmetric, so we leveled the horizontal elements. Then, there was a bit too much negative space, so we added a catch stitch in linen cord along the center and sides. Mom has a copper coffee table, so we decided to add brass buttons to unify the pillow with the room (after all the button search, these had been in her stash all along!) She finished it with homemade cording in black canvas.

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