Things that have really dropped off my radar in the last year: crafting! It occurred to me I could be more productive while watching soccer on Saturday and Sunday mornings so I put ye olde sewing machine on the coffee table, dug up the half-square triangle project I started working on a zillion years ago, and got to work. For Lisa’s benefit:
It occurs to me that I never posted the last, and most awesome, batch of my sister’s cards. Sadly, if you are reading on a feed, you will not get to experience the shock and joy of clicking on the “more” link to reveal the truly wondrous cards below. Scrolling is very anticlimactic.
I mentioned yesterday that while all the depressing G20 stuff was going on, I made three dresses. I made two for Audrey, one which didn’t work out and the other which I forgot to photograph, and McCall’s 5752 for myself.
I like the fact that the top is a faux-wrap, since I enjoy wrap dresses a lot but do not love the risk of having them fly open on windy days. I also like the rusching (is that the word?) in the midsection because I have no waist and it attempts to create one. I modified the pattern slightly by adding a gathering stitch down the middle of the back midsection piece to make sure it kept the rusches (?) in place better; the first time I made this dress I didn’t think to do that (it’s not in the pattern) and the back part is a little droopy. (more…)
I posted Amelia’s animal cards the other day, so today we move on to a smaller batch containing even more awesome.
My sister Amelia makes really awesome cards. She makes them out of card stock but the bulk of the highlighting and shading comes from multiple layers of different colours of card stock. For the super fine detail work, she uses pencil crayon since it’s nearly impossible to cut let alone glue pieces of paper that small. They’re usually fairly large (she has to mail them in 9×12″ envelopes) and most of them get mailed to her friend Brenda at random times of the year not related to holidays or other festivities.
Originally I was going to post them all in one post but there are too many, so now I’m breaking it up into three posts. You can click on the images for larger versions where you can get a better idea of her mad cutting skillz. Image heavy. Welcome to the jungle!
1) I absolutely loathe when people post to a communal blog, add a link that says “More details at my blog!” and then link to the main domain instead of the permalink of the place where they actually provide said details.
2) People who post to communal sewing blogs are terrible for this. They’re not unique in doing this, of course, but still.
3) Like many people who sew, I have a problem with buying patterns and then never making them. This has to stop. As such, I’ve decided my summer project will be to make all of the patterns that I haven’t yet touched.
After making the Maternity or Not Frock last week, I went ahead and made a second one that I only got around to photographing now. I’m now calling it the “… Or Not” dress so that I am not accidentally implying pregnancy in any way. I’m trying to decide just how loud the pattern is and whether or not a) it’s too loud for work, and b) whether the florals are so garish that they could be upholstery from a 1960s decor magazine.
Depressingly, last week I saw a dress that was constructed in basically the same way as this one but priced at $129. Seriously. I think I spent $9 on the fabric and splurged $1 on a new spool of matching thread.
Also, I want a coloured cardigan to wear with it but am coming up short. Why is everything either black or super baggy? My inability to find clothing I like is about 50% of the reason I make a lot of stuff myself now.
While having an Arrested Development marathon, I sewed myself up the Maternity or Not Frock (no, I’m not pregnant, I would fall into the “Or Not” category). The fabric is this weird purposely crinkly cotton; I’m unsure about the florals since florals are not really “me”, but I liked the colours well enough. I’m going to be making a second one (perhaps tomorrow) because it came together pretty quickly, even with me having to make my own bias tape because I forgot to buy some when I bought the fabric yesterday.
Pro tip if you’re thinking of using this pattern: the tutorial is spread out over several posts but not all of them are tagged with the “maternity or not frock” tag, which means you’ll miss a couple of posts if you rely solely on the tag to find the posts. It’s a simple enough project but it’s always helpful to be able to have a full read through before starting any project.
Like always, I forgot to hem the dress before taking the picture. I tend to do this with about 90% of my projects.
Gift for yet another pregnant coworker: dino baby shoes!
I sewed these up while watching the ice dancing Original Dance tonight, using the tutorial at Maked.ca. They were pretty quick to make!
I like to bake but being a single person who doesn’t really crave cookies all that often, I find little point in baking for myself. So I thought, Venereal Day is nearly upon us, why not work my way into the hearts of my coworkers by putting them into a diabetic coma? I even thought it would be pertinent to use a Hershey’s Kisses chocolate chip cookie recipe for thematic resonance. There’s no way I could go wrong!
Or not. Pro-tip: sometimes random substitutions are not a good idea. For instance, Skor bits for chocolate chips? Maybe not. I think what really did me in was substituting the almond Kisses (I do not like nuts in my baked goods) for caramel Kisses and cherry cordial Kisses. My stellar science skills failed to remind me that caramel melts.
The upside is that I now have eighteen unwrapped caramel Kisses that were meant for the rest of the cookie batter. Clearly the only option is to eat them all.
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