Making progress- Finishing projects

I'M DONE! Yes, I finished the apron, completely. I gave it a wash and dry and noticed that the flannel fabric enlarged itself. How does it get bigger instead of smaller? Oh well, I'm not going to fuss over it. I know my sewing skills stink but my defense is lack of consistent sewing over the years. I've had my sewing machine for about 15yrs and I've probably used it the equivalent of 1yr or less of consistant sewing. Shame on me, letting my sewing machine sit and be neglected which is probably why it doesn't want to sew a straight line. I really need to take my lovely in and have a tuneup.

So I finished the apron and here it is. close up of adjustable neck strap and the pockets in place. WOO! 1 project down a gazillion to go.







I started sewing on my sewing machine cover last night. I already had the pieces somewhat cut out. I made the rough pattern on graph paper then cut the pattern out from freezer paper. I then ironed the freezer paper to one side of my fabric sandwich and used it as a sewing guidline. I used a quilted fabric and a 2009 Brother Sister design studio fabric called Swirly floral or something like that. I probably should have used a stiff stabilizer to have it stand up better but I don't care, I like it just the way it is though I thought about sewing in a few cuts of lightweight boning to help it stand better. The floral fabric was a clearance fabric and I only found one person that had it when searching for some more of it. I love this fabric and I am by no means a very "FLORAL OR RETRO" person. I look at this fabric and it makes me happy, just like my sewing machine. I expect to have this finished tonight or no later than thursday. After I finish this project i'm gonna start on the kitty bed for my brood.

WIP/Sewing machine cover






I also played around, well i'm still dabbling with it, making a fabric embellished ATC (artist traiding card) with some of the scraps from the floral fabric. I want to make a bigger wall hanging of it for my sewing area but I only have a little bit left, maybe a 1/2 yard give or take some inches. I didn't get a picture of the card, not done yet.

Slow Progress

Not sure what to write other than I HATE MY DEPRESSION! I hate the stress that occurs daily in my life and spend hours daydreaming about a vacation away from my husband and teenage daughter and sometimes the cats are also included in that daydream. Honestly, I prefer my kitties to my family right now.

I have not finished that apron. I had planned on finishing this 2 weekends ago, well it didn't happen and last weekend, same thing. I had plenty of time, just no mojo. Sigh, I think what has made it bad is that something just wasn't feeling right and made things just seem so off. I did get the pockets finished and they are ready to be sewn on. I also finished the straps and attached them as well as the ruffle. When I got ready to put the pockets on, that's when it really hit me that something just wasn't right. Somehow, and this probably happened because at the time I cut this out, freehand, I was using the carpeted floor as my table. I did not cut identical sides, one of the sides was about 3/4 inches off. I found this out when I finally folded it, after all that work too. I was just gonna forget about it and not bother to try and fix it but the more I looked at the more it said FIX ME! So I ripped out the edging in the area that need to be cut down and trimmed to match the other side, marked the new sewing line and that's as far as I've gotten. I think I may sit down tonight and get this done, might take me a whole 30 min to an hour to make the change sew it, reattach the edging and maybe change the strap so that's adjustable instead of one size fits all. Crossing fingers.

I was going to post a picture of the pockets by themself but it seems I haven't downloaded them and they are not on my camera, I must have accidentally deleted them, crap. I do have a couple of pics that kinda show the pockets.

This is my kitty Guinness, he loves getting up on my sewing table and hanging out when I get up to get something. Here he is holding down the apron when I was attaching the ruffle.


This is him holding down my handmade seem presser and in this pic you can see one of the pockets are done minus the strawberry button.


Here's his close up. He's spoiled rotten.


This photo shows the apron all sewn up except for the pockets. The pockets have their strawberry buttons attached and I was trying to place them. I'm sure you can see what I mean by the "OFFness" I was talking about in this pic.



Here is a little throw pillow that i've been meaning to make for a sometime now. I've had the pillow and the material but just didn't get around to it until about 2 weeks ago, just before all my mojo ran out the door and left me hanging with unfinished work. I've had this material for years, probably since the late 90's. It's a heavy knit and I still have probably about 4yds of it left, I think I bought like 5yds of it when I got it and it's 60 inches wide.
Front:

Back:


So this has been the extent of my creativity the last few weeks. I hang my head in shame because the ideas don't stop just my mojo. I have noticed that when I do manage to blog and complain that I haven't finished something it helps just a bit to tweek me some to get something done as long as it's not to complex. Complexity lately melts my brain into mush.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND NEW IDEAS!

It's a new year and i'm hoping this one will be filled with more creative persuits than last year or the years before. Crossing fingers that I can make that happen. I'm trying, might take me a little bit to get going but I think this year will be good.

Here are some pics of the gifts I made for family and friends for Christmas. I call these Scoodies (scarf with a hood). I looked them up on the internet and they are really a very basic pattern. I did modify it a little bit in the back behind the neck so that there wouldn't be a lot of bunching up. So far so good.

My scoodie: Black fleece with faux animal print trim on hood.




This is the one I had originally made for my grandmother but ended up giving it to my Uncle's girlfriend after my grandmother said she couldn't stand things on her head because it would mess up her hair when she saw me wearing mine. Glad I was able to change it out before I gave it to her and it never got used. It's made from fleece. I had just a plain black bias tape on the hood edge but it really felt like it needed a bit extra so I added the black lace. I also added small black looped fringe to the ends.






I made this one for my mom. It's just like the pink one except it doesn't have the bias tape edge, just lace.






Just recently I came across a tutorial on dying glass pearls over on Martha Stewart and just had to try it out.

I'm still on the fence with this one. Yellow and Tan seem to take better to the pearls than the other colors I tried, black, wine, dark green. Here are some pics of the results.

1st experiment:

2nd experiment



Other than those things, nothing new. Hopefully I will have new things to show more often this year instead of once every few months.

Pics of custom requested beanie

Here is a pic of the hat I made for the person mentioned in previous post. Now I just have to get it in the mail and send it out. Punxsutawney Phil said we had 6 more weeks of winter so I have time.

Ambitious projects

No pics today but I did finish a custom requested beanie for my youngest brothers' baby's Mama. I've decided to put a project on hold. I wanted to make some hairpin lace fingerless gloves, like these Hairpin Lace wristlets-gloves

I decided I was going to use bulky chenille. Least to say, it's not working out so hot so I think I'll just use the panels I made and turn them into a pillow or something. I still want to use chenille and have some thin chenille to work with. I also got some new yarn over the weekend, suede yarn. If I had more money, I would have bought all they had, which wasn't very many. I was not at a hobby, fabric or yarn store by the way.

At the moment, I am working on a small bag using the pink oval shaped Kniffty Knitter loom. I bought this for my daughter as a christmas present and well, she hasn't touched it or the yarn I bought her. I guess maybe she's not interested in this stuff anymore. She still hasn't finished the scarf she started, she mentioned something about being boring. I don't find the repetitiveness boring, relaxing for the most part. I can work on these looms while listening to music, watching tv or a movie. Maybe if she sees me making things other than scarves, she'll be more interested.

Oh, that reminds me, I still need to finish the pillow. I bought the pillow insert and I think I know exactly what material I'm going to use, just need to measure, cut and sew. That also means, I need to clean off my sewing machine table, it's very clutterd and you can barely see the machine. Oops! :)

Etsy

I haven't been real active with my Etsy account and haven't listed anything in some time now. Just like everything else, it's kinda fallen to the side. Yesterday I was speaking with someone from Germany that was interested in some beads I had listed. I spoke with her and adjusted the listings so that she could purchase them and made the sale today. I'm happy about that, now I have a little bit of money and I should really list some more stuff. I really need to do some spring cleaning of my supplies. I have sooooooooooooooooo much of it.

I'm still waiting on the stuff I orderd so that I can complete the custom pendant request. I really think that this will be a better solution and hold up better than the original idea.

I've had thoughts of sculpting again. This time instead of a mermaid, a fairy comes to mind. I stopped by Jerry's Artorama a few weeks back and they finally had the 00 size clay/paint removers. I bought 2 then and need to get the other 2 sometime this weekend. I think they will help my face sculpting and hand sculpting issues. Thinking about all the things to be done this week and the weekend, looks like I'll be pretty busy for the latter half of the week.

Right now, I'm just trying to breathe. Allergies are kicking my butt at the moment. I'm guessing it's because of the mold count and the weather changes. Seems like about this time of year I start getting an allergy that ends up being a cold. I try to medicate but it seems that by taking the meds I just get sicker. BLEH!

Just a little update

Hi All!

I know I haven't posted in awhile and I don't have anything new to share at the moment. I've been in a bit of a daze these last few weeks. I'm currently out of books to read, well I have one but not of the series I started. I should be getting a few more from that series this week.

I got a request for a custom sun themed pendant and I think that I have narrowed down the design, I just need a wee bit of wire. Mind you this was a couple of weeks ago, been waiting for payday to come around so that I could get the wire I need.


School is just around the corner, we are done with the summer school stuff and last week just finished up the week long band stuff. All the returning band members and new band memebers getting ready for the new school year. Last week was my daughter's 14th birthday, my how time flies. I took her to lunch for her birthday, just me and her. When payday came, the S.O. took us out to eat at the steak house and then to the movies for her birthday. Her and I went and saw the new Mummy movie and he went and saw Dark Knight, LOL! She still has birthday stuff coming from her dad who was out of town the latter part of last week and the first part of this week.

We stopped by Jerry's Artorama so I could buy her a new sketchbook for her birthday and some erasers. I also picked up some size 0 clay shapers. They finally had all the different sized clay shapers in stock. I still have 2 more I want to get for sure. I want to say there are only 4 in the size 0 but there might have been 5. I was just so excited they finally had them. When I get back to sculpting these are going to work great on the face and other body areas, but mostly the face is what I wanted them for.

I'm so glad that I don't have a lot of school supplies to buy this year. I've got half her clothes and we just need to get a couple pair of shoes and she's ready to go. Her dad is supposed to be buying the rest of the stuff she needs. Wow, 8th grade. My baby is growing up and sometimes thinking about it brings a lump to my throat. I really hope that she gets into taking art classes cause she's really developing a talent for drawing. (puffs out chest all proud she got some of my artistic talent) She really loves dragons so I'm going to have to go and pick up the drawing dragons book I saw at Michael's for her.

Here is a picture of a dragon she drew for me.