Here Kitty Kitty

A few weeks ago I was at Hobby Lobby looking at patterns for pet beds as well as looking for a few patterns for outfits to sew. I didn't find anything I wanted which is sad because the patterns were on sale, think it was Simplicity. I really wanted to make a pet bed for my kittehs because they ate their wicker like pet basket. I have a heart shaped wicker basket and what looks to be a minky type fabric cover that never stays on. My kittehs enjoy chewing it to pieces more than laying in it. Right now said bed is the toy basket, all the kitteh toys I find, get tossed in it.

As I was perusing through looking, just looking, I saw some cute paw print fleece and it was 30% off so I picked up about 1/2 yard. I know how simple, pet bed + paw prints= cute but unimaginative. LOL! I made a rough pattern and ended up botching it up major so I started from scratch and made another one which turned out much better. At first I was just going to make a flat pillow like cushion bed, not sides or anything cause I didn't think I had enough fabric left to pull it off. After cutting I did have a small strip left over that was just big enough to fit 3 sides of the bed. I would have liked it to go all the way around or atleast part of the way on the 4th side.

Materials: 1/2 yard of 58" wide fleece (note 3/4 to 1 yard would have been ideal)
1/2 yard of batting mid to heavy weight.. if using a lighter weight batting you may need to quadruple your cut and that will require more yardage. I did mid weight and doubled it and still only used 1/2yard. I originally cut 4 but that was way to thick for this version of the bed. Yep, I plan to make a few more.
I used a black canvas material as the bottom of my bed, you can use fleece if you want of well any material for the bottom. I made my bottom so that I could slip in a pillow form to give the bed more cushion or put a heating pad incase it's to cold or they are sick and that's what a vet reccomends.I could also hide their toys in there or more catnip. I used a large snap button to keep the flap closed and flush. I may omit the flap idea when I make another bed.
Of course matching thread or you could be a wild child and use something that doesn't match.

Note: Please excuse the floor in the picture, I hadn't vaccumed yet, to busy sewing. LOL! Also the bed isn't dirty that is catnip to intice Kitty more to examine her new bed. Kitty, yes that is her name, is a big orange and white cow kitteh. I've had her for 5-6yrs now, she showed up on the doorstep one day and well she never left. She's my roly poly masterbating junkie of mush. Yes my cat is strange.

1st up is the bed without the pillow insert
this is the bed with the pillow insert
Kitty coming to check out the catnip, not so much the bed
Catnip heaven
I think she approves the new bed


It may not be the greatest pet bed but it really is soft and comfy warm, heck it's fleece. I think the next bed will be made from some teddy bear fleece I have left over from when my daughter was a toddler/pre-schooler, like 11+yrs ago. It really depends on how much is actually left. I had made her a hooded pullover jacket with a large front pocket for her hands to go in, like a muff. She wore that little jacket till it got to small. I'd made her and myself a jacket that year, I still have mine, I passed hers down in the family to my brother's little girl when she got big enough to wear it. Not sure where the jacket is now though.

I'm happy with the pattern, think I may try going a bit more oval on the next one. I also need to change the length and width of the side/walls and make it longer and wider. Honestly that's really all i'd change at this point is the side/walls, longer and wider. I was working with what I had on hand and I'm pretty happy with it.

Done with Muslin shirt

I'm done, woot woot, i'm done! Deciding that I didn't want to take the shirt apart to make it my pattern and deciding to do another one with the other markings. I have 2 sets of markings on my shirt 1st draft copy, original lines and my thought I needed to make adjustment lines. The back is still a bit big around the neck area and I know how to fix that, a pleat instead of a dart. I used to have a shirt that had a pleat at the center of the back neck area. I added more pintucks as well as extended a few pintucks I already had to the front and then attempted a half arse dying in dark green, except I didn't use a lot of green or prepped the material before dying. Opps! so here is the shirt. Despite it's flaws, i'm okay with it, and I could even wear it in public and not feel to bad about it.







I cut out another of this same pattern but this time in a lovely lavendar jersey knit. This material is soft and airy, I think I wanna make the rest into a dress or nightgown. I have a pattern that I bought to make a shirt from but now I can't seem to find it. UGH!



I can't believe it, i've reached 100 posts. WOOHOO!

Fabric Squared

I'm so glad today is friday. I'm hoping to start a new project this weekend, quilting. I'm going to start off with simple, like a grocery bag and pillow. I found this awesome Celtic Quilt pattern that I really really wanna do for the hubby. They call it a stained glass effect, piecing. I still plan on working the shirt pattern as well. I plan on finishing that up this evening so I can cut another of the pattern. I plan on working on the quilting when i'm not feeling the love for working on the shirt.

I've always wanted to do a quilt. I've got lots of material that I accumulated over the years for doing a quilt. At one time I even culled the collection and tried to sell the material for someone else to use, no bites. So now once again I have this urge to make a quilt and i've pulled out the culled material I wan to start with, looks like it'll be reds. I have some other fabrics i've already started cutting into 4.5 inch squares.

So right now i'm kinda playing around with bits and pieces of fabrics and some scraps that were big enough to make what i'm calling Crazy Squares. I think somewhere in my fabric blackhole, there is a quilt square that is in serious need of restitching. Nothing lined up like it was supposed to, it was all off, especially right at the center. I think that actually put me off for a bit on quilting and then of course other interests decided to take precedence. So here it is probably close to 10-15yrs later and i'm ready to try again.

Crazy squares consist of bits and pieces of scrap fabric somewhat put together to eventually make a piece large enough to cut into a 5 inch square. I plan on taking these crazy squares(scraps) and stitching them to the center of a few canvas shopping bags I have planned. I'm practicing my stitching and finding out the pressure I need for feeding it through the machine as well as learning to use my iron more often than just sporadically. My iron has become my new best friend. I used to use the iron only for straightening out folded fabric or a much needed shirt to be smooth instead of the surface of a raging ocean. I have an applique iron and it works great for the smaller pieces of fabric and ironing their seams.

I took some of my smaller pieces of fabric and cut as many 4.5 inch squares as possible and with some light mauve colored gingham and a deep burgandy color solid fabric, I had enough squares to make a 9 patch square and still had 6 squares left over, mostly the gingham. I stitched my squares together and was so proud of how close all the seams matched up. One of the ideas I had was to make a piece from the 4.5 inch squares that was 6 squares across and 6-9 squares high, that's just a guesstimate. I had the idea of making a baby changing mat. Why? I have no idea why considering I don't even know anyone who is having a baby or anyone that has a young child that is still in diapers. I figured that would be simple and functional instead of some kind of wall hanging sampler. I could always sell it or donate it, depending on how the idea manifests. Sometimes I get an idea and it never makes it to reality, sometimes it evolves before manifesting to the physical realm.

Guess I better go practice some more and do more research on quilting techniques for that Celtic quilt I really wanna do for my hubby.

Update on Muslin mock up

I'm almost finished with the mock up muslin shirt. I didn't do to bad, boy do I need to practice my sewing skills though. It's a perfect knock around shirt for cleaning though. I guess it's not all that bad, just not something I'd wear to work. I only have to hem the bottom, clip some threads and fix/add a few more pintucks. I want to make the shirt out of some lovely material I have but I need to get this pattern right.





1. I need to grade the pattern better. I guess that is the term to use.
2. Learn the terms and how to use them correctly. :)
3. Learn to copy a premade garment better
4. Practice pintucks. I think these are going to be a favorite little detail to add to some shirts to give them new life.
5. Get a tuneup on sewing machine
6. Learn to draft patterns
7. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
8. Learn to love my duct tape dummy dress form (I really hate that form)
9. More PRACTICE
10. Get better aquainted with my sewing machine and all of it's functions and attachments. The ruffler foot looks like some kind of alien probing device.


My machine is not a fancy schmancy machine, she's an old Kenmore 50-55+yrs old, give or take a few years. I love this machine and I even have a mate to match her. I also add an adorable pic of my kitty Guinness inspecting my sewing machine. He's almost a year old now, in fact he will be a year old on the 17th of this month. I've had him since he was hours old. As you can see both of my machines are Kenmores, marketed through Sears, way back in the day. The year i'm not exactly sure but it ranges somewhere between 50-60yrs old, both of them. I think I averaged them out to be about 54yrs old. This are true work horses, I don't think there are an plastic parts, just a few rubber parts and the only plastic is the stitch dials you load on the top to do decorative stitches with. One of my Kenmores is in a table top case and the other is in a carrying case which unfortunately for the case got damaged when it was shipped and only one thing got damaged on the machine. The damaged piece on the machine is a like a $3 fix, it's the metal rod that holds the spool of thread. No biggie. I have yet to use the second machine for sewing. I mostly got it as a just in case one breaks I have another or a parts machine. I've only come across one other Kenmore like mine and that was a few years back. I'd be lucky if I see another one of these for sale, I'd probably buy it.

Productive weekend

Wow, I think I'm on a role here. I finished 1 of the pillowcases that I have planned. I think it's a little long and my hubby said it was flashback to late 70's early 80's. LOL! I'll let you judge for yourself. hehe




I think it's a wee bit to long but that's okay. The fabric was a clearance fabric and I felt like having some fun with it. It's not like i'm really going to be looking at it all that much, I'll be asleep. Once again another fabric that I would normally stay far away from. I think the fabric is kinda kitchy. I'm so proud of myself over such a simple project. I have to say my favorite part of the pillowcase is the lovely rust colored band. I was going to put a line of piping between the main pillow case and the band but scrapped that idea for this pillowcase, I may try it on another one. I'm out of the rust colored satin, but have some black satin so i'll need a division line so to speak. My husband think's i'm nuts.

I was so excited to finish that pillowcase that I was itching to make something else, something quick cause it was really late in the evening. I think I was excited that my pillowcase came out so neat and pretty, I was going to get to sleep on it that night that I needed to sew something else for that instant gratification high. In comes the fat quarter, hello baby! I bought this FQ (fat quarter) because it had musical notes all over it and my daughter is a musician. I was going to make a throw pillow but she already has one of those and I still have the fuzzy green/orange monster fabric from hell to make a pillow for her from. That stuff is going to be a nightmare when I finally cut into it. I had fuzzies for days after bringing it home. I think I need to be just alot insane when I get to that material. LOL! Back to the music fabric. It was sitting there telling me it didn't want to be a pillow, honestly. The more I looked at it the more it said make me into something else, PLEASE! I love freezer paper. This stuff is becoming a sewing staple. Here's the stuffed musical note.







First, I pulled a sheet of freezer paper that was big enough to cover my FQ and ironed it on there so it wouldn't move and then traced the edges of the fabric. After that was done I peeled away the freezer paper and started drawing directly into my square a musical note that I could easily turn and stuff. When I was happy with my design I cut it out and then placed it on the fabric, ironed it in place and used that as my stitching guide. After I got done stitching I just pulled the freezer paper off and still have a pattern for use later. Whenever the freezer paper stops sticking, I can just transfer the design to another piece. So it's not really a pillow, it's more like a stuffed doll without a face. OH CRAP! Now I have an idea for a beaded doll. Like I need more freaking ideas. Hold on, need to make some notes real quick like before this idea completely escapes.. COME BACK HERE!

Ok, it's been captured and documented, idea down. I'm happily stitching away thinking that my daughter is going to be so excited and I wanted to get it done before she went to bed, not realizing that the light I see under her door is actually the fish aquarium light. DOH! Luckily by the time I got done, she'd only just laid down and was not yet asleep. She was like all teenager and unsure kind of Thanks and then called me a dork. I guess I am. I even have enough musical not fabric left over to make a small pouch that she can put some of her personals in. I think I'll do simple and just line it with some left over muslin I have from my shirt drafting project.

I have this favorite sleeveless shirt that has seen better days. I wanted to capture that shirt and style and continue wearing it cause it looks decent on me. I had already traced the shirt but couldn't find any of my pre washed muslin. I know I have several yards of that stuff somewhere. I found the heavier muslin but not the lighter and semi-stretchy muslin I know I have. Why is it that when you need something for a project you can never find it? You know it's in there and you dig and you dig and still don't find it, yet you find it when your not looking for it. Lucky for me I had some that hadn't been washed yet that I got a steal on- 4 1/2 yards almost 5yds for about 3 bucks less than if i'd bought it at the fabric store. I washed it on sunday along with some other fabric I'd purchased. I think my husband is gonna kill me when he realizes that this month i've spent close to $150 or so on fabric. Maybe that's why i'm in the make stuff frenzy. Okay so it's not a frenzy to you but for me it is. My creative slump is so bad that making a few things is a frenzy.

I got the washing done, then vaccumed so i'd have atleast a clean floor to look at while standing over the ironin board. I did not iron all that yardage, just the couple I needed for the shirt. I really don't iron anything unless it's fabric to be made into something or I desperately need something to not look like it just came out of the basket. The muslin is unbleached and I like the way it looks and thinking if I didn't butcher this mock up to bad, I might play tye-dye with it and have another new shirt. Got it all ironed, temp pattern all pinned and sewing lines marked for cutting. It was pretty late when I got done with all of that. Cleaning and sewing they both take time. While I was ironing, cleaning, pinning, and marking it crossed my mind how tedious sewing can be. I might save that thought for further exploration as I continue to progress with my sewing and learning. I consider myself an Intermediate beginner.

I FINISHED!

Over the weekend, I finished the sewing machine cover and I made a pattern from a shirt I have and I'm tweeking it for other ideas. I bought more fabric over the weekend to make shirts from my new pattern. I picked up this silky animal print material that I'm going to make pillow cases with a wide satin band. My daughter wants me to make her some pillow cases that have the overlapped back cause she says the regular pillow cases just slide off. I might make her a couple of those overlapped back pillow cases but I think I'll just grab some needle and thread and sew on a few snaps and she can snap the pillowcases closed or I could do a velcro closure.

Here is the finished cover.



Here is a little fabric art card with sequins glued on.


I loooooooooove this fabric and today I need to buy the 3yds I have on hold for me. Guess that means I need to stop by the bank and add some money in there.


I'm so happy that I have another project done and out of the way. Now I just need to get to the other gazillion in the process projects and the other bazillion that bombard me on any given day. Tonight however, i'm making pillowcases. I might even think about laying out the pattern I made from my favorite shirt and do it in muslin to check the fitting and make sure the arm holes are correct. I did a half arse pinning of the pattern and the arm holes seemed a bit tight. I have 5 different fabrics, mostly cotton and a few knits to make from my new pattern. From the basic pattern I have 3 different variation idea's dancing around in my head. I'm going to go basic first so I can make sure I have the right ease in the shoulders and stuff. I hope it works out, it seems it will with just a few slight adjustments.

Happiness is FABRIC!

Okay in my previous post I wrote about the sewing machine cover i'm working on with this fabric.



The fabric is 2009 Brother Sister Studio Design from Hobby Lobby. I found the fabric remnant in the clearance bin and fell in love. This is so not fabric that I would normally buy. I just can't seem to explain why I love this fabric or what it is that appeals to me sew much. hehe So the hunt began to find more of this fabric and I found it here Maddiebeesewingroom. She seems to be the only person that has any of this fabric left and i wish I had the money to buy all that she has but I don't and I only really need like 2yds to be happy with. I plan to finish up with a few accessories to go with my sewing machine cover like a chair cover for my chair and other little things. I even plan on doing a picture frame of this fabric to hang over my sewing area.

Topping this off, my local WAL-MART brought back their fabric section, yes, you heard me they brought it back. I actually had to stop some floor manager and ask the guy if I was seeing things, nope, said they heard the customers loud and clear and brought it back,WOOHOO! ! ! ! ! SEW HAPPY! It's still hard to believe and I found this out just a couple days ago and kept forgetting to tell anyone. I guess I wanted to keep it secret, NAH, I got used to it not being there is the problem. I picked up some fabric and a shirt and a pants pattern while I was there. yeah!

Crochet Shawl

I finished another crochet project, a shawl. I've wanted a triangular shawl for some time now but I always make excuses. I finally found, online, how to's and patterns using different methods but getting the same results, a triangular shawl. I printed a few, saved a few, 99, 100..LOL! I've had the " 1,2 skip a few.. 99, 100" thing stuck in my head for days now. Some of the patterns were not exactly what I was looking for but close. I wanted a more open style of shawl, almost netting like.

I found one pattern that was very very close to what I had in mind for my shawl but for some reason I just couldn't seem to wrap my head around the instructions and to top that off, the pics weren't that clear at all. I know I can read a pattern, I may not always understand some of the abbreviations or terms but I can find them and how to do them, no biggie, but sometimes it doesn't matter my brain just says

PFFT! I refuse to GET IT.

That can be very durn frustratin.

I've been working on this shawl for about a week or so. I didn't have to do to many rip outs (where you rip out the work you've already done), just a few. I thought I had all the math worked out but I ended up having to kinda make a few adjustments that made the shawl a wee bit off but nothing noticeable unless your really really looking for it. Despite the mistakes and the resulting size, I really like it. Atleast now I have a general idea for the next one, just need to get the materials out and adjust the pattern a bit. I didn't use a pattern per say, I read all the patterns I had and decided to use a foundation then the netting like design instead. I also added tassels to each connection point.

It's HUGE! It's almost as wide( roughly 3ft) at the top as my couch is long and if I don't have it stretched out, it's about 4-5ft long, but stretched out it shortens up some. To make it a bit neater I joined it to make it one solid edge instead of loops at every other row and in that process, miscalculated something and now the very end kinda has a hugging effect, which isn't bad, think it gives the piece a bit more character. I could have made the netting chains a few stitches less so the resulting netting effect would have been closer together and smaller. I'm sure this would have shortened the shawl but not eliminated the width any. I'd have to say the most tedious part was making the 30 something tassels to hang from it. I used Red Heart white yarn and a 10mm crochet hook and done in single crochet.






My next project is a LARGE granny square purse and after that or maybe during, fingerless gloves.

Frustrated

I'm trying to make some crochet flowers, simple ones, just a couple of layers of petals, no biggie, right? WRONG! I can read a basic pattern, I understand a majority of the stitches but for some reason I can't seem to get making a flower. I know how to make a crochet ring. I've even gone so far as trying to understand the concept of the "magic ring" by reading and watching youtube videos. I don't know if it's just because my current stress levels are in the red or what, that i'm just not "getting" it. I can get the 1st part, for a very simple 5 petal flower it's going to the next level of adding more petals that I just don't seem to be getting. I read and reread and compair pattern instructions and still, nada. UGH!

I am determined to get this so that I can finish the hat that I'm working on. I just need 1 flower, no bigger than say a golf ball in size. I don't have much of the vintage varigated yarn left. Yes, I bought this yarn some time back in the late 80's to early 90's. I don't know if you'd call it vintage or not, it's got to be atleast 15yrs old, give or take a few years. In fact,I have quite a bit of yarn that I've had for atleast 15yrs or so.

Well I won't give up, i'm going to get this so I can finish the hat.