Hello, Boxy!

First one's in the shop finally! The rest should come quicker. I'm starting on some more tonight! Whee!!

Zakka Basket

After many weeks on the waiting list, I finally got to check out Zakka Sewing from the library. I made this little basket for my clothespins today. Aw, isn't it cute? I'd been keeping them in a plastic bag with the intention of finding something cute to keep them in. It was easy...took less than an hour to make. I made it from two old pillowcases I had in my stash and some quilt batting.

Angry Blueberry Dress

I've been thinking I should revisit my giant fruit project. The big ottomans are quite cumbersome to ship, and I've been wanting to try them in smaller sizes. Everyone should have some giant fruit in their home! I just need to package it better, and also to develop patterns for sale. But first, I need to try some alternate sizes.

So, I had this dress... My roommate Joanna had gotten this dress at a thrift shop a few months ago for $1.00. She didn't want it anymore and offered it for my craft stash. A few days ago, I looked at it and decided it should be turned into a semi-large blueberry, and that the blueberry should be strongly emotive. I settled on Angry.



I turned out bigger than I expected. It's about half the size of it's larger fruity siblings. I completely winged the ruffly bit at the top. I just sewed random pieces into a circle and trimmed the edges. Looks fairly blueberry-like, no? It'd be pretty boring without the face though.



Making the face...and that's the remainder of the dress after all the pieces were cut, the carcass of the dress if you will. The fabric is a stretchy knit, which makes for a nice soft pillow. No portion of the dress was wasted! All the remaining fabric was incorporated into the stuffing. I'm thinking of making this a regular reoccurring project, maybe add some to the shop! Would anyone buy a pineapple made from a one dollar pair of pants? Or lemon from a sweatshirt? Hmmm, me thinks my next project will be emotive fruit.

Orange you glad for a new post?

Boy, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. Well, I've have had nothing to post. That's the reason. This past weekend I did try making my first clutch. I even put a label in it! I just wanted to see how it would look, as this one is not worthy enough to be offered for sale. Normally I'd put the label on the outside of the pocket, but I had already finished sewing the pocket before I remembered to sew the label on. It didn't turn out exactly as I had imagined, but kind of close. The polka dots are from a duvet I found at the thrift shop. I've also seen the same duvet actually used as a duvet in a house we looked at. But I think it works jolly well as a purse.

I also managed to make a handbag last week for a friend's birthday. I shipped it a week ago to japan, so I'm going to go ahead and post it and assume she's not going to read my blog. I just put the wallet in for scale, but they look good together, eh? The wallet was actually one of my practice wallets, so I didn't mail that.

Hmmm, this orange lining is becoming a theme of mine. Thanks to Becky for donating some orange bed linens for my fabric stash!

The Little Green Bin

It's a gorgeous day today! I just stepped out the door and found this little food and yard waste bin greeting me. Yay! I think it's cute. But that's because I'm used to our neighbors giant 100 gallon bin. Our landlord doesn't have yard/food waste pickup because it's a subscription service, but our neighbors do! They have kindly been letting us put our food scraps in their giant yard waste bin. It really cuts down our amount of trash because we can also throw paper towels and pizza boxes in there, too. The city has extended food/yard waste collection and now we have our own bin to use! After recycling and composting, our regular trash is pretty light. I'm so glad. I used to take the used coffee grinds home from work to use for my balcony garden. At first some people thought I was stealing coffee, and then they thought I was just silly for taking home trash. And after a while, my co-workers would offer me the used coffee grounds before they were thrown out. I just thought it was a big waste to throw it all away. But this is america, and that's what we do here. We waste things.

Pirate Chef

I made some things for the kitchen for Noel's birthday. I had a hard time deciding on what fabric to use. I was hoping to find some chemistry-themed fabric, but I don't think such a thing exists. So the least girly thing I could think of was skulls. Plus I figured some black and white skulls would look pretty fresh on some pot holders. I'd been wanting to try making some of these for a while.

I also think every kitchen wizard needs a chef's hat. I had to make a practice hat because I had trouble understanding this tutorial. Plus, I have to admit I wanted a hat for myself, too. See the end of the post for my own chef's hat. I'm very happy with it.


It's pink, and it has a bow.

Neue Tasche 2

I also made another bag. The one I'm using now is far too large, and I can never find anything in it. I had this Alexander Henry fabric that I wanted to use, but hadn't decided on what to make with it. This is the same pattern as the one I made for Joanna, Burda 8235. I had to add another layer of interfacing to make the bag a bit sturdier. For Joanna's bag I had used home dec fabric which is much stronger. I was too lazy to add interfacing for the strap, so the strap feels flimsy compared to the rest of the bag. Oh well. The lining and strap are navy blue, don't really match, but I didn't want to buy additional fabric. So I used this navy blue bed sheet that I had in my stash.

The Tomato Loft

I've discovered our loft is a great place to take pictures. It's also a good place to curl up with a giant tomato and read a book.

One Tomato, Two Tomatoes!

Tomato two is finished! I'm already about halfway through tomato number three. And I'm trying out a persimmon with some cheap broadcloth fabric that was on sale at Joann's. I'm not sure it will work, might be too thin. Orange bed linen is pretty hard to come by at the thrift shop. I've seen purple...maybe I should try an eggplant. Red has been pretty easy. So I had to resort to purchasing new fabric to make the persimmon ottoman. Hope to have pics soon. The weather is gloomy and wet today. I guess I'd better get used to it. I'll be staying in and crafting all weekend. I've also added another leaf to the tomato. Next version will hopefully be less star-like.


And once again, more cat photos... I've seen a few very large spiders, mostly downstairs. The good thing about having the cats is they like to play with them and then eat them. Or leave them for the vacuum. This spider was pretty resilient, so it gave the kitties a fair amount of entertainment. It was big. You can see it in the bottom photo.

Bed Sheet Skirt

I made my first piece of clothing, and I love it! I found this fitted sheet at Goodwill and decided that it must become a skirt. I got this pattern at Joann's for two dollars, McCall's M5591. It wasn't hard. It just took me a while to decipher the pattern instructions. I have a hard time with patternspeak, and I haven't been sewing for very long. It has pockets!

the fabric is pretty thin, so I had to improvise a lining for it. I made the lining too short, but it does the job. It's like a miniskirt inside another skirt. The lining and the yellow band at the bottom are from another bed sheet. I've become a familiar face in the linen section of Goodwill.



It's a comfortable skirt.

My Tomato

I made this over the weekend. It's not finished yet. I ran out of stuffing, so it's nearly done. I couldn't wait to share :)
I think this may be the first item in my shop. Except for the thread, it's made entirely of repurposed or recycled materials. I'm very happy with it. It turned out better than I expected. I need to figure out what to price it at. Anyone care to throw in their two cents? Let's not compare to made in china prices. $40, $50, $60...? too high?


On a somewhat related note, basil goes with tomatoes...
On my second night in Seattle, Joanna and I went to this cheap phở place down the street for dinner. I think it's only $4.75 a bowl or something. They always give you bean sprouts and thai basil with the soup. So, I took the basil stems home, stuck them in water...and a week later they started rooting. I just planted them a few days ago and they seem to be thriving. I've tried this a few times before, but they always seemed to die when I put them in pots. So yay, we have thai basil! I got some mint from the market yesterday that I'm going to try to grow, too.

Arthur + Table Cloth = One Sweet Pillow

So, I've sent my resume out and I'm trying to work on my portfolio and learn some new graphics programs, but all that stuff isn't fun. I'm giving myself a few hours a day to work on some crafts. I've been wanting to make some giant pillows like this for a while. Here's the first of hopefully many...

This is before I dismembered and eviscerated Arthur. Nemo tried to eat his ear. He could do it, too. He already ate the ears off my wombat.

The fabric is a tablecloth I got at goodwill for $2.00. And I used the stuffing from a king-size pillow and most of Arthur, also goodwill finds. These things require a ridiculous amount of stuffing. Here's a deflated Arthuer and the finished pillow.

Bye!

I made slippers

I've been making myself at home at the new apartment. It's a nice place, but there's no internet, so it's been hard to plan my trip to Seattle. Anyway....the new place has more vinyl floors than the old place, and I felt I needed some slippers. The tan fabric is from a pair of shorts that my brother was throwing out. The stripes are from a tablecloth I got from Goodwill. I found some cheap flexible cutting boards in the kitchen of the old apartment. I used those for the soles, plus whatever I could find around the apartment to give it some cushioning. They're actually not very well made, so no close up photos! They're also far to big for me. Maybe they'll fit my brother.

I found these when I was packing. There's a shop in Auckland that sells only things from Japan for $3.00NZ. These are little soy sauce bottles. I've taken dumplings for lunch before, and certainly could have used some of these.

Arthur donates his body to craft

I made an ottoman that I need to stuff. Most stuffing is made of 100% virgin polyester, which I'm really trying to avoid. I'm trying to use only recycled or second hand polyester. There's this bamboo based filling, but to stuff an entire ottoman would be quite expensive. So when I was in Baltimore, I solved the problem. I found this giant happy fellow at Goodwill for $4.00. I'll be sad when I have to take him apart. Turns out I made my ottoman much larger than I thought. I'd like to make it smaller before I stuff it.

I made this wallet

I made my first wallet! Well...I did make those wallets out of comic books and vinyl a few years ago. But those weren't really usable. This one was much more complicated! I'm new to sewing, so this took me all day to make. I need to be packing and cleaning for my big move, but I decided to craft today. I found some awesome wallets on etsy and wanted to try to make my own. Some of you have seen the ratty old wallet I've been using that I got in New Zealand five years ago. I don't have an etsy shop yet, but I'd really like to have one eventually.



Moving on...I used this tutorial, but I had to make some changes to suit the size of my fabric scraps. The blue fabric with the flowers was a piece I intended for a quilt I'm making for my parents. But I messed it up cutting, so I used it for the wallet instead. It's from a duvet I found at Goodwill for $4.00. I intend to make a dress with it, too...so you'll be seeing it again! The red fabric was from some red scrubs I had in my stash, also from Goodwill a while back. The inside pocket is meant to have a zipper, but I didn't want to use up any of my zippers for my "test" wallet. The sewing is pretty sloppy, and I was too lazy to change the thread on my sewing machine to match the fabric. But overall, I'm happy with my first wallet. I'll definitely be making more!