Trick Or Treat Bags

Posting again today!

I pulled out the kids' trick or treat bags and remembered that I never shared them last year. I was literally sewing them minutes before we were due out the door.

They came out a lot larger than I was picturing in my head. I was really worried they would be too small and it would be hard for people to get treats into the bags and I overestimated the seam allowances. So I kept adding inches. Then I got the first one sewed and realize it was huge, but I didn't want them to end up different sized and incite a riot.

At least they will last until the kids are too old for trick or treating. No pillow cases for my kids. Well, pillow cases are cool, so maybe they will abandon them at some point.

When we got them out today, Griffin was ticked that his was candy corn. He wanted something hard core like spider webs or skulls. Candy corn is sooooo baby. Tough cookies, darling. I have no (working) sewing machine, no fabric and no time to sew him a new one, so he could be happy about candy corn or have no bag (by the way, he picked out the fabric last year). He seems to have made peace with it, as he was just pretending to be the "Candy Corn Power Ranger" a minute ago.

The names I printed out--the font is Century Gothic (funny considering my video I posted today--really, I love that font), and then I traced it onto the fabric and embroidered it by hand, adding the little x's for the dots on the i's.

David picked out the zebra fabric. I'm telling you, the mad has an obsession with zebra print. You can see how I used the leftovers in this skirt here.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Another Speech?

Normally on Fridays I would show you my quilt. But it really hasn't changed all that much from last week. Embarrasingly little from last week.

So, instead, I'm posting another speech. That's somewhat relevant to crafting. It's just some basic graphic design principles, but I thought my readers might enjoy it. Except now you are my viewers. If you watch it. If you want.

Maybe I should just start posting all my school assignments. Because that would at least give me some content while I'm chained to all these school assignments! I mean, while I'm endeavoring cheerfully to learn all that I can from these carefully-crafted school assignments!

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Project Progress: Hexagon Quilt

Yes, another week has come and gone and all I've managed to post is another update on my quilt.

It's not that I haven't been doing other crafty stuff. I have. It's just super-secret-crafty stuff that I can't share yet, because it's super-secret. I haven't done any super-secret stuff in a while and it is KILLING me not to share.

I clearly need to do more crafting, so I can share more on the blog and save my arteries.


However, I still have been sewing my fingers to the bone on my hexagon quilt. There hasn't been actual blood yet, but I have stabbed myself a few times, and I get a lot of hand cramps. I try to just shake it off and keep going. David and I had an argument the other day after I'd been sewing for hours and watching Vanity Fair. I got a case of the hand trembles. I said it was because I was getting a migraine and need chocolate, and he said it was because I'd been doing too much close and delicate work with my hands. No one won, because our arguments are more like mild disagreements, and we both go away thinking we are right and rolling our eyes in our heads at each other. Except, if David is reading this, I never, ever roll my eyes at you, not even in my head, because you are the best man in the entire universe and I love you and respect your opinion and you might have been right about my hand trembles and I love you. Smooches. (I know know you just rolled your eyes at me! Ha! Caught you!)

So, here's the progress I've made on my quilt so far:

It's getting bigger! I'm thinking I might be half of the way done by now. Maybe? We shall see. I'd like to step it up this week, but we'll see. If school and laundry and birthdays and zoo trips and Primary programs and Halloween costumes didn't keep getting in my way, I could get a lot more done. Not that those things aren't important, but it's impossible to look at elephants and hand sew. Just saying.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Project Progress: Hexagon Quilt

Well, I had a little bit more time to work on the quilt this week. Actually, I think I spent about 8 hours working on it, but this thing is slooooooooooooooowwwwwwww.

It's growing though. Look!

And just so you can remember what it looked like before, here's what it looked like the last time I showed it to you.

It's bigger right? RIGHT?

Well, it's a little bit bigger, and I did make a ton of hexagons last week.

And just 'cause I like to, here's a pic of the newest section.

I was afraid I was going to run out of scraps, so I added a few more fabrics to the mix. I think they blend in nicely. I wish I had some more aqua options, but alas, I do not. I'm really tempted to go and buy a few fat quarters, but it's fun to be able to say I did it all from scraps. Perhaps I will sacrifice a cotton shirt or something.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Knitting Isn't Just for Grannies--Speech

I'm sorta nervous to post this.

Weird, I know. I basically put myself out here on my blog all the time. I mean, I talk about my toenails and the fact that I've been diagnosed bipolar II and all of that, yet posting this school assignment is giving me butterflies.

Perhaps it's because I talk about the blog in it? So, it's like a blog/speech time continuum loop. I'm pretty proud of the blog and I love interacting with my lovely readers. It's a privilege to know you--it means so much to me to get to know some of you. I love my little piece of the crafting world. It's brought me some of my best friends.

Anyway, here's my first speech from my public speaking class. I got 39/40 on it. It's far from perfect, but I'm still pretty proud of it. Also, I'm a goof ball. And I'm a nerd. Just so there isn't any confusion. Oh, and I totally left it out, but the Craft Yarn Council found in 2004 that 36% of women in the US know how to knit. How awesome is that! Somehow I forgot to say that and I was not about to record the whole thing again.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Project Progress: Hexagon Quilt

I miss summer. I had so much time during the summer. Oooooodles and oooodles of time! Now it's all gone. Xander's birthday was last week and he's getting baptized on Saturday and Griffin's birthday is next week, so you can see what I mean.

I've been recording my first speech this week for my college class. I finished yesterday and I'm going to post it to the blog next week. Then you can see how, um, silly I am. In person. Or rather, on video. It was really hard to stop doing takes (I did two non-filmed practices, two filmed and very kid-interrupted filmed takes and one final take). I could have probably done 20 takes and still not have been happy.

Still, last weekend I found some time to work on hexagons. I made a lot of hexagons. I figured out I'll probably need around 475, or maybe more. Depending on how distracted I am and how long I've been doing them (the more I do in a row the faster I get), they take me between 4-8 minutes to do. So, let's say 6 minutes on average. That's 47.6 hours on hexagons. Roughly. I'm just happy I don't have to put it all in as one long work week. It's a nice break from school.

So, here's the stack I got done this week. Aren't they so pretty?There are about 150 hexagons in these stacks. I can't wait to sew them into my top!

I'm thinking that if I get my coursework done quickly today that I might start a dress. Maybe. I found some of the feet for my Bernina at my mom's house! Not the regular 1/4" foot (I believe that has disappeared into the dark abyss and joined that planet floating out in space somewhere made up entirely of mother's objects lost by their children), but one that I think will work for most regular sewing. At least one that will work until I buy a new one!

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Tutorial: Quilt Top Paper Piecing Style

If you remember, I've been working on a new quilt. It's a hexagon quilt, and I'm trying out paper piecing. This is all new to me. I've been enjoying it, although it's a crazy amount of work.

There are several ways to piece a quilt this way. In one way, you baste through the paper, and then later take the basting out. In the way I'm doing, I'm tacking down the corners, and then removing the templates so I can reuse them, and I don't take the basting out.

If you're interested in my method (for those of you who don't think I should be committed for attempting a project this time consuming), here's what I'm doing. I think this would be stunning to do smaller and frame to hang as a piece of art.

I printed my templates from this website.

Step One:
Cut and print a template. After a few uses, my corners started to get a little questionable, so I used some shiny tape just over the corners (if you do them along the whole edge, the template doesn't stick to the fabric as well). Cut a square of fabric a little more than 1/4" bigger around each edge of the template.

Step Two:
Fold over one edge and finger press.

Step Three:
Insert the needle with a smallish knot tied on the end of the thread into the fold. Pull through. You can see my needle in the above photo ready to be pulled through the fabric.

Step Four:
Fold over the next edge (I work counter-clockwise) and finger press. This is the hardest part to get lined up. You can sort of tell where your template should go by lining it up with your previous finger fold from step two. This will hide your knot, which appeals to my sense of neatness, although it's probably really unnecessary.

Step Five:
Back tack (I'm not really sure if back tacking is necessary, but I'm paranoid, so I do it--it does seem to help the hexagons keep their shape a bit better). To back tack, insert your needle a tiny bit behind where your thread is already coming out of your fabric, make sure you are catching all your layers of fabric, then come out again, close to your original thread, and pull through. My needle in this photo is all poised to back tack. I just need to pull it to complete the back tack.

Step Six:
To do the next corner, fold down the fabric, again making sure your template is secure into your corner and lined up with your first fold. Once you have it all lined up, finger press it. Then take a small stitch on the corner, making sure to go through all the layers of fabric.

Step Seven.
Back tack.

Step Eight:
Continue around, keeping the template tight and back tacking at each corner. When you get to the last corner, it's going to look like this.

Step Nine:
Pull taut, then tuck corner under, making sure the fold goes all the way to the edge. I use my thumb nail to make sure I get a crisp fold. This is the same method I use for each corner, but it was the easiest to see with this corner.

Step Ten:
Fold down, and tack.

Step Eleven:
Put needle back under first knot. Pull up through fabric.

Step Twelve:
Tie a square knot around string (my mom always helped me remember where I was by saying I should make a rainbow and a smiley face). Cut thread.

The front will look like this:

And the back will look like this:

Then you can pop the template out and carefully press with your iron to keep sharp corners and crisp edges.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

My Late 60s Pattern Goldmine

Ok, so I got my act together (by avoiding homework; I'm 28 and still as much a procrastinator as ever, I've given up ever thinking I will grow out of it), and took pictures of my patterns using my point and shoot. It's not so bad for things like this. Pictures of the children, never happy with. Pictures of inanimate objects that don't move or change facial expressions or dart into low lighting conditions, not so bad.

If you missed the previous post where I mentioned these, I picked them up at a yard sale a few weeks back. They were a STEAL at five cents each. I think whoever bought them has great taste. I really want to try one (as soon as I get my sewing machine situation sorted), but I'm not sure how I'm ever going to decide which one to try first!

They might be a size smaller than I would pick if I was picking based on my measurements, but I think I can work around that fairly easily.

So, if you were picking, which one would you do first? I've numbered them for easy reference.

This one is darling, but it's girl-sized, so while I might make it for Aubrey, it's not in the running for me (obviously).

I LOVE that coat in 8, although I would probably skip the pockets on the top and do an applique or something else (maybe add a yoke?) there instead. I adore 11 and 3, but I've already got a similar dress in my wardrobe, so I might hold off on one of those until a 3rd or 4th project. . . Isn't it funny how suddenly we get the 70s style with the long dress and the pointed collar in 2? I looked up the year on most of them when I could find them and I think that pattern is from 1970. They are from 1966-1972. I was expecting 1 to be from the 50s, but it's a 60s pattern too.

So, what do you think?

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Well, Almost Two Out of Three Isn't Bad. . .

Well, instead of just whining about my broken things, like I did in my last post, I decided yesterday to, you know, do something about them. I'm really good at whining, and you know what people say about following your passions. But there sometimes come times when you have to stop whining and do something about your situation.

Part of the proactive stance was forced upon me. Aubrey has discovered Netflix watch instantly on my iPod Touch. This is bad. I showed it to her once in desperation for a little time to do some school, and she figured out how to get there on her own. Now she will use any means necessary to watch. Yesterday, we got in a slight tussle over the iPod. She was reaching for it, I was on the laptop, I was trying to get it first, and the screen took a nosedive backward and broke its spine, from which it would never recover. It was still basically functional, except for the part where the screen wouldn't stay up unless propped against the wall.

This is Aubrey today. I'm using our point and shoot. This reminds me why I never, ever use it to take photos of the children. The delay is like 20 seconds. It's pretty much useless for shots of toddlers. Although this one cracks me up. And yes, she is eating a cookie in my bed. This is even my side of the bed. I live under the thumb of a tyrant. Someone send help.

I really thought I had this parenting thing down until I had my younger two. I was a fool.

Oh yeah, the point of all of that is that I have a new laptop! I spent only about 8 hours (maybe more?) a day on the thing, and I just don't want to sit at a desktop for all of that. My bums falls asleep. Between all the school and the blog and the general surfing of the net, I'm always on the thing. It's a HP Pavilion dv7-4061nr Entertainment Notebook if that means anything to you. It doesn't really to me. I just like that it turns on and the hinges hold up the screen. They seem nice and sturdy.

Pretty, huh? It's actually got swirly, wavy things along the back. I kinda wish it was pink or light blue, but I can deal.

On to the almost 2nd thing I fixed. My sewing machine! I got it out and wiped all the dust off of it. I got out the foot petal and the cord. It looked like this:

Not good.

I took off the bottom and there were two little screws with metal bits (shoot, should have taken pictures). I unscrewed those, put the ends of the wires under them and screwed them back down.

Then I opened up the top of my sewing machine and took out all the things my children had stuffed down there. There were a few Cheerios, a crayon, a hair band, and even a pen (!?!). I turned it upside down and shook it a bit. Then I cranked it a bit to see if turned. It seemed to do ok.

Then I plugged everything in, and pressed the foot petal. Success! Everything looked like it was moving correctly. Except. . . something still didn't seem quite right. Here's my machine. It was manufactured in the late sixties in all probability (from my internet research).

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Oh yes, where is my foot? I have no idea. Did my children take it off and lose it? Does my mom still have it? Will I be able to buy a replacement one if I can't find it? (It's not in my sewing things, I already scoured them). Yes, I have fixed my sewing machine, but I still can't sew with it. So, I'm only counting it 1/2 fixed.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.