Tuesday, August 30, 2011

A shirt! Yippee!

This is the shirt I made. It's light grey, it fits and I like it. I only had to use two sewing machines to make it. I'm glad that we have two so that I could do it. I had to take the pictures of myself so it isn't the best picture but you get the idea. I'm pretty excited to make another one. I bought some purple fabric when I bought the grey. Because I had to drive to said store that was 15+ miles away, so I was all "what the hay, I'll buy two colors! 
I really am trying to come up with a design for the jelly roll... I have a bunch of drawings, mostly I like to draw so it gives me something to do, but it really shouldn't be that hard.. I would like to do something simple, but then I look at the ones that are more intricate and I think "Oh, that would be so cool!" But remember I have a talent for making things difficult. Do you think I could put that on my resume? "Proven ability to make simple tasks more complicated and time consuming than they need to be". Some how I don't think that would put me to the top of the pile.. 
Guess I'll just have to keep at it. Maybe I could comprises with myself and do something simple for now and then the next one I make can be a little harder. I mean I don't have to go all out right away..right? Even thought I really really want too.. The easier it is, the faster it will get done and I'll be less likely to get bored with it.. The last quilt I made took me a year to finish it. I went full speed ahead and got the top all done and had everything I needed for it and then I just got bored and stopped working on it! I did get it done though and that's all that matters...right?? 
I think that's all I have for now! Hope you all are having a great week so far!!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

And then there were six!!

Well, I now have 6 followers! That makes me happy! I'm a pretty simple gal, doesn't take much to make me happy! I don't have any pictures or anything fun to post. I have made another shirt! This one fits and I like it. What more could a girl ask for? I'm a little in love with the serger that I mentioned a few posts ago.
Well that's all. Hope ya'll had a great weekend!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Hey, Hey- A giveaway!

Hello there pally pals! I'm excited today because I now have 5 followers. I really feel like I should have a giveaway sometime. That's what good bloggers do right? So I guess I'll have to think about it and what number of followers will trigger it..And what I would give away.. Oh the things I have to think about!!
I know someone who IS having a giveaway. Over at Spontaneous Threads she's having a great little giveaway for a cool hoop holder that she made, plus some goodies inside. GO over there and check it out and enter to win.. Or maybe not enter because then my chances of winning go down :)
I also have really been thinking about my jelly roll lately! I mentioned before that I love to make things that are easy as difficult as possible. So I have come up with some designs for the quilt, ones a zig-zag and one is like a diamond shaped zig-zag but as cool as they are part of me just wants something easier. I was over at Karen's blog today and saw her great quilt. I'm thinking of using this idea to make my Terrain quilt. Cut the strips at random lengths and then add the Kona grey in there. I made a small quilt like this for my cat earlier in the year (yes, I made her a quilt..she's white and she sheds, do I have to say more?) it was fun and simple enough, I just used scraps that I had but it turned out nice.. So I'm working/thinking about other things to avoid thinking about the jelly roll!
I had to google a new word today. It was "faffing", I've never heard that word before. According to Urban Dictionary it means: "Time wasting/feckin' around, to aimlessly waste time doing useless tasks, The excessive use of time for nonsense activities". So thanks to Jenna for giving a name to what I do about 90% of the time! I also have a blogger related question, is there a way that I can have the comments left here emailed to me, with out having to approve them? And I get email from people when I comment on their blog, how can I do that with the comments left here?? Maybe I'm missing it here, but sometimes I want to reply back to ya'll but I don't know how to do it other than stopping by and leaving a comment. Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me with that.
I guess that's all I have for now, so have a great day everybody. Don't forget to stop over at Spontaneous Threads!! 





Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Projects and stuff..

It's been a while since I've blogged and I have no excuses.. Just haven't felt like it, plus I haven't really made anything. I was obsessed with making this shirt over at Noodlehead. Anna makes such great things. I wanted to make this shirt so bad. So I got out all my pattern making supplies and found a shirt to use and did all that. I made a pattern... Then went to the fabric store, found some fabric that was 95 cents a yard (does it get any better than that?). It would have been cheaper because I had a coupon but I didn't use it, even though I'm super cheap and could have added it to my list of great buys.. And I got 2 yards because my sister also liked the shirt. Then I started the hunt for a "twin needle" if you don't know what that is it's like one needle shaft with two needles. So I had to call ALL over to find the thing, they had it at the local sewing machine shop BUT I thought it would be more expensive there, so I drove 15 miles (one way) to another shop where I could use a coupon and bought it. It was like $2.50 (plus the gas to drive 30 miles to get it). I get home and the thing will not work in my machine, I mean it works but not how it's supposed to.. Ho humm.. I started to think that I was not meant to make this shirt.... But I worked with it.. Sorry that I have no pics of any of this, I like to see other peoples pics, yet I hardly take any of the process or what things look like.. Yesterday I decided to try my hand with this.



My Mom bought this serger to make dresses for my sister's wedding, that was like 8 years ago. She used to make the dresses and then put it away. I really never had a desire to use it until about a year ago. I decided that I needed to get it out to finish the shirt, since I was having problems with it. I cleaned it and threaded it (only took 20 minutes, while looking at pictures and the color coded front) then I used it. Oh, baby!! I really know nothing about sergers, other than that they can cut while you sew. I didn't use the knife. So anyways, this is the finished shirt. I didn't use the twin needle, I just made two rows of straight stitching (which was kind of dumb because it doesn't stretch)



I know it's not the best picture, but it was windy. I guess from a distance it looks OK. And it's really not that bad but the arm openings are to small, this was a measurement error, which I noticed as I was cutting the pattern so I made it as big as I could. Now If I would have spend the time (like 15 minutes) to see if the twin needle worked in the old sewing machine (it does) I could have used it. The neckline is wonky, it flips out... I think it's a little low, I mean it isn't on me but just for the material. I'm a little sad about it actually, the fabric is really nice and buttery soft, I can take or leave the color but I like it enough. So I'm thinking of what I can do to make it wearable.. I really don't want to take the stitching on the sleeves out, but I might I guess I could just cut the stitched part off and re do it.
Last night I spent some times re working the pattern, made the arm holes plenty big this time, and changed the shoulders and the neck line. Plus, I have sort of conquered the serger so I'm a little more excited about making another one! I haven't decided on a pattern for the jelly roll quilt yet, but I did buy the grey Kona cotton. I was happy because it was on sale for about 4 bucks a yard. This feels like a really long and boring post, so sorry for that! Thanks for hanging on through all of it!!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Some fabric love!



I got my jelly roll this morning! I love getting stuff in the mail. Now I'm faced with decisions. I would love to make a quilt with this beautiful fabric.
How do I make it?
Do I just use the fabric in the roll or do I add a solid?
If I use a solid what the heck color do I use?
I have only made 2 quilts plus a mini quilt for the cat. The first one is just squares, I was really (REALLY) winging it on that one. It was just I want to make a quilt! So I did. The second one I made for my nephew and I planned that one and it was all squares in the middle and then borders around it. I'll have him take a picture of it tomorrow when I go over there. He's 5 and he love taking pictures (and he's pretty good at it) so he will think that's fun.
This is my call to my 4 followers for help in deciding what to do. I've been seeing a ton of grey solids with print heavy quilts, and I like grey. But does grey work with everything? And what shade?
I'm also thinking that I like this little quilt made by Florence. It's simple enough and I figure if I just use the fabric in the roll I can get 80 squares (made of three 2.5x6.5strips). That would be like a 48x60 quilt and I'd like it to be bigger than that but not huge. If I use a solid then I can get more squares plus I could just use the same grey on the back with some little bits of left overs here and there.. But I really don't know...
And I feel like I have to get some higher quality fabric for the solid and back but I don't know anything about any of these fabric makers. I always see the name Kona, and I assumed that it would be expensive but it's not too bad. They sell it at JoAnn's but of course not the grey, big surprise there. At least there I could use a coupon on it. Oh the choices!
As a side note I'm going to hang out with my nephew tomorrow so we'll see if "the shorts" fit (crossing fingers).

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

What real vegetables look like..

It's true folks, the beautiful veggies you see in grocery stores are not "real". They are the "pretty ones". This is what "real" vegetables look like



This little gem is my first cucumber of the year. Is it beautiful? Uhh, I guess it's OK looking. It looks like a cucumber so that's all that matters for me. It was mighty tasty when I ate it for lunch though :) I've got a few more growing out there and they aren't straight either, what's up with that?

Monday, August 8, 2011

Picture roundup!

Yee-Haw! It's a picture roundup ya'll. Here's what I've got for you.
First up: Owl cake

I made this cake for my birthday. Yep, that's right I made my own birthday cake. I'm OK with that. I like to make cakes and I was just dying to make this cake. Just because it's cake. It is nothing fancy, it's a marble box cake with chocolate and cream cheese frosting. I just sort of hacked off parts of the rectangle cake to make it semi owl shaped. The eyes are cup cake tops. The nose and toes are jelly beans. It was pretty yummy. Now I am caked out.

Up next: Butterflies!

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail


Spicebush Swallowtail


Painted Lady (??)

I love butterflies. They are so fun! Hard to get good shots of though. That black one just would not hold still for me this morning so that show was the best I had. But I'm going to watch out for it so I can try again. The yellow ones we have around here every summer. They love these purple flocks. The black one I've never seen before this summer. My Mom told me she saw it and when I saw it this morning I want hauling out to see it. I think the last one is a Painted Lady, I'm not really sure.. Anyone wanna let me know if I'm right/wrong.
A few years ago we went to a butterfly tent at one of the local zoos. That is so fun! If it's something you've never done before they are pretty cool. We also visited one in Sioux Falls. That was an actually place not a tent. It's called the Sertoma Butterfly House. They land on you and probe you, it's very strange but very cool.

And last but certainly not least: Tiny red shorts!


Ha! These tiny little shorts make me laugh. I finally came up with a pattern that seemed acceptable. It's 4 pieces. I had wanted to make a fake little fly but didn't really know how to do it so I just skipped it. After though I kinda figured out how I could have made it. These are just my practice pair. I'll need to put them on the bear and see how they fit. When I went out to take this picture I just laid them on the patio and took the picture but then I was like "that's boring" so I was like what can I do to make this better. So I tried to stand them up but they are so thin that they just flopped over. Then it was cups to the rescue! I put a small cup in each leg hole, much better than just laying on the patio.

In other news my jelly roll is on it's way!! I'm so excited for this. I ended up picking Terrain by Kate Spain. That little linky will take you to the Fat Quarter Shop (where the jelly roll is coming from) so you can check it out. The reason I'm excited about this is because I could never afford to buy any of this fabric. It will give me the opportunity to make something great with some great fabric that I wouldn't otherwise get to make. If I had money I could (would) spend lots of money at The Fat Quarter Shop.
Thanks for stopping by!! I see that now I have 4 followers! Thanks to those 4 lovelies for following me!!
I'm linking up to manic Monday over at SewHappyGeek !

Saturday, August 6, 2011

I won something!

So I'm pretty excited today! Here's why! For the past 3-4 weeks three great blogs have been hosting Stashtacular. Here are the wonderful ladies:

Jenna from SewHappyGeek
Spontaneous Threads (I don't know her name but her blog is great!!)
Kelly from Blue Bird Sews

Kelly even put a picture of my project up on her blog! Thanks Kelly!! I made Jenna's iPhone holder. I don't have an iPhone so I made it for my new camera. You can head on over to the Stashtacular Flickr page to check out what all the other people made. I'd never used Flickr before and I'm wishing that I would have named my pic because it only has the camera assigned number as a name.. Oh well. There will be a next time so I can make up for it then!

So anyways the reason that I'm excited is because at the end of Stashtacular they were giving away prizes! Now I've entered to win so much stuff on blogs. And I haven't won anything. This one I hardly did anything and I won!!! I won a Jelly Roll of my choice from The Fat Quarter Shop
How totally cool is that?

I also see that I have 3 (yes 3!) followers. This also excites me. I have a short list of crafty/cool blogs that I check everyday (sometimes more than once a day). This makes me want to try really (really) hard to be a better blogger. The thing of it is that my life is pretty boring. I mean I work so little and I'm not married, I have no kids, and I don't have a rocking craft blog. But I'm Linkgoing to try. I'm going to try and make a quilt from with my Jelly Roll, so that will give me something to post about. I'm also working on some bear boxer shorts for my nephew's bear Jethro. It's taken me about 4 drafts to come up with a pattern that is simple but still looks like boxers. He also wants a shirt for a little stuffed dog he has named Bingo. I'm pretty sure that I have a talent for taking something simple and making it about 500x harder/complicated than it should be. Maybe I just need to work on harder more challenging stuff?? Yeah, I didn't think so either. It's nice to not have to use my brain sometimes..on the flip side of that it's nice to actually use the grey matter once in a while...

I looked at a tutorial today about how to make blog banners in word and I kinda went through and tried it out. Seems like something I can do, so maybe I'll do that this week.
Well, that's all for now. Thanks again to the ladies for putting together some great tutorials and giveaways!!!