Move it Monday: Week 6

Music to help Monday move a little better.

If you have suggestions for a song that makes Monday better please leave me a comment with an artist and song title and I will consider it for a future Move it Monday post.

Peace, joy and love to you all.

Silent Sunday: Green Edition 2

Gratuitous Music

Something I needed today.

(Mel)

Peace, Love and Joy to you all

Bad Words.

I can't

I could never do that

Those are bad words. I get irritated when someone looks at a thing I have done, compliments me or it and then says they could never do that, they can't create beautiful things.

If you put effort and patience into it you can learn to do almost anything. If you do not know how to solder, crochet, bind a book, paint a picture or make a kite that does not mean that you can't.
If you WANT to, you can.

The internet is filled with free resources from books to picture laden tutorials. There are classes on a plethora of things that have Facebook pages and chat groups so you can ask questions and see the questions that others are asking. There are so many people out there that are willing to help you learn and be guides in the expansion of your world.

All it takes is wanting to learn. If you want to learn you become willing to expend the time and energy to find the experience that will teach you.
I wanted to learn how to spin and a teacher appeared. I had to spend time saving for the class and I had to spend time and energy learning. I may not be perfect at it but now I know how.
I wanted to learn to solder and an opportunity to learn appeared in my workplace. I studied and practiced and learned. I have not yet applied that to my home based crafts but now I have the basic knowledge and can do it.

If you want to learn how to write, draw, paint, sew, knit, crochet, spin, solder, cut glass, bind a book, make pottery, create jewelry, bake a cake or fold a paper crane, Learn It And Do It.

If you don't want to, don't have the desire to make learning that thing a priority in your life or don't have the need to learn that thing please, please don't say that you can't.

Move it Monday Week 5

Music to help Monday move a little better.

(Elena)

If you have suggestions for a song that makes Monday better please leave me a comment with an artist and song title and I will consider it for a future Move it Monday post.

Peace, joy and love to you all.

Silent Sunday: Strength

Tape And Patches

I have a love of storage. Boxes, bins and buckets oh my. Recent cleaning out of sheds and other pits of stacked stuff led me to re-discover a small set of plastic drawers that had been gathering dust and cobwebs for a while. Since I couldn't use my sewing machine and had a need to MAKE something I pounced on it.

First I had to clean the bejeebers out of it. After the washing there was the small matter of the tube of super glue that had melded with the top. Nail polish remover and patience took care of that. 

On to the gathering of materials... 

TAPE, One of my favorite materials to collect, Ruler, 5x8 cards (for dividers), Wax paper, Cutting tools and all the bits were assembled. 

The wax paper was used to measure and cut the strips of tape for covering the drawer fronts. You can lay the tape on it to cut and it doesn't immediately bond causing frustrating tar-baby curse moments. (I have also used it with punches to make "stickers" out of a few types of tape...) 

Once the drawer fronts were suitably decorated I used the single divider that was in it to measure and cut the 5x8 cards. I folded them double for stability and wrapped tape around leaving a small piece of the card at the fold line available to write on. 

Once done it was time to start organizing bits and bobs into the newly decorated set of drawers. They have a happy look I think.

After the power issue was fixed I was attacked by a pile of denim and corduroy scraps from several pairs of pants that had been thrifted for use in a bedspread.. They were supposed to turn into a mat for my keyboard but they had other ideas... 

What started as a simple flat rectangle transformed into a box bag with a vintage pillowcase lining and a reclaimed zipper. 

I used the stretch stitch that looks like lattice to join them flat in order to reduce seam bulk and trimmed as I went. The pinning and zipper installation was fairly pain free. The box corners can be a bit on the tricky side but I had a clear acrylic square with a 45 degree line to help get them "squared".

After this one was finished several other pieces of fabric started saying they were next in line to become bags. If only I had a use for all these bags that keep wanting to be made. (= 

I have also started a page to introduce a few of the creative souls I have recently come into contact with. It is short (one person) at the moment but I aim to add one a week at the minimum.

If you have an inspiring blogger that you would like me to add to the list please let me know. I love to see the creativity that abounds.

If you are a new viewer from the Glitterhood and have a second please leave a comment to let me know you are here. 

As always, Peace, Joy and love to you all.

Phases

We recently had some electrical issues which caused me to face my fabric piles without means of quickly stitching things into submission.

So sad, no juice...

The fabric monsters have caused me to look at some of my other art supplies and focus there in order to procrastinate the cleaning that should get done. I settled on tape for the project I will be sharing with you in the next few days.
In and amongst this avoidance of work I joined a group on Facebook filled with artistic and creative souls. I will be creating a page to introduce you to their blogs or flickr feeds during this week.
As for today, it was good. The weather kept me inside but the cleaning got started and the project list got edited for the sake of sanity.
For now I will leave you with a picture and a smile.

Peace, joy and love to you all

Move it Monday Week 4

Music to help Monday move a little better.

(Lauren)

(Oh the HAIR!)

If you have suggestions for a song that makes Monday better please leave me a comment with an artist and song title and I will consider it for a future Move it Monday post.

Peace, joy and love to you all.

Silent Sunday Green Edition 1

Serging Start Up.

A friend was recently given a Serger and was wondering what could be done with it. Of course I was excited for her as a machine like that can do so much. This post is going to cover some of the basics and will get added to as I find links. There will be a page for machines and tools coming soon and these links will be a good start.

A few beginning links and cool things to look at.

Janome Specific Tutorial video links. These are excellent if you have a Janome machine but also good for a basic overview of possibilities.

Made by Me. Shared with You. A cleaning basic overview. On this site there are also other Serger tutorials to browse through, Just hit the tutorials page and type in Serger in the search bar.

A list of basic tutorials for starting to work with a serger. Make It Handmade. (Someone with the same idea for trying to build a reference page)

An Agriculture Department tutorial. Bare information without much embellishment.

Threads Magazine has some good information for when you get to know your machine a little better.

One of the many stitches possible explored here at Indietutes

This is only a small sampling of what is out there and I hope it gives you what you need to get started. Sergers are wonderful tools and can be used to make so many things.

I wish you joy in your creative endeavors.

Move it Monday Week 3

If you have suggestions for a song that makes Monday better please leave me a comment with an artist and song title and I will consider it for a future Move it Monday post.

Peace, joy and love to you all.

Silent Sunday (Say Hi edition)

Epic Sorting...

I have a little issue... with holding on to things "for future use" and part of my New Year goal is to sort and simplify. This is causing some delay to my creating new things for sharing with you, my loyal 3. I am working diligently at whittling down the massive stash and selling or donating the things I am sure I will not get to within the year. This has called for many Yard Sales. Selling off as much of the hoard (there, I said it) as we can has been an eye-opener. He hoards books and I hoard "Vintage" (fabric, Samsonite luggage, sewing machines, paper etc...) and we were being crowded out of our lives by our STUFF.

If you look around... and you can't find a clear surface to set your coffee on I highly suggest you think about letting go of a couple things for your sanity. There are many ways to go about it and I am sure if you make an effort you can find one that fits you.
Now, I have cut down the fabric by over half, gotten rid of all but 3 sewing machines and let go two thirds of my paper stash (mostly notebooks from ages ago, like college) and that feels like a good start  I am also committed to continuing to reduce my piles and bins and buckets over the next year so I can work towards a more enjoyable crafting experience to share.
You are part of my reason for letting things go so I would like to ask what you feel you might need to let go of? What might you need help letting go of and who can you ask for that help?

As always, wishing you Peace, Love and Joy.

Move it Monday Week 2

Music to help Monday move a little better.

Shawna

Lauren

My Pick

If you have suggestions for a song that makes Monday better please leave me a comment with an artist and song title and I will consider it for a future Move it Monday post.

Peace, joy and love to you all.

Silent Sunday (Pink Edition)

A Little Off The Path

Many times plans get made and life steps in and changes them without consulting you first. This should not mean that you give up on your plans, it just means you adjust and keep working towards your goal.

I had planned to put up at least one craft related post per week for a year but life has decided that I will not be able to work on my own right now so I will share other peoples crafts instead of my own this week.

Information Overload at it's Best

A couple of the best places on the web to find crafting tutorials are Make magazine and Instructables. On both of these sites you can find how-to and step by step instructions on making so many diverse things that you could spend hours just looking.
If you are into the fiber arts I suggest Ravelry as a place to start. There are thousands of knitting and crochet patterns available for no charge and an extensive catalog of links to patterns for sale. The forums can be a bit tricky unless you are a veteran of filtering for content.

Individual Bloggers

I will be trying to highlight individual blogs that have tutorials that I find clear and understandable covering the myriad of crafts that my butterfly brain enjoys.

A font of sewing information can be found at Sew Mama Sew. 

An Art Journaling blog with many interesting tutorials.

A bookbinding tutorial for a long-stitch journal, A bit picture heavy but clear and well written.

A tutorial for a Coptic Stitch journal

That's all for now folks...

As it stands I will hopefully be able to get back to sharing my own work with you soon. The world does not stop it's spin and we must all try to enjoy the ride as best we can.

Today I will leave you with a picture and a wish.

As always, Peace, Joy and Love to you and yours.

Move it Monday

Music to help Monday move a little better.

If you have suggestions for a song that makes Monday better please leave me a comment with an artist and song title and I will consider it for a future Move it Monday post.

Peace, joy and love to you all.

Silent Sunday

Delay due to Life.

I have a plan. That plan involves at least one good post per week. Since this week has been filled with "interesting" things I have not yet gotten the next "planned post" put together. I have decided to share a few images and a few links today to keep you all entertained while you wait for more content.

The Elusive Clear Work Space
One of the things a crafter is constantly searching for and there never seems to be enough of. This is one of the reasons for my delay. This is a rare beast in my home and prized when it appears.

To the New Year
The beginning of a new page in my ink-art doodle book. This page was spray-inked during the tail end of last year in "preparation" to be used. Sometimes the hardest challenge I face is actually using the materials I have collected so this is working towards one of my goals for the year. It doesn't matter what your craft may be, START doing it. Use what you have. It may never be perfect but you can make it beautiful and real rather than letting it languish in the back of your brain.

Yarn Love

I have been known to pick up a hook and on extremely rare occasions a set of needles to create with fibrous loveliness. Yes, I enjoy the arts of Crochet and Knitting so today I will share a couple of links to "motifs" and other yarny projects that I have seen and hope to try.

The first is a Russian language site with some lovely charted pieces

Alena's Page

If you enjoy creating edgings some of these (charted directions) might be lovely as necklaces or collars on a re-fashioned sweater
DIY Home Ideas page

That is all I have time to share today. Wishing peace, joy and love to your days.

The Beauty Above

Sometimes all it takes to bring a smile to my face for a while is to look up. Hopefully this will bring a smile to you as well.

Quilted Scarf and A Completed Project

A while back I found a pair of suit pants that were a lovely wool and cashmere blend.

Since I don't have a need for suit pants and these had acquired a couple of small holes I decided to take advantage of the material. (Using this tutorial which gives excellent directions on deconstructing pants, Jeans specific but applicable.) Soft, slightly fuzzy and warm makes for good scarf material. This was also an opportunity to experiment with quilting since I had some batting left over from a project that will become a post soon.

 And since I am trying to use up at least part of my hoarded material I grabbed this chunk of lovely cotton in a green, grey and white stripe.

 The first thing I had to do was trim the wool pieces and decide the width of the piece. I cut them at 7 inches wide and cleaned up the ends without removing any more length than necessary.

 Matched up the ends and joined all 4 pieces with a simple straight stitch. Decided to be a little more detail oriented than I am normally so I busted out with the iron and pressed the seams.

 Trimmed 2 sections of the green at approximately 8 inches wide and connected them to match the nearly 8 foot length of wool I was now working with. Laid those out with the batting to make a sandwich and pinned in a few places. Could have used more pins but I have issues stabbing myself with them.

 Stitched using my sewing machine all the way around leaving this opening for turning. For reference, the wool is wrong side up between the right side up green and the batting. The opening is around 6 inches so I could put my hand into it to aid the turning. After the stitching I trimmed the hem to about 1/4 inch to reduce the bulk of the scarf edge. Turned it right side out, folded the seam allowance of the opening to the inside and pinned it shut. At this point I suggest that if you want to press the edges to make it a little neater and easier to sew, try to remember to check the heat on your iron to avoid completely flattening the acrylic batting. I managed to have it up a bit high and flattened the first 6 inches before I realized what was going on. Once you are ready, top-stitch around the edge. I chose to use the edge of my machines foot as a guide. you can use a ruler and disappearing ink sewing marker to then add whatever quilting designs to the interior you choose. Since this was an experiment I just went with straight lines.

It turned out to be around 6 inches wide and almost 8 feet long. I am very happy with it though if I make another one I will try to see if I can pin it more securely without bleeding on it. 

As for the Completed Project, I finally finished the second dog coat I have been (procrastinating) working on for my Mom. This is a link to one of the tutorials that I referenced and this is another one that might be useful. This page has links to many tutorials as well though I have not clicked through them all. Here is the finished coat for Little Mr. Harry.

Wishing you all joy and peace in the coming year.

What does re-fashion mean to me?

I had planned to take this linen/rayon, light blue floral print dress and turn it into a tunic.

I did so but was unsatisfied with how the finished product looked on me. I am trying to decide if the lesson learned from this is that I do not wear sheath style well or that pastel floral is not for me. I set it aside for potential use in some other non-wearable project and then my gaze landed on a sweater I had been holding on to for a while. A lovely blue and white cotton knit together with raglan style sleeves and a turtleneck. The reason I hadn't worn it was that neck. I have developed a taste for lower neck-lines and the sweater, while beautiful and snuggly has been snubbed for that one issue. I then made the choice and a few snips and a bit of knit bias tape and I have the sweater that I will be wearing today and hopefully many times in the future, ready to go. (As well as a headband quickly cobbled together from the neck piece)
For me a re-fashion is taking something I have already and changing it to better suit me in the right now. (whether that thing is an article of clothing or a chunk of fabric I have acquired from a thrift-store) That dress will get used to make other things but most likely not something I will be wearing. Since I have learned from the doing, while the end result was not what I was aiming for the time was not wasted. Does what I end up making from the dress still count as re-fashioning or does that fall under the re-use header?

Since I don't have any other good (meaning at all well lit, relevant to topic or in anything approaching focus) pictures today I thought I would share a few links to tutorials I have used with a fair amount of success.

A tutorial on how to draft and sew skirts. I used this to create a lovely maxi from a fabric I had been hoarding for years.
http://madmim.com/drafting-and-sewing-a-maxi-skirt-stretch-yourself/

This has good verbiage and fairly clear visuals on how to draft and construct a "Peasant style" top. I used this to make a nearly ankle length dress for my little girl and have drafted a pattern to attempt a top for myself soon.
http://thingsofcloth.blogspot.com/2008/07/adult-size-peasant-blouse-tutorial.html

This site is in German but the chart is clear. I took this idea and ran with it. Ended up drafting a cross-over pinafore style apron pattern and made 3 of them over a couple of days. Two of them I managed to put pockets on.
http://efraimstochter.de/bastelideen/pippi_kostuem.shtml

If any of these links do not work for you or the site goes away please let me know.

Re-fashion Resolution

I am by no means a "Fashionable" person. I don't dress up because I refuse to try to impress anyone with anything other than my sparkling personality. Recently I found a blogger that helped me see that re-fashioning things is more about expressing your personality than I had realized. In reading her blog (I read all of the archived posts over a period of 3 days, I binge) I also saw that doing this can be an emotional healing process. Keep doing what you love and it will help you pick yourself back up while bringing you joy in the doing.
My attempt at a resolution for this coming year is to try to learn how to re-fashion to fit my style (hers is very much her own) and try to learn more about myself in the process. I hope to be able to wear something I have either sewn from scratch or "edited" every day for the coming year, a hope and a goal for me to work towards.
This does not mean that my other crafting loves (a hook or a pen is never far from hand) will not resurface many times but that I am going to try to focusing on this overall.
So to introduce you to the blogging personality that sparked this little venture, Here she is, The Refashionista. Check her out and hopefully you will be as inspired by her stories and style as I was.