Christmas Project

So, shhhh!

Inspiration: http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/2011/08/photo-tile-coasters-using-resin.html

Desire: Old Nashville photos... there were none. Except in an expensive book...

Result: Quilt square coasters!

They turned out so much better than I was expecting. But then, I had low expectations since I'd never done this before! All my resin experience was pouring into molds, not onto flat surfaces. So, I'm happy. I'd be a little happier with certain things being different, of course, but these are pretty good for a first try. I do wish I'd been able to find thinner tiles. Oh, well. Next time, maybe.

What I did: I cut the quilt squares out of a magazine, mod podged the front and back (as recommended in this resin tutorial: http://skinnerstudio.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-embed-paper-in-resin-part-one.html), mod podged them onto the tiles, trimmed the edges to be even with the tile, mod podged the edges again. After letting that dry for a while, I got the resin ready to go. It took between 2 and 3 ounces of mixed up resin (resin + hardener) to do 8 tiles. After pouring, popping the bubbles, putting the bubblier tiles under a light in the hopes of the heat lifting some of the air bubbles, and putting them all on this tray, Daddy moved the tiles up on the top of a shelf, and I left them alone for over 24 hours. I got them down this morning, and they seem to be fully hardened! They're nice and glossy! The resin had run down the sides of several of them, so I got out my dremel, attached a sanding/polishing bit, and went around the edges, being careful not to hit the top, or even the top of the edges.

Now all that's left to do is add something to the bottom of the tiles, hopefully a thin layer of cork. I might try to find something to finish the edges off a little better too, but that's not totally necessary.

This was a neat project, so I'll probably try it again. I'd like to try using photos, like the inspiration. I'm curious to know if they need mod podge-ing like regular paper does.

2 more down!

Woohoo! 2 more sweater alterations out of the way! Again, not too creatively, but done nonetheless, and I'm happy with them. :)

6 Shirts

4 Skirts

Tally Update

Until today, I hadn't sewn at all since Wednesday. Sorta lose motivation, you know? Well, that and the fact that Thanksgiving lasted through the weekend, the Lord's Day was full, and yesterday and Monday were busy with other things, including getting over a cold. I'm going to try really hard now to stick to my 2-a-day goal. I went a long way in accomplishing that today since I successfully, if not overly creatively, conquered 2 sweaters! Which brings us to the tally:

4 Shirts

4 Skirts

Alteration/Repair Count

I worked a good bit of the day Wednesday on that stack of stuff next to the sewing machine. I knocked out 1 shirt and 4 skirts, and I'm sorta-kinda in the middle of another shirt (although I'm pretty close to just calling that one a failure...).

Just thought I'd pop by while I had a minute and create a tally! I think the total (of successful alterations or repairs is something like this:

2 Shirts
4 Skirts

My goal is kind of a 2-a-day thing on normal days, which, obviously, wasn't yesterday, and isn't today, seeing as how we're about to leave for another day with family! Gotta go!

Show time!

I don't have a before picture, but imagine this in a men's medium size, mock-turtleneck, hugeness. Yep, I wore it anyway, but, nonetheless, it landed in my ginormous pile of things to alter. So, I decided to change it up a bit today. And, boy, change it up I did!

I actually had enough material after cutting the original shirt all to pieces to do Vogue 8536. Well, more or less anyway. I based this off of it, and I like how it turned out! :)

I've done that pattern before, but I did a different view. Last time it worked, per se, but my fabric wasn't as stretchy as it's supposed to be. This time it worked a lot better - despite the fabric still not being quite as stretchy as it's supposed to be, I think. I'm assuming it's not as stretchy anyway; I didn't check it. The neck facing/binding piece was not able to stretch as long as it needed to to cover the neck opening. That wasn't a problem though; I just gathered about two inches of the neck opening on either side of the "V." It added a nice touch, I think.

Been a while...

Heh. No excuses really, except that I've been busy with farm work and THIS project. I've got a whole stack of projects to work on now though; I just went through my closet! Whew. It's a rather discouraging pile of alterations/adjustments/changes/re-purposes/repairs. I suppose I'll get through it somehow...

I've put this off for way too long... :-/

Simplicity 2498

Yes, yes, it's been months... Still, I found time (and motivation, if not inclination) to sew the past couple of days. When I bought the fleece for THIS, I bought a cheap piece of green... something or other. Suiting of some sort. It's been sitting around just waiting for me to do something amazing with it. When I got it, I had a skirt in mind, but when the opportunity to work with it, I wanted to make a dress. My choice was Simplicity 2498. I've made this pattern before, but I chose a slightly different view - view A with adjusted sleeves.

Detail close-up. It's around the hem and under the bodice-skirt seam. I was trying to keep it from looking Amish. ;) 

Playing with Resin - Take 1

A couple of weeks ago, I bought THIS kit. I've been very interested in resin jewelry since seeing pieces like THIS and THIS around. So, I started looking around, and decided that the easiest thing to do first off would be to obtain a kit. So I did. I've also been studying THIS blog's tutorials (see left side bar for the other tutorial posts).

I finally got to pour my first batch of resin last night! The pieces came out this morning. All in all, it wasn't as epic a fail as I feared it would be. I would say it wasn't even just a plain ol' fail! However, it was pretty far from a stunning success. A lot of what I read said there is a lot of trial and error - there's something of a learning curve. The question now is, will I keep working at it until I'm past the curve??? I hope so! I don't like trying something just once; I don't feel like I give it a fair shot. So I'm depending on y'all to keep me in line. I want to work at this until I get a really good batch, okay? Thanks.

Now, here's what I learned from the first batch:

• Powder pastels are pretty difficult to get thoroughly mixed in. I always ended up with little chunks or pieces that wouldn't dissolve completely. I can imagine certain circumstances where this would be just fine, even rather interesting, but I was hoping for some good, solid color. (I was at Walmart when I got the pastels, so my colorant choices were severely limited.)

• The paper embellishments/pictures/etc. need to be the right size, or at least a little smaller than the mold. Not bigger. Yeah, I know. Duh, right? Yeah... well... A couple of my pictures were a little on the largish side. Made it rather difficult to embed, and messed up the final layer of resin a bit. Oh, well. Learning curve, learning curve... It's all part of the learning curve.

• Not all resins are created equal! Yeah, so this point's kinda important. In the tutorial I linked to above, she uses EasyCast clear epoxy resin, or something like that. Well, my kit came with a different type of resin - the name of which escapes me at the moment. Thankfully, I read the instructions, and discovered that it was a 2-1 ration. 2 parts resin, 1 part hardener, I believe. The first pour was that ratio. The final pours were... 1-1. Like the resin in the tutorial. And it's not hard enough on some of the pieces. Oops. Learning curve...

• A heat gun/embossing tool would probably not be a bad investment. I think I'm gonna look into getting one pretty soon, or I might try using my wood burners first. A few of my pieces have air bubbles which I couldn't coax out with tooth picks. The above tutorial makes it sound like the heat gun really helps with that. We shall see. Maybe. :P

There you have it. My first lessons from my first batch of resin. Right now, I'm in the middle of cleaning the reusable cups and stir sticks that came with my kit (go figure; the resin didn't pop out when I pulled the sticks out.), and the pieces that are hard enough need to be sanded and polished. Then on to the next project! I don't feel like getting pictures right now, but hopefully I'll put some up before too long.

'Til next time, y'all!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear - Simplicity 3955

I finally took the plunge and ordered some fleece from Fabric.com! Seemed expensive to me, but it was cheaper than Joann's, I'm sure. Anyway, I had this in mind when I ordered, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. The pattern's not the easiest to follow, and I had to take out a bunch of my seams. Of course, the mistakes were just me being brainless, but the instructions just said sew this piece to that piece - not to make sure they come out to be the different sides of the bear (make sense?... I didn't think so.). You know, that the finished product was the mirror image of the other finished product? See? ... Ummm... Like, you don't want to come out with 2 left feet, so to speak. Now you see? I hope so, 'cause I'm not sure how else to 'splain it in the short amount of time that I have.

Changes (other than the obvious color difference): I added the tan pieces in the ears and on the feet. That was pretty much it though. I didn't trim all the seams before I cut them, only the ones on the face, but I can't remember if I was even supposed to do that now... :P

Anyway, like I said, I'm please with how it came out, and extra pleased that it only took me 2 days from start to finish!!! I cut out the pattern and washed the fabric yesterday. I got as far as having the head and feet and legs done yesterday, but I did everything else today. And yes, my thumb does now have a blister from all that cutting.

Gotta go now; who knows what project will be next!

McCall's 5481 - In CAMO!

I've made this one before, not that long ago actually. See HERE. I really do love this pattern. With all the gores, it's kind of takes a while to make, but I love how it flares out at the bottom! :)

Front.

I was going to put pockets in... Well, actually, I did. However... they didn't work, so out came my handy-dandy seam ripper. I should have known better than to put them in in the first place. :P

Side.

Simplicity 4087

Sorry, these pictures are horrible, but I don't want to go try to take some good ones. Blame it on the terrible camera - you'd at least be partially right, though I dare say the person behind the camera had a good bit to do with it as well. :P

Here's my version of Simplicity 4087, which the Simplicity pattern site apparently considers nonexistent. I can't find it anywhere on there, but I found it HERE instead.

Front. Yes, it's got a yoke; I didn't just randomly add trim in that shape. The yoke is not mirrored in the back. Just FYI.

Side. The zipper's on the other side.

Details, details! You know I love 'em - especially when they're productive as well as pretty. :D

Stories. Pretty much every garment I sew has one. This one is a happy story. :) After lunch yesterday, I decided I wanted to sew. As I had nothing cut out, or even remotely planned, I thought I'd better jump on that inclination. If I hadn't, there's no telling when I would have sewn. Anyway, we've had this pattern for a long time. I actually have made it before... or rather, I started it before. Mama practically did it for me - because I begged, I think. The fabric I used back then was a stretchy, gray plaid, wool-blend. It's extremely comfortable, and I love it. I've often pulled the pattern out since then and almost started it, but the thought of that last time has always haunted me. So, I continued to put it off until I finally decided to conquer my unreasonable reluctance yesterday.

This time the fabric was probably easier to work with. It's thick and not stretchy at all. Probably upholstery fabric (my usual picks from Sir's...). It's sorta like a black brocade, but not really. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it worked well, and, for me, that's all that matters. :) I'd determined to use this fabric for another church skirt. My church clothes are rather pitiful, especially my warm-weather clothes. Yeah, I know. BLACK upholstery fabric for a warm-weather skirt?!?! Well... that's me... :) Anyway, I was pretty sure I didn't have quite enough to do the whole skirt in that fabric and make it long enough, so I just planned on that from the start and found some black toile to add to the bottom for length.

I did everything according to the pattern except that I added the toile flounce, trim, and did the zipper like I do pretty much all zippers. For the flounce, I just measured the width of the bottom of the skirt's gores, the width of the toile fabric, and determined that 2 widths of toile fabric would be more than enough. Then I guesstimated how much length I would want to add, and measured 7" width across the toile fabric (folded in half, selvages together). I cut 2 of those, and gathered one on the front of the skirt, and one on the back before I'd sewn the side seams. Don't know about y'all, but I sure do prefer gathering straight strips of fabric as opposed to gathering rings of fabric.

After I got the flounce attached to the front and back panels, I sewed up the skirt just like the pattern said. I did my little trick/experiment, and sewed up the hem with a decorative stitch. At that point I was tempted to call it done. I decided that the gathered seam could use sewing down... er, up, as it were. In comes the purposeful pretty details! I dug through some of our trims and found a really long piece of trim that we've had for years. (We'd gotten it to add to a formal dress about 6 years ago, and never added it. Go. Figure.) It looked really good with the toile, so on it went. I sewed over that (just a straight stitch), which sewed down the gathered seam at the same time. Then I tried the skirt on. The trim looked a little ... odd... on there all by itself. So, on went the trim just above the yoke seam; I was then pleased enough with the product, though I wish it had pockets of some sort.

Things to note if you're thinking about making this pattern! I think it runs kind of small. I usually, almost on principle, make the smallest size a pattern comes in, waist-wise. True, this one comes with sizes smaller than most (4-12 or so, as opposed to 6- or 8-12). However, I make the size 6, and it fits me wonderfully! So, be sure to measure the yoke pattern pieces, subtracting the seam allowances, before you begin your project. Actually, that's probably a good idea to do with any project. But... I'm lazy, and only do it on the ones that strike me as seeming unusually small. :P

And there you have it. A far too lengthy post with rotten pictures as a reintroduction to sewing after far too long away from it.

McCall's 4258

Surprise, surprise! I found a bit of time (and necessity) to sew! During our last trip to Sir's I got a piece of brown suede. I can't tell y'all how long I've been looking for brown fabric! Seemed like it all disappeared at the exact moment I wanted to get some, so I was delighted to find this piece. Suede isn't (for me anyway) the easiest stuff to work with; it tends to make the needles and pins feel very dull... or perhaps I'm really am working with extremely dull pointy things. :P

Anyway, I did McCall's 4258, view D. I cut it out way too long. I thought I'd cut it out a couple inches too long, but it turns out it was more like 4 inches too long. However, that ended up being helpful. I wanted to dress it up a little; after all, I'm considering wearing it to a wedding (yeah, I know, brown? I don't really have a lot of options though.). So, I used the extra length to attempt to dress it up by adding a couple of wide tucks near the bottom of the skirt. All in all, I'm pleased with the result. Oh, and of course, I sewed the hem with a decorative stitch.

Please pardon the poor photography and filthy mirror. :)

Silent

That's what this blog is going to be for a while, I think. It's the last day of the first week of the year, and I took a test today. I am hoping to take another test before the end of the month. Studying takes priority over sewing, despite the fact that I'm dying to make a couple skirts and some curtains. I'm hoping to finish all this college work by the end of the year though, so hopefully sometime after that sewing will resume. Just wanted to post a notice of silence before it happened completely. :)