Experimentation

Hey, it's Friday!

I don't know where the time goes. Well, that's not entirely true. A lot of it goes to fabric and yarn... a bit to cooking, a bit to dog-care, a bit to movie watching with the boyfriend. But it all seems to go by too fast, doesn't it?

At least I have something to show for the week. Mario (the boyfriend) has been asking me to make him a new shift boot for weeks now. What is this, you ask? Well, it's the little thing that covers up the the hole in a manual car where the shifter comes up from the transmission tunnel. I don't know how newer cars work, but on older cars there is often a sort of utility cover made of rubber or something (which he has) and then a piece of cloth or leather over that to make it look nice (which he doesn't have).

This is what I had to work with for a pattern:

Not pretty, huh? This is what 25+ year old leather looks like when you take it out of your car. All of the pieces were sewn together in a sort of pyramid and then attached to the plastic ring, with goes around the bottom of the rubber shift boot. (Side note- all of my pictures are going to suck today. It's dark in the desert with rain clouds hovering over our head). So, using these, here is my first attempt:

He chose the fabric himself from Joann. It was Halloween fabric, too, so it was on sale for super cheap. It's really not perfect. The top definitely needs to be stitched better next time (I only took pictures of the "good side" so just imagine the horror of the other side...) and I think I'll make the whole thing a little taller so it is easier to sew onto the plastic ring. I will also be changing the order in which I sew things together to hopefully make it easier on myself. Once again, I didn't bother to check and see if there were any tutorials online for this sort of thing. But it was a great learning experience! I am going to make another one. Apparently he wants it quilted. Good thing I bought more fabric than I needed!

So that was a fun experience. I also finished up my second January block for the Skill Builder BOM (link in sidebar). 

I know, terrible dark picture. I tried! But now they are both ready to go! I really like how they both turned out and it was so much fun making them! I didn't really have a plan for either of them. I just messed with fabric and rearranged stuff until I liked it. It was really a lot of fun sewing this way and will definitely be doing it again in the future :) 

Those were my finishes for the week! I also made a good dent in my Hounds Tooth quilt. I still have about half of my stripey squares to press, but I needed a break. I think I might just square a few blocks up and sew a few together to see what it looks like. I'm getting more and more excited about it!

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts! Did you finish anything this week?

WiP Wednesday: In Which Progress is Actually Made

Happy Wednesday!

I have been busy over here in my neck of the desert. My Hounds Tooth quilt is really coming along! Very exciting. I finished sewing strip sets together and now I am cutting out triangles that unfold into beautiful stripey squares! Look!

Quilty Progression

I also made some progress on a blanket I am crocheting for my sister... pics to come soon!

Now that the monotony of sewing strips together is finished, I am starting to feel excited about this quilt once again. And since the boyfriend is stuck at work late and I already have dinner prepped and ready... I am going to get back to it!

Linking up to WiP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced! Hope your WiPs are seeing progress, too!

The Sound Wave and Other (non)News

Confession: I didn't get much done this weekend. Not just with sewing. In all realms.

My excuse? Well, Saturday my back was hurting. I think I popped something out of place Friday while I was helping to carry a year's worth of journals to the recycling bin. So I did very little Saturday except watch Downton Abbey and sulk because all I really wanted to do was sew but leaning over my cutting table and sitting in front of my machine hurt too much. But that night- a miracle! After trying unsuccessfully to make myself feel better all day- trying to pop my back and sitting with ice packs and popping pain killers- all I had to do was roll over in my sleep. Then- POP! It woke me up, sure, but the sweet feeling of release made me not mind so much.

So Sunday I got to sewing! I had a lot of other stuff to do, too, like shopping and wandering around thrift stores and working and a crocheted blanket for my sister... but I did get something done!

Sound Wave block- Skill Builder BOM at Pile of Fabric

Yeah! The first of January's blocks! I was super proud of myself. I know my seam allowances aren't always a perfect scant 1/4" so I fiddled and fiddled and taped and fiddled... tried different feet and different widths. But FINALLY I figured out my new machine's sweet spot. And I used painter's tape to mark it as a guide so from here on out it will be much easier to achieve the perfect seam allowance. I'm so glad I took the time to do this. My block didn't end up a tiny bit too small for once! I was so proud. I know the picture isn't great. I was trying to angle it to catch the last of the light so you could see the colors. The colors are pretty decent. But the rest of the picture is pretty awful!

I have since added borders to this, though I haven't added backing or batting for the QAYG. I haven't actually made a decision about backing... so I'm dragging my feet. The Magnum block is also almost finished, so I will post more pictures when I get it done! :)

I am hoping this week yields more sewing time. I really need to get moving on the Hounds Tooth quilt if I want to get it done in any sort of timely manner. I'm not letting myself start a new quilt until I make some real progress on it. Of course, I am still allowing myself to do small projects... and I bought some little zippers... so we'll see how far I get on that promise to myself.

Linking up to Fabric Mutt who is hosting the Let's Get Acquainted Monday link up today! Have you been over there? I love Heidi's blog! And she has lovely pictures of her sewing space up today. I should organize mine better so I won't be so ashamed of showing it to people... Some day! Have a great week!

 

Slow and Steady Wins... Right?

Where did the last week go? I feel like it was just last Wednesday like... yesterday. Time is passing too quickly for my taste.

But I have a little bit to show for all the time passed, at least. I have been making slow but steady progress on my Hounds Tooth quilt. I sewed all the 2.5" strips together! Mostly in one very cold day. There was tea and Doctor Who involved, to be sure. And wrist warmers. And a silly poncho. My hands were still freezing, but it was worth it in the end.

Now I am working on turning all my sewn together strips into pretty, crisply starched and pressed strips. The good news? The steam from the iron helps keep my hands warm. The bad news? It takes forever. I don't have a real ironing board, you see, and I can't fit a whole long strip on my little table. So it takes some shifting. But hey, it's a good excuse to throw on Downton Abbey and spend all morning pressing seams, don't you think? :)

Strip Transformation

It is so hard to get a good picture of these colors. I promise the purple isn't really that dark! Oh well.

Yesterday was Tuesday, which meant that I joined a couple of my friends for some crafty shenanigans. Another friend hosted this week, which I was grateful for because I really didn't feel like clearing off the dining room table (it was one of those days, okay?). It was such a huge success! She likes to make things out of duct tape and bits of comic books. So she taught us how to make ADORABLE duct tape bows, which I then attached to a cheap dollar store headband.

Duct Tape Bow Headband!

Isn't it cute?? I opted to just use two kinds of duct tape, but our other friend decoupaged some comic strips to hers before adding the border. I didn't get a picture because I'm dumb, but it turned out really cool, trust me. Here is a cell phone picture of it on my head.

We also made cool pendant things from cut up comics. Mine is this hilarious picture of Sonic making the BEST face. Unfortunately, it takes days for the resin-y stuff we put in the pendant things to dry and harden, so pictures will have to wait til next week. But trust me, it's going to be hilarious. I'm going to give it to the boyfriend to hang in his car because he loves Sonic. I'm also hoping the face Sonic is making will encourage him to slow down... We'll see if that works :P Anyways, it was definitely a good night. After all the crafty goodness I *finally* learned how to play Settlers of Catan! Woo! But now it is back to pressing and starching and pressing and starching.... Weeee!

Linking up to WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced! Hope your week is going well!

A Dress!

Yes! I did it! I made a dress!

I used some mostly cotton gingham I bought online. I didn't follow a pattern, so I'm sure I didn't do anything the "proper" way. But still! Look! A dress! It fits! And it's blue! :D I totally forgot to get Mario to take a good picture with it on me, but here's a silly cell phone photo of me right after it was made.

I know. My eyes are all crazy and I'm wearing knee high argyle socks. But the socks were just what I was wearing under my jeans and boots that day! I have no excuse for the rest of the ridiculousness in the picture. Like the horse racing arcade machine. Mario bought it to convert into a MAME cabinet. At least, I think those are the right letters. It's basically an arcade cabinet on which you can play a huge number of awesome classic games instead of just one. But so far that hasn't happened and we still have Arlington Horse Racing instead. *sigh* Maybe I should just stand in front of it to model all the clothes I make. Might be kind of fun!

I also bit the bullet and bought some more yard for my scarf. It is now proper scarf length and I am much happier with it. I finished cutting all the squares and stripe for the hounds tooth quilt! Now it is time to get to sewing! I wanted to do some of this over the weekend, but it has been cooooold here. Well, cold for Arizona. I believe I mentioned I don't have central heating? Yeah. So my very poorly insulated sewing room is FREEZING. I cut the fabric out in about 1 hour shifts because that was all my hands could stand. I managed to do the dress in the same way- an hour at a time. But fortunately, a dress is a much smaller project than a quilt so at least I have something to show for this weekend! It will be warming up again later this week so hopefully I will have more progress to show you soon...

Linking up to Let's Get Acquainted at Plum and June!

Random side note- You know what makes me happy? That people never seem to get tired of the original Super Mario theme music. I mean really. People play it on all sorts of instruments, turn it into electronic music, make their own awesome renditions of the first few levels with cardboard cut outs for all the props... It's awesome. I'm so glad it was part of my childhood so I can watch all this ridiculousness and smile at the nostalgic feeling in my gut. I spent so many hours playing this game as a kid! My mom still has our original NES and if you play with it long enough, it still works, too. Ah, the good old days... Anyway, I will leave you with this awesome Youtube video: