Hopefully Creative

Sashes Everywhere!

My parents are in a samba-band, which I think I’ve mentioned before. Their colours are blue and yellow. During performances they wear a blue shirt with white pants. On the back of the shirt the logo is printed in yellow. They do have a yellow coat for cold times, but in summer the shirt is enough. Now it was suggested by one of the members that they could all wear yellow sashes to show more yellow. So my mum asked me if I felt like doing that. I (stupidly) said yes. So yesterday my mum and me went fabric shopping, which was fun, and regular shopping, also fun. The night was spent, together with another samba player, making 20 sashes. I have figured out that I’m never ever going to make curtains. Sewing long stretches of fabric is boring. Especially 3 times per sash…

And they were long, I did 8 of 2 meters, 8 of 2,40 (which is really really really boringly long) and 4 of 1,80. First I sewed a bit into a tube with a pointy end, then gave it to my mum who turned it inside out and ironed it. Then I’d get it back and sewed all around it (so 2 pointy bits and 2 very very long bits). And voilà, a sash. After I finished the first 8 and half finished the second 8 my machine decided that I was stupid and it wasn’t going to do it nicely any more. It wanted some rest, well it was 11 at the time, so I was quite happy with that, apart from the fact it stopped liking me of course. So this morning I finished them. Finishing the last one felt so incredibly nice. It was amazing. Here is what they look like on the ironing board, and on me (while wearing my mums shirt):

Bag Progress

I have been making a little progress on my mouse bag, it’s now bag-shaped (yay!).

You might be able to see that the zipper does not reach from one end to the other, but from the right to bit over halfway to the left. This is because a) I couldn’t find a long enough zipper, b) was too lazy to go to town and get one and c) thought it was quite handy. You might think, why.. why Luus would you think that that would be handy?? Well the answer to that question is that there’s a little pouch for my mobile phone to the left. And no zipper equals easy access. And room for a snap. So ok, maybe it’s not super handy but I like it. In the meantime I have also worked on the strap, I did some embroidery. Cheese, a bee (don’t ask me why), a Dutch proverb and another mouse. The proverb literally translates as when the cat is away from home, the mice dance on the table. However, there is an English proverb that means approximately the same: when the cat’s away the mice will play. I figured since there were mice on the bag, the proverb would be a nice touch.

It’s still not done, since it needs to close and the strap needs to be attached. I’ve thought of a way to attach the strap, by attaching one end and making the other end movable with buttons. I’m not sure if that will work though, but this is what it would possibly look like.

I’m wondering if I need to add another bit of fabric to the bottom of the flap (possibly the red, or the yellow (not the orange since the strap is also orange even if the pictures don’t show it very well). Which would mean the buttons would go about 3 cm further down. The left side would be where the strap can be adjusted by buttoning the strap further down or up. So I hope I’ll finish it next week since school starts next week. I’m a tad scared for that. But at least I can impress them with my monster bag (link).

More Bags

While I was on the subject of bags the previous post. I remembered just now that I have another bag in the process of making. The other day I found a vintage pattern for a sampler in the vintage embroidery patterns Flickr (link). I really like the mouse, the cat, not so much. I had some strips of fabric leftover from previous projects and decided to make them into a bag. I embroidered the mouse on the widest strip I could find, later I plan to attach all the strips together and make them into a bag. But I haven’t gotten that far yet. As of right now they are just strips with a little mouse on one of them. Here’s the mouse:

Left is the mouse, right is the mouse with a reference length (about 3-4 cm I’d say). I personally thinks it’s really cute and awesome. Now just have to finish the bag. I hope I’ll do that soon.

Monster Bag

Remember the suits I made for Carnaval? I had some leftover furry fabric, so I decided to make something with it. The result was a bag. It’s reminiscent of the Monsters Inc. monsters. It’s green and furry with big eyes and 2 teeth. I think it’s really cute. My mother things it looks like Cookie monster (maybe she’s colour blind or something). Anyways, here it is. I’m very happy with it as I think it’s extremely cute:

Excuse the blurriness of the first picture, I found it hard to hold the bag and move far away from it to get it all on camera. The blue furry bits along the straps are supposed to be its arms. I have some legs lying around, but I’m not sure if I want to add them. Suggestions?

It closes with snaps beneath the eyes, I had to trim it a bit around the bottom snaps because there was too much fur. But it works just fine now, so I’m happy with that. I’m quite fond of my monster bag, now I’ve got to test it on the road to see if it’s not only super cute but also useful.

Wedding Madness!

We received an invitation a couple of months ago for a wedding. My cousin was going to marry the mother of his 2 children. So I figured, what a good opportunity to make a dress. I started one, and discarded it quite soon after (it was hideous, and didn’t fit at all). I think the pattern was just screwed up because even the models looked like it didn’t quite fit.

Some time after the first try I was wondering around burdastyle, where I found a really nice dress (link). With a free pattern. So I figured I’d attempt that. Figuring out how the top should fit took some time. And I had to make it in the evenings because I was working that week too. Which was troublesome. After I’d finished the top bit, I had to attach the waistband, which took one or two more evenings, which sounds long, but alone it’s very difficult. And of course zipper troubles, which took forever. In the end I was literally sewing until the minute before we left. I cut of the last bits in the car and arrived splendidly at the party. I had a very nice time and got a lot of compliments, about my hair, appearance and dress. That made me very happy.

Here’s the result of my hard work:

Useful

I’ve been having issues with plastic shopping bags littering my room. And this morning I created a solution. It’s a simple tube from some scrap fabric (the same as my coat) with two tunnels, top and bottom. Through the bottom one I threaded some elastic and through the top one some ribbon. I can hang the thing on by cupboard using the ribbon, and the elastic ensures that the bags don’t fall out by themselves but that I can easily pull them out. I’m quite happy with it.

So left is the finished version, and right is the ‘action shot’:

Bow Tie

Yes the title is correct. I made a bow tie tonight. For myself. But not for around my neck, oh noo…

I made a waist bow tie (basically popped an extra bit in the middle so the neck bit would be much longer). It’s just a kind of bow belt sort of thing. Two things I learned during this ‘challenge’: turning something from outsides in to outsides out is boring and annoying, and how to tie a bow tie.

I used the combination of these instructions (here) and this pattern (here).

With the result here:

Waist Bow Tie

Yes that is the same fabric as the top from yesterday. It seems like I might be getting my mojo back (at least for short simple projects). I hope to keep it up.

Well Hello There Finished Project!

So I tried it yesterday, making something little. But I couldn’t even copy the pattern right, thus gave up and went to bed. With a “try again tomorrow” sort of idea.

And I did, I started something when I came home, and it’s finished now. So I’m pretty happy. It came about like this: I’ve been reading about Colette patterns for ages now. Some of my favourite blogs mention them quite often. However, I’ve always found them really expensive and not very interesting really. So I never purchased any. But there’s a new pattern out. The Sorbetto top (here), which is free. And us Dutchies sure like our free stuff. Today I got another reminder that it existed from one of the bloggers over at the sew weekly. So I thought, it’s supposed to take little to no time, it’s free, and it absorbed basically very little fabric (I’m quite tiny so I only needed the length of the top in fabric).

And they’ve been right, it is really easy. It’s free, and it looks quite ok. I just followed the instructions. I would actually make it longer next time, since it barely covers my waistband. And I might make the arm holes a little bigger. I made it in the same fabric as my UFO dress from the vintage Simplicity 1236. But this one is finished! Unless I decide to add some buttons or something, but that’s not necessary yet.

And this is the result:

I’m so happy I found my craft gene again!

Inspiration There, Energy Gone

I have so many ideas for fun things, and I haven’t finished any these past couple of weeks. It’s starting to be depressing. I started a purple pant suit, and gave up not very long after I started it. I think the pant bit is reasonably ok (although it sort of itches), but I cannot seem to figure out how to do the top bit. So I gave up. Giving up has been very easy. I’m just not feeling it, at all. And I don’t know why exactly. So that is annoying me too.

I also started on the dress from the vintage pattern. Completely messed up the instructions as usual (didn’t read them carefully) but eventually that worked out fine. Except.. I don’t have big enough boobs, or my waist is not small enough, I don’t know yet. And since I don’t have a dress form, I need to fit on myself, and with nobody around to help me I just don’t get around doing it. I just don’t feel like it at all.

I’ve even stopped baking things, there’s nobody here to eat them so why would I. They’d just go to waste. However, I did do some creative things over the past weeks. I tried to draw the same picture as a person from deviantart (phobs) in his -lady in the shawl- drawing. Here it is:

I know the head isn’t right, but I quite like the rest (ok I got fed up with the skirt wrinkles, so I just doodled). I cannot draw from inspiration, I can only draw from example. This is one of them, I don’t do it regularly but since my failure to do creative things at the moment is mostly concerning sewing, I thought drawing might be a good alternative.

Maybe I’ll try a little simple skirt in a minute. Just to get my ‘finish it’-mood back on again.

Evening Skirt

The post title is double true. I made and finished it in one evening (that’s a first for me) and it’s more of an evening type skirt. I made it of the stuff I usually make prom type dresses off. So it’s really shiny and more shiny and quite slippery. Since I half gave up on my pantsuit plan I needed a quick and easy project to make me feel less bad about the defeat.

I used a free pattern from Grosgrain’s free pattern month (link). And I think it turned out pretty well. The reason I chose it was because 1. it was free (I’m Dutch so free is a magic word for me) and 2. it only had 2 pattern pieces and eventually 3 cut pieces. I thought it should not be too hard to put those together. And it wasn’t, easy as pie and fits nicely.

Here’s the finished project:

I also made a stuffed puppety thing yesterday which I finished today. I call it a poppy, which is like a cutification of the Dutch word for doll. A co-worker of mine is having a baby soon and it’s going to be her present. I make those quite often since I like them very much. She’s having a boy, which is a good thing since I only have blue fabric. It looks very fat and it is. I have to wash it to unfluffyfy it a bit, but here it is:

P.s. Excuse the mess, I have 2 tables in my sewing room, but one has the machines and the other the mini ironing board (which is what the poppy is propped up against). So I really never have enough space. I also need to clear up, but that’s for a later date.