Green – Page 3 – Hopefully Creative

Futuristic Spark Skorts

Shorts, pockets, skirt, what more could I want?

After completing the yellow Sparks, I set about to create some shorter shorts from some mystery futuristic stretch fabric in the hoard. The legs were shortened such that the pockets would still work, but they wouldn’t come down my leg as far as the yellow ones. I probably made a mistake in that shortening because the hem looks like the weirdest zigzag when it isn’t on my body. But nobody is going to care about that when it’s laying in my cupboard, right?!

This is the Greenstyle Spark Tights pattern underneath. I made the same alteration to the waistband and cut a little bit off, and I added a skirt. No pattern involved, which also meant that it didn’t really go well first time round. I had to cut a lot of the waistline of the skirt in order to get it to lay approximately flat. You’ll also see that this fabric has a white background, and since the waistband just uses the stretch to keep the thing on me, it is much lighter in colour than the non-stretched skirt. I’m just going to go with ‘design element’ on that one.

I’m still amazed by the thread colour I ended up sewing with. I did not expect that I would have to opt for green as the most suitable colour. The sewing went pretty well, the general Sparks pattern came together easily. It still has the same pockets underneath that I can fit a phone or something else in. I love pockets, they are great! Since I only finished the hemming recently, I still have to wear them around for a bit to see if they work as well as I’m hoping. Fingers crossed!

Mini Manta Ray Plush

Gifting a miniature manta ray plush

After debating it for a while, I finally jumped on CholyKnight (Sew Desu Ne)’s Patreon. I’ve been using so many of their free patterns for my plushies that I decided that it was probably time to give back a little. As there was also a recent birth, I needed a tiny baby gift. Cue the Manta Ray pattern. This is a free plush pattern already but if you are a patron, you can also get access to a mini version. It’s got three pattern pieces, made out of four bits of fleece fabric and with optional spots. I left off the spots for this version but did include the eyes and the blush.

You first apply the blush, eyes and eye whites, then stitch them down. Then you attach the top fins to the top piece. Attach the bottom to the completed top piece while leaving a bit of the tail open. Turn it right side out and sew along the top fin seam so that the fins stay flat. Stuff the body a little and close up the tail and DONE. This was a super easy evening project and I really like it. As usual my living room was filled with fluff until I got the lint roller out, but that’s the price you pay for super soft plushies. That same evening I also cut out a pumpkin platypus but I’ve yet to complete that. Stay tuned though, it shouldn’t be too long.

Desert Play Mat

My best attempt at a desert mat for play time.

Little humans slowly grow up, and one I know had a birthday in January. As usual, I wanted to make a thing. I’d decided on a play mat of some sort, preferably with a road grid on it, so that cars could race along. After weeks of scouring the fabric shops online for a fabric that had good, wide roads on it, I decided that it was impossible. So I went back to one of the fabric shops I’ve frequented the last few months that sells coupons (shorter lengths of pre-cut fabrics that are generally leftovers) because I’d been in love with a cactus printed linen for the longest time. There were some other fabrics that really tickled my fancy. A geometric pattern on some ochre cotton, smaller cacti on ochre, dinosaurs with umbrellas etc. (I may have developed an ochre obsession at one point).

The playmat was going to have both of the cactus prints, one for the ‘front’ and one for the ‘back’. There was also some dark blue cotton that I bought for the drawstring casing. You see, I found this Toy Bag & Play Mat tutorial by Fabric Mill, which I decided to almost entirely disregard, but I liked the standing edge on the drawstring casing a lot. I did want a contrasting one so that it was clear where the edge was.

Once the fabrics arrived in my house and were laundered, I set out to make a play mat/bag. I cut out the largest circle possible from both of the fabrics. Then layered them with some quilt batting and sewed lines every 10 cm in a grid pattern to keep the fabrics together. This was quite the ordeal but I did manage to make the entire thing in a day, so I guess it wasn’t too awful. After that, it was trimmed to size, the edge sewn and zigzagged down. Then the casing was added, this was the most annoying part of the entire project. I cut it 7.5 cm wide as per the instructions, which was not wide enough for my version because my seam allowance was larger. So I ended up cutting more strips and attaching them, having to unpick at least 8 sections because I sewed over folds in the first strip. Very frustrating. Once it was finally all attached correctly, it was sewed down and then the edge was closed. I didn’t have a cord, but the last bit of the project: ‘adding a cord and sewing a closure’ was only a few minute job so I’m counting it as a one day project.

Scrap Pouf

When the collection of scraps gets so large that you make a thing to hold them all.

Lots of my projects have leftovers. Bits that are smaller or larger and might be of some use at some point in time, but not right now. As I don’t particularly like throwing things away, I decided to follow the example of a recent YouTube video by Enchanted Rose Costumes to create a scrap pouf. Her version was based on the free Closet Core Pouf pattern, with some modifications. My version also has some modifications from the original pattern and I basically only used the pattern to verify the height of the pouf.

When looking through the hoard for suitable fabrics, I found this 20 cm long, 140 cm wide piece of Tropical Mannequin leftover that I really loved. That needed to be the top of my pouf. For the bottom, I found a scrap of the mock up corset fabric that was dark green and sturdy and therefore seemed to fit. Neither of these were large enough to make a pouf, so I set out to find a third fabric. I settled on some white curtain stuff with a vague pattern on it, that I’d tried to make a corset out of but failed miserably.

The white and tropical fabric were interfaced in fusible cotton, the green was fine by itself. Since the tropical fabric was not very long, I figured out the largest possible circle I could make out of it by attaching three strips together. The end result was 48 cm in diameter. Next, I cut out two half circles (one with some overlap) of the dark green fabric for the bottom and put in a continuous zip with a leafy zip pull. For the sides, the circumference was divided by 12 for each panel, and 10 sections were cut from the white, while two were pieced from the tropical fabric. Then the outside was sewn together and the pouf body was finished.

The scraps came from three different locations; the bag of scraps I’ve kept on top of a cupboard, the bin in my sewing room and the ‘in use’ box in the living room. All in all, I collected 7 kg of scraps and started stuffing. The good thing about having a zipper is that you can put some power behind it and compress more scraps inside compared to an open bin. There is even some space left, so I have ‘room to grow’! For a project that only took a day (and some years to gather the insides), it looks pretty good. I’m not yet entirely sure where it will live, but I’ll find a place.

Turtle

Who could say no to that adorable turtle face, even if he is a bit head-heavy.

It might have been a while, but this little turtle has been finished since June 6th, but my motivation for writing has been lacking. This turtle is, of course, a free Choly Knight/Sew Desu Ne pattern. This one was a little bit more difficult because the shell requires stopping before the end of the seam in order to have everything fit together nicely. I also sewed a wrong side to a right side in the ‘shell edge’, which meant a lot of unpicking invisible thread in high pile fabric. Not my favourite activity for sure.

The pattern has a few different options. You can choose nostrils or a smile, I chose the nostrils. You can also choose what shape the extremities would have, either flippers (my choice) or arms/legs, which basically are very similar to the tail that I used. In the examples, the shell is empty or embroidered. I chose to leave it empty because embroidery wouldn’t show up on this fabric when I tried it before.

I do think his eyes and nostril combination is particularly cute. Up next might be a frog? I think? I put eyes one of the remaining cut patterns, but I forgot which one it was. There are so many projects on my to do list that my word file ‘Projects’ has 20 separate projects listed, and it’s not complete. Curse my overactive imagination!

Second Try Sweater

Sometimes you just have to give up and accept that some yarn will just not be for you. So I made my friend a sweater.

I started knitting a sweater called Fallen Leaves by Andrea Yetman in January, using some green yarn and some grey yarn. By the time I came to just below the leave pattern it just seemed very big. Since there weren’t any other sizes to really choose from, I decided to frog it. I had made the deal with myself that I could start knitting with my starry night yarn after I finished this green yarn, so I had to find another project.

So I cast on a new sweater, this time Cadence by Jordana Paige. I didn’t use the yarn specified in the pattern so I knit a larger size with smaller yarn, hoping that it would eventually fit me. By the time I had divided for the arms, I figured out that it both didn’t fit me and that I wouldn’t have liked wearing it even if it did fit. Almost off the shoulder just isn’t my jam. However, I wasn’t inclined to frog this again, because of that deal. So I asked a friend if she liked it so far and whether I could finish it for her. She did and so I kept on knitting.

I knit all of the body and then cast off but didn’t cut the yarn. I had her try it on and it was a little short, so I used all the yarn that was remaining to knit some extra length. I still like the idea of this, with the diamond shapes. I just couldn’t see myself wearing it at all, even if I had frogged it and made it smaller. Luckily, my friend is quite happy with the results of this project so that’s very nice. I’ve now cast on the starry yarn and am looking forward to finishing that sweater. Even if it will be very winter in the middle of summer.

Plaid Earflaps

Using more leftovers to make a new hat that also keeps my ears warm!

Recently, I got the urge to make a new hat. In my head was the idea to make a witch’s hat like this one from Bernadette Banner. But then I remembered that a) I wear my hair up nearly always without any pins and it needs to be somewhere, b) I want to wear a hat to keep my head (and ears) warm because winter and c) I wear hats to keep the rain out of my eyes. So on to plan b, make a ‘baker boy cap’ type thing, but add ear flaps! I grabbed the one cap that I’d made before and popped it on my head to see where the ear flaps needed to go. Turns out that they would have to be directly beside the brim, so that was a lucky coincidence.

I grabbed some scraps from the green plaid pants that I have kept all these years. Eked out all the pattern pieces exactly and got to work. The ear flaps were lined with a black fleece for additional warmth and I put in a braid of the ‘yarn’ I’ve been using for stuffed animal eyes, to tie under my chin. I sewed most of it together and then had to make a lining. I chose to just put my pattern pieces down, make a circle-ish shape out of it and add the darts back in. It seems to work fine so far. For the button on top, I found a self-cover-button-kit. I’ve been attempting to use that kit for a while now and never managed to make a button. However, I finally had an epiphany: I just needed to be stronger! In comes a glue clamp thing that I’d never used before. So I popped the pieces in, and clamped the clamp over them and tightened, something I couldn’t manage with just my hands. The bottom of the button suddenly stayed in; miraculous. I made two other buttons but ended up not using them.

The hat’s been on a few test rides now, and I think it’s wonderful. I may look like a bit daft but I’ve never let that stop me before! My ears and head stay nice and warm, and it’s got a lot more of a brim than the knitted ear flap hat I was wearing all through last winter.

Brian the Big Brained Derpy Kraken

Making a little stuffed kraken that turned out more adorable than angry.

Way back when I purchased the dragon backpack pattern from CholyKnight, I also got a pattern for a Kraken plush and an Octopus/Animal plush. On Friday, I finally decided to make the adorable little Kraken.

I’d already purchased some dotted minky while getting the dragon fabrics precisely for the purpose of making something octopus-related. I thought the dots could perfectly represent suckers. So I got my grey fabric and some of the yellow dotted stuff and set out to make a Kraken with ‘angry eyes’. When I sent a picture of the finished plush to a friend of mine, he immediately suggested to name him ‘Brian’. Or even better, ‘Brian the bigbrained bracken’ [sic]. He also told me that mine is a little more derpy than the original, with which I totally agree. The pattern does not specify placement for the angry eyes so I sort of.. guessed based on where the regular eyes were positioned. Turns out that I put them a little too close together and now he looks derpy instead of angry.

He’s still magnificent and really soft. The eyes and spots are made of felt and stuck on with some vliesofix. Then I handstitched around them to secure in place permanently. The handstitching was done in a few hours while watching/listening to some old climbing competitions on YouTube, very relaxing. I may need to make another Kraken because I have some more dotted stuff hanging out in my fabric hoard.

Christmas Knit Gifts

This post was written a while ago, but the post has made me wait until one of the gifts arrived in New Zealand, that took a while..

Poinsettia

When I was making and sending my Christmas cards, I wanted to include a little gift for a friend of mine who is currently in New Zealand. She’s bought poinsettias for the past few years and managed to keep them alive through to July or so, so I decided to make one for her to see if the Christmas spirit transfer. Sadly my card hadn’t arrived yet by Christmas, so I don’t know if it worked.

The free pattern for this little flower was found on Ravelry – it’s the knitted poinsettia by June Gilbank. It has you make six large green leaves, six smaller red leaves and some yellow stem bits. I ignored the stem bits and chose to do some french knots instead. This was a very quick knit and quite easy to put together. I liked the way she finished the back with a knot and very limited weaving of ends.

Friend of the Forest hood

The second gift was a hood – the friend of the forest hood by Gretchen Tracy. I’d been wanting to knit a hood like this for a while now and when I found some lovely ‘printed yarn’ (?), I decided to go for it. However, I was also making a very red coat at the time. I wouldn’t be able to wear this hood with it because it would clash something horrible. So I decided to gift the hood to a colleague who enjoys these types of fall colours.

It knit up real easy and quick. I still have the last two colours of the ball left (grey and some more purple) and another ball but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet. So I guess that’ll be a story for another day.

Even More

I went skiing in February, fell after about an hour and hurt my shoulder. The vacation still was nice, skied for two and a half more days and enjoyed the sun and the snow. However, this meant that I needed to ban myself from knitting until my shoulder didn’t hurt any more. I had no intention of getting another over-worked arm and dealing with that for two years. So no yarn-stuff for me. I have been working on things though, almost finished a pant suit that I will wear for graduation in June. It only needs hemming and elastic shortening, so I hope to finish it way before June. I also started an enormous cover top, which even in size 32/34 did not fit me at all, so that’s going to my mother.

Green scarf

This post, however, is about even more infinity scarves. I got to work for an hour and a half and made two this morning. One was dotted green with white stripes on the other side, the other black with sunflowers and red plaid on the reverse. As usual, I failed the first time and sewed the first one up such that it didn’t turn out to be a scarf. Three seams, and I manage to mess up 33%…

Sunflower scarf

Still, one ripped seam and an hour later, I finished up my two scarves, just in time for summer. Although it’s still extremely cold in the mornings and decently warm in the afternoons. That’s why I continue to wear scarves every morning and at work. These should see some action in the future.

Tag: Green