Purse

I also tried making a purse with this wicked bargain corse cloth I found at Lens Mills. I bought so much of it, and canvas since the lady told me that’s what I needed to make a purse. I was given the strap a long time ago as a gift and thought it went perfect with the fabric.

I serged sewed the canvas in between two pieces of this material to make a rectangle, then sewed up the sides and yaddy yadda.

The purse didn’t work. It looks cute but I can’t use it, I should have used a pattern.

Also, I’m wondering what gives the support in purses other than canvas. Are there boards you put on the bottom? sides? cardboard? I’m not sure. Buy a pattern I guess.

Second Dress

I remade the pattern I posted earlier with royal blue cotton lycra ( 1.5 meters for .50 cents) and used a gold and navy mural piece of fabric I got for .25 cents a few months ago to make pillows with. I really liked how it turned out, really pretty fit

After spending too many minutes with the interfacing (such confusion) I threw the pattern away and just kind of went with it. My shoulders are sloppy if you look closely because I sewed the front and back separately and left the shoulders last….which was wrong. Imagine sewing around your collar, attaching the right to the wrong side, doing the front and then the back – you’re left with excess fabric peaking at the shoulders that has to be tucked into nowhere! Good thing I’m an anxious maneuverer.

This is interfacing, the collar. You’ll notice on every shirt the collar is thickened with repeated or stronger fabrics to keep a steady position. Otherwise you end up with this:

A folded in/saggy/improper collar. SO NEXT TIME LYN, get it right, get some thick canvas or other materials (maybe even denim) to structure the collar.

Otherwise I really like it. And it cost me less than a dollar and is a perfect fit.

p.s. I sprained my wrist making this hence the brace, although I like it with the outfit

My First Dress

I spent my Saturday afternoon making my first dress, a pattern given to me by another girl who made an adorable dress/shirt out of a fleecy cotton green blanket. I didn’t stop to consider: the girl is much tinier than I am, infact, all her proportions are nowhere near mine – a 32 bust? please, I always end up with friends that can wear my clothes but I stretch theirs. On top of that, she used a stretchy fleece material while I used a much tenser/coarser fabric, resulting in the dress choking me…and busting at the seams (I have an abnormally huge chest). So, I can’t wear the dress, but I absolutely love it!

I bought the fabric at lens mills, London in the bargain bin for $3.99 a meter, it took about 2 meters to make this dress with lots of scrap. I thought the fabric was hilarious and did not consider it wouldn’t stretch, but I prefer it rock hard anyway…adds the home made effect.

I got the pattern from NEWLOOKPATTERNS bin 17 #6787, pattern B. I liked this one specifically for the necklines and the seam at the back

It’s a little off, as you can see with the unmatched pattern at the bottom…but I get too excited to notice things like that.

It took me a few tries to get the pieces of the pattern where I wanted them: the bird was to be in the front, and I thought whatever ended up in the back would look cool enough, and I really like it’s outcome. It has the fabrics meter marks, which gives it some edge (you can justify anything in fashion!) It took a lot of re-ironing folds and deciphering pattern jargon for me to figure it out (I asked brit to help but he just kept taking pictures)

I ran into some hardship when “applying the fusible interfacing” which I think meant: put on the neck thingy. It took me an hour or so to figure what I was supposed to do with these interfacing pieces. Do they go on the wrong side? right side? whaaat? Eventually I kind of just sewed it together and ended up with a fringey neck line (it looks like fringed denim due to the material I used), which looks better than I expected…different anyway. This happened because I didn’t make a hem on the interfacing pieces, but it totally didn’t say to. In a few washes it will start to look a little sloppy, but that’s ok, will just need trimming.

Overall I am really pleased with how it worked out, I think it’s very fitting (to someone tiny that could fit in it) and unlike anything you’d find in the mall, I hope one of my friends will like it as much as I do.

total cost: $7 for fabric, $2 gold thread, free pattern

total hours: 4.5 with some breaks in between

Hints for a slumber party

We’re having a party tomorrow which is a first, like a real damn adult.  Some things I hate about visiting people was where I slept, NOT A PROBLEM HERE. I designated one room, the family room, to be the first year residence + commune + hostel room: it will be perfect.  I took the basement’s old clothes, stuffing them in old sheets, sewed with machine, and voila: duvets and pillows.

We’re renting a crown and anchor table for the hell of it, another room. I made little “goodie bags” for everyone, change purses…for the gambling (I’m putting quarters in to initiate it as such…adult)

Here’s the pattern:

1.  Cut two square pieces of fabric (I used old cotton t-shirts), 10 x10″

2.  Turning each of the pieces inside out (the “wrong side” or the side you don’t want shown) measure about an inch flap along the top edges, I use a the length of a pin for measurement.

3.  This will be where you thread your draw string so you want to make you sew along the flap’s bottom edge (on ea square of course)

4.  After you’ve stitched both flaps, you’ll need to sew the squares together, with the wrong sides facing out. I pinned around the three edges (do not sew the flap) for guideline…ready, sew

5.  Last step…threading the drawstring. I tied the a 30 cm piece of yarn on the end of a knitting needle and feeding the needle through the strap you just made and catching it on the other side. Repeat on the next flap. Cut and tie the pieces together leaving a 10 cm strap.

Flip the purse inside out (after trimming off all your trimmings) fill it up with some quarters and happy gambling, the cute girl way!

Hat

I finally did it!

The key is to keep the first few rows extremely tight and then loosen up stitches for desired comfort.

Sweet, everyone reading look at your Christmas present:

First Hat: One night and eleven movies later

So I knitted my first hat. After tantalizing with Rachel’s verbal instructions, I used the pattern provided by this site: http://www.aokcorral.com/projects/how2sept2004.htm

I used an ocean blue with some fluffy toxic colours then topped it off with black … this is how it first turned out:

as you can see…it isn’t snug around the bottom nor should it have that ghastly antenna. I mended the issue by lacing the bottom with lime green piece of yarn to tighten, making a little bow with extra yarn, and trimmed up those silly edges. I got this…

I can live with it!

Next time I will:

-measure my cast on to make sure it fits, instead of winging it.

-I’ll also do a ‘knit,knit,purl, purl’ instead of doing ‘knit, purl, knit, purl’ to add more texture for those horrifying winter nights

Knitting

I recently started knitting in attempt to kick some bottles; this was successful. However, each new craft hour has become a meticulous bound of my ailing perfectionism, but this is good. BIG STEPS

this was my first scarf that I finished – some fluff blue fuzzy yarn (I call it under the sea) prettied with some earrings I found from the lost and found. no purls, just stitch