It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

FINALLY... I can share with you my Christmas creations (now that I've given them all away to people).

Everyone Got this one

I made an army of wine cork reindeer.
(Notice the newspaper that I used? It's clippings from the Battle of Antietam... reindeers attack!)

I used the following tutorial to make them.  The whole post gives you a ton of ideas of what to do with your spare wine corks.  I just think the reindeer were so cute.  Mine are a little different (the picture isn't very good, sorry).  I used brown pipe cleaners to make their rack more impressive.  Also, the bulb for a nose wasn't doing it for me so I used red jingle bells.  I added a string of green sequins so they could be hung on the tree or just to look like their reins.  I had WAY too much fun making these.

The Men's Gifts

Domino poses with Dad's Phillies wreath and Mike's Orioles wreath.

I bought 40 baseballs off Craigslist for about $30.  The seller was super nice and a huge baseball enthusts.  I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have sold me the balls if I hadn't said I was making wreaths for huge baseball fans (he required that I send finished product pictures. Nice guy!).  So I used this blog post as a guide on how to do it. I didn't use softballs because I had so many baseballs it wasn't necessary.  However, the coat hanger... ehhh not that great. These all kind of sag when on the door.  Makes me sad. I would use two coat hangers the next time or loops of metal wire... something more sturdy.

Now, the Braves one for Jason's Dad was a different story.  All the letters I got were from Michael's and I had to paint them the correct team colors.  However, I wanted a little tomahawk to make it look exactly like the Atlanta Braves logo.  Do you know how hard it is to find a pre-made one?! I ended up using scraps from Home Depot (they're really cool about it - just ask the guys at the back by the cutting station if you can have anything left on the floor).  I glued it together using wood glue, painted it red, wrapped yellow ribbon around it and glued it to the back of the A. It looks pretty cool.

The Mother-In-Law's Gift

She got me heavily into sewing so I wanted to make her something special.  She, and most of my husband's family, is a big fan of reading. When I found this bag pattern I nearly cried from joy.  However, I hate paying for patterns. I think everything should be free. So I ended up using this free wall hanging pattern as a starting point for the book leaning side of the bag. As you can see below, it came out very nicely.  The fun part was using scrap fabric for the books or fabric that she had given me to "play" with earlier in the year.

The pockets were the hardest part for me. I knew how to make a bag from an Easy Quilt's free tutorial on laptop bag making that I had done for my mom last year, but it didn't have pockets.  I used batting in between the library book theme fabric, which I don't recommend because it got way too thick and my old Singer couldn't handle it (I broke a needle at one point... whoops).  Also, the fabric I used for the interior was from a fabric website that I LOVE. 

The Knitting Obsession Begins...

So I found a cute pattern on Pinterest, which links to Ravelry.com a knitting/crocheting website, but I had no clue how to knit or even how to read the stupid pattern. Determined to figure it out, I decided to teach myself with YouTube videos how to knit a scarf, which everyone claims is the easiest place to start.

The Mistake...

Yeah. Easy. This stupid swatch shows you how "easy" it was for me at first. That took me about 3 hours of cursing, hissy fits, and wanting to chuck the needles out the window.   Eventually, I calmed myself down and tried again. I got it right, but to knit a scarf in garter stitch took me forever it felt like.  But I now know what I did wrong in the beginning. I was picking up stitches from the row before and increasing every, single row by 2-3 stitches. At least. So, when you're teaching yourself to knit, take your time to see where the needle is going or you're going to be VERY frustrated... very fast. 

Bailey liked to help me along the way (shocking).

See? I eventually got it right.  I finished this one and started on another one pretty much the next day.  

Same stitch, same needle gauge (US8), and same exact boring style.

Ladies!

Now, for some stupid reason, I didn't take a picture of what I made for all my female friends (arrrrrgh, bad Laura).  I made each of them a rice heating pad. I feel that at my old age *cough* all my friends are finding they have random aches and pains. So, I asked for their favorite scents, bought a bundle flannel fabric from Hobby Lobby and essential oils from Amazon, and sewed away! The tutorial I used wanted me to break it down into sections, but I ended up making three long tubes (instead of just a sack of rice that would bunch up and annoy my friends).  I used ziploc bags for different scents, dosed it all, and shook away! Now, some scents faded faster than others I recommend "touching up" the scents before giving them to others to ensure they still smell nice. The smell of burnt rice is vile.

Well... those were my Christmas gifts! Yes, I had to plan in advance, but it was well worth it to see the look on my friends and family's faces when they opened them. Merry Christmas!

Ooohh Halloween!

I used to hate Halloween. When I say hate, I mean loathe.  I thought it was stupid, not worth my time, etc. Very Negative Nancy about the whole thing.  Within the past three years though I've given my hatred and started embracing the holiday for the fun that it can be.

Last year, I went as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  I found a dog's turtle costume for the shell (golden retriever sized) and then used a dress of my own that I know fits well as a template for the green dress that I wore.  The mask was the hardest part and looked pretty bad. But, last year at this time, I was very new to sewing and my skills were rough. Very rough.

But I still think my costume looked better than the ones I found online...

Mine (you stay classy)

Theirs. A-hem.

But I digress.  This year I wanted to do something feminine, like the ninja turtle dress, but again fun and not-so-slutty.  I found this gem on Pinterest but could not for the life of me find the pattern anywhere (only a former listing for it on etsy).  

So dorky. So cool.

So I again busted out the same $7 Good Will dress (that I look pretty smokin' in) to use as a template.  I found grey stretchy fabric and some regular black from Hobby Lobby.  Let me get this out of the way: If you're never sewn with stretchy material before, practice first.  I would have saved myself so many headaches and cursing fits if I had. This material sucked, I ended up stitching multiple holes by hand and getting frustrated beyond belief. I find out later that I also was using the wrong type of needle... *facepalm*.  Each of my projects I tend to learn something new about sewing...

Notice the circle and plus sign template? Highly recommend doing that if you're serious about making this costume look awesome. I also Googled an image of the original Game Boy just to be safe (didn't want drunk nerds at a Halloween party yelling at me!)

  

Since I don't have much in the way of boobs, I added straps so I wouldn't give everyone a free show at the party.  That being said, the dress is also a lot looser and longer than the original one on Pinterest.... and I'm OK with that.

Now, I could have left it at that but my hubby wanted me to jazz it up a bit. I found a couple days before Halloween Tetris and Pac Man fabric, but it wouldn't have gotten here in time. But I'm definitely keeping an open mind to buying a yard of that and just stitching it to the screen next year.  What we did instead worked... but I think it actually took away from the awesomeness that is this costume.  We used Blockus pieces (a boardgame) glued to a white piece of paper and safety pinned onto the screen. =\ As I said... should have just left it as it was.

Ahhh well... live and learn. Happy Halloween!

Curtains and table runner

For the two years we've been in our home, my husband has used an old to towel on the credenza in the basement by the pool table.  Since I finally finished my mom's t-shirt quilt, I knocked out a couple things on my "To Do" list.  One was the curtains for the small window in his "man cave." On our honeymoon, I went to a quilt shop in Murphy, NC and found a beer bottle fabric.  I made these lovely curtains for him from it.

Looks nice against the wood paneling!

So I used fabrics that made me think of Jason to make his table runner: nature, geometric shapes, money (he collects coins), beer, dice (he enjoys playing poker), music, and Celtic symbols.  From there, I made three large blocks all the same but with different fabric.  Hindsight: These fabrics are too busy to be put together.  But it works for where it goes and looks better than a damn stained, old bath towel. 

Pre-binding.  It looks OK.

It's a good sized table runner.He's holding it to show it's length (he's 6'3").

Close up of the binding.  One of the few times I like how I did the binding.

You can see the quilting/embroidery work that I did by hand.  I did swirls like that in only the two corners (the other you can't see because I turned the runner over).

Happy times! I like it...

Swimming T-shirt Quilt

I have been making quilted items for about two years now and I finally finished my mother's t-shirt quilt (I've been working on it for the past 9 months).  She's been coaching swimming for the past 14 years and has collected a number of shirts - some with my name on it, some with my brothers.  I asked her for all the shirts she no longer wears and supplemented them with a couple of my own that weren't wearable (but I couldn't part with).

Looking through the various t-shirt quilt tutorials, I didn't find one that I liked too much.  I ended up taking 30 shirts and finding the biggest one of the bunch (which ever had the largest section I wished to used and added 1.5" for stitching together purposes).  Once I found that one, I measured it and used it for the template for each "block" or shirt.  Then I cut out corresponding strips of black fishy print and cubes of blue fishy print for border.

This is how I attached each strip to then make a row.  I wouldn't do it this way if I do another t-shirt quilt.  It was hard for me to match up the blue blocks to each shirt's corner effectively.

See how large it is? There's a panel hanging over each side of our pool table.  You can kind of see how some don't line up properly.

The hardest part was lining up the blocks and strips, which was my fault. If I had stitched the block and strip to the shirt and made each block that way instead of stitching rows of shirts together and sewing the lines of blocks/strips to it then it would have come out neater throughout.  But Mom claims she doesn't notice (but I do).

On the back, I did a very poor job of appliqueing the shark to the two large strips of blue/black fabric (the store ran out of both and that was the best I could do.  Stupid budget/not being able to find it anywhere).  It looks like a shark (the mascot for her summer team) but I don't like how it came out. I need to work more on my cutting skills.

You can see the two different fabrics clearly here.

It's a crappy, crappy shark. Ugh.

The binding was ok because I had an excess of the back fabric and simply folded it over (I've seen it used in several quilts as a "cheat" for an easy way of binding one).

At the top of the quilt, I hand stitched, "Just Keep Swimming" which turned out OK.  I used a hoop to keep the fabric taunt, but I really need to practice my hand quilting.  I also added waves throughout the rest of the quilt.

Ehhh...

Marginally better...

Probably the best of the three words.

These were throughout the rest of it. Some where more mountains than waves, but that's OK. I tried... right?

My mom was thrilled.  Even though the quilt is big enough for a King and they sleep in a full, she loves it.  My dad was telling me about how she won't put it out yet because she doesn't want the animals to ruin it.  Sigh.  If only she knew how much time Domino and Bailey spent on it....

This is mine, right?