Key Covers

As some of you may know, I recently changed jobs (YAY!).  Aside from being much happier, I have had a little bit of frustration... mostly dealing with the amount of keys I received.  They all look the same and I keep mixing them up when I need to use them. So I found this really cool fish key cover crochet pattern on Pinterest, but it was only a picture and not a pattern (hate that!!).  I did a Ravelry search and came across a few that worked and decided on this one.  I  purposely picked crochet as I need to work on those skills for other projects in the upcoming months I wish to do... =)

For a good video invisible decrease go here...

Here's the finished products!

Maybe I'll eventually figure out how to make it look like a fish. But I'm happy in the meantime.

Thoughts?

When I dip, you dip, we dip.

I've been working on Nina a lot lately, so Pinta has been glaring at me in judgement the whole time.  Since she's older and needs more love, I decided to make a cover for her (something I've been meaning to do but kept forgetting) to keep the dust out.

Remember those KitchenAid Covers I made? Well, I used the same principle for it but I didn't want to make it the same boring one fabric.  I wanted to make it similar to this, but not exactly the same. So it inspired me to do a quilted block for the cover.  But I did use maxi piping again (I kind of fell in love with that stuff).

I found a really cool bear tracks block on Pinterest and modified it so it was tracks walking up and over my machine.  I added a solid stripe next to it so it would be a bear walking under the night sky.

I only did four but looking at it now I could have done six or eight and it would have looked better. Oh well.

Originally, I was going to use this as an excuse to work on my machine quilting skills with Nina, but I opted to be SUPER nerdy.  Can you tell what I did? No? Well... maybe you tell what they are from looking at the side piece of the cover ....

The dork inside me is giddy. (It's Orion the Hunter).

I started in the middle and pinned the heck out of it with the piping in between the two pieces.  Seriously, the more pins the better for this.

See the Big Dipper? I know, there's about an inch gap from the bottom.  I'm OK with that, but I'll have to add an inch next time.

You can see the Little Dipper now (that thread is from the piece of fabric place holder, not my cover).  Get why the tracks had to be bears? The original constellations (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) are shown as bears, not cups or anything dipper-related.

Orion didn't come out as well he should have. My mistake when sewing them together.

Technically, this is reversible but I really made this side pop so... no need to see the other side. =) Happy sewing!

OK.... fine! Here's the other side. But there are no fancy stitches or piping, just plain crazy cat lady fabric....

Feedback welcome!

HIDE YO KIDS... HIDE YO... Kitchen Aid Mixer?

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaave ya met Ted my beautiful KitchenAid Mixer?

BEHOLD - A TEAL GODDESS

She's pretty epic. I adore her. I've made a couple things with her, but I'm finding more and more things to use her for all the time (MASHED POTATOES?! NUTS).  C'mon, I cleaned my itty bitty counter to put her on display. So, WHY, on earth, would I hide her teal beauty? Because my house is dusty and I don't want to clog her motor.  

I found an image of a really cute Kitchen Aid mixer cover and it linked back to an About.com tutorial.  Not going to lie, I used it as a rough guideline. I ended up measuring it with a tape measure and making my own paper templates.  I think mine came out pretty nicely (I didn't have a use for the pockets, although, looking back, I should have done them. Pockets are always a nice thing to have.)

The main side (a lovely teal) with canary yellow piping (first time using piping... fun!!)

The other side... no piping, no love. Just there. Eh about this fabric.

Now... here's the fun part. I used my lovely new machine, affectionately named Nina, to make this project.  It actually was Nina's first project with me (*tear* they grow up so fast).  I played with her various built in stitches and had a blast. I never knew sewing could be so swear-free (but cursing like a sailor is half the fun for me). 

And, as always, Domino tried to help me.

But these went so well I might make more for others! =)  Stay tuned...