Team Tent

Jason and some of his friends have this camping club that they call Team Tent. They have hand signs, a motto, and everything. Now, quit snickering, you'll hurt their feelings. One of them mentioned to me a while ago that they wanted t-shirts made with the hand sign printed on them. For Jason's birthday (let's just all pretend that his birthday was last week), I made the guys some shirts.

I got the shirts on sale at JCPenny's and used one of their coupons. I think I paid about $10 for all four. It's almost like I stole them.

I made the design on my computer, using Illustrator, then printed it out and made a stencil using freezer paper. I've heard that you can print directly onto freezer paper, but when I tried it my printer ate it. I printed it on computer paper instead and glued it to the freezer paper. I cut out the design with an x-acto knife. With four shirts, this took a whole lotta cuttin. I found that using uppercase letters made cutting easier because there weren't any curvy letters and I could use a straight edge to keep things neat. Then I ironed the plasticy side of the freezer paper stencil to the shirt and gave it a few coats of screen printing ink and ironed it for a couple minutes to set the ink.



I've been waiting to get a picture of Jason modeling his shirt. Having come to the conclusion that that's just not going to happen, I had our little oak tree model it instead.



team tent + dead grass

September Recap

I feel bad for neglecting this blog. I make lots of stuff but I never get around to taking pictures of it. A craft blog is useless without photos, so I finally did something about that. I went out in the backyard this afternoon and took pictures of everything I've been working on for the past few months. Along with a glimpse of all my dead grass. We decided to stop trying to keep the grass alive. We're entering stage 3 drought restrictions (watering allowed once every two weeks) on November 1, so our grass will get even less water than before.

I've been wanting to teach myself how to quilt, but I didn't want to make a quilt for myself that I would have to look at all of my beginner mistakes forever. I also didn't want to give a crappy quilt away to a friend. I researched a few charities and decided that I would donate what I make to Project Linus. Since it's for a charity, I wasn't too picky about my fabric choices. The original plan was just to make one girly quilt and one boyish quilt. My first rookie mistake was that I bought too much fabric. Once I got everything cut out and started sewing I realized that I had enough fabric to make THREE of each. Oops.



The girl quilts are a little wonky. I didn't do a very good job of cutting the fabric straight. Also, I think I started making these before I bought my new machine and I didn't have a quarter inch quilting foot to help sew the seams straight. The quilt with the pink border is backed with a pink gingham and the yellow bordered one is backed with green dots. I used these two quilts to teach myself a stippling technique for machine quilting. Strangely, the one I quilted first (the pink one) came out better than the other one. I have a third quilt top that will look like the yellow and green quilt when it's finished.



The boy quilts were a little easier to put together since all of the blocks are the same size and I have my quarter inch foot that keeps me from sewing like a drunken seamstress. I decided that instead of quilting these with batting and a separate backing fabric that I'm going to do something (hopefully) a little easier. The plan is to sew the quilt top to a piece of polar fleece then turn it right side out and quilt it with straight lines along the blocks.



I also have a pile of blocks that has yet to become a quilt top.



Nearly identical scarves for some nearly identical girls. Nearly complete.



And finally, a blanket that I started last weekend. It's about a third of the way done.

Summer Vacations

We took two trips this summer, first to Nashville to visit family, then to Hot Springs, Arkansas for our anniversary. The Nashville trip was great, until we ventured into downtown Nashville, for a night out alone. I think we picked the wrong part of Nashville to visit, because there wasn't much to see or do that wasn't overly touristy. The Hot Springs trip wasn't much to write home about either. Overly touristy, incredibly hot, and the entire town appeared to be run-down. We enjoyed the Fordyce Bathhouse that's maintained by the National Parks Service, taking a couples bath at the Quapaw Bathhouse, and seeing the old buildings. Would have enjoyed learning more about the history of the town and having more of the historic buildings available to tour. I also would have enjoyed staying at the fancy, old hotel downtown, The Arlington, but it was very run down and we chose to stay at a chain hotel instead. Didn't enjoy the Duck Tour (WWII amphibious assault vehicle converted to tour bus/boat), the observation tower (can't see the town through the trees), or the endless rows of touristy gift shops.

In an attempt to create pleasant memories from my vacation photos, I've been playing around with them in Photoshop. Some are more successful than others.

Tilt-shift is a way of manipulating a life-sized photograph to make it appear as if it's a photo of a miniature scale model. It uses some kind of optical illusion sorcery that works best if you take the picture from a higher vantage point. You can either use a special lens for your camera or you can fake it in Photoshop, like I did.


Broadway; Nashville, Tennessee



St. Luke's Episcopal; Hot Springs, Arkansas



Park Hotel; Hot Springs, Arkansas

Monster dinosaurs fighting.

I've been really bad about sharing stuff that I've made in a timely fashion. So, I made this about an hour ago.



Here's the story behind it... We visited Jason's parents when we were in Houston a couple of weeks ago. His sister pulled out a box of his old school stuff to show me this monster book that he made. I instantly fell in love with it and took pictures of it with my phone.

Today, I printed out the photo, taped the photo and t-shirt to the window and traced it with a fabric marker. The original drawing wasn't colored, but I decided that it needed a little something extra and I colored it with Crayola's, messy, like a kid would.

I showed it to Jason when I finished it. He looked at me like he'd never seen that drawing before in his entire life. (He was hanging out with his dad while his sister and I were going through the school stuff.) I explained to him that he drew it and showed him the photo of his original. He still didn't recognize it. Sigh.

Even More Batik

I think I'm done with batik after this. Napkins too for that matter.

I made my parents some cloth napkins for Christmas and they really enjoyed having napkins to go with their new kitchen. While I was on my batik napkin-making kick, I made some for them too.



The color they painted their kitchen is very pretty, but difficult to find stuff to match. I brought a swatch of their paint to JoAnn's to help pick out fabric for them. I chose two fabrics that I thought blended well together (going for the whole casual, mismatched summer thing) and would also match their kitchen. One was a deep purple/green, the other was a blue/green/tan. After I got home I realized that the blue/green/tan had a bunch of rusty brown in it. The two fabrics looked horrible together. I don't know how I didn't see that in the store. I think I grabbed the wrong bolt.

So, back to JoAnn's. I bought a little bit more of the purple/green fabric so that I would have enough to make a set of six napkins.

I gave my parents the napkins when I visited back in May (yeah, real timely with my posting here). I just saw them again last weekend and those napkins are still on the kitchen table. Mom is quite happy with my handiwork.

Bed Heads

After completely losing all faith in the USPS, I took extreme measures to hand deliver my nieces birthday presents to them. Of course, our little eleven hour trek to Tennessee had nothing to do with the fact that I hadn't seen them in over a year or that we were also hauling my mother-in-law's old hunk of steel Kenmore sewing machine and cabinet.



The pj bottoms that I was worried about being too small were in fact a little too big. And you know what? I'm perfectly okay with that. The pattern I used to make them was not sized to fit little skinny minnies like these two. My sister had to cut a couple inches of elastic out of the waistband of Katie's and they both have to roll up the cuffs. I got the mis-matching shirts at Walmart.



They wore those pajamas to bed every night we were there. I think they like them.

For their other birthday presents, I made each of the girls a matching pair of pj bottoms for their American Girl dolls. Don't have a picture of that, so just use your imagination. Adorbs.

I gave them the jeans that I got at the resale shop to help me size their pajama bottoms along with three more pairs that I found later. (I love that resale shop. I got one pair of Justice for Girls jeans and three pairs of Gap jeans with really cute embroidered details, all for about $7.) As I mentioned earlier, I gave them my mother-in-law's old sewing machine (the one I used before I got my new machine), a couple of books with simple sewing and embroidery projects, and the sewing pattern that I used to make their American Girl doll clothes to help them get excited about sewing.

Crazy Pants

My nieces' just had their 10th birthday (can't believe it!) and I decided that a craftapalooza was in order since they like handmade stuff so much.

I made crazy mismatched pj bottoms for them, (along with a couple of other things) using five different coordinating prints for each pair of pants. Each girl's pair of pants is a different color, one is pinks/oranges, the other is blues/greens, so it's a lot of fabric to keep track of. They look like clown pants, but I think the kookiness of it all will be appreciated by their 10-year-old fashion sense.



It's been a little difficult figuring out sizing for them from 650 miles away. My sister emailed me their measurements and I bought a pair of jeans in their size at a resale shop for reference. According to the pattern I was using, they should be a size 7/8. I cut out the pattern and it looked humongous, like actual clown pants. Pretty sure both girls could fit into one pair of pants if I made it that size. The picture on the pattern envelope looks incredibly baggy too. Fashion has changed since that pattern was designed in the 90s, everything's more fitted now.

I held up a pair of my own size adult small pj bottoms to the pattern and it was wider than my pants.

I made the decision to cut the pants out to the 5/6, cut the crotch to the 7/8, and add on some length with a cuff that can be let out as they grow. It's a little worrying to make pants sized for a 5-year-old for a couple of 10-year-olds. I hope the pants fit and that I've left enough growing room so that they can wear them longer than six months.

That's what frustrates me the most about clothing patterns, the sizing is completely different than store-bought clothing and therefore it means absolutely nothing.

More Batik and Why I Hate the USPS

I made my friend, Maggie, some napkins for her birthday. She lives in Florida and I've only been to her apartment once, so I don't really know what her colors are. I remember seeing some blue somewhere, so that's the color I went with. Plus, who doesn't like blue?





After I got the napkins finished, I had a little bit of fabric left over, and I was feeling overly ambitious. I had a similar color batik fabric, in a smaller print, left over from a dress I made a couple of years ago. I used those two fabrics to make a pair of log cabin pillows for her sofa (or bed, whatever).



I used 2 1/2 in. strips for the blue fabric and 1 1/2 in. strips of the white. I stitched a couple rows around the white squares to quilt the block to a piece of white fabric (no batting) to line it and give it a little extra stability. I did an envelope closure on the back and added a few buttons to make sure it stays closed.



Now that you've seen all of my hard work (and I've had a good cry looking at the pictures), onto why I hate the USPS.

I mailed Maggie's present two weeks ago and it never showed up. The idiots from our wonderful postal service lost it. I didn't pay to have the package insured and I lost my receipt with the tracking number on it. I'll admit, that's my fault. However, I trusted them to get Maggie's present to her and they DIDN'T DELIVER (pun intended).

So Maggie, I hope you've enjoyed looking at pictures of the birthday present that you'll never get and that you feel the same deep seeded hatred for the USPS as I do. I'll get to work making you another birthday present.

Batik Napkins

I've always used cloth dinner napkins, but I've actually never made any for myself.

A couple of months ago I got a Crate and Barrel catalog in the mail that featured some batik cloth napkins. Adorable! I love batik, but they came as a multi-color set that didn't match my kitchen, and I hate spending that much on napkins.

This inspired me to make some for myself.



I think batik is a great look for summer and I liked the spontaneity of C&B's multi-color set, I just didn't like the colors (especially the orange and yellow). I picked two complimentary prints and went to town making napkins.



Of the store-bought napkins that I have, some are made with a plain, turned under hem, and some have mitered corners. I like the ones with mitered corners better, they look a little more polished.



This tutorial on mitered corners is a good one. A 22 in. square of fabric makes one 20 in. napkin and a 44 in. length of fabric will make a set of 4 napkins.

Why I Make Stuff

My mom used to teach HomeEc. She sews beautifully. (She cooks well too. Sadly, I didn't learn to cook from her.) She made me dresses, outfits, and Halloween costumes, until I got to the age where clothes made by your mom were no longer considered cool.

She was always encouraging me to draw, make stuff, and be creative when I was a kid. I always had a big box of crayons and a thick stack of construction paper to play with. Art was my favorite subject in school.

My mom taught me everything I know about sewing. I remember her helping me sew simple outfits for my My Little Ponies with a needle and thread when I was about 4 or 5 years old. When I was in the 3rd grade I started sewing at my mom's sewing machine one day. I had been watching her do it for years and figured that I could do it too. This scared the crap out of my mom. She quickly gave me a lesson in how to use the sewing machine and NOT sew over my fingers. I took HomeEc when I was in 8th grade and my teacher let me teach half of the class how to sew. (Half of the class used Bernina's, the rest used Singer's, I believe. Because I knew how to thread a Bernina, that's what I taught.) I probably didn't do a very good job at teaching them, but it made me feel important.

When I was about 12, my grandmother tried to teach me how to crochet. The only thing I could figure out was how to chain stitch. I eventually figured out how to single crochet, cobbling together what I remember of what she showed me and what I read in a book. Crochet is not my forte but I like it because it's fast.

I moved to Dallas when I was 24. I got bored sitting at home, alone, in my apartment. Instead of going out and meeting new people, I bought a book and taught myself how to knit. I knit a blanket for my neighbor's baby. She and her husband introduced me to the guy who would become my husband. Let this be a lesson to all of you single people out there. Learn a craft, sequester yourself at home making said craft, then give your crafts away in order to win favor with your friends so that they will introduce you to nice people and you won't be single anymore.

I make more things for other people than I do for myself. My nieces get most of what I make because they're still young enough to appreciate handmade stuff, especially if it's a crazy color or looks a little wonky. I think the joy of giving enhances the sense of accomplishment that I get from making stuff.

Something Fancy

I've been using my mother-in-law's old Kenmore sewing machine for the past few years. It's a great workhorse of a machine, and I enjoyed using it, but I wanted something a little fancier.

I've been lackadaisically shopping around for a new machine for quite a while, but just recently got serious in my quest. I tried out machines from Bernina, Janome, Singer, Brother, and Husqvarna. I would love to have a Bernina, it's what my mom has and what I learned to sew on, but they're incredibly expensive (her 40 year old machine sells for $400-600 on eBay). The first model the lady showed me was $3000. When I told her that was way out of my price range, she showed me one that was $1700, which was still on the high end of my price range. I went to another dealer to try out the Janome, Singer, and Brother. The sales ladies there were incredibly pushy and I was not impressed by their machines. At the Husqvarna dealer, I found a machine that had comparable features to the $1700 Bernina that I was shown, but for considerably less money. All of the machines that I looked at had computerized controls, but the computer's menu structure on the Husqvarna was the easiest for me to use.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got a new machine. The model I got, the Sapphire 835, has about 100 stitches, 7 buttonhole stitches, and will embroider a simple alphabet. It does the most gorgeous blanket stitch that makes my heart flutter.

So far I've made a couple of aprons for my mom and I've lengthened a pair of flannel pajama bottoms that shrank in the wash. Nothing too exciting yet, but I have a list of things a mile long that I want to make.



I bought a desk, drawer unit, and shelf to hold all of my sewing clutter from IKEA (Swedish furniture for my Swedish machine). I found a cute old chair at a thrift shop and I'm working on refinishing it. My sewing corner in the spare bedroom has just now gotten to the point of being clean enough to show off.



I turned my grandma's sponge holder frog into a pin cushion by covering a scrap of foam with felt and stuffing it in his mouth. The shelf holds a handmade Rainbow Brite doll that I found at a thrift shop, a sock monkey that I made from a pair of tights, a few of my favorite sewing books (Denyse Schmidt Quilts, In Stitches, and The Practical Guide to Patchwork) and jars of old buttons and trim from my grandma.



My favorite part of the old Kenmore was the cover illustration on the manual. I'm going to hang a copy of it on the wall above my new machine.