Friday, October 18, 2013

Sewing

I've been making Halloween costumes.  I'm normally not keen on Halloween.  Malaysia has many, many festivals, and I don't see the need to import any more.  Still, my son's music school had a Halloween themed concert and I didn't want him to miss out on the fun.  So, I decided to make costumes that had some chance of being used afterwards.  For the little guy, I made overalls (from a Burda pattern) and a hat (from fleetingthing.com) so he could go as Mario.


The little lady wanted to be Princess Peach, so I made her a dress (from a McCall's pattern) and a crown (inspired by a tutorial from craftyc0rn3r).


This was my first time using downloadable patterns and I have to admit, I'm very pleased with the results.  Cutting, trimming and assembling the patters wasn't exactly a party, but it was not as fiddly or frustrating as I thought it would be.  The results are more precise than anything I'd attempt to draft by myself.

I started the mystery doily for the third time.  This time, I'm using Cebelia 20, a thread that I have in large quantities.  Here it is at round three.  Hopefully third time's the charm and I'll actually make it to the final round with this one.


Thursday, October 10, 2013

Distracted

My bead tray is now all cleared and put away.  I made a tasbih for my mother, and a little beaded heart.  The heart pattern is from 3dbeading.




I hid the ends and pressed the two completed rounds of the mystery doily and decided it was done.  It's a decent size to put under a vase and I've run out of thread.  I contemplated getting more, but going through my thread stash convinced me that I have too much thread.  So I am starting again, with different thread.  I've actually made decent progress on my third try, but no pictures yet.



I've cleared most of my small piles of random craft supplies and was planning to tackle my sewing basket.  However, I got some new toys in the mail and got distracted.  These are little fabric flowers made with Clover Kanzashi flower makers.  So now, I have another little pile of unfinished items.  Sigh.



Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Simple tatting

A few months ago, I was asked for a tatting project suitable for a do-it-yourself project.  To be honest, I think tatting is skill.  It takes time to learn and isn't all that suitable for quick project.  Still it got me thinking about simpler forms of tatting.

Here's the simplest thing I could think of to tat.  It's a card with tatted flowers.  I think these are good for using up thread scraps and for playing with picot sizes.


I also wanted to make something with simple rings and chains; something that could be tatted with a paper shuttle using any kind of thread.  These book marks are the result. From the top, these are made with pearl cotton size 8, Cebelia size 20 and embroidery floss.


I must have been feeling industrious because I actually scratched out a diagram for these.  Here's the proof.



The mystery doily continues.  I actually finished round 2 with my variegated thread.  Unfortunately, round 3 didn't work out.  I'd planned to switch to a different colour of pearl cotton thread from my stash.  It seems that not all pearl cottons are created equal, so round 3 had smaller stitches than round 2.  The whole thing looked bad, so out came the scissors, snippety snip snip.  Ah well, time to come up with another plan.


Also ongoing is my quest to clean up my piles of random craft supplies.  Here's the next pile to tackle: my overflowing bead tray.