Feb Wrap Up/Plan for March

Well, this month I finished my fleece blanket, though it is still cluttering around the living room, so I'm going to have to find a place to donate it to.

I made 18 cards with 3 designs.(still need to post one of them)
I made the little hangy things for the earring frame.
I made 3 sets of earrings. (I'll post the last set tomorrow)

All that with stuff I had around the house. Mostly. I think I had to buy new jump rings, but I used stuff I already had for the most part. So I'm really pleased with what I accomplished.

I also made some progress on the Elf blanket. Not done yet, but making prgress. And I put several balls into the other blanket I'm working on. I've been watching yarn sales and it's not coming down to the price I want yet, so I'm going to have to shelve this for a while once I get to the last ball I have. I'll keep chipping away at these and see where I get with them.

Now for the next month...
I would really love to finish up the two projects I have where the fabric is already cut out. I'd be happy if I finished one, but I'd be over the moon if I could finish both of them.

I want to make myself an earring frame.

I want to use up some of my beading stuff a little more.

I would love to make some cards for Easter, and little gift bags for the kids next door. I'm not sure when Easter is this year. Is it in April?

One of my Sparks gave me a little clay Spark that I would love to turn into a magnet. I'm scared to put it in the oven, so I've been air-drying it on the fan of my computer. It's sort of working, but has a ways to go yet. And I found some magnet stuff in my desk while looking for something else, so I am totally ready to do this once it finishes drying, though I am tempted to buy some balsa wood or something and glue it onto the clay. Just to be done with it. Either way, I think I need to get some heavy duty glue for this project. At least it can be used for other things. :p

I'd like to try knitting socks. You know, since I bought myself 12 balls of sock yarn. :p I know it doesn't count as using materials I already have, but hey! It'll be something done. :)

Also, I discovered Amazon sells stacks of 5x5 fabric squares for making quilts. I am NOT buying these and getting another hobby. Uh uh. no way! I'm being good. Really.

For the earring frame

My mum loves her earring frame. But you can't put post earrings on it.

So I made her these little guys. I trimmed some plastic canvas into a pyramid shape so that hopefully they don't tilt all over the place and put them on some earring wires.

I tried to be a little smart about this and put two jump rings on so that they'll hopefully lay flat against the mesh.

Hope it works!

Earrings

I'll be pretty honest, these are pendants I found in the beading clearance at Michaels. I just tossed them onto the earring wires and called them beautiful.

I've learned my lesson about cheap earring wires though. The pack I bought most recently, I don't think they were clipped very well. They have sharp ends on one side of the wire, where they would have been clipped. I'm going to have to file them out.

I was also bad. I bought 12 balls of sock yarn. I've never made a pair of socks in my life, but it was 79 cents a ball, and that's hard to pass up.

Knowing me, I would probably lose the first sock by the time I finished the second, so I'm going to try two at a time knitting on one circular needle. I've told myself that I'm going to donate some of the socks somewhere or other.

Wish me luck!

Good luck? Card

Another 'feeling uncreative' card.

A thank you card

I'm not nuts about this card. I made it while feeling uncreative.

I stamped the stamp in brown on white and added the decorative brads.

Ah well, we all need an Aunty Betty card once in a while. :p

Tidying!!

Clean ALL the things!

Yeah, that's my mood today. I'm all optimistic and stuff because I'm tidying up. I found a whole bunch of receipts I have to turn in to Girl Guides, and some to turn in to my insurance so I can get money back and that has made me a very happy camper. Or rather, it will make me even happier once I have it. I'm going to put it towards the Iceland trip. :)

I also found receipts for how much I spent on craft stuff in the past year, but we won't dwell on that....

I'm actually dealing with most of what I find, so it's taking me longer than I'd like, but I've already gotten a bag of just garbage out of my room. It's getting there, it really is. I just need to keep plugging away at it, then I'll feel more like working on craft projects when I have a space that I can work in.

I'm a little disappointed that I haven't gotten more done this month. The fleece blanket and six cards. But I've been working on the Elf Blanket, I'm currently putting together rows 7&8 out of 10. Then I have to attach all the double rows together and the fill-in edge pieces. It's getting there. I also started another knitting project for when I can't stand to look at the leaves anymore. It's a seed stitch blanket in neutral colours. I'm going to donate it somewhere when it's finished. I'm hoping I don't have to buy more yarn at the moment. It's about 5 feet wide, but 3 balls of yarn have only made it 8 or ten inches long. I have 6 more balls. I'm hoping it will be enough. We'll see how it goes. If it's not long enough, I'll shelve it and wait for the yarn to go on sale again. I know, it's creating an unfinished project, but I started it with yarn I already had so it's already an unfinished project to begin with.

That's all I know for now. See you next time!

Brownie cards

My mum is a Brown Owl and has some amazing parents helping her. She asked me to make some thank you cards for a particularly awesome act of unasked for assistance they provided. But she wanted me to use this punch she got that makes an owl template.

So obviously, if I want three colours, it's easiest to do it with six owls. ;)

A lot of fiddly gluing and swearing later, I finished them! But lost some pupils along the way. Oh well. They still look cute!

I'm counting this as a minor project completed because I didn't buy a single thing to complete these. I used materials I already had on hand. It feels good. :)

Cake Decorating

I took a basic cake decorating course this weekend and wow was it fun!

I learned a lot of things, and now I'm telling myself not to buy cake decorating supplies. :p

I was smart and borrowed a kit from a friend for the course. That way, I wouldn't feel obligated to get my money's worth out of the items I bought. :D

I can't believe I made such a beautiful cake all on my own!

Credit goes to Boyfriend for the photo. He is a much better photographer than I am. :)

An update

I've been procrastinating. Finishing up a project in the first week of the month gave me a sense of accomplishment and has made me pass on working on the big projects.

So last night, Boyfriend and I watched some Farscape and I finished sewing rows 3&4 together. I even got a little way into rows 5&6.

And that's when I found out I messed up my layout. The pattern didn't come with a layout, which for a novice knitter like me who tries to follow instructions to the letter, is tantamount to being thrown to the wolves. I wanted a random pattern, but didn't want the same colours touching. I spent a long time with diagrams and markers creating a layout for my blanket that would have not only the leaves not touching a leaf of the same colour on the sides, but on the corners as well. In fact, they had to be two leaves away from a leaf of the same colour. I was possessed! Boyfriend called me crazy. People asked why I didn't just pull them out of a bag randomly if I wanted a random pattern. I was hardpressed to explain why I wanted a random pattern with stipulations. I think I finally explained to someone using the random function for playlists. It's not random either. If it were truly random, you would have the possibility of the same song playing twice or more in a row. Or never hearing a song. But because it takes all the songs and puts them in a random order with no duplications, we're happy. And that's the same for me and my blanket layout.

However, it would be way too much work to try and take it apart enough to fix. So I'm going to have to glare at my blanket everytime I see this mistake. Damn it.

Knotted blanket

I've been very slowly tidying my room. Very, very slowly. I keep finding things I had completely forgotten about. It's actually kind of awesome sometimes. Yesterday I found a bottle of spiced rum.

But then I find material or yarn and it has to get added to the WIP list. Like the two square pieces of fleece I found. As soon as I opened the bag, I remembered buying this fabric with every intention of donating it to the Children's Hospital. While making it, I decided that I'd rather give it to Osborne House, which is a refuge for battered women and their children. One of their services is helping them get set up in their own home, including providing donated furniture, bedding and toiletries.

Anyway,  I made the blanket in an evening. It's really really simple as long as you don't take the two pieces of fleece apart. Ever. Because then you get really screwed up.

I started by putting the wrong sides of the fleece together and laying them on the floor. I then took masking tape and put it along the sides of the top piece about four inches from the edge.

Then I cut out the corners and cut a fringe along all the sides. I like cutting the pieces about an inch wide.

Then I took the Fringes and tied them together to make the blanket.

Now it's warm and fuzzy and will make some little girl very happy and snuggly. :)

The sewing WIPs

Fabricland has a sale on interfacing and lining. Well.... it's actually most of their fabrics but I'm going to be good and NOT buy more fabric. I need lining and interfacing for a couple projects. I would like to finish a sewing project this month. :p

Anyway, this is what is in or on my fabric box, because not all my fabric fits. Last year I bought a lot of fabric intending to do a lot of sewing at the lake, and then ended up sleeping through most of it beause I was so sick. If I hadn't been sick, I wouldn't still have most of this fabric and would have finished garments to wear with pride and hopefully panache.  ;)

As you will no doubt realize by the end of this list, THIS is a huge part of the problem that led to my New Year's Resolution of finishing one unfinished project each month. Again, if I finish more I'll consider it all gravy. :)

Dark green lace on black satin bustier. I'm half finished, I think. I'm having issues with it putting little air bubbles over my nipples, so I need to take it apart again and try to smooth it out. I think I need to buy grommets because I ended up using the grommets for something else, but I don't have to pick those up right away. I'm only going to work on this one when I feel like giving myself a headache. It's going to take a lot of effort to finish.

Waterdrop peasant shirt. I don't need to buy anything for that. It's cut out. I need to sew the trim on(sadly, by hand), then sew it together. Since I already know the pitfalls assocated with this pattern, it won't go too badly.

Dark blue long "wrap shirt". Fabric cut out. Need lining and interfacing. Had an oops while cutting out fabric, so I need to remember to reverse two pieces when I put it all together.

Red knot shirt. Need to cut it out then sew it together. Since I've already made this three times, I could probably do this with my eyes closed. :p

Sheer skirt with the pretty mermaid tail thing that shows the feet. It and the lining is cut out. Need to borrow a serger because running a scrap through my sewing machine was disastrous. I'm dreading adding the zipper.

Uber strappy black dress. Need to finish cutting out the pattern. Then cut out the fabric. Then sew it together. This is going to be a loooong project. It has like 30 finicky pieces that need to be put together very specifically. This may be a repeat of my first peasant shirt where I took it apart and redid it seven times because things didn't line up properly.

Light blue fabric with black roses. I.... think I wanted to make a skirt. I seem to have a zipper for this fabric. The fabric is opaque enough that I don't think I'll need a lining.

Then I have some stripy floral fabric. I'm not sure what I intended to make with it. I think I intended to make another "wrap shirt" with it, only a shorter version. So I need lining and interfacing.

I also bought a lot extra of the stretchy black fabric for the strappy dress and of the dark blue fabric. I fell in love with it. I shouldn't have bought them in these quantities. :p I'll have to find somethig to do with them. I'm certain the stretchy black stuff would make another gorgeous knot shirt. I love my knot shirts... they are so unbelievably comfy. :)

I have a fairly large leftover from a skirt I made previously, but have no idea what I would use it for. It's a brown and khaki plaid woolish fabric. Maybe I can make... a bag or something. Maybe a shell for my purse!

This isn't exactly high on my list of priorities, but I made a bag out of some faux soft leather fabric. It's really thick, and I broke a heavy duty denim sewing needle trying to put the strap on. I'm going to have to find a solution to that, because I'd love to have the bag finished.

So... even without counting the extra fabric, just for sewing I have 8 or 9 projects awaiting completion. I forsee a lot of sewing in my future!

*sigh* What a lot of work this resolution is going to be.

See you next time!