A DIY quiver

It's been a while since I posted any sewing projects, and this is a fun one.

I was having issues with my bows and arrows. The bag I was using was the equivalent of short wide armor, because bows are always longer and more awkward than you expect, and they kept falling out and making a nuisance of themselves. I eventually raided the bag for a car snack bag and stacked the weaponry on top of Kate's kitchen. It was possibly not ideal.

Last week Meg and I picked up a yard of (arrow print!) cotton duck fabric. I already had the wide blue grosgrain ribbon and a selection of giant beads.

The base of the bag is a half-circle, and the body of the the bag is a simple cylinder. I finished the inside seams with more of the blue grosgrain like Hong Kong seams, and added a casing around the upper edge for the drawstring.

The strap is a loop of ribbon. I sewed it vertically the full height of the bag over the seam. One bead is behind the bow, as a kind of slider, and then smaller beads are at the ends of the ribbon to keep them from slipping out.

I feel like I need a Katniss cowl, or possibly Queen Susan's magic horn, OR BOTH, so that I can go dashing through the woods picturesquely shooting things with my newly portable archery supplies. Anyone want to come with me? 

Egypt

I like the Macbeth poster in the background.

Here are some pictures from school the past few days. Having a Playmobil sphinx set adds a lot to the ambiance.

Meg's and my genuine Thutmosid-style bezel ring!

I wrote her cartouche on it. We figured it out using only the phonetic hieroglyphs, not messing with the ideograms and whatnot. The letters read, "MEG."

Word art

I've been admiring all that hand-drawn and chalkboard-esque word art that's been floating around. There have been some I very nearly bought, but I thought I'd try my hand at it, you know, before spending actual money. I had a canvas that needed repurposing, so I got out paint and a metallic Sharpie. I like how it turned out.

I hung it over our gigantic TV in an effort to distract from it. This TV, I'm grateful for it, but it absolutely dominates the living room. It's right by the front door and takes up as much visual space as the recliner, and it's actually so big as to affect my self-image. Come to find out I'd kind of been proud of being a person who didn't have a big TV! So, y'all, I have a giant TV, and it needed not to be the center of the living room. The word art gives your eye something to look at on that wall besides the screen.

The pink bed of doom

In case you were wondering whether all my crafts turn out, the answer is no. No, they really don't.

I have had a twin-size headboard, footboard, and whatnots clogging up my kitchen passage for about a month, waiting for a non-rainy interlude. A friend found them for me free, and they were fine (especially because they have snazzy twist-off knobs on top! so cool!) but they would be MUCH COOLER in hot pink for Meg. Obviously. So I bought a can of spray primer and another of paint and seized the weekend, which was warm and sunny.

While we do have a lovely huge backyard, it is also quite grassy, so the dropcloth didn't lie flat. It bunched up and flopped around in the wind, strategic rocks and all, and stuck to the painted bed parts. It made weird wrinkles. It also, charmingly, flung layers of white primer back on top of the pink, and they stuck there and couldn't even be sanded off with the sandpaper I have.

I didn't get enough primer or paint the first time, not having painted a bed before, so I wasted a day and a half chasing after more paint of the same color, which is apparently only sold at Wal-Mart in Winchester and not at True Value, Lowes, Target, or Wal-Mart in Leesburg. I wasn't going to Wal-Mart in Winchester because it's 25 minutes away the wrong direction, although in hindsight I could have. I hadn't expected that color would be so rare. I finally got a slightly different pink paint at Wal-Mart in Leesburg, because by then I didn't care, and I got three cans.

Well, the new paint was awful. It dripped and spurted and made blobs. It actually failed to adhere to the primer, in some places, and went scattered and shattered-looking. I'd have done far better to buy a bucket of paint and use a brush. Or, plan of plans, I could have assembled it unpainted and let Meg have a brown bed. I am never buying Krylon spray paint again.

The now wrinkled, shattered-looking, blobby, and smudged pink bed is drying out back. Tomorrow we will bring it in, hopefully before the rains start, and we will assemble it and let Meg have her pink bed. Because not all projects are wins, but a home is still worth making. So there.

Also, the bed has spinny knobs on top that twist off. I don't think she'll mind paint blobs.

Top Ten Activities that Don't Involve Cleaning

I spend a lot... a lot... of time cleaning, but that's not very interesting to blog about. So, in lieu of fascinating tales about scrubbing, I thought you might be mildly entertained by some of Meg's and my other activities.

1. Put glitter on shoes. She had a pair of worn-out Sunday shoes, so I painted them with turquoise craft paint and turquoise glitter glue, with silver glitter glue for the touches. It turned out surprisingly well, though the craft paint cracked in a couple places, so I touched those up with turquoise nail polish. Then, I had a pair of hot pink flats in dismal shape, so I touched them up with permanent marker (red, since I didn't have hot pink) and kraft glue and pink glitter. They aren't done yet, due to a severe glitter shortage.

2. Put glitter glue on dinosaur coloring pages. Using glitter glue is not to be confused with putting glue and glitter on things, an activity to be undertaken only with great care and trepidation, because if you put glue and glitter on anything, it'll be on everything. Meg wasn't even in the room when I glue-and-glittered the pink shoes and she got glitter all over her face. Though, small girls may just have a magnetic attraction to glitter. Glitter glue, on the other hand, comes in little squirt bottles and is almost tidy.

3. Tickle Kate. You might have trouble with this if you don't have a Kate, but it's so satisfying. She grins and giggles and generally sparkles brighter than glitter, which is saying a lot.

4. Do something with the semi-forbidden drinking straws, the pretty much forbidden yarn, the theoretically controlled scotch tape, the kid scissors, and rubber bands.

5. Build a bow and arrows. Today, for instance, we built a bow out of a paper towel tube and a belt. It only shot invisible arrows and somehow wasn't all that satisfying. Then we made a better bow out of her inflatable horse, a rubber band, and the rarely permitted straws. I fletched straws and they were pretty awesome.

6. Make up your own words to whatever you're singing. Today Meg rejiggered the "Timmy Time" theme song to become a Franklin the Turtle theme song.

7. Line up toys. We've been doing this for about three and a half years now and it never gets old. We have some new variations. Now we like to line up Little People animals for Kate to grab, line Imaginexts up just out of her reach for her not to grab, and line dinosaurs up precariously dangling off of things.

8. Embellish a boring shirt. I recommend sparkly fabric paint (see glitter glue, above, but you have to use the kind intended for fabric). I also recommend fabric, lace, and the cunning use of scissors - though maybe not all at once. Today I cut off the ugly neckline ribbing off a t-shirt and it not only looked better without ugly ribbing, but somewhat astonishingly, it actually fit better. The only trouble with this activity is that soon you run out of boring shirts.

9. String beads. The trick to this is to only have awesome beads in your stash, and then the creations will turn out gorgeous and look high-end and quite wearable and possibly even giftable. Plastic pony beads always look like plastic pony beads, which is why I let Meg use my nicer beads. Sometimes. She made me a rather cool necklace the other day out of brass wire and big pink beads that looked like it might have come from Anthropologie.

10. Hang out while Jonathan computes. You never know what might turn up.

Me: Why are there people yelling in Spanish?
Jonathan: It's Italian. I don't know. And one of them is waving a sea bass. ::reading the news story:: "He was eventually ejected by Deputy House Speaker Luigi Di Maio after failed attempts to make him stop waving the fish."

Spring fever

We're having spring fever around here. It's actually nice today, so I opened a window and didn't freeze too quickly. Meg and I walked to the cute fabric store, bought some happy material, and then we kept walking. We came home along the trail and I let Meg stomp through the residual snow and poke at ice puddles with a stick. We looked at the stream (full) and couldn't find any fish yet, but I did find strawberry leaves sprouting by the trail. It's been so long since we could just... go outside.

I'm determined to go camping again this summer. We have a battery lantern this time (I forgot to take any lights at all on our previous excursion, and did you know it gets dark at night?) and I found a suitable thermos at Ikea. I have THREE cast-iron skillets and a sterno stove, plus a kettle and French press. I'm on the lookout for those little metal dishes and material to make a groundcloth/picnic blanket, if I can find suitable ones. Turquoise and red everything would be best to match the thermos. :-) So we're getting better prepared for adventures. One thing about not having a yard is that you really appreciate the outdoors.

Spring fever also motivated me to get out my gigantic heavy bin of skirts and dresses and try them all on. Ha! It's not spring, but I can layer like an Eskimo if properly motivated. The dresses... are all those ones that were maternity-friendly last year. They didn't magically become more flattering over the winter. But that's okay, because separates are more baby-friendly. I'll wear dresses again summer after next. Skirts, however, are fair game. I tried on all the old ones, such as they were, and sprinted straight to my sewing machine to add to the collection. First in the works is an orange circle skirt. I'm trying new techniques, so we'll see. Also, it's an orange circle skirt, which may not have been the most practical. Hmm...

February crafts

Edison bulbs are so pretty, so I brought one home. Unfortunately, it didn't actually go where I thought it would due to not being as bright as you might suppose, and it didn't go anywhere else. Except in its box. And it was sad there.

So I went to Target and got a $6 clip lamp and awaited inspiration.

Pinterest struck, as it so often does. I was able to pull the plastic shade off, paint the inside with tacky glue, and line it with gold glitter. Then I put it all together. The bulb casts a fairly golden light and I really like how the glitter brings it out. I have a gold lamp!

I also made madeleines in my new pan. I used this recipe and I think I'll keep experimenting. They tasted very nice and disappeared... really fast, actually. But they stuck badly to the pan and were more cupcake-like than I had intended. But still good.

I also prettied up two of my wet-wipe holders with scrapbook paper, mouse stickers, and rhinestones. It's an improvement over the original ugly label, but I won't afflict you with pictures.

In which I was viciously attacked by the sewing machine

Some problems are just... weird.

Just now, I was trying to sew with my machine. The little plastic stopper that holds the spool of thread has lost its friction, so I usually clip it in place with a small binder clip. This afternoon, though, the clip keeps sliding off and flies away energetically. And a minute ago it flew off and hit me right in the middle of the forehead. I had no idea it felt so strongly about it.

Weird!

I'm still trying to make things

The phrase "You can do quilting" means vastly different things depending whether you're reading a sewing blog or a fashion magazine. Instyle does not, sadly, give you a tutorial on how to quilt something.

Now that I have two little ones, every stitch I sew is a victory. This even includes stitches I have to rip out, so there. Under this reasoning, any completed project is a lot of victories all rolled into one. I guess the big question is just how victorious it has to be, to be "finished" -- will anyone really notice if the hem is uneven? But if I don't fix it, will it look homemade? And what if it looks homemade either way? Decisions, decisions.

Today Jonathan taught me to tie a bowline knot and a drop loop knot. I'm really pleased - it'll be very handy to have knots that won't fall out. It's so aggravating to scramble after beads in the grocery store after one good tug on your necklace.

Pretty to go

It is a truism, right up there with a-single-man-in-possession-of-a-large-fortune-must-be-in-want-of-a-wife, that you never have enough burp cloths. (Less euphonious, though.) Kate's burp cloths were all Meg's, and there never seemed to be enough of them, and while they're fine with the nursery, they don't match the cute diaper bag. 

The solution was obvious.

To the fabric store!

Rather to my surprise, Joann's actually had half a dozen cute flannels in orange and turquoise. So I got them. And prewashed them so they'd shrink before sewing instead of after, because that's just annoying.

Yesterday afternoon I lovingly, meticulously, made three big squares, each with a different pattern on each side and cut out on the grid so they had actual right angles and genuine equal sides. I poked the corners out and ironed them and topstitched all around so they'd stay put. Boy howdy. I did them right. Besides being nicely absorbent, they'll be good to lay her on or to cover her feet when we're out and about, or for a nursing cover in a pinch.

But that sort of precision is exhausting and took like three hours. I took the rest of the flannel, sliced each piece into quarters without measuring, and zigzagged around the edges. Boom. Done.

And that is the story of how I made two dozen burp cloths and three big squares, all cute to go with my pretty diaper bag.

The end.

Pink skirt

I've been wanting one of those knit skirts for a while. You know, knee-length, stretchy, a little bit flared, maternity-friendly, and preferably brightly colored. The least expensive one I've found so far was $10 at Wal-Mart, which while not that much, is kind of a lot for a Wal-Mart skirt that I plan to wear for maternity: not to be a clothes snob or anything.

But today I was at Wal-Mart and found a $3 shirt, size 4X-Large. Now THAT, my friends, is about right. It caught my eye because it was a good shade of hot pink and had some cute stud detailing around the collar. I could do something with that.

XXXX-large shirt

Ta-da! Pink skirt. It looks much better on me than on the hanger.

The sleeves became pockets and the studded collar became studded pocket edges. I think they keep it from looking obviously homemade.

The sides of the skirt come up in a subtle scallop. It's such a casual skirt, just zig-zagging it was enough. It will be easy to hem it later if I decide it needs it.

Poppy clutch

Poppy clutch by Roger Vivier

A good purse is hard to find. It's kind of a long story, but I've been looking everywhere for a pretty clutch that isn't on a crossbody strap.

I came across this beauty in a magazine. Isn't it darling? It's quite high-end, of the if-you-have-to-ask-how-much-it-is-you-can't-afford-it kind, but I fell in love anyway. That is hand-painted silk chiffon. Clearly it was time to get creative.

Poppy clutch by me

First I went shopping for a base purse. I found a silver sequined fish-scale purse with a removable strap on clearance for about $7. Then I went to the fabric store and picked up half a yard worth of red chiffon. They didn't have silk chiffon like the original, but the polyester was at any rate cheerful and red. I also got a bottle of glue.

I started by cutting up some red knit to cover the sequins, which I glued down. Then I cut the chiffon in quarters to get two layers for each side, hand-stitched two layers to the clutch right below the base of the closure, and started experimenting with the right pleats and twists. Then I stitched the twist down and used a candle to melt the raw edges of the chiffon so it wouldn't unravel. I would recommend doing this in a well-ventilated area. Then I did the same process on the other side. Last of all, I got out my watercolors to imitate that lovely poppy center from the original.

I'm not sure it worked. It's not like the original, but it's kind of pretty. It turned out soft and floaty and very red. Nobody else will have one like it. Will I be happy to carry it? Is it better than not having a poppy clutch at all?

Um.... probably?

January craft: turquoise kitten

Try not to think about the Rat. Meg helped me style this shot. As soon as the kitten was dry, she whisked it off to play with the Rat of Irrational Happiness, and apparently they're best friends now.

Right... I've had this little plaster kitten for years. I believe my old pastor's wife made it back in craft show days. However, it had collected a couple of chips over the years and the faux terra-cotta paint job no longer did it for me. Clearly it was time to jump on the paint-animals-bright-colors trend.

I was going to paint it pink, but I already had turquoise paint. It's plain craft paint, not primed or sealed or anything. I kinda like it.


The Rat, by the way, was a white elephant gift and before that it had been a joke gift, meaning the person who gave it to the other person is the one who bought it with malice aforethought. It usually lives out of sight in the pantry to scare away real rats and unsuspecting houseguests. I don't know why Meg loves it so, but it would make her sad to get rid of it. So the Rat stays.

January craft: better cardboard swords

 One delightful side effect of wrapping lots of presents is that you get not only wrapped presents (PRESENTS!), but empty cardboard tubes to use for swords.

I conveniently finished two kinds of wrapping paper and a roll of paper towels the same day, and thought of a way to make wrapping-paper tube swords even awesomer. What they really needed were those cross-tree hilt things.

I gently pressed the short piece just flat enough to cut two pointy-ended ovals out of it, one on either side for the long tube to slide through. It was a little bit trial and error. The oval has to be longer and narrower than the circle of the tube so that it will hold it in place, but not so narrow as to smash the tube flat.

I really like playing swords with the cross piece. It catches your opponent's sword when you parry it so your hand doesn't get pretend cut off, which is a great feeling.

The swords have even held up relatively well. When one end got bent out of shape, we just slid the hilt to the other end and kept going. Then, when that was bent, we strengthened it with leopard-spotted duct tape. The awesomeness just keeps sharing. I love it.

Photographic evidence

The back of the cloak.

The front of the cloak. Adventure, here I come.

Elf cloak is done enough!

The elf cloak is DONE ENOUGH TO WEAR! Woohoo!

All right, when last I updated, one panel of the outside back had frayed badly in the wash. I zigzagged the whole piece to preserve what was left, and was able to absorb most of the loss into the seam allowances. The bottom was about 4" short, but I needed a bottom hem about 5" deep to make it my height, so that worked out really well.

Wednesday night I got the body of the cloak assembled, stitched together, and turned right side out.

I didn't get to the cloak at all yesterday because I had things going on all day, came home, and went to bed about seven-thirty. It was awesome.

Today I was on the clock, so I let Meg watch Elmo while I sewed. I started by basting shut the cloak body and gathering it to a piece of bias tape. That went pretty quickly, so I assembled the hood, too. I got to practice understitching, which I learned in August for that red dress, and it's such a great technique. I love how it turns out.

So anyway, the hood got put together, basted and gathered, and then I attached the gathers on the cloak to the gathers on the hood. That was kind of not the greatest. I completely cut off the bias tape, which was ridiculous and not working, and undid the worst section and re-did it. It's okay now, but there are a couple more sections that I'd like to re-do. Eventually, the raw gathers need to be hidden under a separate piece of lining or a wide ribbon, but I need to repair the gathers first, and it won't show while I'm wearing it.

I also need to order a gigantic industrial-strength yet elvish-appearing clasp for the front, but I'll mock something up for tonight. I can wear it to the Hobbit movie!

Elf cloak

I worked on the elf cloak some more during Meg's nap. I sewed the cloak lining and got the seams ironed flat and then open.

Then I started to iron the cloak outer material. It's a cream floral damask, very pretty, but cream-colored. So when the ironing board cover started to bleed (?!), you could really see it. So I stopped ironing, of course, and wailed a while. Then I decided I couldn't sew the cloak with a big brownish spot on the shoulder, so I sprayed it with oxy-clean and put it in the washer to soak. Meanwhile, I put a white towel to cover the offending cover and ironed the rest of the cloak pieces.

But when I went back to the one in the washer... it had frayed horribly. NOOOOO!

My washer apparently doesn't believe in gentle, even for just a pre-wash.

Upon closer inspection, the worst of the fraying seems to be along the bottom. I think I can hem it up shorter and it'll be okay. But, drat.

Elf cloak

I've been slightly intimidated by this cloak I'm making. I call it the "elf cloak," because I bought the fabric round about the time Return of the King came out. It sat in a bin for several years, until I cut it out on the floor of our Richmond apartment by means of removing most of the furniture from the room. Then it sat in the bin for another couple of years. At this point, it's more of a life event than a sewing project.

I don't think the pattern is going to be that hard. It's just there's so much of it. You'll observe that the fabric covers the couch, and this is just the lining  minus the hood pieces. This cloak should fit me for the rest of my natural life and possibly on into eternity, though I admit turquoise chrysanthemum brocade might not be the most practical for adventuring in. Watch me.

And. Since I want to wear the cloak to the opening of the Hobbit movie this weekend, the time had come to do something about it. Wish me boldness.

Red skirt

I did some sewing again last week. This jazzy little piece is part of my never-ending quest to come up with a skirt pattern or method that will really, truly, actually, reliably fit me properly. I do like this skirt, but I'm not sure it's the Ultimate Pattern I wanted.

I got the materials at Joann's. The red lace came from their special occasion line and the beige underlining was a lightweight crinkle poly blend of some kind. The color was "Camel." I also got the zipper there.

I cut the front essentially like a rectangle with the sides tapered in for the waist. The back pieces were like the front, except with extra seam allowance in the middle back to put in the zipper. I inserted the zipper into just the underlining and hand-tacked the lace down around it, but I'm not quite satisfied, so I may rip that part out and redo it. I hemstitched the lining. The side seams of the lace layer are French seams, which I'd been itching to try out and really like. Then I finished the waist with a narrow strip of the beige, and that was that.

This skirt was an inspiration from a magazine. The model was wearing a lace skirt with a great big chunky sweater like the one I got in Scotland, and I thought, "That looks warm for church! I could do that!" I plan to wear it with tights and boots. It's also pretty awesome with a denim jacket instead of the sweater.

First time resurrected since graduation

I knew, theoretically, that this day might come.

You get a sewing maching - you start to use it - you start thinking, I could make that. You buy fabric.

And then you start drawing triangles and doing trigonometry before you cut.

Yes... I made Jonathan go find my scientific calculator so I could do square roots, and everything. a squared plus b squared equals c squared. And thus it goes. Using that equation was deep in my memory and so even though I kind of forgot, I really remembered. I know because when I checked my work, it came out true. That's good. My math teachers should be so proud!