A last touch of Spring to end the month.
This challenge has been such fun. I’m going to challenge myself to keep this up - though probably not at an item a day pace!
Shirley
today i copied craftykeg and made a haramaki/tummy warmer:
mine is very simple, not like hers with the cute pattern, but i like it still and am going to wear it today. i didn’t follow the instructions to the tutorial closely and chose to make mine single layered instead of double (basically, i just sewed 2 pieces of jersey together on each side)—i liked craftykeg’s idea of tapering for the waist and did the same. i like to layer my tshirts, so i think of this as an extra tshirt layer that i can interchange easily. i want to make more—with patterns and designs, i also think it’d be cute to add lace or a lettuce/rolled edge using a serger. i also might want to add long sleeve arms to a short sleeve tee following the same idea.
i also wasn’t entirely happy with my results from yesterday, so i re-worked one of them (the first one):
| yesterday | today |
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i tried to make the vignette softer, but i didn’t really notice until afterwards that i probably could have softened it even more and made it lighter. i also backed off on the cyan/blue color tinting because i thought it was too heavy handed yesterday. similarly for the second photo, i took out the color tinting effect entirely.
i have really enjoyed participating in thing.a.day and am sad that today is the last day. there are some projects that i’d hope to do/do more of this past month that i didn’t get to, so i’ll try to do them in the near future:
i’ll probably keep documenting my projects on my blog (probably not every day though) and look forward to next year!
today i copied invisible.co’s earlier post and followed the same tutorial to give a film-like effect to a photo. my photoshop version didn’t seem to have all of the adjustment layers/filters that the tutorial called for (exposure and lens blur) but i approximated the best that i could and tried the effect on two of my photos:
| before | after |
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the vignetting effect on the top photo is too prominent/hard, i was going to add black bars to crop to cinemascope or re-do the vignette. i also saved non-cyan/blue tinted images that can be viewed here.
I made a small poster tonight and matted and framed it, as well. It features one of my favorite phrases:
It’s from Horace’s Odes and it translates as “Now is the time for drinking”. As in, “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” As in, get up out of your seat and do all the things you want to do!
I also made a companion poster which shows the proper response to “Nunc est bibendum”:
It means “neither delay nor rest”, also saying, “Fool, get started now!”
Back to checking out what is around.
This church was recently unraveled from under walls and bricks. It now sit right oustide (one of) my (temporary) windows.
i’m really bad about finishing things like weaving in loose ends for knitting and hemming for sewing (that’s why tshirts are ideal for me—because they will just roll, don’t have to be hemmed). today, i finished 2 scarves that i made last year and have been wearing, but never wove in the loose ends. i finally did that today and also added fringe to the blue one.
both scarves were knitted using a combination of lion brand fun fur and moda dea dream (both are available at michael’s). they were knitted in garter stitch and every 3-4 rows, i wrapped one to so that some rows are longer/have more space.
took a large part of my morning off, but managed to make a 
A little white star lantern, embellished with buttons and ribbon and a battery operated candle. This is my sample - I’m going to sell this craft as a KIT in my etsy shop. I’ll list it in the a.m.! 
It’ll include the lantern, 4 different ribbons, plenty of buttons, star rhinestones and sequins. It’ll also have the little tealight and I cut little paper tags to match!
I framed this cross stitch poorly (no mat so the stitching was against the glass, it was framed smaller, etc.) and it really needed to be redone. Finally went out got a mat, found an old frame (hideous 80’s cream with tan in the creases), repainted the frame, and put it all together. Very happy now that the stitching will probably keep much better.
I did do the cross stitch but it was not this month, or even this year, even the cleaning of the stitching was done months ago — so all I did today was painting the frame and bringing it all together - love that a theme this week was remake)
Spring mixed with chocolate brown!
And my son working with me this morning…
Shirley
I’ve been more productive today then other days. There was a lot of cleaning and then a stitch marker set and some envelopes. It seems my envelopes run out faster then I assume they will. I made around ten thinking no one will buy anything and they do! I’m trying to use the scraps of paper from the other envelopes that I have made to make more. This set of stitch markers I have made similar ones before and they have sold fairly fast. Like always I hope these sell well also.
another newly designed perpetual calendar - scalloped edges and all. *sigh* i wish scalloped edges would be my boyfriend.
i love them so!
You need a little rain to create the things I love best about Spring!
Shirley
another!! this is another new design, i used paper hot off the presses! again with the scalloped edges, 
i LOVE the delicate pink flowers on the number blocks! i may end up re-working this one, there’s something about it that doesn’t flow for me, but that’s just my opinion. this might be just perfect for someone else. it’s new in my etsy shop right now!
Well, ever since I made the roll for my crochet hooks back on day two of this adventure, my knitting needles have been looking at me funny and I can tell they are wondering why the hooks have been treated better.
So, in the interest of craft room harmony, I made this today to make sure all of those sharp pointy sticks don’t get too mad.
Turned a kitchen towel and some bias tape into a lunch bag for my version of a “bento” lunch
Closed
And holding the containers from day 2…
This seemed like it would be a quick little project, but….
I have not done any calligraphy for years and forgot many of the simple techniques that would have prevented me from having to start this five times including: counting spaces and letters when centering lines, making sure the paper is not so porous that the ink bleeds, making sure that the paper is porous enough so that when you erase your guidelines you don’t erase your work, to stop thinking about anything except the current letter. and so on. Well at least it is inexact enough that people will not think I cheated and just used a computer font…
This is a saying that my dad had hanging in his basement for years and I always loved it. Now I am thinking I need to do an entire series of subversive calligraphy – maybe some mildly rude stuff in pseudo latin…..
(and yes, I did cut the mats off-kilter on purpose. In my twisted mind I thought that was funny)
seeing as I missed 4 days here’s a quick bonus- margaret in blue