Whew, I worked my fingers to the bone today *smiles* Take a gander at all my hard work!! This is what I have been busy doing instead of posting!!! (had to develop a business plan, a budget, business cards, etc) For my other business I designed a promotional brochure and other stuff like that! Been a busy busy bee!!
Whew, sorry I didn’t post for a few days. I just was too sick to even think of being chatty. But, never fear, I am going to give you a rundown of my days!!!
*Day 12*
I posted this to my blogger blog and forgot to post it here. That’s what happens when I get sick — totally forgetful *smiles*
I spent most of the day coughing up nasty stuff that my lungs is trying to get rid of so that I can be officially well. I spent the time I wasn’t coughing complaining to anyone who had the misfortune of talking to me today — sorry *sighs* I’m a grumpy grump today.
When my husband got home and I looked at him, I realized how much I love him and how lucky I am to have him in my life. So, I decided to celebrate my love for him as well as hold up my commitment to the Thing-a-Day Challenge by making a romantic top.
For this top, I chose a really great piece of eyelet that is wide enough to make up the entire skirt of an apron top. I made this apron top halter style with a corset back. I chose a very romantic, lacy, floral print to coordinate with the eyelet.
Here’s the pics:
This top will be made available on etsy in the next few days — as soon as I get my act together. I still need to give it another pressing before I can list it. I especially need to use the ham on the bodice cause I am a bit unhappy with the darts. A good pressing will fix it *smiles*
I am still trippin’ over how this challenge keeps me doing something every day. I almost did nothing today!
*Day 13*
On February 13th, I didn’t have the energy to even think of creating anything. Well that isn’t true, I actually have a ton of ideas and I jotted them down. I didn’t do any sketches, I just wrote down ideas of items that I will be doing soon. My list says things like use buttons, sailor bell-bottom pants, peasant style blouses, large belts, handcrafted flower hair clips.
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*Day 14*
On February 14th, I didn’t create anything using my beloved textiles; however, I did use my creative energies in the kitchen. Even though we don’t celebrate things like Valentine’s Day in my home (cause we think it is a silly Hallmark holiday and that we should spread the love every day), I still thought it would be nice to make a special dinner for my guys. One would think a special dinner would be something like a steak or some sort of labor intensive french meal or something. Well, not for my boys!! One of their favorite thing is my spicy burgers filled with bleu cheese so I set out to make them for them. Here is how it went:
First I allow ground been to get to near room temperature because it will help it stay juicy if the heat from the pan doesn’t shock it. I know it sounds corny cause I am not a professional chef, but in my experience if the meat is warmer before hitting the pan, it ends up juicier (also eggs are more flavorful if you allow them to lose the cool of the fridge before cooking them, but I digress). Once the beef is not frigid cold, I take a slew of spices and mix it into the beef:
The next thing I do is separate the beef into equal chunks (two times the people I am serving so in this case six equal chunks). Once I separate the beef, I form them into patties and I put a groove in the center using a spoon. Once I have patties with grooves in the middle, I load them all up with bleu cheese crumbles:
Once you have the bleu cheese crumbles settled in the patties, it is time to carefully put one patty on top of the other, seal the edges and pat them together:
Finally, ya throw them in the pan with a little oil:
I forgot to take pictures after this because I was busy making a special cake (I’ll talk about that in a second), but here is what I do…..
As the burgers are cooking some of the bleu cheese seeps out with the fat of the meat — yum. When the burgers are nearly finished, I remove the burgers from the pan. Then I add a bit of flower, a dash of cream, and a couple of tablespoons of blue cheese crumbles to the pan to thicken up the bleu cheese/fat stuff that oozed out of the burgers as they cooked….sort of makes a gooey yummy gravy. Once I am satisfied with my gooey gravy, I put the burgers back in the pan for a minute. Then, I serve them on crusty bread and spoon the gravy over them before serving.
Yum, my boys love these burgers! There is an awesome bleu cheese center that is just awesome — but then again we love blue cheese in this house.
I also made them their favorite chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. I cannot give my chocolate cake recipe cause I just sort of throw the stuff in a bowl and blend it and somehow it comes out moist and delish:
When I make my peanut butter icing, I don’t use a recipe either. Yeah, I am all homey and weird and it isn’t really a real icing, but it is yummy. I just sort of throw in milk, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and peanut butter around until I am happy with the consistency. I like it when it looks sort of like this:
Then, I bake my cake, ice it, and slice up a big ‘ol hunk to serve:
You can see that I chose the wrong size pan for my cake. Oops, when I made the batter, I meant to make two round cakes and then put icing in the middle but I completely forgot. So, we ended up with lots of extra icing cause my brain was elsewhere when putting the batter into a pan. I think at that time I was making my ooey gooey bleu cheese gravy.
Like I said, I am no professional chef and the things I throw together probably don’t belong together, but my guys love my stuff and it never tastes bad to me so it works *smiles*
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*Day 15*
February 15th: Sick and not up to anything. I spent 99% of the day in bed. Boring, I know! Didn’t jot down notes and didn’t do anything creative *sighs* I feel really guilty about that, but I had to do the most creative thing ever -take care of Kelly…that’s something I don’t do very often *smiles*
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*Day 16*
February 16th — that’s today! Woo Hoo, after this I’ll be all caught up!
Okay, so today my son went to a Boat Show that was also a Deer and Bow Hunting show. Heck I don’t know what it was, but he went with my sister and some of their friends. DH and I ran around town while he was there cause it isn’t our cup of tea.
Yesterday I called around to the local Viking shops because I really wanted a new ruffler (broke mine) and a dual feed foot. I found out that only one within 50 miles of us had both feet. Actually, this one was the only one that had either and both.
Anyhoo, we go there. I walked into the sewing center that is located in a joanns store and explained to the lady that I called and they were holding a ruffler and a dual feed foot for me. The lady said, “Do you know how expensive these feet are?” I was a little taken aback and wondering if my normal dress was low class & then I remembered that I didn’t make time to curl my hair and thought maybe that may be it. I just told the lady, “um, I don’t know I expected that they were $80 - $90 each.” She said something like, “well yes, but the dual feed foot is more.” I was like yeah whatever, I need them and I want them so shut up, but I didn’t say that. I just said, “I have a coupon to buy three presser feet and get the fourth free so I want to pick out two more, where are your feet.”
The woman gets up and opens up the most awesome display of presser feet that I have ever seen in a viking sewing center and it was in that moment that I fell in love with the greenwood location. Beyond the fact that they were well stocked, this woman actually knew her equipment and she literally taught me five things about my Designer SE that I didn’t know about. I was totally shocked because the women at my location NEVER come up off of anything (if they know anything…with the way they are all ditzy and not helpful about most things, I really assume they know nothing.).
Oh, on the 14th I also bought an embellishment kit. Or maybe it was the 13th, I cannot remember at this moment. I know it was a day that I was sick because I almost had an asthma attack in the store. I remember being peeved that they didn’t have the ruffler and the dual feed foot at that location, but I felt better when I got home to have the buy 3 get one free coupon in my mailbox. I used a coupon to get my embellishment kit.
After two coupons and a few days of shopping, here is how I spent about $350:
Ohhh, how exciting it will be to use these presser feet. The embellishment kit has some feet I have been bitching about and some I have been drooling over: 2 different sized beading feet (yay no more hour hand-stitching pearls), a braiding foot (yay unique trims that I make myself), a gimping foot (hooray for free-from weaving of stuff like yarn and ropes). I cannot think what the fifth foot in the kit is off the top of my head.
Today I bought the ruffler and the dual feed foot. For my third foot I picked out a candle wicking foot cause I always think that looks cool. I remember a quilt that my great grandma made when I was about 7 where she spent hours and hours doing candle wicks by hand. I helped her and I have actually made a pillow cover with a circle made of hand knotted candle wick detail. Now I get to do it with my machine — woot. Ummm, the other foot I chose was for my serger — it is an elastic foot. This will be good for my peasant tops I am looking to make soon.
OH so you probably would like some actual crafting chat, huh?! Well, now that I talked your ear off — totally *smiles* I wasn’t going to create anything new today, but DH asked me if I had given up on my challenge where I am supposed to create something every day. Well, crap, when you put it that way, yeah I am going to make something.
On a whim I decided to make a dress for about a 6 year old cause I am tired of the form being naked…haha I mean nekid *smiles* Anyhoo, I started by appliqueing a purple flower to that really great icy Michael Miller print that I have used a billion times before:
Then, I combined some awesome fabrics to make the skirt portion:
Ok, this dress is in progress. What I didn’t picture is that the back has grommets in it and it still needs the very back panel added to it. I forgot to put the straps on because I was so excited to be using grommets for the lace up. Ugh!!! So, this will either be strapless or I will add a strip to the front and back so I can add the laces. I made the laces by the way *smiles* I just get all excited. When I finish it, I’ll post pics of the front and back. I’ll pop it on etsy when it is completed to my satisfaction.
I did good on the grommets. My husband is so used to me buying stuff from people where the grommets rip with little effort. I have learned to really reinforce anytime I use grommets….so, these grommets actually go through three layers of heavy weight interfacing AND two layers of fabric. They are very sturdy. I like sturdy grommets.
Ok, did I talk enough? Sorry for the big mass message here but I felt really guilty for not keeping up with my blog! Hope you all had a fantastic few days and didn’t miss my posting too much *smiles*
This is a cooky owl. I started out by sketching out little owls and cut one out to use as a base pattern, but decided against it. I ended up looking at my favorite pic and then just free-form cutting out the owl pieces. Then, I hand embroidered the owl onto a bas fabric using different decorative stitches. I found the perfect beads to use as the feet in my bead stash and used bugle beads for his beak. The eyes are the same button but I decided to turn one right side up and one right side down. I think I am going to use this in a purse….maybe patchwork this into the flap…not sure yet. Just needed to do something crafty for the challenge *smiles*
Good news! We gained 5 degrees today, but I am sure we will lose that and more tomorrow. This is a great learning experience. Turns out we can do without heat in our home. It’s a little uncomfortable and it is best if you try not to move too much….cause when ya move, you can feel the cold air. Only one more day to go before the gas guy stops by! Though, they gave no indication of what time he/she will be here so who knows!
In the meantime I did handcraft a few more fabric brooches and started some bookmarks. A few of the brooches are still in progress. So, I would consider these in progress pics, but at least I did do something today *smiles* Since I joined Thing-a-Day February and the 365 Challenge, I HAVE to do SOMETHING every day!!
Here’s the pics! I am off to bed before it gets too cold to fall asleep…….
You cannot see it, but the rainbow bookmark — the clouds are scraps of eyelet. I love making these multimedia bookmarks. I did as many as I could today, but since my fingers are cold I don’t have as much control as I need to do more. They take fine fine motor skills *smiles*
p.s. I’m starting to feel well again!! Less coughing, fever reduced — hooray!!! That means after the gas guy stops by on Monday, I’ll be able to use my machines again! I love making bookmarks and handcrafting fabric brooches BUT I also miss stitching garments!!!
Yup, despite being really sick and feverish & the fact that I am sitting in a house without heat, I actually managed to make a few things today.
I also designed a card to sell them on. I went ahead and used the credit card to order them. As soon as the cards come in, they will be made available in my etsy shop. The prices for these handcrafted fabric brooches will range from $10 - $25 depending on the materials used and the time spent on them. The average price with be $15.
I will be carrying a full line of these handcrafted flowers in my etsy shop at all times. If you are interested in a custom order, let me know. These would be a great gift for a teacher in her school colors. I ordered some little bulldogs and will be making some up in purple and white with a bulldog in the center for my son’s school. As soon as they come in and I make them I will post pictures!
Still sick as a dog. My son is a walking germ. He spent the weekend with his great grandma and she is REALLY sick now. That concerns me. If she feels anything like I do, she needs to get her butt to the doctor. She has insurance and shouldn’t suffer like me.
Ok, so being sick, dizzy, coughing out my lungs, my sinuses feeling like they are bloated to the point of bursting through my skin….Despite all of this, despite the fact that I could barely raise my head off of a pillow, I knew I needed to do something today to build up inventory so that I can make some money some day. It is really hard to be creative when every orifice of your body is screaming
AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH
But………
fortunately……..
my orifices are all trained in persistent creative impulses *giggles*
*coughs* note to self: no giggling allowed while sick……
So, I am sitting on the love seat in my studio nursing a warm mug of herbal brew and I notice this:
Those are the scraps from the fabric brooches I made the other day. I think to myself — I sure wish there were some way I could use these tiny scraps. Then it hit me!!!! Bookmarks!!!
Here was my first one:
The most AWESOME thing about this is that I am able to use even those teeny weeny bits of thread that are not usable otherwise. Suddenly a whole entire world has opened up to me. A whole new hierarchy or textile usage!!! So, I went on to do these:
I really wish I had some fine tip pens or markers or whatnots. I totally used to dig drawing with those back in my art crazy days. I mean back when I wanted to draw and paint for a living. Anyhoo, I don’t have any, but I am going to buy some the next time I go out. I want to add some sayings and etc to the bookmarks. I am really good at calligraphy too so maybe I will do some of that with the fabric bits.
I mean, that first one I made, the little triangles were from me notching out a scrap for a brooch. So, they were in my heap as triangles. How nice.
Fortunately, my in-laws got us a laminating machine as an anniversary gift since we were both math teachers. That means I have all the supplies to laminate these for durability. Here they are all laminated:
Finally, I had to add a tassel or whatever to them. Going with the theme of using all scraps and stuff, I tied fabric bits, bias tape bits to them. I also added some embroidery thread into the mix and not all of that was in pieces BUT it is vintage embroidery thread so it is sort of being recycled anyways *smiles* Here they are all finished:
They are just darling! I cannot wait to put them in my etsy shop. I also cannot wait to make more of them. You should have seen me sitting there with glue, tweezers, and scissors with all this “trash” laying around. It was very exciting to be able to use the smallest of bits!!! I have some ideas for more bookmarks to make. If I am still dying on the inside tomorrow, I will make some more bookmarks and possibly some more fabric brooches….who knows, I will do something crafty. Besides, I joined the Thing a Day for February AND the 365 Challenge so I have to do SOMETHING crafty every day!
OH, I made these last night after my blog post:
Not the greatest of pictures, but they’re still pretty!
I’m so excited that I have a ton of stuff to put in my etsy shop. Being so sick has been slightly good for me because it has forced me to think of clever ways to be productive without moving too too much.
Sewing is very physical. I stand A LOT cutting and ironing. I know it sounds silly but after I put my time in for the day I am tired as though it were a regular job. If I had hardwood floors I may be able to set it up so I would roll around all day — that would be funny.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my awesome bookmarks!!! I forgot to sign and date the backs of them because I was really hurting by the time I got out my laminating machine. They will each be completely unique because I make them one at a time. They are mini works of art *smiles*
I am so excited to share these with you! While I was sick today I knew I still needed to get a few things done — especially because of the February Thing A Day *smiles*. My mom has been bugging me for well over a year to make some brooches & I kept procrastinating. Well, for some reason I finally listened today.
These little buggers are a lot of fun to make because I can focus on them one at a time and make them all totally different. They take a lot longer than I thought they would because they are completely handcrafted, but it is well worth it.
I am going to have to take better pictures before I list them for sale. I have already designed the card that they will be sold on so now all I need to do is either buy the right paper to print them myself or go to the printer to have them done. That or I will use vistaprint cause I can spend relatively little with them and get exactly what I want.
Anyways, I will be carrying a line of brooches from now on in my etsy shop. Here’s my first batch:
I love that I can use buttons and trims and beads AND I get to play with my fabric stash. I know there aren’t very many there, but I did work for 8 hours today (if that tells you how long they take on average). I hand stitch them and I also use liquid stitch (fabric glue) on them because I am paranoid about them staying put together. A lot of them are more dimensional than the photo shows. I will have to make sure that when I photograph them for sale that I figure out how to show how cool they are.
I’m really proud of them!! Oh, I almost forgot this one:
That one is my favorite because of the special beads I used on it. It is also made out of the prettiest hand dyed egyptian cotton. I am a sucker for peach *smiles*
Yikes, day 5 already? I cannot believe I have actually made a thing a day for five days in a row — that is crazy *smiles*
I have to keep this posting short cause I’m sick *pouts* Here’s what I made today:
I also made this, but do not like how I chose to pleat it. So, I will be finding someone to give this to due to its imperfections.
I also started working on this last night and then again tonight:
Honoring my commitment to be more productive, I finished two items today!!
Those of you who follow my blog regularly will recognize the fabric combination in the mommy dress!! It has been all pinned on my dress form since the day I wrote about it. I took the bodice portion off the dress form to take pictures of the apron top last night. This morning when I walked into the studio, I was inspired to create a jumper dress using those fabrics.
The base fabric for this jumper is a really gorgeous, rich brown with slight cream dots and there is a great floral pattern smattering about everywhere *smiles* The flowers are in rich reds and oranges and the stems & leaves are shades of green. Just gorgeous! I know I said that, but I love this fabric. I chose a goddess swirl print in shades of fuschia and pink to go with it. At first glance, they appear to be an unnatural pairing, but take one look at this garment and you will quickly see that the two fabrics appear to be made to go together.
I decided to do something a little different for this jumper dress. As I had already constructed the sashing to be used in a kimono style dress, I decided that it would look totally darling for a jumper dress. In my experience, jumper dresses hang like a bag and are not very flattering. Well, not this one! This one ties in the bag neatly with two long ties!!
I just love how it turned out. I also decided that since the skirt was sweetly finished with the swirly goddess print that a pocket would be smashing. And, what a better touch than the same trim on the pocket?! Of course, the pocket and the bodice are fully lined as with all my garments.
You might see some of my zig zag stitches in the photo from the gathering that I did. Those have been removed. I didn’t notice them until I was tagging, assigning a stock number, and putting the dress away.
For good measure, the dress looks great from the side too. Though, I may have forgot to mention that this dress is a plus sized dress and too big for my dress form.
I didn’t stop there! As many of you know my husband and I are trying to conceive. I would love nothing more than a little girl. So, it is in my nature that for every womans dress, I make a girls dress….cause that is what I would do for myself *smiles*
The toddler dress is a bit too big for the child form that I used, but I do not have one that is the right size for displaying this one *smiles* So, the pocket looks rather large on the toddler dress, but it isn’t so so large when the right sized child wears it. Though, this goes to show the range of kiddos that can wear this dress. I fully believe that the dress can be worn as a top on an older child as well. I know a ton of kindergarten aged children that this would fit as a summer top. Anyways, here it is:
As soon as I am done with this blog posting I am going to be working on some pillow covers. I decided that since I will be discontinuing my line of Lovies (for now *smiles*) that I can still find a way to do hand embroidery work. Tonight it occurred to me that a pillow cover would make a great canvas for this type of needle work. I have a few ideas and hopefully I will have them done tomorrow.
I am so shocked that just the accountability of Thing-a-day.com keeps me productive! Thanks to thing-a-day!!!!! Not that anyone is really looking and watching, but I feel compelled to do this because I said I would *smiles*
Whew! I cannot believe I have made it to day three!!! I created a Gothic Lovie:
I also started a Princess Lovie:
For the rest of the month I will NOT be focusing on Lovies *smiles* My husband said he doesn’t like them because of how folksy they look. Ummm, they are naive art and they are supposed to look folksy, but he got to me. I am going to put my attention back into my normal sort of creations like clothing and housewares *smiles*
Thanks for the challenge — it keeps me in line!!!!
Well, I had quite the productive day today! I am so proud of myself! I worked most of the day!
I woke up at 3:30AM and was unable to go back to sleep. That happens to me sometimes when I am sick. My head was hurting so bad and every time I would breath it would feel like knives were stabbing into my sinus cavities, my ears, and my throat….basically my entire lymphatic system is pissed off. But, enough of this talk *smiles* I pushed through it!
While my loving husband was sound asleep, I did lots of important things! I fixed my profile for my etsy account, I submitted new ads to Craig’s List in different cities, and I went gathering up photos on my hard drive. I also scoured the forums on etsy and added a ton of new peeps to my blog roll — you can find them under “Etsian Fellowship.” After I really could take NO MORE of the internet, I decided to do some crafting.
I created another Lovie & this one represents a hippie.
I also finished a Whimsical Pillow Cover:
And, finally, because my own personal challenge for the Thing a Day February is to create something with a heart on it. SO, I made a V-Day apron skirt with a heart pocket:
As I had a rough day and still wanted to honor my commitment to create a thing a day, I finished a Lovie! My Lovies are a line of naive art that are designed to be everyday ornaments for people to bring some cheer into their lives. They are inspired by the desire for my sister to always have the feeling that she is being loved …all while sitting in a yucky cubicle all day! Hang one of these up and you’ll be loved all through work *smiles* cause I stitch each one by hand, giving them my total focus and love — you’ll feel the positive energy of the Lovie!!!
