Friday, January 7, 2011

SHOES! Also some annoying wanker curtains

I fucking love shoes. Seriously. And I love comics because... well... I don't know why, I just do.
I've had a plan in my head for quite a few months now for a pair of shoes that I could make. It was inspired by a tutorial posted on Cut Out and Keep.

Before Christmas I had every intention of having a garage sale and flogging all the crap in my house that I didn't want anymore, but I realised that few people would be garage saling that close to Christmas, and after the holidays everyone would be broke. So a few days ago I got the shits and took it all to the local op shops. On my way out I found a pair of shoes in the exact style I wanted, in the exact colour I wanted, in my exact size, and I had exactly the right change on me. Jackpot.

This was them when I found them:



Observe the ensuing nerdliness:





Yes. That's right. Harley Fucking Quinn shoes. And if, god willing, I find a pair of green slip-ons, her darling girlfriend will follow.

Also I made some dickweed curtains. I needed some for the bedroom badly. Summer is bad enough in Australia without having a huge bedroom window that catches all the afternoon sun and none of the sea breeze. Mum had some old damask left over from what was either her own curtains, or a bedspread, and I just folded over one end and sewed it to make a lining for the curtain rail. Of course, halfway through doing the second curtain I accidentally sewed the top of the curtain to itself halfway down. My ensuing hissy fit resulted in a hole torn right in the middle of the damn thing. I couldn't fix it. So for now my curtain has a hole in it which, to be completely honest, is entirely invisible to everyone but myself. I debated appliqueing some pretty blue patches onto the curtains, dismissed the idea as dumb, and then had The Man suggest exactly the same idea to me a few minutes later when I whinged to him about it. So that's now the plan. And I've decided to count the curtains as my contribution to the Iron Craft Let In The Light challenge. I decided to do the opposite because, being in the antipodes, I get to do that. So ha!

Next challenge: Stay Warm. How am I going to change this one to suit me?

Monday, January 3, 2011

The Iron Craft Craft Challenge

I know, I know, I still haven't posted a photo of my dress yet. Every time I wear the dress somewhere I forget to take my camera, and every time I remember my camera I'm not wearing the dress, and every time I have both on me, I don't have someone else to take a photo. It's starting to drive me a little nuts, actually, because I have clothes I want to put on ebay and I can't just whack them on there without photos :P

I may just take a pic of myself in the mirror in the dress. It's probably simpler, but it looks so nice all puffed out, plus my room is a hole. As evidenced in this piccie here, of something I did manage to make over the holiday break (break from what?):



Yes, that's right, a zombie dress. Based off this little t-shirt here (PS, how adorable is that kid!). Here's a close-up of the front part of the dress:


And here's where my butt goes:



 I had a cotton minidress lying around that I'd gotten for free with a magazine. I laid it out flat on the ground and spray painted it green, making sure that I coated the bottom of the dress with more paint than the top so there was a graded look. I did manage to drip some paint on the dress (I find spray paint near impossible to use) but I think it suits it. Then I printed out some zombie silhouettes onto transfer paper, and ironed them onto the dress at the bottom.

Things I would do differently: I would make sure to use fabric paint instead of spray paint. I am a knob who bought cheap green spray from the local $2 shop, not thinking that 'enamel' is probably not best used on clothing. The dress is a bit stiff but it'll live. Also ironing the transfers onto enamel destroyed my iron. *sadface*
Also I would probably just do as the original t-shirt and cut out zombies for use as templates. The transfers didn't go well with the stiffened, yet still slightly stretchy cotton, so the zombies are surrounded by haloes of plastic.

In any case, while I haven't been exactly productive lately, I do plan to make some changes. I've set myself a goal this year to make at least one thing every week, and coincidentally within the first week of the year I found The Iron Craft Craft Challenge.
Basically, they will post a challenge every week: a pattern, a plan, or even just a theme, and people in the challenge will have a week to make it (or something in the theme of it). It seems to me like a good way to expand my crafting abilities. I run out of steam if I'm left to my own devices - I run in too many directions at once, and sometimes run out of ideas and have severe crafter's block. This will fix that.

The other good thing is that it will give me something to blog about, so I won't have so much blank space floating around here. And if I make anything that I think will be easy enough to explain, I will post tutorials, coz I'm nice like that.

So join me, one and all, as I try to focus some of my insanity with my hands!

PS. Totes promise to post a photo of that dress. Eventually.