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.

A Cushion, A Needlebook, A T-shirt and a Dress All Walk Into a Bar...

OK I actually have some Finished Projects for once!

Two days ago I got impatient and gave my friends their Christmas presents. Partly because I couldn't contain my excitement about the Pingu cushion, and partly because I was excited to get mine as well, since I knew what at least one of them was going to be.

So first: 

 

Noot noot, motherfucker!

And for his girlfriend, the Twilight-lover:

and

 

 

The Pingu pillow was made by reversing a picture I had found on the net AGES ago and printing it into transfer paper, which I then ironed onto some white fabric. A cushion is damn easy to make, so I won't bother going into it here unless requested, but the hard part was finding some good fabric. It's for a guy so I didn't want flowers or anything, and it was pretty much impossible to find some cool printed fabric that didn't have flowers or baby stuff all over it. I settled on khaki sharks because, I mean, khaki sharks, yo.

Then I discovered that I had made the cover a bit big for the pillow form I had (I always make things too big, out of fear it'll be too small if I follow my measurements) so I whacked a Coraline button on the back and made a button loop out of embroidery thread. It looks pretty wicked.

The top is a plain grey tee I bought at Kmart. I whacked a Quileute High Protectors badge on some transfer paper (reversed, of course) and ironed it into it. I also put a qr code on the back left as a tag:

 

I don't know if she's noticed it yet but it's going to be cool when she does, especially if she recognises it and checks it out without asking me :D

I also finally managed to finish the dress I've been making in sewing class, which finished last week by the way. It felt like it took forever, but that was because a) it takes an era to cut material, and b) I made a calico version first, to make sure it fit. Which it didn't. But I made it anyway. 

The lining made up for some of the bigness, but I ended up having to take the dress in anyway, by about 4 inches. I didn't bother cutting the excess away though, because my weight goes up and down like Oprah's and it's possible I'll need some more of that fabric in a few months time.

In any case it looks totally adorable, but since I finished it yesterday when no one was at home, I couldn't take a photo of it, so I'm going to wear it to a party today and get Mum to take a photo of me that I'll then post next time. I've given up asking The Man to take photos - he removes heads and limbs and has people off-centre and then insists that there's nothing wrong with the photo. Hmph. Men.

Anyway I still have plenty of stuff to make, including a car organiser for my best friend, a gardening apron for my Mum, a jacket for my brother and a wine-carrier for The Man's folks. So I'll be posting a bit more later on this week.

Ta-ra!

Well That Was a Long Hiatus - EDITED

OK so I took a little longer to get back into the swing of things than I thought I would.
It's been a hard few weeks for me. I've recently been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (also known as Manic Depression) and ADHD and it's been a constantly changing cocktail of drugs to try, in hopes of making me somewhat more... I hesitate to use the word 'normal'... Functional? It's been pretty freaking horrific at times, and I've come closer to death than I feel comfortable with, and it's only now that I feel like I'm getting back on track, which is sort of strange, since I'm not actually on any drugs at all.
In any case, I want this blog to be mainly about my often hilariously awful attempts at making stuff, and not so much about how shit I am/was feeling, so I'm just going to say that the above issues have been the main cause of my lengthy absence, and I apologise.

Now to the good stuff:

I've made very few things lately, for the reasons listed above, but in the last few days I feel like I've been kicked in the arse by the craft fairy and I've started making a few things. The craft fairy has appeared in the guise of a girl my own age, named, well, I don't know what she's named. She calls herself Corvus Tristis after the Grey Crow, and I like that, since the bird I've always identified with is the Australian Magpie - a passeriform bird, as are all true crows. Plus crows are just fucking awesome anyway!

She's given me the urge to make the combs I've been planning for months now. I've so far made only one, for reasons I will outline below. For now - LOOK AT MY PRETTY COMB!

I bought the comb ages back in a set of 8 or 10 for this specific purpose in mind. I may have made a mistake buying them from the cheap store though, because as soon as I put the hot glue on it and whacked the flowers on, the comb itself started melting. If you look close enough at the actual comb you can see that the tines aren't quite as aligned as they should be. That's because I had to push them into place while holding all the flowers in place and not burning the crap out of my hands. I did well enough that the comb will stay together and will stay in my hair, but they're not good enough for me to sell. I'll have to buy some slightly better ones for next time. For now I'll stick with the cheapies while I work on styles and techniques. They look nice enough anyway. I might make some for friends too.

Corvus has also inspired me to try making everyone's Christmas presents this year instead of buying them (except books, I will be buying books as always and they totally don't count). It should be a lot easier on my pocket (not that I carry my wallet in my pocket but you get the point) and it sounds like a good way to focus myself and have a bit of fun as well. Last night when I couldn't sleep I made a present for Crystal. Behold: the REDACTED, shamelessly filched from the mind of someone else (probably Corvus again).

Yeah, sorry guys, my real life friends don't really check out this blog, so I wasn't too worried about posting pictures of upcoming presents. Then the next post came along and I'm directing everyone here to post, so I've had to take the photos and all mention of what they are of, away. I will put them back up after Christmas :P


I had (and have) plenty of felt lying around, and Crystal loves REDACTED, and also sewing, and I thought it was an item that combined the two quite well. I also plan to make a AHEMHEM WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE? for her, using transfer paper and an image I flogged from someone on Craftster (though she found it through Google Images, so I don't think it counts as flogging). I'm going to have to print the picture on regular paper at least 85 times before I try it on transfer paper though - that shit is expensive.
I'm going to make all the girls personalised gift bags too. I don't really see guys using bags very often - in fact they seem to be allergic - doing all that they can to avoid using one, even when it's downright inconvenient to do anything else. Plus most of my male friends live with their parents still, and won't even be able to use a bag for grocery shopping, so they will just get their stuff wrapped up or something.

OK. As far as regular sewing goes. I have been doing sewing classes with a girl from work, and they're going pretty well. We went through WEA, the local adult learning centre, and it's a course that's designed for people with no experience at all with sewing machines. We both do have a little bit of experience - I did sewing in school, and she has made one or two small non-clothing items - but we wanted to go as simple as possible to make sure we didn't go out of our depth and waste the tutoring fee. We both picked out our simple patterns from Spotlight (and they're actually pretty similar, which isn't surprising, really, since we're quite alike in our fashion tastes) and the third class will be on tomorrow (after which we'll be going to the pub as a farewell drinks night for me). We've both been pretty capable of keeping up with the instructions, and I haven't actually had to ask for any help yet - which is strange since I think if I didn't have the option available I would have needed help. In any case, I'm currently in the process of making a calico version of the dress to make sure it fits ok, and then I'll know what needs fixing for the end product.

And finally, for Halloween this year I did a bit of decorating, but with such a small house I was left with few options. I did get an awesome idea from Cut Out And Keep to make a Halloween Wreath for the front door. I grabbed a wire coathanger and bent it into a circle, then cut dark grey plastic bags into strips and slipknotted them onto the hanger. Once the hanger was full, I hot-glued some fake flowers I had previously spray-painted black (it's ok not to cover them completely in paint, in fact, I think it looks better that way) and also added some cobwebs I made with the hot glue. And voila! One Halloween Wreath:

 

And that's what I've been doing when I wasn't here. Stay tuned for a competition, bitchez!

Plans, Plans, and Lack of Effort

Lack of Effort really does seem to feature a lot in my blogging, doesn't it? I'm such a lazy bitch, but I guess that's just me.

In an effort to make an effort, I've found a new sewing blog with a Dresden Pillow plan that I would like to attempt. I love quilting, but I'm not the type to use quilts or blankets with that scrappy-sort-of design on them (the doona cover does me fine) so a floor pillow sounds like a good idea, and it looks simple enough for me to do.

I've also signed myself up (slightly late) for my first craft swap on Cut Out And Keep, a sewing/craft website that I've been a member of for ages. The plan is to swap an office-envelope of small things with someone from another country. I like the idea of getting in contact with someone from the other side of the world (maybe get another penpal and exchange REAL letters instead of just emails and facebook) and maybe if I get something crafty and small that I haven't seen already it'll inspire a new work from me. Fingers crossed I get to join in because I was a day or so too late for the sign-ups but there's always someone who pulls out or turns up late like me so I'll hopefully get partnered up with someone anyway.

In the meantime, I've been avoiding my latest essay by finally working on the chest of drawers I found halfway up Mount Keira during Council Clean-up Week. When I found it it was all shitty with glossy-cream paint all over it and looked like it'd had a hard life. Nice though, and real wood too instead of that chipboard crap. I've stripped most of the gloss from it, back to the original matte white (with some bare patches in places) and then, once I get a chance, I'll paint it with the light-blue paint I got for $4 from Bunnings, wipe a lot of that off so it's all faded, then a few more coats of matte white over the top which I'll then sand back so it's distressed looking.

w00t. I can haz planz. Still no money though.