"I Finished It" Update

I know I haven't posted in more than a month.  But I have been working.  And so I did update the completed projects sidebar, even though I have not yet detailed those projects.  It just looked so sad sitting there with a short list of completed projects when I know I've done more!  So, over the next few days, I will catch you all up on my progress.  The baby shower for Stephanie is Oct 9, and I must not allow myself to give any more gift ideas away before they have been gifted!  So I wil use the next two weeks to catch you(and me!) up. 

Happy crafting!

The Height of Too Muchery

Baby shoes.  Have you ever thought about it?  They are just too-much!! They remind you of little tiny baby feet, and then you just wanna gobble them up!  So my bf Steph is having a baby girl. I have been cutting and sewing fabric like a madman (mad hatter?) for weeks, and now am finally getting a chance to put the pics on the blog.  Okay, maybe that's not all the truth.  The other piece is that dh is taking an online class and I'm lucky to be at the computer long enough to load pictures and type up my story here!  And with a job, a house to keep somewhat clean, and a dog, well, I'm just lucky to have time period!

But anyway, back to the point of tonight's post....BABY SHOES!

Now, Steph and her hubby are not your typical suburban parents-to-be.  They are not goth, or punk, or preppy.   They are one of those couples who have seriously been together for 15 years, married for 6, and they met and started dating at age 15.  Yup.  They march to the beat of their own drummer.  And they pull it off perfectly.  For example, someone gave them an adorable onesie.  Green short sleeves, with long brown sleeves underneath. It has a guitar in solid brown, no other colors, on the front.  She is dying to find some brown leggings and a brown tutu to dress Mia up in, size 6-9 months. Too cute. 

Well, her dh loves his Vans skateboard shoes.  And I found, finally, a small enough black and white checkerboard print to make some shoes for their imminent arrival (January).  I had a pattern from this website chosen to make semi-Van-like shoes from, and then I went into Hobby Lobby.  Where the awesome (evil!!!) saleslady pointed me to the Simplicity patterns that were on sale, for 99 cents!!!! I went a teensie bit overboard and bought 6, but the best find that day was a baby shoe pattern.  In which I found a perfect look-a-like for the skateboard shoes.....TA-DA!!!

I mean, really, does it get much cuter than this?  Sorry the side view is blurry, it's the best of the side views!  I have been squealing and giggling in such high-pitches that my own dh is getting a bit worried!!  I cannot wait to give these to the dad-to-be! Steph knows about them, and is just as excited (no, she hasn't seen them) but she says since they were made with him in mind, they should go to him. And I agree.  But this....

is the height of too-muchery.

homemade by jill: Refashioned Jeans to Maternity Skirt Tutorial

homemade by jill: Refashioned Jeans to Maternity Skirt Tutorial

Maternity Skirt

I know I said I would do this yesterday, but seriously, if you had seen the list of things I accomplished yesterday, and knew what time I finally came home, you would totally understand.  When you live in a small town 1 hour away from the nearest large city, you plan your trips and then go.  Hit every store and place possible, visit one or two friends while there, and listen to 3 cds of the cd book.  Good times.

So anyway.  S is finally pregnant after trying for nearly three years.  October would have been the official 3 year mark.  She's 18 weeks along and just found out last week that IT'S A GIRL!!! I'm so excited.  There are so many adorable things to make for girls.  Boys have cute things too, don't get me wrong, but the preponderance of ideas is shifted to the girls side.  (BTW, there is NO question this baby is a girl, when it came time for the tech to "look at the plumbing" she obligingly rolled over, flipped her legs in the "air" to proclaim, LOOK ma, no penis!!)  S's sister-in-law's sister just had a baby last December and went from a size 12 to an 8 after the birth (no fair).  So she passed some new jeans on to S that she had never worn.  But now she has baby belly, and needed maternity bands.

In swoops Homemade by Jill's Jeans to Maternity Skirt Refashion.  Very simple, easy to follow tutorial.
Take regular ol' normal jeans, preferably wide leg, as I discovered these were originally skinny oops.

Remove the waistband and take out the inner leg seams.  (No pic, sorry.  Was listening to a book-on-cd while working this portion of the project, so sorta got distracted)

Make sure your tension is correct on your sewing machine for jeans.  This WILL take a while.  Unless you've been hemming jeans recently and know the correct tension off the top of your head, which I don't. It's best to practice the tension stitches on a piece of the exact jean you will be sewing, so I cut off a portion of the leg (hey, it's gonna be a skirt, so I was gonna cut the legs off anyway, right?)  My sample stitches ended up looking like this masterpiece of hot mess.  Finally got it right though! (Save this scrap piece.  You can use it as stuffing for large stuffed pieces, like dog pillows/toys)

Sew inner legs together.  (No pic, same excuse as before)

Begin following directions for the maternity band. Know that S wears a size medium top, and since Jill says an old shirt that has shrunk in the wash, use one of my own shirts to measure the jersey material I got in lieu of t-shirts since it was actually cheaper.  Take skirt and band to S to have her try it on before finishing it.

Catastrophe.  The skirt fits.  Thank goodness.  But the maternity band will NOT go past her thighs.  Not because they are huge, they're not, but because either my shirt has really shrunk, or I messed up somewhere.  Except now I have no more jersey material, and have to go to Wally world to buy a t-shirt.  Like I should have done in the first place. 

This time the band fits.  It fits me, so it will fit her.  (my legs are a bit bigger than hers, so that's a good judge)

Now time to bite off more than I can reasonably chew at one time.  A few weeks ago, Crafterhours held a skirt contest, and the winning straight skirt was so adorable I knew I had to do the same thing to this skirt refashion.  Of course, I don't have an awesome sheet like that in my house, so off I traipse to the Goodwill.  Found a sheet that works just as well.  Cut all the flowers out, iron the fusible stuff to them, then iron them on to the skirt in a nice arrangement.  (Again, no pic.  What was I thinking!?!?)

Begin zig-zagging around all the pretty flowers.  Some more.  And some more.   And crap.....I ran out of thread.  Off to the store....my color has been discontinued.  Did you know they discontinued sewing thread colors!?!?! I certainly did not.  Try desperately to match the color, but no.  Nothing available is even close to the same shade.  Give up, buy two spools of a thread that will work.  Begin again.   I lost track of how many times I had to wind the bobbin.  Two nights later.....ta da!!

I did not use the sparkly thread.  Wanted to. Just not sure how.  As in, not sure if I should use the sparkly in the bobbin as well, larger/smaller stitches, etc.  Plus, the skirt is super cute as is. 

Now, yes.  I do have a pic of S trying on her new skirt.  She loves it, by the way.  It's just on my phone.  Which I left at work today.  An hour away from home.  And when did I discover I had left my phone?  You got it! When I pulled in front of my house!!! S says the band is a bit loose right now, but I'm okay with that.  First, this is the very first time I have ever sewn something like this without a pattern.  Secondly, she's only 18 weeks.  She still has at least 2-3 months worth of growing to wear this skirt in, if not four here in Tennessee.  That band should be nice and snug by October.  Baby due in January. By then (Oct) I should have the regular jeans refashioned, no cutesy flowers. 

Another Refashioned T-shirt

Okay.  Sorry it's been so long, once again.  Again I say, I have continued to work on projects, but the problem is that I continue to begin new ones, and so increase the list and the amount of work needed to complete them!  I have decided a new method is in order, still working out the kinks....it will involve more timely deadlines, supposedly.....

So, for tonight, I attended a lovely catered dinner at our new church, just for the ladies. It was beautiful. Each table was sponsored and decorated by one or two women. Our table was 80s themed.  Side ponytails, crimped hair, Pixy Stix and Smarties, and LOTS of awesome memorabilia.  Well, I don't really have any truly 80s themed clothes (okay, maybe, but this allowed me to finish something, so go with it!).  I was getting ready to finish working on my friend's maternity skirt, which I will hopefully publish tomorrow, when I remembered I had a t-shirt incompletely-refashioned from back in April that might work out for 80s. 

I can't find the original pic of the shirt before I played with it, but it was a pill-y stretched out THIN shirt that I had grown tired of wearing because I always needed to wear a cami under it.  An in the 100+ degree weather we've had the last few MONTHS, an extra layer of anything, even thin cami material is one too many!  I dug through my fabric stash and found some prints I would probably never use any other way and cut hearts out of them. I suppose you could do different sizes, but I made mine all the same size.  Ironed some double-sided interfacing on them, then ironed them onto the shirt.  And there the shirt sat for months.  I zig-zag stitched around each heart in a different color to coordinate with the patterns twice to make sure the colors stood out and to reinforce the stitching...et voila!!

Um...had some technical difficulties with the tripod camera and self-timer; seems the dog thought I looked nice too. Unfortunately, you can't see the one where Pepe is far enough back...my eyes are half closed laughing at the dog trying to get in the picture. So I went ahead and took one of him too.

This is what we call "Pep-ifying the floor", because he literally will wait until we put the vacuum cleaner away and then he just rolls and rolls all over the clean carpet, I guess making sure it smells like dog again.  He must not like my Febreeze vacuum bags. (Those are awesome by the way, you should get them if you don't already.  I'm not fully sure how they work, but they make the whole room smell Febreeze fresh as I vacuum, two birds, one hose!)

And here's a sneak peak at the maternity skirt for my friend...new dining room table in the background.(new to me at least, and yes, it will be on the list of things to work on, it needs new chair covers BADLY!! They are a hideous 70s yellow velour.)   When I post the skirt, I will also be showing you my cool new way to keep thread and bobbins coordinated!

(Can you see Pepe still trying to get in the picture?!)

ummmm....

Oops.  Didn't realize it had been so long since I posted!! I have been steadily working on many projects, and have hundreds of pics in my camera, but the camera is at the baby's house ( I guess technically he's a toddler now that he turned 1), and obviously, it's late.  I did make a goodly stash of felt food and delivered it to the 2-year old; she loved it! I am making more, since I got a tummy-flu the night before and didn't get to do the last minute crash sewing I had planned. I made 3 sets of baby gifts (blankets and burpcloths) for new moms.  I hemmed a maxi dress I won't be wearing this summer but am loaning to my pregnant best friend, who is unfortuately the same height I am.  And I finished my quilting design wall!

Hand quilting has sadly been pushed aside.  Not sure why, think it's just that I have too much on my plate.  Began working on the crochet afghan, but it's NOT fun.  I have to switch colors every two (2) rows, so I'm actually trying to come up with a better way to finish it.  It will get finished this year, I AM going to give it away as a Christmas gift, I just need more motivation, and I think it stems from the boring aspect of the basic design!  Finally got in all the I-spy charm squares from the 4 (yes, I am in deep) swaps I participated in this summer.  Sorted them for the third time today, enough to make 2 alphabet books, and just saw a better way to sort out some of the others! argh!!  And I did get my 6 funky houses completed and sent off. Waiting to get my swapped blocks in. 

All of these things I promise to begin updating, maybe tomorrow if I can remember to bring the camera (or at least the memory card!) home.  I need to be able to tell the hubs that I DID finish some things this summer so he won't panic when I begin work on the bf's baby things.  aack!!1! Summer seems to have caught up to me!

July UFO Challenge

The number for this months UFO has been posted, and it is.....drumroll.....#5. The Green Ripples Crocheted Afghan. Hmmm.  I know I need to finish this thing, since it's been taking up space for so long, and I know it will make a great Christmas gift for someone this year...but I really don't want to work on it.  That's probably why more than 10 years later, it's still unfinished.  I really can't remember why I started it, or why I quit working on it, but I know I was working on it when I was volunteering at the hospital as a candy striper delivering the flowers and other gifts people send.  I would work on it between runs.  I think I was 15 or 16.  I guess, though, that finishing it will be a good thing, I'm just going to have to dig deep to find the motivation.....um....1)early Christmas gift .......2)regain use of the bag it is stored in......3)can I make it count to DH as one of the finished projects required to begin on BFs baby quilt and other sundries?.......4)won't cost anything but time to complete, which is good since we just set a to-the-penny budget in order to be debt free by March!!  Feeling a bit more motivated now...

Go forth and CREATE!! (or finish, as the case may be ;)