Tag: Crafty

Monthly Review

Happy 2 Month Anniversary!

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Wow! It’s been two months already. How did that happen? I am feeling particularly cute today because I’m wearing my strawberry dress, which I finished specifically to get a project done for the blog. I thought I should take a minute and review what I’ve gotten done so far. It doesn’t seem like it’s that much when thinking about it, but I suspect I’ve gotten more done than I thought.

Food/cookbook Review: I went back and counted up my cookbooks that I used. 28 new cookbooks were used in the past 2 months! I didn’t completely finish any, but I might be close with Retro Diner. I seem to only have a few more sections of it to use. My most used cookbooks were Food Network Favorites and Better Homes and Gardens, both with 4 recipes. They were all from different sections though. I thought there would be more repeats, but I’ve done pretty good.

I’m getting better about figuring out recipes before I need to start working on them. I’m learning that sometimes it is better to follow the recipe and sometimes I need to go with my gut and make modifications even if it doesn’t call for it. The Husband keeps telling me I should be thinking about going on Masterchef and threatens to have friends bring over random foods for a Chopped style dinner party. I think that the Chopped dinner party might be fun, but am not sure about Masterchef. I still have trouble with planning sides and cooking things at the same time.  The Husband still claims that all I have to do to cook is to wave my arms and food magically appears. He is fairly gracious about eating a little later so I can get everything done, but I suspect it would do me in on a TV show. Plus, Gordon Ramsey might call me a muppet and I might never cook again…

I did find picture of the Wolfgang Puck pizza (Food Network Favorites) that I hadn’t posted and it looks delicious. It was very good and definitely will be added to the pizza night menu. This pizza was one of the favorite meals for the last couple of months. The Curry Chicken Salad (Food Network Favorites), Blackwood Hall Muffins (Nancy Drew), Buttermilk Fried Chicken (Better Homes), and the Stuffed Meatballs (Food Network Favorites) were all favorites.

Recipe misses were Chicken Risotto (A Quilter’s Christmas), and Creamy Mushroom Soup (My Recipe Keeper). I think everything else I would make again, just with modifications.

I still have this week’s Recipe Round up to write, but thought I would do a review first. Those recipes will be  written up tomorrow or Sunday.

Craft Project Review:

So far I have finished one baby quilt and the Rainbow Snowball quilt top, and started another scrap quilt, which I haven’t taken pictures of yet. Here’s the Rainbow Snowball sewn together. Excuse the wrinkles, I have not ironed it yet. I can’t decide on a border fabric, so it probably won’t get one, unlike the original look. It would make it too busy, I think, and I’m not a fan of white borders. It’s going to be quilted with buttons in the diamonds and probably backed with either a fleece or a red flannel. It does have a home, just have to get it done.

I made or completed 5-6 tea wallets for my Etsy store and vending. Some of them just needed a specific thread color to finish the final seam.

I added bias tape to complete the strawberry dress and made a complete dress from scratch in 5 hours for a Dita Von Teese show. The strawberry dress is not the McCall’s pattern that I thought it was. It has princess seams that I had forgotten about. I’m still going through patterns to see what it actually is.

Also, I discovered my dog is afraid of the dress form when it is undressed. Fancy is a terribly vicious pitbull, you know. 🙂

Finished three belly dance hip wraps from the project box. These are all put away in their box, but I did post a few pictures last Wednesday of the black and blue ones. I haven’t gotten pictures of the pink and silver one yet.

Finished two bags, the red and black Record Bag (only in progress pictures so far) and made a dinosaur 6 pocket tote bag.

It’s been a little easier to do more things with food, as we have to eat. Crafting seems to take a backseat, partially due to how ridiculously messy the craft area in the basement has become. It’s pretty cold down there right now, so I have just been down there to find specific things and not working down there. I’m ashamed to say how messy it is, but I really need to focus on getting it into better order. Potentially getting a space heater will help too because then I won’t be taking over the dining room table with all of it. We cut up almost all of our moving boxes and I’m planning on swiping the side flaps to wrap fabric around in hopes that it will help keep things a bit neater and help me to know what I have. I’ll probably post some in progress pictures to help keep my motivation going.

So there it is! Looking back at this list, even though I can see some room for improvement, I’m pretty proud of what I accomplished.

28 new cookbooks used and 15 craft/sewing projects completed in two months. That’s a good use of my time, I think.

Hopefully you’ve had fun following along and will stay tuned for more crafty and cooking adventures.

 

 

Crafty · Wordless Wednesdays

(Almost) Wordless Wednesdays

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Mondays are typically a craft post, but I haven’t finished many projects this week. I’ve had more work, so less time to be crafty. So this post will be a combo post. I did finish two bellydance hip skirts with tassels. I have vending events coming up and needed to have some more stock on hand. Both of these were from the UFO project bin, so that was lovely.

The day I started on one of these skirts was extremely frustrating as well. I discovered there was an obvious flaw in one of the backing pieces and then discovered that I had absolutely nothing else that would work with the fabric. And I had no ribbons for waist ties… None of the right colored thread… Not enough of the right colors for tassels… It’s a wonder I didn’t quit on the spot. There may have been some unladylike language. The dog was a little concerned.

Hopefully this weekend I can get some of my other projects done as well. Enough words. Here’s some pictures.

 

 

A Dress is Made and a Quilt is Delivered
Crafty

A Dress is Made and a Quilt is Delivered

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What to do when you need a fancy dress and have five hours? Make one, of course!

I made this dress to go to a Dita Von Teese show nd it was a ton of fun. Sadly, I was heading up the stairs to the seats and somehow stepped sideways on the side of it and ripped it straight across. It stopped at the side dart luckily, but it was still sad. I fixed it though and it looks as good as new.

The pattern is Mcall’s Evening Elegance, M5002. I don’t know if it is still in print. I got the pattern and the fabric from a friend from my craft group and it was fun to finally use it. It is red cotton with gold Chinese dragons all over it.  It’s a tunic dress, so has slits up to the hips and I will wear it over pants. For the show I wore leggings and boots, but I also have a pair of gold pants for dance that would also look good with it.

Also, the three stages of pitbull curiosity, just for fun:

“What are you doing?”

“Can I eat it?”

“Can I play with it?”

What I don’t have is a picture of Fancy running away because the other side of the dress fell on her ear. She’s also scared of lamp shades, moving holiday decorations, and bags filled with air. Oh, and Betsy the dress form when she is not dressed. Silly pittie.

I also washed my strawberry dress and it is nice and soft. I’m looking forward to wearing it. I think it’s adorable! I have no idea what pattern it is. It might be New Look 1080. The lines look similar. I need to potentially add a hook and eye, but I’ll see how it works first.

I also delivered a baby quilt this weekend and got to hold the little one. It made me excited to see him with the quilt and as it turned out, the circle backing and binding perfectly matches his bedroom curtains.

I have plans to make a shorter tunic with some other material from my friend with the same dress pattern. I’ll alter the keyhole neckline to make it a little more work friendly. After delivering the quilt, I started making another scrap quilt. I couldn’t resist. So far I am making pretty good progress on using my craft books. My project bin is getting some love too, so I’m pretty happy. Now I’m off to get the crockpot ready for dinner.

 

Crafty

A Weekend of Creativity

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This challenge has really inspired me to think about what happens when a project doesn’t go my way and isn’t easy. Generally this means that it gets shoved in  box and I stop working on it for a while. With this challenge though, I decided that I wasn’t allowed to work on more than two new things and I have to finish something before I can start another. The only things I can work on while working on new projects are ones that are already started.

I currently have two sets of slippers in my craft area waiting to be finished, but got confused on how to put them together and stopped working on them. They will be cute when finished and I will have new slippers, but I got frustrated. I can’t figure out the directions for how to put them together and I think that the pattern didn’t include seam allowances, but it doesn’t say that anywhere. As a result, the backs of the small pair are too short and they are very tight. I am debating whether or not to call it a wash, but I actually do need new slippers, so I need to figure out what is wrong.

In the things going well category, I have made a lot of progress on the rainbow snowball quilt. This one is an example of why you should read the directions. My rows are two shorter than they should be and I ended up making one more row just to use up the squares. It looks like I meant it though, so that’s alright.

All the rows are together, I just have to sew them into the quilt top. It looks very pretty. I haven’t decided if it will have borders like the one in the book. I don’t have enough cream fabric to make one and am trying not to buy more. I’m going to use a bright red floral flannel for the backing, so that it is as interesting as the front. I may just use a flannel on the back and not add batting, just make it a lighter quilt. Or I may add batting and see if I can learn to use the long arm quilter on it, if my in-laws will teach me. There are still lots of possibilities. I had put the quilt rows on the floor in the living room yesterday to check the alignment and my dog, Fancy, decided to help me with that by standing on the rows until I petted her. Quilting with pets is never as easy as it looks. Here’s pictures for proof of progress:

And here’s a picture of just the quilt:

Crafty

Hello again sewing machine!

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I haven’t had to cook much over the weekend. Friday and Saturday were busy with party prepping and partying respectively. We’ve been busy eating all the party leftovers since then. I did make cheesy polenta with sautéed veggies for dinner tonight and will post the recipe details on Thursday.

I’ve been sorting and cutting fabric for my first official craft project for the year. I’ve not sewn anything in a few weeks and it’s funny how much I miss it. The project is a Strip Pieced Snowball Quilt, from the book “Making Scrap Quilts To Use It Up!” by Lynne Edwards. I have another project from this book that I started long go that’s about half done which I want to finish as well. I desperately need to use up my scraps. I have three overflowing boxes at the moment. The project in the book is made of blue strips, but I wanted to use rainbow colors. It will have cornerstones of black fabrics and black sashing. So far I’ve made 14 blocks and need to find some more yellows, oranges, purples, and greens to make the plan work. Here are some of the untrimmed blocks:

I’ve included a picture of what the finished quilt should look like below. Obviously my color scheme will be different, but it should still look pretty neat. It will be about twin sized.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with all quilts that I make during this challenge. Some of them I will keep and some may find their way to other people. I looked up some places to donate them to as well, so I should have enough places for them. Not all of the quilt projects will stay as full quilts. I want to experiment with making some quilted bags or other items to go on my Etsy store, Twinflower Fancies. No matter where the projects end up, or how many quilts I make, the point of this is to just keep making new things, and to finish the projects I have already started. I think I’ve made a good start. Now back to sewing!