Tag: vending

Thready Tuesday
Life Posts · Sewing

Thready Tuesday

LSiehLeave a comment

I had a wonderful, relaxing day last Tuesday! I took the day off work to go to a Jellyroll Serger Quilt class with my MIL.

A jellyroll, in quilter terms, is not a cake, but a roll of 40-42 pre-cut strips of fabric, typically measuring 42 inches long by 2 1/2 inches wide. I would show you a picture, but I made my own! My MIL has a die cut machine that chops all your strips to the correct width. (I’m pretty sure it’s actually tiny gnomes because it’s so magical.) We were both determined to use what we had at home, at least for the blocks. I think we both ended up getting additional border fabric and she got some additional sashing fabric.

Here’s one of her blocks in a very pretty blue colorway. Her quilt turned out much more scrappy than mine, as she had more variety of strips. Mine is more planned, which is weird for me, but I like where it is going.

My blocks were based of a stack of fabrics I got a few months ago at the same place we took the class. You can see all three of the original fabrics in this stack- the dotted pink at the far left, the watercolor looking birds three in from the left, and the leaves next to it.

Here is one of my finished blocks.

I’m super excited to see what it looks like all put together. I’m using a light grey for the frames around the squares. I have a different colorway of the birds for possible borders, but I have to see if they look okay or not. It’s more green than blue. If not, I’ll find something else lovely to use, I’m sure. All of the block fabrics are from my stash!

The quilt pattern looks super complicated, but it’s actually really easy. Just a lot of sewing strips, cutting, and turning them. For the record, I was using my travel iron, so it’s not as powerful as a big iron and didn’t get all the wrinkles. I still have to buy a new regular iron after the tragic demise of my current one. 🙁

It was actually a big sewing weekend for me, as I vended at Detroit Raqs- a local bellydance fundraiser. I made my table extra fancy this time.

I did sell a few things, but sadly, none of the leggings I made specifically for this show sold. Here’s a close up of most of them in the baskets. Those polka dotted ones may end up in my drawer. They are sooooo pretty! They are all the Patterns for Pirates Peg Leg pattern.

The leggings fulfilled two weeks of the 52 Week Sewing Challenge for me. I made the olive and rust ones last week, along with a pair for my friend. I don’t have a picture of her leggings up, but they are a black background with white grid lines and hot pink roses. They are really fun! I didn’t follow the challenge of doing something for the kitchen last week. This week, I made stripes match on a pair of leggings, which is one of my sewing fears, so accidentally fulfilled the theme.

It looks like they don’t because the net is see through in between the stripes. They are super fun though. Since I now have a serger, I’m more confident in making things for other people. There’s much less of a chance that these will split along the seams!

I have finished a couple of projects that I had in my UFO bin. These two shirts just needed a couple of extra touches to be done. The purple one needed sleeves, so I added this mesh type fabric and I think it looks cute. I can wear it as a work out shirt or as a regular shirt. It is the Fall In Love Sweater pattern from Ellie and Mac, with modified sleeves.

This one is a Sweet Tee from Patterns for Pirates. I have a long sleeved shirt in this fabric as well and like it so much that I used the remnants for a short sleeved one as well. It’s triblend, I think, so soft and cozy. It’s a mix of rayon, cotton, and spandex.

I just serged the bottom hem and it looks good. I did grade out at the hips for both of these shirts. I’m shorter and hippier than the models/pattern blocks for this pattern.

I also dove into sewing my own underwear! I know! I was shocked at how easy it is and how much I like them. Every time I try to wear store bought underwear now, I just have to take them off. They are so uncomfortable.

I used a whole bunch of different patterns to find ones that I liked. Here’s the links, in order of how much I liked them. Fair warning, there’s butts ahead. Not mine, but butts in the pattern links. 🙂 Feel free to skip ahead if you’d like!

1. Ellie and Mac Feeling Frisky Panties https://www.ellieandmac.com/products/feel-frisky-panties-pattern?_pos=1&_sid=f15442949&_ss=r

1A. RAD Panel Undies https://www.radpatterns.com/product/panel-undies/

These two were my favorite patterns. They are pretty true to size, although they look alarmingly big when you make them, but trust me and try them on first. The panel undies allow you to use smaller pieces of fabric, but are a little confusing to put together at first. I also changed how I added the liner because I hate extra steps and don’t care if my edges are exposed. Honestly, if someone is examining my underwear that closely, they will shortly have some other, potentially lead coated things to worry about coming their way. Or a barky thing with teeth, depending on who’s home.

I also add the leg elastics with the pieces laid flat. It’s so much easier than trying to stretch them with everything sewn together already. I have used picot/lingerie elastic, fold over elastic (which I left flat, not folded,) stretch lace, and made fabric bands for waistband and leg bands. I may have ordered enough fold over elastic to last until doomsday, so I have been mainly using that. I found elastic with all sorts of fun prints including planets, pitbulls, narwals, piano keys, printed lace, and a ridiculous amount of other cute things. Several Etsy sellers are super happy with me right now. 😉 Mary Supplies, Once Upon a Stitch, and Fluerisy are all the sellers I used. I have been quite pleased with the quality and pricing. My underwear drawer will never be boring again!

2. Made for Mermaids Mama Vicki Hipsters https://www.madeformermaids.com/product/mamavicki/

The Vicki was a surprise hit and is self lined, so is sometimes easier. It does require a longer length of fabric.

The ones I really didn’t like, which I was sure that I would like, were the Stitch Upon A Time Bunzies. They fit all wrong and I was not happy with them at all. I might try going up a size, but in all honesty, I will probably just stick to the patterns I actually like. I have a couple more to try too. It has been super fun to pair up fabrics and elastics into new combinations. I used a bunch of the legging scraps too, so I have a whole drawer of silly and pretty undies.

Okay, I know I said I wouldn’t post pictures of my underwear, but I never said I wouldn’t post detail pictures for the ladies. 🙂 So here goes!

Thanks for sticking with me this far! I haven’t really been sewing much outside of vending and underwear, but am hoping to branch out again soon. Have a great week!

Weekend Sewing
Crafty

Weekend Sewing

LSiehLeave a comment

I couldn’t sleep on Saturday or Sunday morning, so I ended up sewing on Sunday. Fancy couldn’t decide if she should steal my spot or sleep on the couch downstairs, so she spent most of the morning at the top of the stairs. She would occasionally heave a very big sigh and stare down at me with sad eyes.

I set up a test table for my vending events. I thought it needed more height to draw people in. Here is what I came up with. Please excuse the basement. I didn’t want to haul the table upstairs as I am still using it to sew on. What do you think?

I picked up some more table accessories, such as the shelves and baskets, for under $20 at thrift stores and Target. Most of it was on school clearance. I also padded by pouches with plastic bags to make them poof out. They can get a little droopy otherwise. I didn’t use interfacing, as I wanted them to be flexible, but after sitting for a while, they can deflate. I also added the tea pot to help set the stage for tea wallets. I will have a couple of sets with the a tea wallet in a mug with a honey stick for sale too, but didn’t have everything for the test run.

I made four new hip skirts. I want to keep almost all of them, but will have to sell them. Here’s a picture of all four:

There is one with tassels and three with just trim. I will be making a couple more with tassels before I vend, but have a lot with tassels already made too.

This piece was supposed to be skull tea wallets, but the employee at the cutting counter cut it crooked, so it already had a slight hip skirt curve to it. I figured it was meant to be. It was either that, or get really annoyed. It’s backed with black and has a flouncy little fringe trim on it.

This is the tassel one. It’s grey and black houndstooth, with a purple back. It’s very plain because of the tassels. I love this combination of colors and the purple ribbons were from our wedding.

If this one doesn’t sell, I’m keeping it. The trim got sewn a little uneven by accident, so I could justify keeping it now, but I will be good. It is backed with a black and white diamond fabric.

This purple with grey just makes me happy. The purple accent is a beaded belt that I got from Salvation Army. I sewed in between the beaded parts so that it would drape nicely while it is on. The silver trim is some trim from Joann’s. It’s got little grey and black loops.

I’m in the middle of trying to decide what I’m taking with me to vend and what I need to make more of. I think I need to make some more hair flowers in all the sizes and in darker colors.

I don’t know that I will bring a lot of bags with me. I sometimes sell one, but for a bellydance event, it makes more sense to focus on costume elements. I’ll leave my veils home, I think. They are all much lighter colors.

I have some Halloween fabrics that could be turned into bags. I should be set on hip skirts, but might make a few more with the black and white fabric. I am very well prepared with tea wallets.

My own costume is still up for debate. I am using black Isis wings, which are wings with sticks in the end, so hair and jewelry should be kept simple so that the wings don’t catch on anything. I may wear a belly covering costume too, but haven’t decided completely. That gorgeous peacock fabric I bought really wants to be a vest, so I may make that up to see how it looks.

There is certainly enough to keep me busy in the next month or two. Hopefully I can get a bunch done before the event. Send productive thoughts my way!

Monthly Review

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Looking back on the past month, I have been terrible at taking pictures of the few new craft things that I made. I’m still struggling with actually making time to craft things, as my caseload is picking up and my schedule evolves into more time at the office, instead of at home. I’ve also been sick with no desire to eat or cook for about a week, which has thrown off all of my dinner plans.

I’m also starting to think more seriously about the garden. Last year, since we were moving, we just had containers, but they did fairly well. I had a lot of herbs, tomatoes, and jalapeños. This year we are going to try a cinder block raised bed, in an effort to keep Fancy out of it. She has recently started digging in the bushes by the house. The Husband is determined to have us grow a lot of the produce that we use and hopefully be able to can or freeze a bunch of it. I love being able to pick fresh herbs and veggies as well.

I am happy to report that it appears one of my blueberry bushes survived the winter in the garage. It had leaves on it the other day. Lately it’s been too cold and rainy to actually put it outside, but I’m hoping it continues to grow. My second one doesn’t appear to be growing, but I will see what I can do with it. I think they would appreciate bigger pots. Maybe it will help them grow more. Last year, I had a volunteer Thai Basil plant sneak into my blueberry pot and grow like gangbusters.

Recipe Update:

I used 17 new recipes and 10 of my methods/recipes. I used 7 new cookbooks, which was a lot better than I thought I had done. I used two cookbooks with double recipes, both for my birthday party.

Hits were the pizza, Irish Stew, truffles, Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes, and Silver White Cake. The Husband requested the Szechuan shrimp sauce as a sauce for chicken too. I learned I can add butternut squash to mac and cheese, as long as I add enough fancy cheese to it. It was a pretty good food month!

The misses were the Chicken Stir fry that I attempted with no recipe, and the chicken potpie filling that was so dry and horrible. We won’t say much about either of those, except that the Husband still won’t admit that I can occasionally make terrible foods, even with the evidence in front of him. I think I’ll keep him. 😉

Food goals for the next month:

*Use 2-3 new recipes per week.

*Weekly Meal planning- I wrote down a list of the cookbooks that I still have not used and am planning to try to grab those first.

*Sort through my recipe cards, magazine pages, and recipe binder, and be realistic about what I would actually like to make. This one may take longer than a month, but I would like to at least attempt to start organizing them.

*Take better and more frequent pictures of meals, including side dishes.

Crafting update:

I had one vending event in the past month. I made one skirt, a cute Ball jar candle holder for my office, and several more fabric flowers, which are currently buried in my vending boxes.

Writing out that small of a list makes me sad. I’m going to try to stop having excuses for why I didn’t make things and just find a time to craft. It is what I love to do, after all.

My fat quarter trunk is now organized, which is a good step toward a workable crafting and sewing space.

I did run into a legitimate snag with one of the sewing books though. My Chic and Simple Sewing book is definitely sized for juniors. I’ve had it for years and found it new, with the patterns still intact on their sheets, at my local thrift store. I’ve made three of the projects from it, two wrap skirts, a few A-line skirts, and the Opera dress, which is no longer with us. The deep neckline looks amazing on the skinny model, however; on me, it’s not fit for public eyes… It was also really hard to get off and on and the hemline was accidentally asymmetrical. Those were all very early efforts. The skirts are still in my closet and I do wear them.

Now I can tell you for sure, that I am not going to figure out all my extra measurements, trace all these pattern pieces to the correct size, and make these patterns. It was one of first clothes sewing books I bought, so I was resisting giving it up, but it might be time. There is no sense in keeping things that are not useful and I have patterns better suited to my figure.

I think I’m beginning to realize that part of this challenge for me is to develop my own style and begin to weed out the things that don’t inspire me. I have so many crafting and sewing materials that are just gathering dust when they could be inspiring someone else instead. Giving up this book will let another beginner sewer experiment and learn their own style. If you know of a younger, or beginner sewer, who might like it, let me know, otherwise it will go to the giveaway pile.

Fun sewing fact, Joann’s now lets you use coupons on books and I had a 60% off one that was burning a hole in my pocket. I found this fun looking book called Sew Many Dresses, Sew Little Time by Tanya Whelan, which promises “interchangeable patterns to create 200+ unique dresses.” It has a section on alterations and the styles are much more flattering and sized with measurements, not just S/M/L. I can replace the simpler book for this one and get a lot more use out of it.

So, after that long-winded explanation, on to my crafty/sewing goals:

*Sew the pillow for my office with the inspirational quote fabric.

*Iron, back, and tie the Rainbow Snowball quilt.

*Add the fabric flowers to Etsy.

*Finish one project from the UFO tote.

*Continue organizing basement craft area.

*Take better pictures for the blog and for Etsy.

Some of these are shorter term and will hopefully be easy ones to finish. I don’t work Tuesday and will try to get the table cleared so I can at least get the quilt ironed and pinned.

Fancy has been super snuggly lately and would like me to add more walks, snuggles, and homemade treats to my goals this month as well. And really, how can I resist either of these faces?

 

She’s currently draped over my lap, snoring peacefully  away. 🙂 I should go and do the same!

Crafty · Recipe Roundup

Cooking and Crafting Musings

LSiehLeave a comment

Whew! I am glad last week is over. It was crazy busy and I worked late each night.  We didn’t have many recipes to talk bout because we had canned soup one night, pizza for 2 nights, and I had the Husband bake his own chicken another night. The only two things I actually made were a Milk Chocolate Cherry Pie and more of a method for the chicken. I did make new recipe last night and attempted to make something on Sunday after I came home from my trip, but the Husband convinced me to have rotisserie chicken, salad, and bread instead. It was probably a much better idea, I was so sleepy and loopy from driving.

I’ll start with the recipes first and then talk about the crafts.

1- Milk Chocolate Cherry Pie from Icebox Pies: 100 Scrumptious Recipes for No-Bake No-Fail Pies by Lauren Chattman. Section: Chocolate Dream Pies

Modifications: None, I followed the recipe! We liked it, but it was very rich and we weren’t able to finish all of it ourselves. I think I would make it again for a party where there were more people to eat it.

2- Italian Marinated Chicken Drumsticks. Method by me: Throw chicken parts in a zip bag and add Italian Dressing, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and garlic powder. Zip the bag and roll the chicken legs round in it. Bake at 375 for about an hour, depending on how frozen the chicken still is. Serve with a salad and bread. No pictures, I wasn’t home until after it was eaten.

3- Crossword Cipher Chicken from The Nancy Drew Cookbook by Carolyn Keene. Section: Picnic and Patio Get-Togethers

Modifications: I used butter instead of margarine. One, I didn’t have any, and Two, I don’t believe in margarine generally. I have one recipe that I use it in and that’s about it. We used garlic butter Ritz crackers for the breading and it was pretty good. The breading didn’t stick on very well in spots, until I started pushing the crumbs more firmly into the meat. We had garlic bread, raspberries, and roasted carrots with it. I don’t have a picture of the finished project, but did take a picture of the chicken before it was baked.

I was working on my vending items all week, but did squeeze in one more project from my list. I made some Kanzashi-Style Hair Clips from the book Button and Stitch by Kristen Rask. I made them into pins as I have misplaced my hair clips. I’ve made something similar before, but this time I decided to sew a back on and sew the whole thing instead of hot glue. I think it looks neater and It was a good project to do while out of power.  Eventually they will go into  my vending stash, once I have worked out the kinks. I like doing the little projects like this, as it’s lots of fun to pick out the perfect buttons for it. It also helps me use up my already cut squares. My 2 inch square bag is currently overflowing. I want to try them with my bigger squares too for a different look.

Vending is a funny thing for me. I always get anxious about it, even though I have a lot of product. I’ve been trying to branch put from my preferred colors and patterns into more things that might appeal to others. I vend at bellydance events, mostly local, as I bellydance myself. Since I also have my Etsy store, it can be a good way to get my Twinflower Fancies brand to be more well-known. It can be disappointing though, when my table gets passed over or I don’t seem to be in the right genre. This weekend inspired me to work more on my Etsy store and see if I can develop better style and pictures online. Hopefully my next events will be a little less discouraging. I definitely came home from this weekend not understanding what was wrong and struggling with the motivation to make more items to sell.

I might take a break from making Etsy or vending items for a few weeks and make a few things just for me. I am reading a bunch of sewing blogs that are inspiring me to work on my clothes goals, including working with my serger. Hopefully I’ll have more clothes pictures to show you next week.