Fullmetal Alchemist Doll

A fellow fan of Fullmetal Alchemist is having a birthday so I decided to gift them with a Lust doll.

Here is the body:

 

Yeah, one arm is slightly longer than the other. *sheepish* Oops.

 

Hand sewn and hand stuffed. Ugh, jamming stuffing into a tiny thing with the butt of a pen is really annoying. But it turned out well! 

 

I wasn't too concerned about the unsightly bulge on her head because that'll be covered by hair.

 

Who else is a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist? Who's your favorite character?

Knit Headband Earwarmer

I knit a headband earwarmer, as the title suggests (actually, there is no "suggesting" about it--it says it flat out), with this really luxurious chunky green yarn. I learned the moss stitch (hooray for YouTube) and it looks fabulous! It'll be going up on Etsy tomorrow. Keep an eye out. Chunky knits are all the rage right now. Apparently.

What's your favorite fashion right now? What trends are yay or nay?

On Altering a Button-Down Shirt (Part 2)

So, I ended up just cutting off the sleeves. I know you're not supposed to do that, but I was careful to stick very close to the seam itself. I said I was having problems with the delicacy of the fabric so cutting off the sleeve seemed (haha, seamed!) the best option since I did have some play room.

I had a ton of room at the side seams to bring in and I decided, also because of the delicate fabric, to do French seams. (Sew a seam very close to the edge with wrong sides together, then turn right sides together and sew a seam, which leaves all raw edges enclosed. Super awesome for fray-prone fabrics! Can also be done in arm holes using the same method.)

I pinned in to about the size I wanted. I didn't cut, just to be safe at first. Then I sewed.

 

All the uneven, wavy lines are my size adjustments. Every time I sewed a line I tried the shirt on to make sure everything was hanging right.

 

 

Then I trimmed off the excess.

 

 

Frenched those seams. Then I put on the sleeves and, of course, having taken in the sides left the arm holes smaller so I did a short gathering stitch at the top of each sleeve before I put them back on.

 

French seam: second stage, with right sides together.

All done!!! I'll post a pic of the finished product on so you can see the difference.

 

 

 

 

 

Sewing a Realistic Dragon (Part 2)

Here are some pictures!

For the chest and stomach area, which is that pointed oval piece, I cut another piece exactly the same in a sort of lacey glittery fabric. During the sewing process I treated them as one piece.

So far so good!

I probably won't give this one away. As I said, it's the prototype. I'll figure out what all the kinks are in this one and the next ones I make I can alter to be exactly like I want them.

One thing that I really want is ribbing or something of that sort on the stomach, so I'll have to play around with it. Also, one thing to keep in mind is that satin frays the dickens. I don't know if you can see it but right at the bend of the tail the seam didn't hold. A different fabric would probably be easier to work with, like thin fleece or something.

 

On Altering a Button-down Shirt and Being Passionate

A while ago I bought a skirt and shirt from Goodwill (gotta love the savings!) with the intention of wearing them to my ballroom dance class. I knew right off the bat that the shirt would need some serious work. Bag city. I have fairly broad shoulders so the shoulder seams hit me fine but the body was obviously made for someone quite a bit wider around the middle. (It doesn't help that I just finished dieting--lost 16 pounds, woohoo!--so now it is even baggier.) I couldn't pass up on this shirt though. It just goes so well with the skirt!

Dancing is one of my passions. I am passionate about so many thigns! And one of my problems is that I'm almost afraid to share that with the people around me. What if they can do it better? What if I spazz out? (Which I tend to do when I'm excited.) It all comes back to the fear of people judging me. But what am I showing them by hiding who I really am and how much I love things, and life, and activities? I'm presenting a mouse and that's what they see and how I feel around them. What good is that doing me?

The moral of the story: it's okay to be passionate! It's okay it get jittery when you walk into JoAnn's, like you just took a great bit snort of something less than legal. It's okay to talk a mile a minute about the intracasies of French seams.

And of course there is someone better! There's always someone better at this thing or that but only YOU, only I, have this combination of skills at whatever level of mastery. Maybe your passion isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea--maybe they don't even like tea and are more coffee people--but in the words of whoever said them, "Those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter."

Okay. Motivational rant over with. Onward!

I'm going to take off th sleeves with the good ol' seam ripper and bring in the side seam. Just doing a straight line. I'm not worried about it being super fitted. (The way the fabric drapes makes it perfect for just a loose cut but right now the loose is more like a swamp.)

*20 minutes later*

Okay, I've been on the same sleeve for a while now and it is not going very well. This fabric is kind of a loose weave so the threads are all getting caught up in the ripper. Ugh. Any tension I put on it separated the fibers.

Okay. Plan B. Or "Winging It" A, depending on how you look at it.


Stay tuned from the next instalment of "On Altering a Button-down shirt and Being Passionate."

What are you passionate about? Comment below.

Sewing a Realistic Dragon (Part 1)

I have a tea party planned for some time in February. Not only will it be an awesome time for hanging out with some friends and eating delicious muffins and scones, it will also be somewhat promotional. I'm giving each of them something handmade. A dragon! Each one will be personalized to fit them in style and color and be holding a little tea cup.

I love giving things to people. Normally I'd be reticent to promote myself (I'm putting my business card in the gift bags with each dragon) but it is part of my new mindset to be, well, less reticent.

I'll post pictures of my progress of the prototype tomorrow! Making it all by scratch! Fingers crossed.

Start of Mahogany Tray

Here's my progress on the tray. Didn't get super far today.



Took some sandpaper to it to scuff up the varnish. My vision is to leave the ridges wood and just paint the dips. Bowls? What would I call them?



Coat of primer.



And here's the second coat, but this time I switched over to plain old white acrylic. It'll need some more coats just to get that nice even finish.



I can't believe it's 2016. Anybody else feel like the time just flew?

3D Wall Art: Passion (Part 2)

Today, with the foil-covered canvas dry and ready for decoration . . . I decorated it. (Well, the sentence started out like an epic might but kind of fizzled near the end.) There really isn't much to say about this stage because it all hinges on personal preference. I arranged my roses in an asthetically pleasing way, fiddled around with some silver puffy stickers, tore up some sheet music . . .



Glued it all down . . .



And there you have it! Now to stage it by placing some objects around randomly.



Look at how artsy those sticks look. Oh, the juxtapostion! *three snaps in Z formation*

Another dreary day so the lighting in these pictures isn't something I'm totally pleased with, but c'est la vie.

A note about the back: I made sure to seal those loose foil edges down with a layer of Mod Podge.



Overall I am very pleased with the finished product. For the next 3D Wall Art project I'll do a green color scheme and will incorporate some watercolors into it! And feathers. Gotta like fluffy feathers!

If you'd like to own this piece, head over to my Etsy shop.

Tips? Comments?

See you soon with a mahogany tray in hand.

3D Wall Art: Passion (Part 1)

It's rather gloomy outside today. It has been raining on and off for the past few days and while I like a good storm, I don't like having to put a project on hold for days because it's pouring. Thankfully, the clouds parted just long enough for me to do a raking job and to do two clear coats on this box I decorated. (I bought it at one of my favorite antique/thrift/one-man's-junk-is-another-man's-treasure stores for about $10. It was plain wood and I wanted to try my hand at revamping with mixed media.) I quite like the finished product!



(Sorry if my pictures are less than stellar . . . sunlight literally does not come into the picture.) Next time I repaint/decorate something wooden I'll post my process and whatnot. (I also bought this awesome mahogany tray--you could beat someone to death with that thing, it's so heavy--at that store and it too was $10. *victory dance* I don't want to do crazy stuff to that one, just paint it. That'll most likely be my next project.)

Okay, for today: 3D Wall Art

Again, mixed media. I saw this awesome thing in a book (wow, that was so vague) where they used foil and it looked great. I'd like to start with that. Let's see . . .

I have my 10x10 canvas. I'm putting little self-stick pearls all over randomly, then I'm going to paint a layer of Mod Podge over the whole thing, edges included. (Usually I'd not be so picky about getting my hands dirty but I'm on a diet right now. It's important not to absorb any superfluous chemicals.) The podging:



Now I'll take a piece of foil and lay it over the canvas, being careful not to be too careful. I want the crinkles. Pressing it down gently so there is total contact.



Oops. Pressed too hard here. Oh well, the paint should cover that.



I put globs of Mod Podge (to give an opaque effect at random) and both red and burgundy paint over the canvas, then spread it all out with a wide paintbrush. I want to use black paint (or something very dark) to age it. Gotta wait 'til this red coat is dry though, which might take a while because I put it on so thick.



In the meantime, I did the first coat of paint on the paverpol flower and sewed a few ribbon roses.



All right, the red paint seems to be dry so I'll do black over it now. I watered down the black paint but it was still thicker than I'd intended, so the overall tone is much, much darker. I like it though.



END of PART 1

Be back tomorrow with the finishing touches.

Tote Bag with Wooden Handles

Today I wanted to make something fairly easy--you know, straight lines, simple stitches--though I daresay I'll overcomplicate it. Oh well. ("That's your problem. You always want everything to be clever." - Moriarty)

I'm going to make a tote that I can carry all my sheet music in (I play violin and piano) + use as a purse if I want to. I rifled through our tote collection the other day and found them totally inadequate for my purposes. They are all mesh bags, which end up rounding the corners of papers and folders.

I want the bag to be pretty large (I like big bags and I cannot lie), have boxed corners, a lining, some pockets. I think it'll be open top but I might fiddle around with a button and loop closure.

Now to hunt down some fabric. I'm in a bit of a quandary because I can't decide whether I want to do something with good ol' quilting squares or do a solid piece fabric. (I have been daydreaming about a bespectacled cream-colored mouse reading a book . . . no idea why.)

Ooh, that Hawaiian-ish one looks great with the color of those handles. (I know, I know, it's winter . . .) Also, I have black lining which will work great with that.

First I'll lay the handles down on the sheaf of fabric, which is folded in half, to see how wide I want the bag. (I'm not going to be using a measuring tape, partially because I can't find it.)

Chaos, we meet again. *dramatic music*

If you're wondering why on earth my room is such a disaster it's because we're in the middle of a renovation, meaning everything from one room has been compressed into another, dispersed in piles, and crammed into boxes. We also have a giant storage container in our front drive. It's full too.

Now that I know basically how big I want the bag I'll cut out (with the fabric folded) a large square. Now I have two of the outside fabric. I'll do two squares of the same size in the lining fabric and two of the batting. (Batting can be omitted.)

With right sides together I'll sew my fabric on three sides, same with the lining. Now I have either a great bag for kidnapping people or a fabulous hat. Ta-da!



Now to box the corners. To anyone who doesn't know how, you basically set the bag on its end seam and take the adjacent seam and press it down directly onto the end seam to form a triangle. (Oh, I hope that explanation translates.)



Then, depending on how wide you want your boxed corners, you sew straight across, making a triangle at the corner of the bag. Cut off the triangle.

Do that to both sides and you've got it. Okay, I boxed the corners of my fabric and my lining. (I later went back and sewed just my batting in the same way--the three sides, then boxing the corners. There is probably a better method for doing the batting but I didn't bother to Google it.)

Now I'll fit all my layers together exactly as I want them to look on the finished product. No seams showing, just the raw edges at the top. Now (and again, probably a better method out there) I'll fold over the raw edges, lining inward and fabric over batting inward, and tuck the handles down in there. (Here came my downfall . . . darn you, measuring tape)

I hand sewed the handles on through that big slit in the wood and use a line of hot glue to hold down the very edges.



Same thing with other handle. I also hand sewed the remainder of the upper edge of the bag. Then I hopped back up to the sewing machine and wrestled with sewing a nice solid line just beneath the handles all the way around the bag.



That was hard. I guarantee there's a better way to do that, if nothing else.

All right, now with all bottom corners matched and aligned properly, I hand tacked in each corner to ensure the layers won't pull apart.

Ta-da! The finished bag!



Now about the downfall. The handles, due to "offness" in my eyeball measurements, are not centered. But hey, the bag still carries stuff so I'd say it's a pretty good day.

Another mistake is that the lining fabric bunched a bit when I was in the deathmatch with the sewing machine, leaving a big fold where it shouldn't be. To cover that up (rather than pulling out the dreaded seam ripper), I'm going to crochet black trim for the inside and light green for the outside with the yarn in the picture.

Tips and suggestions? Project you want to see me fiddle with? (Or should I say "Any projects with which you want to see me fiddle?" Cool your jets, Charles Dickens.)  Comment below!

Make a bag of your own (show me pictures!) or hop over to my Etsy shop to buy one.

NOTE: I bought the handles at JoAnn's.

And yes. I am wearing pajamas.