Journal project

My art club started a round-robin journal project about two years ago and finally finished, so I got my book back.

My theme was "Scraps and Fragments." I made my cover from a dumpstered pair of Hee-Haw overalls, using the straps to hold the book, really just a portfolio for loose sheets, closed. I filled it with 9x11 canvas sheets (found in the art paper aisle at Michaels) so people could make their pages however they wanted.

I knew from a previous round robin that I didn't want to worry about binding the finished product, since people tend to make thick pages that are hard to corral. The finished book has everything from melted plastic to crazy quilting to needle felting.

Groovy African shirt

I bought this way groovy African shirt at a thrift store, thinking my husband would love it. He did, but couldn't fit his manly muscles into it. So I un-gave it and took in the sleeves a little (I do not have overdeveloped biceps like some people in my family).

One more addition to the tomboy wardrobe. (I got a haircut last weekend, too.)
(But, for the record, I'm wearing a dress today.)

Crochet flower sweater

Here's a great sweater I bought at a thrift shop this summer. It fits perfectly but has a two-inch wide nautical-style Izod emblem front and center, embroidered right into the fabric so I couldn't pick it out without wrecking the sweater. Bleh!

I tried pinning a brooch over it, but all my pins are heavy and floppy and not quite big enough to cover the emblem. Then I found this crochet flower left over from my crochet-madness phase last winter. It's the exact right size. I stitched it on with embroidery thread and added the button to cover the hole in the middle.

This is much more my style.

Duct-tape dress form

I'm no dummy, but I finally have one.

I put on a throwaway white t-shirt and a cling-wrap miniskirt, then got my husband to wrap me in two rolls of duct tape. (He enjoyed it a little too much!) I started getting claustrophobic when he did my ribcage. It took almost two hours to put on three layers of tape.

When the form seemed sufficiently thick, he cut the dummy up the back and helped me out. I taped it back together and stuffed it with old pillows and spray-in foam stuff (not recommended-- stick with polyfil). I plan to put a pole in her and stick her on a dumpstered outdoor-umbrella stand. I've already used her to help me take in several t-shirts.

I used instructions from Threads.

Wardrobe Refashion

I joined up for six months! Yeeps.

Basically, I've pledged to refrain from buying new clothes for six months. Luckily, underwear & socks are exempt, so I was able to justify this weekend's Target purchase of three pairs of leggings, as I consider them tights designed to keep me wearing skirts into the cold months.

Also, they came from the kid section, where everything is cheaper. And one pair is covered in silver skulls. I know, major loss of punk cred! But cool.

Halter top

I've decided to add a few things I made over the summer. This was the easiest shirt ever-- it's just a sundress cut down to shirt length and hemmed. (It wasn't all that long to start with, which was part of the problem!)

It also tied around the neck, which is a sensation I can't stand, so I changed it to regular straps. I had to fiddle with the placement along the back to get the straps more or less in line with my bra straps.

Screen printing

Last night was the fourth session of my screen printing class, and I finally feel like I understand the process. Watch this space for the decorations and ink splotches soon to appear on everything.

The biggest challenge: choosing a design from the thousands of possibilities.
What first? A yoga shirt? Something funny about knitting? Last night I burned a scan of a 45-record spindle. I can't wait to print it!

Crazy dog lady

Camera pouch

This is a pouch I made out of an old, felted sweater from the Goodwill. It's lined with a scrap from a pink corduroy shirt a friend gave me in a box of scraps.

I think I used a pattern I saw at Molly Chicken's blog, which I love love love, but I can't find it so I'm perplexed. It was a basic box shape, blanked stitched up by hand with pink embroidery thread. I added the lining later.

It's just the right size for our camera. That was a lucky accident. I didn't have anything in mind for it when I made it. That's how I roll.

Charlie Brown shirt

I made another recycled t-shirt.

For this one, I used Butterick 3030. It takes a lot of imagination to see the potential in this pattern.

I chopped up two t-shirts that I thought went together fairly well. Again, I salvaged the original neck band, though this time I had to actually sew it back on.


In this pattern, "small" means large. I consider myself medium.

Also, I remembered that I am long-waisted. So my edits to this pattern include putting a big, ugly dart in the sleeve (hard to make out in this picture, but believe me, it's there) and grafting in a big old stripe from the other shirt. Hence the Charlie Brown title.

Still, a wearable shirt.

Scrappy tote and pouch

This is another project made from scraps.

I started with a long, skinny scrap of ‘60s flowered upholstery fabric that I loved. I paired it with some blue pinwale cord that had previously been a jumper, I think. I just made a simple square bag—no pattern, just going by how much fabric I had.

The bag’s lining is the fabric left from an apron, and the handles are a thrift-store belt that I trimmed the hardware off and chopped in half.

I made the unlined zipper pouch to use up every last scrap of that great fabric. The stripe goes the other way-- that's just because it was easier to sew it up that way. The zipper is from my stash of thrift-store zippers—I pick them up any time they cost 25 cents or less.

Boden rip-off shirt

This is another top I ripped off shamelessly from the Boden catalog. (Boden's version at left) Again, I found a close-enough-to-the-shape pattern during a 99-cent sale at JoAnn's, then scoured my stash for two prints that went together relatively well. The upper piece is a purple with tiny white dots-- fabric that was once a kitchen curtain. The bottom is some vintage stuff from a garage sale, I think.



(This is the pattern I used-- Butterick 3385. I picked version "C" version shown in green in the lower right)












Mimicking the Boden shirt, I used contrasting bias tape on the neck and sleeves, but after wearing the shirt, I decided to turn it to the inside and topstitch it under. I like this one enough that I made another version in "good" fabric after tweaking the pattern a little, but it turned out too small. Sadly, I had to give it away.

I did not try to mimic the Boden model pose in this picture. I'm just naturally elegant.

Heart shirt

I turned a plain, boring old XL t-shirt into a cute fitted medium one.

First, I took an old XL t-shirt and cut it down, using a 99-cent snug-looking juniors t-shirt pattern from a JoAnn's sale (McCall's 5105). I positioned the pattern to keep the original neckband & sleeve topstitching intact.

Then I sewed it back up, using a tiny zig-zag stitch for stretchability. Luckily this photo is blurry, or you would see how wrinkly the sleeve caps turned out. I ended up with extra ease, so the tops of the shoulders are a little pleated. We'll call it a design detail and move on.


Next, I shamelessly lifted a design from the Boden kid's catalog and cut a stencil out of freezer paper. After ironing the stencil down and stuffing the shirt with cardboard, I dabbed white fabric paint in the negative spaces.

Voila! A new cute t-shirt that fits.

Vacation

Thursday we leave on vacation. You know what that means?
Yes. Wine in plastic cups, marshmallows, and a tent that smells like a butt. Can't wait!

Little House

My niece spent the night Friday. Along with an armload of stuffed animals and a Powder Puff Girls nightie, she brought Little House on the Prairie. She's obsessed, just like I was at nine.

While we drove to the pool after our pizza date with Uncle T, she told me she can't wait for fourth grade to start and how she wants to read every single Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Alas, at the library we discovered that the one she wanted was checked out. I promised her my set.

I found the books in my parents' basement, along with my Easy Bake oven, some Tinker Toys and a Rubik's Cube that I think I "solved" by peeling off the colors and replacing them in the right spots. Finding those books took me back to the summer afternoons I spent sprawled on the pleather couch at my grandparents' cabin and those endless car trips in the station wagon, fighting over the imaginary line down the back seat with my brother, my niece's dad. One of the books has a foil sticker from the Wilder homestead in De Smet, South Dakota. We visited Mount Rushmore and stayed in the Flintstones Campground. I'm sure my brother and I fought all the way across Nebraska.

I had a pang over letting go of my books, some of the few childhood things I still own.

But why save them? So they can molder in my parents' basement until I die and she's 60, having to sort through my junk?

I'll hand them off tomorrow to the little girl who's getting to know Pa and Mary, so she has some company during those long, hot days, waiting for fourth grade to start.

First Post Ever!

Hi. I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time. Today I'm finally doing it on a steamy Saturday when I still haven't turned on the air conditioning, even though it's nearly 100 degrees outside.

This morning I walked to the farmers market with my niece and my dog and my husband. On the way, we talked with our 94-year-old neighbor, Jean, and a friend who was riding by on his blue one-speed bike. I feel like I live in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, only if I put on a cardigan sweater right now I would die.

ETA: I turned on the AC. Then I left.