I'm A Winner!

A couple of weeks ago, Darling Petunia held a giveaway of a nightgown she made but whose pattern was too large for her to enjoy. Enter me and my busty bust and promise of a cookie for her winner choosing kitty. Not only does this nightie fit me like she made it for me personally, but the sweet pink prints are soothing and the crisp cotton feels delicious against the skin on these humid summer nights.

Thanks Darling Petunia!

More fabric for the Stash

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Crafting Things That Grow

Finally, I can show some more completed projects. First, my hanging strawberry garden. I got the idea from some lovely person on Craftster and I got the cans from my local mexican restaurant. Only one or two strawberries yet but these are ever-bearing varieties so I still have hope to see at least a small crop this year.

These bushes were already here when we moved to H-Town. At this writing, I cannot for the life of me remember what their variety is, I just know that it is a very old variety and that it has not been in circulation for several decades. The first one makes huge, lovely blooms that smell delicious and are as big as a grapefruit when open. The second is a similar hybrid that I apparently cut wrong the first summer because now it mostly produces the tearoses and very few of the big creamy blooms. Wish I knew how to remedy the situation.




Here I have learned an important lesson on the use of potting soil. One should not have to weed her container garden this much.






Some tomatoes in the ground, some peppers in barrels. Yes, I did notice that the pepper on the left is receiving less sun and is thus being dwarfed by the one on the right. Since shooting the photo, I have remedied that problem.









And, dum dah dah DUM! The piece de resistance! I have to give credit to, of all people, Martha Stewart for giving me this idea. She has the most lovely ginormous garden at her Turkey Hill home where she uses raised garden beds. On her website, she extols their use, claiming that the soil heats more rapidly in the morning thus yielding bigger harvests. In addition, they are supposed to be easier to weed and be less prone to animal pests. I cannot attest to any of that just yet but I can say that raised beds look prettier to me and that I was so incredibly proud of myself for having built them all by myself.

I found the lumber at roadside one sunny garbage day morning and hauled it all home. Mr. P schooled me in the finer points of using the circular saw. I made my measurements, then cuts and then really gave my powertool loving friends a boner when I pre-drilled the holes before securing the wood with galvanized screws. After assembly, I dug out a slight trench in the existing soil in the shape of the box and then kind of buried about an inch of the laid down container. Several bags of topsoil along with some compost from my evergrowing heaps and I was ready to plant.
















(L) A zucchini hill between two compost hoops.
(R) Chili pepper plant barely 8 inches tall, loaded with green babies!

Finally, something worth sharing.

I'm a singer. Mostly, these days, I sing at church and funerals and weddings. Lately I have been asked to do some things at funerals that are well beyond my comfort zone. Most recently, it was to sing with two unknown singers with no practice for a funeral service. I tried to advise the bereaved against it but she couldn't get past how good we sound on a Sunday. She just would not or could not believe that a whole host of clunkers comes out before the sound is magnificent. Just throw some musically inclined people together and magic is going to happen, right? Wrong.

I find the same to be true with crafting. I haven't been posting much lately because most of my recent projects have been lame-o failures. Some have been useful but not really so attractive, i.e. the enormous tent-like swing nightgown I made from the 80's style peaches t-shirt material. Some I just haven't photographed as of yet due to the pestilence and flooding that has ripped through the area, i.e. my new raised garden beds that were fashioned from garbage-picked 2x6's from someone's old deck.

Today I finally hit a pretty note with this sundress I made for my daughter.

This began as a remnant that Miss R. picked out for 50 cents at Joann. I also found a pair of white shoelaces in my great grandma's sewing box that are now living a new life as the straps. I'm particularly proud of this because I have not ever had a good result with stretch knits before and because I was finally able to make something happen with the Bernina Artista that has been loaned to me. I used the machine's overlock feature on the hems, side seams and arm holes. I was having some trouble with the hems for some reason but I still think it came out pretty well for a total novice.

Recycled

When I Said Random, I Meant It, a.k.a. A Springy Burst of Work

I have been trying to build up a good stash of material to play with when the mood strikes. While I know I can whip up a mean Halloween costume, sewing other kinds of things is iffy at best for me and I hate to pay full price for fabric only to make very expensive rags. In order to accomplish this good stash, I've been frequenting the thrift store and buying up their stock of fabrics. The following have been my recent hauls. Some are totally hilarious but were too cheap to pass up. All of them were purchased for under two dollars, most of them had more than 5 yards.







In addition, I have been saving various items that would normally go into the trash or recycle bin and trying to breathe new life into them. This item used to be an oatmeal cannister. I removed the paper label to reveal plain uncorrugated brown cardboard. I then painted it with white acrylic paint and a sponge-on-a-stick (my new favorite tool) and let it dry overnight. I then used a textural stencil kit to place the leafy design on it. I'm still not sure what it is going to be useful for but it did make me happy.



The last item was inspired by some crafty people on Craftster. I found a great tutorial for fabric flowers and was up half the night trying to make it work for me. I had little luck until this afternoon when I decided to try again. Again, I have no idea at this time what to use this for, but it is pretty and made me smile and feel springy even though it is gray outside.

Bachelorette Party

Two of my good friends from my softball team are getting married so we threw them a surprise bachelorette party this past Saturday night. If anyone out there has ever thrown one of these bashes, they know that the commercially made stuff for these parties is ridiculously expensive. Buck-a-suck shirts, made on cruddy looking, ill fitting men's t-shirts can run upwards of 30 bucks. Hokey looking headgear is equally expensive. The above ensembles were made for 7 dollars each, fit the girls beautifully, and were WAY nicer than any of the items on the market.

Cost breakdown:

Pink Longsleeve Shirts on clearance $3.00
Pink baseball caps at Dollar Tree $1.00
1/2 a roll of tulle from Dollar Tree $.50
1/2 a silk floral pick from Joann Fabrics $.50
1/2 a bag of Lifesavers from Dollar Tree $.50
1/2 a roll of white wired ribbon from Dollar Tree $.50
Curly gift ribbon from Dollar Tree $1.00

The veils were assembled using the wire of a floral pick to hold the tulle together, adding a large bow of the white wired ribbon to that, then the hotglue gun attached the curly ribbons to the wires from the picks, then hotglue to the top of the cap. The Lifesavers were attached to the shirts simply by wetting and applying them directly to the shirts. All of the writing was done by moi with a couple of Sharpie markers.

Current Project / Commission

During an evening of red wine drinking bliss, I came up with an idea for my friend Cid who works at the local Mexican restaurant as a waitress. I decided to make a custom waitress apron for her that fit in better with the restaurant's casual charm. It came out like this:




I knew it was cute. I knew the craftsmanship was spot on. What I didn't know is that the restaurant owner would order ten of them. Unfortunately, both a blessing and a curse as the fabric I had chosen was a Joann Fabrics clearance item and there was no more to be had anywhere in the country. I only had enough for four aprons. What to do?

Well, one bit of relief came when Mister Restaurant Owner requested two of the aprons be made for men, slightly longer and with a more manly, royal color scheme. Phew. A suitable selection was made and then I went on to figure out how to make 8 aprons from enough material for four.

What I decided to do was choose a coordinating solid color. Since I had already cut out the pieces for four aprons, I decided to create four aprons with the solid back and striped pocket and cord and then four with the solid pocket, striped back, solid cord. Here's one in progress:



Some things I've learned from this process:

1. Learn to say no.
2. Never accept a commission even after one glass of wine.
3. Never price items after said glass of wine. (I'm making almost zero profit on these)
4. Learn to say no.

Honestly, I'm so excited to be working on my first commission. I just hope that should I be fortunate enough to be given another, that I will have worked out all the kinks on this project.

Using Up Scraps....

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Originally uploaded by Raiye

I made this fabulous lapquilt for my mother in law for Christmas. I'll have to dig up some pics of it and give it an entry all of it's own one day soon. The road to finishing that project was filled with as many bumps and potholes as the Dan Ryan Expressway this long LONG winter. There were days working on that project where all I could do was curse a blue streak. It helped me learn an important crafting lesson.

"When you hit a brick wall, play with something else until the headache goes away."

So, I took some scraps of the material I used for the lapquilt and made these cute little stockings for gifts. This one, excuse the poor photo, is made of a lovely chocolate brown velvet with handstitched sequins adorning the top hem. Only took about a half hour. And it made my headache go away, too.

Decou--WHAT?

Yes, dear readers, I have gone to the dark side. I decoupaged a piece yesterday and found the process not only fun but exceptionally rewarding. And Mister D had a great time tearing up the bits of paper to help out.

Before, a worn out looking MDF shoe cabinet, also known as "The Shoe Kitchen" in our house. It had some water damage to the top of it and well, it was ugly ol' MDF.



I prepped by lightly cleaning the surface of dust and stickiness. Gotta love the Stretch-N-Dust :-)

And now, the after:




I am really happy with the result and with how easy and inexpensive this was to do. The paper is the remnant of a roll of wrapping paper that I found behind my television while dusting. (Note to self, dust more, you may find more goodies.) I know there are various gluey substances that can be bought but this was done with good ol' white glue, a bit of water, and a sponge on a stick. The biggest problem I ran into was the bubbles that seemed to plague larger pieces. I had to spend extra time smoothing with my fingers.

If I start making cozies of any variety, please, someone, commit me to the nearest mental health facility.

Halloween Costumes

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Originally uploaded by Raiye

These costumes were made for my children for Halloween 2007. Mister D is an astronaut and Miss R is Laura Ingalls Wilder. Both costumes were made without patterns. I used pieces of their clothing for scale and shape.

The astronaut is made from cotton/poly sweatshirt fleece. The suit part is modeled after a pair of footie pajamas with a zipper. This was my first time putting a zipper in and I was very pleased with how easy it was. The helmet was based on my memories of bad vintage sci-fi. I made the shiny blue trim with some scrap lame, fat piping cord and hot glue. The stars and flag are iron on patches and the NASA logos are done freehand with red fabric paint. I managed to pull this together in less than a week as Mister D changed his mind less than a week before Halloween.

The prairie girl costume took me quite a long while to get right and even still there are things I see wrong with it, namely the way too long petticoat. Meh. Anyway, the dress is made from cotton calico with a tiny red and white flower print. The apron and petticoat are cream colored cotton broadcloth and the petticoat has an elastic waistband and poly lace trim. I used one of Miss R's shirts to get the size and shapes for the bodice, the rest of the costume was patternless, using period costume photographs for direction.

The guy in the middle is Mister P. His t-shirt loudly states "The IS My Costume." Nuff said.

The Inaugural Post

"Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to begin...."

I'm Raiye. Like the title bar of this blog says, I make random things. Being the true internet geek that I am, I have been taken by the immense crafty community on the web and wanted to throw my proverbial hat into the ring.

I won't promise to post frequently. I won't promise to post the most amazing projects you've ever seen. What I do promise is to post what I make, what I like, what I wish I could make.