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.