Thursday, March 29, 2012

A moment of SQUEEEEEEEE!!!

One of my very most fave blogs on all of the web, is Shiny Happy World .  Wendi Gratz is the blogger behind it all, and she is amazeballs.  Though the site is not exclusive to beginners for either hand or machine stitching, it is hands down THE site I recommend to all my friends who are just starting out, either for themselves or with their kids.  There is something there for everyone.  Patterns for darling projects that are either free or more than reasonably priced, and tutorials for it all.  If there is a pattern on the site, you will find appropriate tutorials for all of the skills you need to complete it.

Wendi loves to see what people make with her patterns, and a little ways back I bought the Bailey Bear pattern from her.  For Valentine's day I made 2 of her sweet little bears.  Well, I shared my geeky versions with her, and much to my OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEE delight, she decided to feature them today!!!  Click here to see the post featuring my versions of her pattern!  /nerddance.  Needless to say I'm just a little excited. 

Shiny Happy World <-----This is the part where I shamelessly plug Wendi's blog.  GO NOW!!  Check it out.  I promise you it's amazing. I havn't posted pics here yet because I want you to go look at her site.   I can't say enough awesome things about it.  =)

Alright!!  That's my post for today!!  Please show Wendi some love!!  And thanks so much for featuring me Wendi!!!  I am positively honored.  <3  SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Happy Crafting Everyone!
Adi/Cheryl

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Space...One of my first frontiers!!!


I'm a huge Star Trek fan.  I love classic & Next Gen best of all, so I guess it's no surprise that I gravitate toward people that are rather geeky.  (I also highly recommend for you fellow Next Gen geeks, Wil Wheaton's Blog.  Absolutely on the top of my blogs Adi follows list.)

For my bestie's birthday 2 years ago, I made a Dell Mini laptop case, which later became his iPad case lol.  There were a few things I had in my head design wise...This first pic was one of them.  First off, it HAD to be Spok blue.  There is no one in my life more Spok like than my bestie, LOL.  I thought it would look really sharp if I could pull off an Enterprise silhouette. 
I LOVED how it turned out, but then...I got the idea to fashion it loosely after the collar of the uniform shirts.  and of course if there was going to be a collar, then there had to be an insignia.  Which sadly meant that the silhouette I had spent so much time hand stitching on, had to go.  =(

The symbol itself wasn't too hard to make.  I looked up the science insignia online, and decided to go with the blue on black as opposed to gold lame' for example...lol.  The insignia was Wonder Under-ed on, but then hand stitched on top.
The inside was just some cool space fabric that I had laying around.  Surprise surprise...I have a lot of space fabric laying around.  That particular fabric is about 10 years old, I couldn't even tell you the maker unfortunately.  The perfect Spok color was actually found in the felt stash, and I did a very simple velcro closure, which seems to have held up quite well thus far.

The construction of the whole project might have been 3 hours just based on my hand stitching.  The pouch itself was very basic, as it was one of my first projects beyond pillow cases.  No boxed corners.  Just simple square pouches, sewn one inside the other with the closure flap sandwiched in the back. 

Because I was on a Star Trek spree at the time, I forged ahead and made my first HUGE laptop case, matching scarf, and iPhone case for  my favorite model of all things I create, Matt.

Same basic design, but his fave is Scottie, so the insignia has the engineering symbol instead of the science symbol.  (Yes that is a talking Gandalf doll in the background, with a map of Middle Earth hanging above him, in my utterly thrashed play room lol.)

Apparently I didn't take uber detailed pics either close up, or inside the laptop case, but the guts are the same as the smaller Spok version, same basic construction.  The cases are both felt, same construction with the insignias, and the scarf is super soft fleece.  And thus, momentarily ended my Star Trek crafting spree.  Matt's laptop case gets an extraordinary amount of use so it will need to be retired soon.  The perfect opportunity for a tutorial on a new geeky version!!

I'm really looking forward to Monday's Big Bang Theory.  Leonard Nimoy is guesting.  He's posted lots of cute pics with the cast on Twitter.  One of my fave tweeters in the Twitterverse!!  He just turned 81 this week, and is quite in touch with his fan base via Twitter, despite not making anymore appearances at cons etc as of last year.  He's really quite an interesting man, I highly recommend following him!!  May he live long and prosper!

Alright, overloaded with geekiness yet?  Hehe.  Thanks for reading & happy crafting!

Friday, March 23, 2012

The Tragic Yet Functional Tote...

Or...all the things I learned not to do while making this tote!  lol.  So as I mentioned, I'm pretty much self taught.  I grew up watching my Grandmothers sew, but never did projects on my own until I was much older.  And until recently, I never used patterns.  I made it up as I went.   lol.  I made a few tank tops in high school just from tracing them onto the fabric, sewing the sides together and hemming everything.   Of course that was also pre-boobies so I didn't need anything as complicated as a dart, lol.  I just totally winged it!

Back in present day tote time... I think to my self one afternoon...Self...how much more difficult can it be than making a pillow case?  It can't be that hard!  Well...It IS pretty simple, but a few little things would have made it a pretty outstanding bag.

Interfacing for starters, would have solved almost ALL of this bags issues.  Really it's the primary reason I felt the bag wasn't so much a success as a fizzle, lol.  Neither the body or the bag, or the strap has it, and as a result, it just doesn't have the weight of a nice sturdy tote.  I also hadn't yet learned to box corners, which would have been a nice little feature.  Design wise, I would have also broken up the busy pattern with some solids on the outside.  All in all though, I'm not too critical of the bag as a whole.  I went into it expecting to make mistakes and learn, and I did, so it served it's purpose..  and now you too can learn from my mistakes!!   
It's absolutely functional regardless of it's mildly tragic construction, holds a ridiculous amount of groceries, and the funny looks from the clerks when they realize it has classic movie monsters on it is priceless. Tee hee!!

One thing I felt I did really well was fussy cut the Frankenstein inner pocket.  I thought it would be funny to have him reaching out of the bag at me every time I looked in!!  lol.  (The fabric BTW is Robert Kaufman, Monster Mash.  I believe it is OOP, but you can still find it on eBay.)

Thanks for reading!  And happy crafting!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Pillow Talk...

Pillowcases were the next passion in my sewing evolution.  I won't bore you with the ridiculous number of them that I made, but I will share a few of my faves.  No personal tutorial here, as there are lots of fantastic tuts already.  Here are 2 links for my faves though, and a link for the million pillow case challenge.

The Crafty Gemini
The Missouri Star Quilt Co
The Million Pillowcase Challenge 

I made one for myself first so I could work out the kinks.  I needed to remember what the heck I was doing, and get back in the swing of things...I'm sorry the pic isn't the best, but the fabric itself is black with little witch hats all over it, an orange swirly accent strip, and then a cute Haloween print with lots of little sayings.








The second one was for my Mama.  She loves The Beatles, and this fabric was SO happy and bright.  She really loved it. The accent strip on this one is magenta with subtle flowers, and then the tail is lady bugs or...beetles!! that matched the bright colors in the band name PERFECTLY!  Usually when I make these, I try to make it capture that person’s personality.  And even though it’s not your run of the mill white pillowcase, my intention is to make an every day useable pillowcase that’s unique and fun.




The next one was for my future sister in law...I love love love love how this one turned out.  This is a much better shot so you can actually see the fabric detail.  The colors just ended up being really fantastic together.









And last but not least, is the one I made for my Aunt Marilynne.  The Wizard of Oz was always one of my faves as a kid.  The accent strip here was a dark floral brown, and the tail has movie scenes all over it.
My Aunt always signs letters, emails etc "Auntie M" and of course if any of you remember the movie..."Oh Auntie Em, there's no place like home..." Which is what the fabric says, with my small personalization.  =)

Feel free to share pillowcases you have made or personalized!  Or email me and I can post them for you. Happy crafting!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Our friend, the pin cusion...

When I started sewing again, I lurked at the Martha Stewart website, literally looking at every single craft, and sewing pattern she had.  Not to mention purchasing her books of the same persuasion, and subsequently becoming enchanted with our friend the pin cushion.


Using her tomato pincushion tutorial, I first made this...a slightly under stuffed(not intentionally lol) pirate version of her classic! 












 Then came any fabric that amused me in the slightest, with a more basic design (just varying sized circles running stitched by hand and then tugged into cute little circles of pinned goodness...I promise I was not using rocket science at this stage!)


I love the lady bug fabric.  I'd had it for probably 15 years or more in a plastic tub from a time before my current crafting spurt!


 Then mason jar sewing kits...



Which I made a bajillion versions of for Christmas that year...
















And one of my favorite incarnations, made with a tuna can...The sunflower is fashioned after the Plants vs Zombies game.  I just drew the face on and stitched it by hand.  It's not perfect, drawing isn't my strong suit, but I love her just the same. 

(I also included a pic of the PvZ cake I made for my good friend's birthday!!)












 Last but not least, is a felt needle book.  I shaped it like a classic old school coffin, added a cross and red rose button, and some red felt for contrast on the side, al la classic Dracula satin lined coffin...and wah lah!  I love Halloween!


I'm amused to see the geekery underneath the coffin.  Clearly I was working on some Star Trek related craft lololol. 










Sunday, March 18, 2012

Here Kitty Kitty...



This was my first stitching project...EVER! It was a gift that I received for a birthday when I was 5.  Mom very patiently sat with me when I started this project, explaining exactly how to do everything I needed to know. I remember feeling very proud when we worked on the first portion of this because "I was sewing stuff" like she and Gram.

Flash forward a couple of weeks or so.  We hadn’t had time to sit and work on it together, so one day I decided that I would do it alone, and make her all proud!  Now as you can see, starting on the bottom right, darker stitches begin to appear.  And though you can’t tell from the pic, those stitches are 6 strands thick as opposed to the designated 3, hehe.  I realized the mistakes after I had finised, but she didn't scold me when I confessed.  She praised me for staying on the lines of my stitches, making sure the knot was on the bottom side of the fabric, and said that the change in color was ok since most cats weren’t all one color anyway.  Aren't Moms awesome?!?! 


Hello and welcome!!

proCRAFTstinator (n) : someone who postpones work on craft projects (especially due to distraction by sparklies or habitual animal snuggling)

Hi!  My name is Adiarra, and I am a proCRAFTstinator.  I have lists of projects/ideas a mile long  taped in various stages all over my laBORatory walls, and piles of incomplete projects, stalled by lack of inspiration or getting distracted by a new idea that I just HAVE to try!  Not to mention the extended breaks I’ve taken from crafting altogether which don’t really help those incomplete stacks decrease in size.

On my 5th birthday I received a learn to stitch kit, and have loved stitching things for special occasions ever since.  The kitty in my profile pic was my first project, and I assure you my abilities have progressed greatly from those early years!

I also grew up watching both my Grams sew, and have periodically become intrigued with learning how to use my sewing machine somewhat proficiently.  My most recent sewing break lasted about...oh...15 years...and was broken about 3 years ago, after an injury left me needing a way to help maintain my sanity, (not that I’m saying I’m completely sane) and rehabilitate my wrists and arms.

My kept sanity has bestowed crafted joy, mostly of the geeky persuasion, upon friends and family, which I plan on sharing with all of you via blogs and tutorials(once I'm up to speed)...Well you know...all of you who actually find me...randomly blogging...somewhere on the interwebs...Be kind!  I have NO idea what I'm doing!!  This will be a learning experience, so constructive criticism and suggestions are welcome.

Welcome to my blog!


Adi the proCRAFTstinator