Penguin Embroidery

One Tuesday, I was sitting in my house, enjoying my day off and thought: what will I do today. The answer turned out to be ‘browse for small embroidery patterns and make a tiny hoop necklace’. I’ve had these small hoops in the collection for a while, but forgot they existed so I bought more not very long ago and then promptly found the others. I hadn’t actually finished any yet, so now was the perfect time. I figured out how big the embroidery could be (14 by 14 stitches in the circle) and went on to look for ‘alpha patterns’. I think they are used for friendship bracelets, but it works well for cross stitch too.

The pattern I used was of a little penguin and made by RIVAI. You can find it here. I added some extra stitches to the bottom to fill the frame. I only used four colours, but they were very effective. The black penguin has a white belly, an orange beak and a light blue background. It’s just that little bit derpy that it becomes adorable. It also makes me think of the Pengu cartoon penguin, so that brings much joy!

Spiders and Dinosaurs

I made even more shirts from the free fun summer tee pattern. These ones were cut from jersey fitted sheets. I got a blue one and a white one. The pattern has shoulder seams that are far towards the front. Since the white fabric wasn’t very long, I only managed to get two fronts out of it. I then determined what the shape of the shoulder piece needed to be and cut that out of the blue.

Once the actual sewing was finished, I couldn’t figure out which side was the front. Then I had the bright idea to add some embroidery to the front. So I looked through my pinterest boards for some inspiration. I’d already decided to do a lace-collar-spider thing, but on blue, so that wasn’t an option. So, dinosaurs it was. I pinterested a lot and couldn’t find something that I totally liked, but I used this as my inspiration to draw something myself. It’s a little sitting dinosaur that is looking up to the sky. This shirt has been worn quite a lot so far. It’s very cute.

I also cut the complete shirt from the blue fabric. Then I went in search of the perfect lace to fake a spiderweb. I found some in Amsterdam that I bought, but then I went to a local shop for something else and thought that I might just take a look. There I found the perfect lace. This lace was sewn partly around the neckline and then covered by the neckline binding.

Throughout an episode of Blown Away (Netflix show about glassblowing), the lace was handsewn down. At the end of the lace, a bit of embroidery was added to mimic a spider. I think this one is very fun. It’s also been worn regularly already.

Skyline Skirt

At some point in the past (my downloads folder claims August 15th, 2018), I decided that I needed a skirt with the skyline of my town on it. So I scoured the web looking for a picture with the skyline and managed to find one on a Christian website that seems to have been taken down since. The picture went though some fine MS Paint-ing and had all the coloured background removed. I then printed the results on A3 paper to see how large it would need to go to be able to cover a skirt. That was .. September 2018 and I promptly forgot about the whole thing.

About two weeks ago, I remembered this project and decided to go ahead and try to get it started. Step 1, find a good skirt pattern. Step 2, cut out the pieces of the skirt from the smallest bit of fabric possible. Step 3, serge the sides of the skirt pieces and put them together. Step 4, measure the amount of coverage the skyline needs to be. Step 5, print the skyline again because the older version was too short. Step 6, embroider the skyline on the skirt. Step 7, finish sewing the skirt together.

Step 1 was a bit of a struggle to start with, since making choices is HARD! At the end I made the choice for Simplicity Naaimode 27’s model 3-4 (aka Simplicity 1324). A knee-length skirt with a contrast mock wrap at the front. Going through the hoard, I found a piece of fabric that I also used for a larp thing ages ago. There was only little fabric left, so the skirt pieces were on one grain, while the front bands and waistband were on another grain entirely. The sides were serged and put together after which I measured and printed the right size skyline. I sat down for a night and managed to stitch the skyline in with some thick white thread.

I did make a change the skirt and added a pocket in the right seam, since skirts without pocket(s) are not useful bits of clothing if you ask me. In the same vein, I also added belt loops to hold my keys.

On Friday there will be a little reunion for employees and I figured that would be a good time to test whether this skirt works. It should be somewhat appropriate, I hope.

Pants: Red, Long, Swordfish Butt

It was Hot in Holland. Severely hot, being unable to fully function-hot, melting from just sitting and watching tv-hot. Still, I managed to get my ass into some gear and create a pair of pants. I seem to be getting better at this whole ‘finishing the insides’ business of making pants. There are no exposed seams in this thing anywhere. The sides were finished with the selvage and the majority of the seams was flat-felled or otherwise enclosed. The pockets were edged with the excess of the pocket lining. Doesn’t it look pretty!

The pattern was a version of the plaid pants pattern that I’ve been using. The changes included slimming the legs a little and putting a curved waistband from another pattern on it. There are also a number of belt loops and the pockets are made from the woodland fabric. The closure is a snap and a hook & bar. I needed to add back pockets, and I figured I’d put a nice design on them. So I looked all around the internet and discovered a series of pictures of animals drawn in one line. I really liked the swordfish, so I decided to embroider two of  those on my butt pockets.

I wore them to work, and they stayed up all right. A bit warm but that’s because it was very hot here.

Next up, Pants: Red, Short, Striped.

Prompted Crafting

I have been busy over the past weeks. I’ve been busy knitting (a sweater, I now only need to do the one sleeve and shorten the other sleeve), quilting (making the top for a bed-foot quilt) and embroidering (what you will see in a little bit). What I will show you today was made over the course of 1 evening after having tidied up all my sewing stuff.

This was because I found my embroidery floss and a loop. Then I remembered that a friend had complained that the toilet seat came down on him when he was trying to pee. This is of course a very dangerous situation, pee might go everywhere! (This is dangerous because cleaning is not my most prized hobby, so I’d rather avoid it where not necessary). However, it isn’t always immediate obvious that the seat will come down again. I blame it on the house that is as crooked as a witches nose.

Click on the video to see what I mean. Do not that there is a toilet in  this video, so if you.. hate toilets, it’s not safe to watch.

Now, I decided that I had to protect myself and the male population from this annoying fact, so I made a nice little embroidered piece of wisdom to hang above the toilet. My bathroom has about 25 things where I can something, so there was bound to be space somewhere.

It says: “Boys, please sit or be surprised by the lid!”. Lid rhymed, even though it should be “seat”. Cheer for some inaccuracy (I prefer the rhymyness over the accurary)! I quite like these one-night-quick-fix-projects. However, let me try and finish the sweater before real winter sets in..

Backpack (intermediate 1)

I’ve been working on my backpack since I previously mentioned it (here). I sadly did not finish it by the time I wanted to use it for a Larp special, which was the 15th of March. However, during that special something happened that made me rethink the pack a little, more on that later. The day of and on the way to the special I had been working furiously on the bag. I managed to get the straps on, although the fronts were not sewn to the backs yet. I added the flap in its two parts (front and back). I sort of sewed the lining in. It clearly was not finished yet.

During the special, I found out that they wanted me to become a priest (I did not want that, but they made me anyway). So I figured I’ll embroider a raven (the symbol of the god I was to be a priest of) on the flap. Luckily I had not yet closed the front and back of the flap, so I could easily embroider something on the back. I did a quick Google search, found a magnificent picture and decided that this was so much for personal use that I could use it. On the left you see the original, click it for the link to the source. On the right is my embroidery.

Sometime before starting this piece I read a blog post about filling in embroidery using long and short stitches (here), to be able to create directional embroidery. It’s not as clear but I know I’ve used it and I think it works a lot better than stitching willy nilly, which I used to do before.

So on with the rest of the bag. I’m getting there!! The new deadline is the 11th of April. I hope I’ll manage.

Ducks part 2

So, here are the details of the duck’n’lizard skirt. I scoured the web comic looking for nice pictures of the duck and lizard that I could crop and enlarge to be the same size (250 pixels either wide or high). I found quite a lot of them, and subsequently printed them out on tissue paper. I cut them out, and taped them to a strip of white fabric. Then I embroidered them.

Took a while, but I managed to get them all done. Here are the strips in full, with my feet for scale (and because I couldn’t not take a picture of my feet).

Here are the ducks and lizards in a bit more detail, oh and a stuffed rabbit. I think they are wonderful! When I wear the skirt, it doesn’t seem too childish, so that’s good! I really like it! Ducks forever! 

So thanks Dave for making such a fantastic web comic! I’ll enjoy the ducks!

Ducks Part 1

Ducks, funny creatures those. I’m reading a web comic called Sheldon (http://www.sheldoncomics.com/), which is awesome and is about a billionaire boy who invented (or something) a talking duck and who also has a lizard type thing. Anyways, I really like the style of art and the creatures are so funny. So I wanted to used them in a something. It took me quite a while to think of said something, but I figured something out.

I first e-mailed the author to see if I could use his drawings, and he said:
“For personal stuff, of course! Just nothing that can be sold, etc.
Thanks for asking!
Dave”

I may have squealed when I actually got an e-mail back. He’s like.. famous (in my head), even if it may have been an assistant or something, but probably not. Anyways, I do not intent to sell it. “What is .. it?” you may be asking. It is a skirt with a duck/lizard border. I first embroidered the ducks and lizards, which you will see in a later post in more detail. Then I sewed the bands onto black linen, of which the entire piece was used and therefore determined exactly what I could make (length and width wise).

I chose to make a skirt, with 5 pleats in the front and 5 in the back, in-seam pockets, a side seam zipper and a loop on the side for keys. It is two rectangles of approximately equal size, that were pleated to make it fit my .. below the waist. It’s built up from just rectangles. The top is finished with some of the biastape I made from the same fabric. The first two pictures are the front and back, it’s black, photographed in the bathroom, the detail is .. crap at best. Trust me when I say it looks really nice in real life, ok?

  

Then we get to the pocket with the zipper next to it. Luckily the zipper and pockets are hidden in the pleats. So you can’t really see them. I like that, a lot. On the right is the loop on which I can hang my keys. The only annoying part is that it is on the left, when I usually have them on my right. Therefore, I don’t know if it’ll see much use, but at least I thought of it?

  

Last but not least, the insides, nicely finished with a lining. I gathered the lining instead of pleating it. I think it probably works.

I’m very curious to find out how it ends up after a wash cycle. The reason being that I used some sort of starch on it, to make it shift less. Hopefully it will not fall to flat, but we’ll see. Tomorrow, I’ll show the details of the ducks and lizards. Hopefully!

Long Time No See

Yes I know, I’ve not been here for a while. I have no excuses. Well one, my sewing machine broke in December (which is quite the problem), so no sewing related things. I have made some things since the last time I’ve posted. A mp3-player pouch, it’s awful, ugly and crude but I needed one soon and my machine had just broke, and it works, so that’s fine. I’ll update it when I’ve gotten my machine fixed.

I’ve started a skirt that just needs hemming and buttonholes, (it’s almost all done by hand since my machine broke..), however, this was the beginning of January, and I’ve since done nothing to the skirt.

I did make a present for a friend, which was a pouch, this time with a flame embroidery. The pouch from all sides:

   

 

The last picture might look weird to you.. white things with dots and stripes on them? They are a couple of pebbles I got from our front garden. I painted dots and stripes on them and put them in the pouch with an instruction leaflet. When playing you can use them as runes or play games with them like Pigs. It is not very useful, but I thought it was fun. He seemed to like it, so I’m happy. I’m going to attempt to write more here, to make me do other things than watch television.

Finally

Yes! I finally finished something. After all this time, I’ve managed to do something creative again. Whoopy!

I made a needle-case for my friend on Friday (hot pink, dark blue, lime green, yellow thread and a gray ribbon), which I forgot/neglected to take a picture of (since I was finishing it on the train ride there). However, I did ask her if she could make a picture of it, so I’ll possibly upload that somewhere in the future.

And today, a glorious free day (which I will have for the rest of the week: go holiday!) I finally finished clearing up my sewing room/my parents storage room. I had decided I wanted to sort the books in the bookcase, which turned out to be an enormous, hideously huge task.  But I have finished it and created: 3 more empty shelves! Hip hip Hooray!

And consequently decided to finish my mice bag. So I finally attached the straps and the buttons, and added some button elastic for easy closing (and a nice different color pop). And it is finished! Mice mice mice, the text reads “Als de kat van huis is dansen de muizen op tafel”, loosely translated as: when the cat is away the mice will play.

I hope this free week will let me start (and finish) some other projects, like:

The black & purple dress (only hemming and attaching shoulder bands).
Redoing the red pants (complete ehm, upper area needs redoing).
Starting a 3/4 circle skirt with pockets.
Repairing the bolero thing (stitching 5 cm)
Gathering the black & white houndstooth shirt (only 10 cm gathering)

As you can see… I am quite lazy and tend to postpone even the smallest of tasks. But now I have the illusive free time to play in. I’ll see what I’ll actually get done, but I hope to do at least the above mentioned things. So hopefully I have more to share.