I MADE A THING!!!

So I did it!

I wanted to make something, I thought about making something, and I said SCREW IT and I made something!

THIS IS THE THING I MADE!!

See how excited I am? THAT'S HOW EXCITED I AM!!

This shirt started off as kind of a schlumpy long-sleeved hooded tee that my mom got tired of and passed along to me. I wore it a few times but never liked how it looked and it never quite fit me right anyway. So I decided it was time to cut it to pieces and see what happened.

Here was the comfy yet unflattering garment before I attacked it ruthlessly with my scissors:

Not so great, right? And I don't know if you can tell or not, but the hood was just short enough that it tugged upward on my shoulders whenever I wore it, making it completely useless as a hood. So I laid it out on my horribly stained cutting mat and chopped off the sleeves:

Then I cut away the hood:

Then I basically tried it on and took it off and snipped and chopped and tried it on and took it off and snipped and chopped over and over again until it was fitting me perfectly as a tank. I did have to shorten the straps a little to bring the underarm up because the sleeves left a pretty gaping hole.

I could have left it as a tank, but I was specifically wanting to turn this into something kind of girly that I could wear out with friends or to a party or something, so I opened up the sleeves:

And cut away the rounded top part of each one:

And pinned the straight edges to the outside of the armholes on the shirt to make little cap sleeves. I also "ghetto-lettuced" the edging because I don't have a serger - I just picked a nice tight zig-zag and stretched the hell out of the fabric while sewing along the edge of the cap sleeve. Anyway it turned out looking like this:

Which isn't super awesome, but it'll do. Makes it a little frilly and covers up the ragged cutting job.

I don't have many pictures of this next part, because it was really hard to do it and take pictures at the same time, but let me see if I can describe it well:

I took the rest of one of the sleeves and cut it into strips about an inch wide, then I sewed the short ends together until I had one long, 1"-wide strip. Then I took a length of thread about the same measurement as the front scoop of my neckline, and I hand-sewed a running stitch down the center of the fabric strip, gathering along the thread as I went to create a ruffle.

Then I pinned the ruffle to the neckline, sewed it down, and then I declared myself DONE and had a nice bowl of noodles in a spicy cream sauce.

YAAAAY FOR MAKING THINGS!! I will probably be this excited about making things the next several times I make things, so just be prepared for that.

I can't wait to wear it somewhere! I think I'll wear it tomorrow!

Kids Go Handmade Too! Kirby Edition

My daughter is 9 and started sewing about six months ago. She's already made some pretty adorable toys with just felt, thread, and stuffing. Today it was video game icon Kirby. Marvel in my child and her boundless creativity! She designed the toy, cut out a pattern, selected her materials, and sewed the entire thing herself...in just two hours! She's a genius, AND a workhorse. I couldn't be prouder. :)

Coolest carrots ever

Just thought I'd share these awesome carrots I got at the farmer's market this morning. They are delectable! And going into a veggie-rich pasta sauce for my kids and my parents (all vegetarians).

WIP report

First of all, I'm posting this from my phone for the VERY FIRST TIME OMG. So it could suck. Don't judge me...judge the Blogger app. Unless this post is awesome, of course, in which case it was all me baby!

I've got a couple of things I'm actively working on, so I thought I'd share.

First of all, I suppose I need to briefly explain Nerd Wars. On the prolific fiber arts site known as Ravelry.com, Nerd Wars serves as a place where nerds, geeks, and obsessives of all types can come together and inflict massive, global-scale bloodshed upon one another in the name of creativity based upon our favorite nerdery. You sign up for a team (i.e. Team Tardis for Who fans, Team Precious for LOTR fans, Team 1-Up, my home team, for video games, etc.). You get five challenges a month, and each person who can knit, crochet, weave, or spin a project which answers that challenge wins points for their team, with bonus points every time you can tie your response into your team's nerdly obsession.

A tournament lasts three months, and at the end of the tourney, all points are totaled and a winner is declared. It's not usually Team 1-Up, but hey, we are literally the only team that cannot participate in both knitting AND our nerdery. It's physically impossible to knit and kick Ganon's ass at the same time.

During each tournament you can elect to create a dissertation, or a project that will reasonably take you 3 months to complete. I almost always try, but rarely succeed. However, this time? It is ON. I have the best pattern, the best yarn, and enough motivation to make a bull meditate in a China shop. Here is my progress on this project so far:

Valiant Return and More Sweater Recons!!

I've learned some things in the last two years:

1. You DO have to pre-wash dishes before you put them in the dishwasher.
2. If you spend 10 minutes wiping down your kitchen with a Clorox wipe every night, you don't have to spend an hour scrubbing the stove once a month.
3. Good things don't always happen to those who wait - usually you have to take ACTION.
4. We can actually do anything, and we are a hell of a lot stronger than we think we are.

I've experienced some major life changes recently, some of which I'll be exploring in this blog, and some of which I'm going to leave well enough alone. No point in dragging certain things up over and over again.

I don't know that I'll always have crafts to post, but I'll always have something to say, someone to praise, or someone else's project to drool over - I usually do. Time is short, and life is short, and this blog post is short, but we can make it all seem longer if we want to. We have our whole lives ahead of us, and our lives will last at least as long as we're alive.

Of course, it's a little harder to get excited about my whole life being in front of me when I figure how many times that means I have to clean my kitchen for 10 minutes a day. Hell, it's hard for me to get a shower every day (TMI?).

Here are some great projects I found that I love monstrously:

Posted a few months ago to Craftster.org by lidehtium, LOOK AT THIS COAT OMG:

It's made from M&@(*T%&@NG OLD SWEATERS!! I want to do this SO bad. I could do a bunch of these, I think, all different styles and colors and materials and each one would be amazing and unique. She describes it as one hell of a labor of love, but I am too inspired by the OMG PRETTY to not daydream real hard about this one. (By the way, check out her blog here: Tamed Raven - it is the epitome of simple gorgeousness.)

Here's another old, old post (from December of 2011!) from my new favorite blog, Lately Reconstructed:

You know what those are? Those are slippers. Made from sweatshirts. Simple, easy, and BRILLIANT, because honestly? I could definitely do with one less sweatshirt and one more pair of slippers. I imagine if you get a big enough sweatshirt, you could even just use the sleeves - then you have a whole torso part of a huge sweatshirt to mutilate play with.

Finally, from a site I literally had to jump on, copy the URL, and jump off again for fear of losing my ENTIRE DAY to this site's database of incredible clever amazingness, Cut Out and Keep:

OMG LIGHTNING SWEATERS!!!!! DO WAAANT!!

I can't even fathom this. I will make zillions of them. It's SO simple! Please click through and check out this tutorial, you will be amazed by how easy it is.

I think I post a lot of sweater recons here, which is kind of silly since I live in Texas and we just don't ever really need sweaters...although lately it's been just chilly enough that I could really use one of those lightning sweaters. My sewing machine may be seeing some action this weekend.

Anywho, here we are, back again, with more stuff and fun things to look forward to. Expect at least one of the above projects to pop up by my own hand in the future. I have high hopes and big dreams and stuff!! AMBITION: IT'S GOOD FOR YOUR CIRCULATION.