Jayne Hat

"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything"

The story: I got a series of messages from a friend saying "Help me!" And a picture of a scary dude in a gas mask.  Weird.  Turns out she was in a knitting emergency and her boyfriend, Mr. Gas Mask, was wearing his ex's poor imitation of a Jayne Hat. Unacceptable.  So this weekend I set off to make him a proper Jayne hat in style.  About 5 rows in I ran out of yellow yarn and decided to make that one a bootleg hat for later and then to make Mr. Gas Mask a real Jayne hat out of different yarn. The results were fun and I ended up loving making Pom poms!

Jayne Hat: Carron yellow and claret red with orange from my stash, 3in pompom

Skimpy Jayne Hat: Lion Brand soft in three colors, 2in pompom

Broken Star Quilt

When I first got into quilting, I pointed at a pattern and said, "this will be my very first bed-sized quilt!"  And then I proceeded to make 4 other quilts, none of which remotely resembled that first pattern. Well the times are a changin' because I've started working on my first broken star quilt!  I got some really nice batiks in my favorite colors and spent the weekend cutting, sewing, and avoiding ironing.  Because of the color combinations I could make it an untraditional broken star:

Or very traditional:

I'm leaning toward the untraditional version with the bursting wheel in the traditional format.  I really love how the dark blue emphasizes the multi-pink/purple in the center of the star and sends it shooting to the far reaches of the quilt.  Still a lot more work to be done here and I definitely need to get a better cream color for the background. But that comes after I finish piecing the diamonds on the bias!

Baby Quilt

Moving to a new city and joining an informal quilt guild has really upped my sewing game!  One of my coworkers is going on maternity leave and the sewers in the office are putting together a baby quilt!  It's going to be sooo cute for the lil' babe!  The parameters of the quilt 1) Gender neutral-it's a mystery baby! 2) Lots of color 3) Usable and machine washable.  These are all things I can handle!  So I'm going to put you out of your misery and do finished pictures first:

Now the backstory... I've been delegated the second phase of the project: sew the blocks together, make the backing, quilt it together and put on the binding.  And I've been given the blocks, which ranged from 5.5" to 8 inches once I squared them up.  Not exactly ideal since I needed 7" blocks...

So I picked out some "matching" fabric from my stash and expanded the blocks, making replacement blocks for the unsavable ones.  This star is made up of Lincoln log blocks and the triangles are made by the "stack and whack" method.  A couple of borders later the top was pieced and you couldn't tell the replacement fabrics from 3 feet away, acceptable.

The backing was fun and simple, more fabrics from my stash: one playful and one a nice batik.

I really enjoyed (and stressed) over how to quilt this little blanket. I've never even quilted a pot holder together!  And I'm no good at free motion quilting on my little Bernina.  So I stitched in the ditch with hopefully unnoticeable colors.  One binding later and it was time to wrap up my first baby blanket!

Scottish Vandalism

While sightseeing in Edinburgh, Scotland I noticed some street art: strange black and white dots.  Weird.  Step back and BOOM stormtrooper.  Thank you Scottish vandalism for making my day!  I snapped a picture and turned it into vinyl wall art for the hallway at home.  Might look strange to the nonbelievers but to those who see it, wonderful.

Steampunk Wedding

So I was lucky enough to have a friend throwing a steampunk themed wedding, costumes required.  Well *cracks knuckles* I think I can handle this challenge!  1. black corset 2. blue and black lacy dress 3. mini top hat 4. navy blue tights layered with black fishnets 5. golden key shoes 6. bustle 7. bracelet, 8. test tube garter, 9. purse, 10. Party!

Lets start off with a doll's top hat, a metal clock scrapbook addition, a tulle veil, bit of ribbon and a giant peacock feather.  All found at your local craft store and hot glued together to a standard black headband while watching too much Life.



Next up the purse, 'cause let's be honest, my corset and dress won't have pockets.  Also it's rare to find to find any woman's clothing item with any reasonable sized pockets, we do have needs clothing designers!!  One cheap fake leather black purse, another metal clock from the scrapbooking section, bronze chain from jewelry, and a bit of metallic thread...BOOM.



Now for a little bit of sass.  Some leftover tulle, ribbon, and steampunk-ish lock decorations and I have a clever way to hide my digital watch.  It's all about appearances and I would feel naked without my watch so, concessions had to be made.



Speaking of black tulle, I probably shouldn't be proud that I just happened to have 10 yards just sitting in my house for a rainy day.  Today is that day!!  I needed a little bustle for my tussle, and with a little help from the folks on tumblr I slapped some tulle, ribbon, and fabric together over the weekend.


No pictures of this one but my shoes, let me tell you about my amazing shoes.  There is a thing called rub 'n buff which is a wax based product and they sell it in a bunch of metallic colors, perfect for steam punk. I used antic gold rub 'n buff on an old pair of black flats and then sewed a couple of dangling keys onto the back of the heels, perfection.  Add on a test tube garter (test tubes hot glued to a thin black belt and some navy ribbon) and I was set to go!

Luckily I got to the wedding site a day early so I could do last minute costuming for a couple of my friends... 3 emergency mini hats, 2 necklaces, and a set of earrings later we were all ready for the wedding!

Avengers Assembled

Hey All,
I've finally finished the afghan of a lifetime!  My Avengers Afghan is based on the post-it note patterns, which were just dying to be a crochet patterns.  I had to improv a couple of the character squares (Hey Coulson!) and all of the logos but I'm happy with how they turned out.  I used all Caron one pound yarns, alternating single crochet, double crochet, and a spike stitch for the borders.

Halloween Pies!

My favorite time of year is Halloween, when else can you go to parties in your favorite homemade costumes?!  Also being a "crafter" means that you're always on call for other people's Halloween costumes, which is extra fun and challenging.  We'll you can rest assured that costumes did in fact happen but so did jack o'lantern pumpkin pie!  The secret is to bake a basic pumpkin for a little over half the time and then adding on the pie crust face.  Just make sure that the pumpkin pie has solidified enough so that the face doesn't sink into the pumpkin and it will turn out just fine.