Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

My Gavle Goat sweater in progress

I finally got back to working on holiday sweaters again. Here's the execution of the Gavle Goat:

I finally designed and finished the main logo at the heart of the piece. Since I took this shot, I've since added little LED lights, sewn on a slogan, and need to finish sewing it on to the front.

I FINALLY got my goat explanation text printed and ironed onto a shirt. then sewed it to the sweater. Now I need to come up with some interesting trim around the text. Oh, and sew the whole thing together before the office party on the 2nd, of course...AND finish a NaNo novel. Eek. Well, it's almost done...

Tie-dye gauchos and legwarmers

Moving Season is fast approaching in my town, and one fellow donated some of his clothes to my volunteer job so as to get rid of them. A few of them were large, long-sleeved, tie-dye shirts. Recently we had a craft fair with an "upcycling" theme and a friend of mine was helping to run a "Scissor Wizards" booth where you could cut up your clothes. I went down there to hang out with her and started flipping through my old Generation T books... and decided to make the gaucho tie-on shorts from book #2. I also turned the sleeves into legwarmers by pinning them to the size of my legs and then sewing them up.

Here's the shorts sewn together at the crotch. Looks pretty weird, eh? I used some leftover T-shirt hems to make the ties, but I wish I hadn't assumed they'd flip over easily--they don't really when you use zig-zag stitch. Oh well.

The fellow who owned the shirts before had ah...some mysterious tiny holes in them around the hems. Not to worry, I just cut out some hearts and sewed them on as applique!

And here they are on a mannequin, tied a few different ways so you can see the options.

Note that I put all the holey/heart shirt parts on one leg....so it looks deliberate, hah.

And here they are on me. Don't your eyes just bleed?

 

 

 

Making waist belts, #2: attempting to copy a sporran

The first waist pouch belt thing (what someone I used to know likened to a sporran) I ever got was this lovely lavender and teal one on the right. I've replaced the Velcro and the belt on it, but I think the pouch fabric itself is starting to disintegrate and I'll need to retire it soon. So I attempted to copy the same sort of style using felt and satin scraps from the bin, layering them together to have a sturdy inside and shiny outside. It has a flap on the top with Velcro to hold it closed and a secret zipper pocket on the back originally.

So how'd I do at it? Well, it was tricky to copy. I got the main pocket width down all right and figured out how to make a side piece that covered the width and sides just fine.  I attached loops at the side to strap the pocket onto another (rainbow!) elastic belt with strap. (This has the same looseness issue as belt #1 though.)

I didn't really figure out how to add a back pocket so well--it ended up becoming the front flap instead. Sewing in the secret zipper pocket did not go so well, looks-wise, but eh, it was my first time doing a zipper insert in a small space like that. With two layers, no less.

I had some cute leftover labels from the original leather purse from belt #1, so I hand sewed them to the front pouch pocket flap. I had intended to put Velcro in, but I should have sewn it in earlier in the process of creating the pockets before it was too thick and a pain in the ass to try to hand or machine sew it in, so there's no Velcro on it.

And there you go. It's not bad for a first try.

Making waist belts, #1: leather ex-purse

So I usually wear various waist/utility belts around my waist because girls' clothes usually don't have pockets and that's annoying. They're fairly hard to find IRL though Etsy has better odds of finding a good one. However, I want to learn how to make my own. Too bad I don't know anyone I can do that from really, so I'm trying to figure it out on my own.

Here's an improvised belt that comes from cutting up a leather purse, taking off the pockets, and putting them on elastic and attaching a belt bucket. Sewing the straps (from the original purse), leather to leather, was the worst bit.

The belt is a little big-ish when there's stuff in the pockets. Maybe I'll fix(?) that later.

I made an apron

This is one of those "using the scraps around the house" kinds of aprons. I normally wouldn't combine two patterned fabrics, but...what the hell. I kinda like it. I also like that it pretty much came out like a tie-on skirt with huge pockets.

The middle is supposed to be gathered, but....gathering is freaking horrible to do and the strings weren't pulling and I was all, "fuck it, still fits if I skip that, who's gonna notice?"

The rain skirt

I've made a couple of umbrella skirts in the past. I like them, but they are a little short to wear in actual rain. And I couldn't help but wonder if there was some way to make a longer skirt. Perhaps to wear over your regular clothes for rain protection.

Well, a few months ago I found some kind of rain/waterproof fabric and thought, "Heeeeey, I can do this!" So I dug up a plain long skirt pattern and started to work on it. Then I got the bright idea to add some actual umbrella panels on the side to dress it up a bit.

This turned out to not be a good idea. Here's why:

(a) This fabric is some of the worst I've ever dealt with. It does not like being pinned, much less sewn.

(b) I had a BITCH OF A TIME putting in the second umbrella triangle panel. I screwed it up so many damn times. And like I said, this fabric does NOT like being sewn and resewn. You can flat out see how badly that part has been mangled if you look up close, which I am so not gonna show you :P I really should not have gotten kr8tiv about it.

I spent a lot of time fucking this skirt up. A lot. But it finally cooperated and is done. It won't be going to the county fair for judging, mind you, but it will at least work for its intended purpose, which I am trying out this rainy weekend.

Sorry the photos suck, though: I did not have the lighting/table space to get a better shot of it, and my standing shots kinda ended up sucking too.

Hawaiian Santa hat

So when I was in a store in Hawaii I saw this.

Of course, I wanted one, but the guy said he only had one. And he only ever wore it for ten minutes because it was "too hot." (It has some kind of weird fuzz for the fur.) I wanted my own, dammit. So I went looking for Hawaiian Christmas fabric, and bought some fringe to layer in lieu of the "too hot" fuzz, and found a pattern off the Inernet. Here is my friend modeling it.

Then I added a crocheted bleeding heart flower lei and hand sewed it around the edge as well. And crocheted a hibiscus ball for the end and sewed it on too.

 

It's been a good crafting week

I'm spinning some yarn, I'm finishing up the temperature scarves (slowly), the first Christmas sweater has one sleeve to go, and my Hawaiian Santa hat has been sewn for the most part, I'm just thinking of what else to add to it.

Today I took a knitting class that was a general "here's how to fix your knitting problems" sort of deal. I think 3/4 of the people who showed up were just there for beginning knitting lessons, but I had a great time actually being told how the hell to do color knitting. My restarted guitar sweater is going a lot better, and I'm signed up for a three week color knitting class in a few weeks!

Advent calendar, of sorts

In another example of "things I saw on the Internet that I wanted to try," I made a tarot advent calendar. I coincidentally came across a chunk of plastic wrap in the remnants bin at Joann's, so....
Notes on this project:

(a) You can't really iron plastic (all bunched up in the remnant) so well, as it tends to stick to itself. You'd better weigh it down with books. A few times. I ended up cutting maybe 35 or so pockets with an Exacto blade and then using the 30 that came out best. Plus it's easier to flatten the smaller pieces.

(b) Pinning plastic down is difficult. I ended up having to go out and buy fabric glue--I forget what brand, but as the original link points out, the glue will NOT hold the pockets very well for use anyway so it doesn't matter what brand. It basically tacked it down barely enough for me to sew the pockets on. You kind of end up having to drag the project through the feed dogs a lot and start over a lot, as of COURSE a sewing machine hates plastic.

(c) I used this rainbow stripey remnant fabric I had, which worked out great for lining up the squares.I figure I can use it all year round.

(d) I made 30 days worth of pockets and decided that if it was a month of 31 days, I'd just stick two cards in the last one. I could use it as a monthly "card of the day" thing.

(e) Dowels can be bought at the hardware store, not craft stores apparently. However, I don't do wood sawing, so I can't really trim mine down. Oh well.

Yes, these are kind of human saddlebags

 

So this isn't technically of my steampunk knitting (which I am running into trouble with, yet again...grumble....), but I wanted to try doing Gail Carriger's steampunk DIY pocket belt.. I actually found a pair of really short (like, capri?!) men's cargo pants at a thrift store that were suitable for cutting up. Except the pockets were so awesome and huge that I couldn't bear to cut them up so much...so I basically just saved the entire pocket area.

Yup, them's are saddlebags. They are kind of the strap-on equivalent of my Utilikilt, which has big enough pockets to hold a six-pack of beer or so.

I probably should have cut up the pockets more, but maybe I will if I find another suitable pair of semi-disposable cargo pants. Preferably in a better color than muck green. Obviously I haven't bothered to steampunk-bling 'em....maybe later.