Jam Makin' Apron

It's been so long since I made an apron...at least two years, I think.  That's a long time, considering that I used to make them about once a month for like a year.  I had a retirement party to go to this weekend and last Monday I decided to make her an apron for her post-retirement jamming sessions.  I said I'd do it Tuesday.  Then I said it on Wednesday.  On Thursday I looked at my fabric stash.  On Friday night, the day before the party, I went up to my craft room at 9:00 and whipped out an apron by ten after midnight. 

I went with my favorite apron pattern, McCall's 3979 Retro Aprons.  I've made View E at least four times (bottom left).

And here's a little walk down memory lane:

Any favorites?  Just wait and see this next one and then make your decision...

This time around I went with a lovely vintage pink floral and paired it with a soft turquoise.  I thought the teal ric rac was a nice touch.  The blue mannequin does not help the photos...

I didn't have the right color blue thread to match the ric rac, so I just used what I had on hand.  I guess it's okay.  

The pattern instructions call for you to sew everything so that you encase the seams in bias binding.  I've never made it that way.   It would take forever to do it that way and it would be sloppy.  I just lined it with a white fabric:

Why can't my butt be made of blue plastic?  This mannequin has such a tight, sexy butt.  I want it!

There was one major hiccup.  Can you spot my mistake in the above photo?  Here's a hint:

This is what it should have looked like:

I wasn't paying attention when I sewed on the waist straps and by the time I figured it out, I had already turned the apron right side out.  I just left it.  Is it going to make a difference to the recipient?  I don't know if she'll even notice.

The final touch was the packaging.  I thought it would be cute to ball up the apron and stick it into a jam jar, so that's what I did:

Cute idea, yeah?  It didn't come out too wrinkled.

So...do you have a favorite go-to apron pattern?

{oil pastels}

Craft Cart

This Christmas I gave the girls a bunch of new art supplies.  With these additions, the plastic shoeboxes that held all of the art supplies started to overflow.  I've had my eye on the IKEA Raskog cart for the longest time, but going to IKEA is always such a project, so I started to look online for alternative carts and found one at Target.  

It fits perfectly between the wall and the art table.  

When it got set up, my eldest loved sorting all of the craft supplies into containers.  It doesn't always stay so neat.

On the top level, they have all of their markers, crayons, pencils, scissors, glue, etc:

It doesn't go in the cart, but I found an electric pencil sharpener on clearance at Target and the girls are smitten with sharpening their colored pencils.  We were using those tiny hand sharpeners, but the points never got sharp enough and were always broken.  I thought it was the quality of the pencil, but the electric sharpener has proven that the pencils are fine.

With my littlest still being under three, we have to stay vigilant about watching her activity with the scissors.  She always goes for the pointiest ones, of course.  They go to a school that promotes having art supplies and things easily available to the kids at any time, so putting everything in the cart (including scary scissors) mimics the school situation. 

The second level has tapes, stamps, water colors, and oddities.  They love tape.  That dispenser is mine and I'd like to find one for them so that I can have that back, but it's okay for now.  It's pretty sturdy, so it's held up well against their destructive nature.

The third layer just holds all the papers, stickers, and coloring books:

So that's their cart.  The only thing I keep out of it are the acrylics.  We'd always be painting if they saw them out all the time.  

Napkin Sweatshop

My friend invited a group of us over for a napkin making sewing session.   It was fun and it's been so long since I spent all day sewing with a group of ladies.  I think the last time was over seven years ago.  

The idea was to set up an assembly line of sorts, where some would cut, some would iron, some would sew, etc.  That happened a little bit, but we had some napkin style variations, so it wasn't an exact assembly line sweatshop experience.  To sustain us through five and a half hours of sewing we had delicious nibbles:

Anyway, on to the sewing photos!  Here are some process shots of ladies hands hard at work:

I always like photos of hands at work.  Not my hands.  My hands are crap, but other hands are nice.

Check out the finished stack:

Amanda's napkins were all double sided.  Some were backed with recycled tablecloths or other fabrics.  

Katie's napkins were also double sided, but finished with mitred corners and she used this pattern from Purl Soho.  I'm very impressed that she committed to that pattern!  So hard!

Colleen and I both went with single layer napkins.  I brought my serger and once we figured out how to thread it (and keep it threaded), it was a very quick process to whip up some napkins.  Here are Colleen's:

?? ??  Oh crap!  I didn't take any photos of hers.  Ugh.  I'm the worst friend.  You can see her black ones and maroon ones stacked in with mine.   Here are our serged edges:

Serging was so much fun.  I need to get better at using that machine and should probably take another class.  I also took a part off of it for the rolled narrow hem and I'm not sure how to put it back.

Anyway, here are my napkins:

It was a lovely day!  I've proposed doing it again, but making holiday gift bags.  It's just an idea...

Oh, but before we part, I will leave you with a pile of sewing smegma:

Marbled Magnets

Hello!  Yes, yes, I'm still alive.  I've just not been crafting or blogging or even reading very much...I can't say that I've been doing much of anything lately.  So this thing here that I'm showing you was done for Christmas....3 months ago.  Argh.  

So...remember when I took that second marbling class?  I made more bookmarks for the little free library with some of that paper and then I also made little tiny magnets.  I got the idea from Consumer Crafts and did a little bit more research via Pinterest to decide on the best method.  One place suggested Diamond Glaze and I bought that, but then realized that it wasn't what I wanted to use to adhere the magnets to the glass tiles.  I used some of the E-6000 stuff and probably gave myself lung cancer in the process.  That stuff is so smelly and I'm sure I wasn't well-ventilated because it was winter in Minnesota.  I bought all of my supplies on Etsy from this seller.  They had everything I needed, so that worked out.  

Anyway, so here are the end results.  The lighting is not great, because I finished at night and had to pack everything up to ship off the next day.

These were little boxes of magnets that I gave away to the girls' teachers.  I never know what to give as teacher gifts.

The bigger boxes, which fit about six magnets, were sent off to friends and family.  

The idea was to find little tin boxes so that the magnets would stay put during shipping.  Unfortunately, I could not find any locally and could not find any cheap enough online that I liked.  So I went to the dollar store and picked up six packs of gift boxes.  Then I got some stupid idea to use magnetic tape.  It really wasn't strong enough, so I'm assuming that when everyone opened their boxes the magnets were all stuck together and chaotic.  Oh well.

I have a bunch still that did not get given away, so that's good to have a little present stash on reserve.  I just need to remember that I have it.  

Bathroom Fixtures

I haven't forgotten about that dollhouse.  It's still a work in progress, but I recently found some very cheap bathroom fixtures for two bucks a piece...a toilet, a bathtub, and a sink.  Progress.

All three fixtures in the bathroom space in the dollhouse proved to be a tight fit:

I never know if things will be the right size when I am out and about, but my little model doll demonstrates that these are to scale.

The toilet has a lid and a seat, but they fell off, so this gal just sat on a cold rim.  Yuck!

The bathtub is missing a fixture, but for $2.00, I did not mind.  It's a nice little set and will work nicely when the house is finished.  

I would also like to point out that my ironing board (blue dot fabric) is looking pretty nasty.  Sorry about that -- I did not mean to assault your eyeballs.  I should probably learn to just make a new cover.  You know...just add that to my list of junk to do.

Belated Marbling Post

Hello!  In early October (I think -- it's been so long!) I took another marbling class at the Textile Center.  The last time I took it, I was pregnant and couldn't do the alum spray, so this time I had the full participation experience.  I seriously love marbling...most things come out so nice.  Anyway, here are the end results...

Paper

There was some map paper to marble and that turned out kind of interesting:

But my absolute favorite thing to marble is sheet music:

There was one piece of fabric that came out well:

Of course there was some green sludge in my tray and that appeared on the fabric.  Another piece of cotton had some air bubbles, so it's not perfect:

I have a bunch of other stuff that came out kind of ugly:

Meh.  I don't know.  I also marble a piece of ribbon and a piece of leather, but I haven't taken pictures of them yet.  I would love to set up my own marbling station in my house, but I have a feeling that I would make a major mess.

So what should I make with all of this?  I was thinking some more bookmarks for my little free library.  I don't know what else.