New Toy!!!

New toy, new toy, yeahhhhhh!!!
It's a Juki DDL-5550-6 computerized straight stitch machine. You can also see (the box at least) my new gravity fed iron. I also got a button hole attachment, and a binder, and 4 different feet.....happy new toys!!

Loveys

As you can see, the bear did get eyes in the end :)
He also got two friends (who have already gone to their new home). Two lovies (or blankets with heads), they were fun to make! I also have a much higher respect of anyone who works with this stuff and/or fur in general. Sheds every where, slipper as sin, if you pin it, it still slips...like I said, fun!

Minky Teddy

I brought home some minky (aka microfiber fleece) last night so the boy and I made a teddy bear.

I know I keep posting "almost" finished things, such as he still needs eyes, but this is what I'm excited about :) The good news is, it looks like the picture on the pattern! I think I found a few ways to improve it for the next one...

Daisy Dress

I didn't know what to make yesterday and had the fabric, soooo.... It still needs button holes and to hem the bottom. I'll be darned if I can ever learn to tie the big bow like in the picture. Anyone need a size 3T dress?

Dark Lord

The long begged for cloak of Anakin...his first response upon see it was, "where are the boots that go with it?" AHHHHHHHH :)

We'll see how much of a complete costume he'll get, but in the mean time I have plenty of that fabric (poly suede) left to play with. It's actually more dark brown than the black that it looks like here. Didn't have a pattern, but it's just a hooded circle cloak with arm holes. It's been fun to make something for no reason.

2 months later...

Yeahhhh!! Working on something again!
It's been a long few months. Moved, filed divorce papers, general lack of sanity...:) But now life is starting to develop a routine again so I'm hoping this BACK notice won't be a one time thing. The pieces above are for a blanket I'm making for a friend. They are cotton seersucker, and I have a micro suede to back it with. They wanted a NO PINK girly gift.

Parrot Costume (call it done)

Let's start by admitting that I know this was an over-ambitious first project. I'm not so sure that it really looks like a parrot in any identifiable way, the intentions and drawing were easier :) and it seems to have all gotten away from me...but it was fun and he loves it which was the goal of this exercise. Suggestions are always welcome, so long as they are done nicely.

One major problem was that I had no model while making it!!! He gave me 5 seconds twice for" hey, does this fit like this?....gone. The red fabric is so stretchy and a little heavy.

As you can see I've been lazy, and only attempted to really "feather" the back and hood, as a result the cape is much heavier than the rest of it. I tried it on him this afternoon and what USED to line up as shoulders stretched and fell on the back of his arm. OY. Tried to pull it forward but adding some front weight and another line of stitching on the shoulder to help prevent the feathers from flipping over. I may try to add some more, but I'm pretty much ready to call it good.

He's holding a "seed bag." We're going to be putting them in to the gift bags filled with sunflower seeds.

His favorite part is really the tights. He didn't want to take them off, I think it's a Peter Pan thing. Or maybe it's a 9PM and mommy isn't making me go to bed so she can take pictures of me thing.

Parrot Costume 3

My deadline has been bumped up to THIS Friday (he needs to dress up for the class party), so I'm making extra effort to actually work on it, it helped that I had to stay up doing laundry anyways. The back is almost done, the orange and red pieces need to be sewn but they are pinned darn it. Debating on doing the front/inside of the wings and fixing some bald patches in the yellow (the red is a very very stretchy fabric and lets tell the truth, I eyeballed instead of measuring most of the pieces). Interesting problem with the red: I used 3 ponchos that I bought same store, same brand, same day, and they looked the same in the store but they are very different shades when I lay them on top of each other. You can see at the base of the neck, the hood is red and the piece on top is much more orange.

Parrot Costume 2

He got a hood last night! Boy helped cut and sew (yes, I was scared for my fingers the whole time). Pay no attention to the mess in the background/foreground...except my nifty new sewing hutch, the machine goes inside those doors when I actually put it away.

Parrot Costume

Boy decided two months ago that he wanted to be a parrot for Purim. Two weeks to go and I'm finally sitting down to do it. I did go out and buy the fabric right away, that counts right? The pic bellow is the back, got the blue "feathers" and a little yellow done tonight. More yellow and a little orange to be added tomorrow night (or some other night within the next week--I hope).
This costume qualifies as recycled, the red is a fleece poncho. The size and shape were awesome for this project, but it has a really big turtleneck on it. I'm thinking about carefully removing the neck and turning it into a hood. I think there is enough fabric to do it, just working out the how (especially the carefully removing part).

Parrot Costume Update

Behold! Felt Feathers.
Boy very excitedly (and VERY slowly) sewed the hood on by himself, so yeahhhhhhh! I really love how excited he is about it, "That's so cool Mom." If only I could make him stop stealing my thimbles. LOL

Parrot Costume

Boy-boy had no school today, so we stayed home doing laundry and crafting (in that order, so there :-p). He wants me to make him a parrot costume, so we made a small one for GI Joe as a sample. We are still arguing about if it needs feathers, this one is strictly felt.

Promise# 1

We have an ear! Yeahhhh! Poor Dragon wasn't a happy camper without his ear, he's feeling much better now.

Wasp Purse

So here's what I did last night from 10-1: You can see the pocket has a rough edge still to be finished, and I want to embroider something on it. It even has a magnet closure! Woohoo! However, tonight I plan to spend taking it all apart. LOL. On the list of things to fix: the lining is inside out, I have no idea how that happened. And I want to make the top sections a little shorter. It was fun though and I learned how to make my machine sew through leather - that's an old belt for handles. Oddly enough I broke 2 needles last night (for some reason both around 12:30...) but not while i was sewing the belts, just too many layers of canvas and interfacing combined with me not paying enough attention.