I’ve been pretty busy at work in the last few months, and the only crafting I did for awhile was participating in craft group meeting projects or making mini envelopes for my eBay auctions. That changed last month though, after a huge Halloween crafting project developed.

So, I haven’t dressed up for Halloween much in the last decade or so, and certainly not at work. However, when I found out that it’s a big deal at my new job, especially within my group, I thought I’d at least give it a try. My team talked about dressing up in a common theme, and eventually we (mostly) agreed upon one theme. One of my co-workers and I took this project on fully, and started coming up with rough sketches and even creating a prototype costume to see if it would actually work out.

After the first version worked well enough and the whole team seemed to like it, we went shopping and set up a few sewing sessions with the team. Ultimately, it was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun (with only occasional frustrations ), and in the end we made 6 whole costumes from scratch and helped put together a 7th costume from purchased items. Here are a few photos of the final result:

I hadn’t sewn for awhile, but I am definitely thinking about doing a bit more. But may after I recover from these, and hopefully not with any ironing board fabric or much felt!

I did bring my wrapped postcards to the meeting, though I wasn’t as interested as working on them. The finished pieces didn’t really turn out as well as I’d hoped, but I got to experiment with different inks and embossing powders, as well as try out chalks for the first time. I think I want to buy some chalks of my own sometime, though the ones I want aren’t inexpensive. Here are the cards though:

Khris and I ended up talking more about trying to get people involved in and attending craft groups, and how we’ve both found it to be somewhat difficult. We have all sorts of theories on it, but nothing that stands out as the most accurate. A new suggestion I had was that perhaps it’s a bit intimidating to go to a new group, where you don’t know anyone and are going to work on projects in front of the other members. I can definitely understand this, having had the same concerns when I first attended a South Bay Craft Group meeting, but I soon found that the attendees were all pretty laidback and it was definitely a relaxing environment. Purely social, with a bit of educational curiosity mixed in, and not a bit of pressure to follow along or work on anything in particular.

I’m not sure what it’ll take to crack this problem, but I have a feeling that word of mouth will have a role. We’ve definitely had a number of evenings when friends of regular members appear and then begin to become regulars themselves. And the social crafting activities I’ve participated in outside of these meetings, though with people I’ve met at them, seem to happen a lot more easily, since there’s some familiarity and a social network already established.

Related to this, my Saturday afternoon was spent with Amytha, who founded the South Bay Craft Group. After letting her rummage through my excess craft supplies, we drove up to parts of Los Altos and Palo Alto to stop by a few estate sales. I think it was my first time attending an estate sale, and there’s definitely a creepy, morbid sort of air to the idea of walking through the home of someone who has died and poking through their belongings, with the aim to take some home with you. Not disturbing enough to keep me from going to others, but still kind of sad.

Amytha bought a few things, including a few vintage, women’s hats (40s/50s era?), and then we headed over to the Los Altos Library to take part in a t-shirt alteration workshop organized by Sarah, the teen librarian there. It was inspired by the book Generation T and though it was geared towards teens, it was fun. I ended up using an old sweater, embroidery floss, and a few buttons to make a three-eyed monster plush toy. It was hard to embroider through knitted material, and we didn’t have any stuffing on hand, but I made do with what I had and I like how it turned out:

For the international version of this month’s Coloriffic Swap-O-Rama, the colors were chocolate brown and light blue (or aqua). I made a tote bag and card/envelope set, to go with a bunch of sewing-oriented craft items for my partner.

And for the US/Canada-only version of this month’s Coloriffic Swap-O-Rama, the colors were black and white. I didn’t really get into this one as much, but I made a zippered pouch and another card/envelope set to go with more paper-oriented craft items.

Everything will go out first thing in the morning, and hopefully the recipients will like what I picked. I tried my best to consider their personal interests, as any good swapper should!

I’m still signed up in a few more swaps via Swap-Bot, but fortunately they’re not as involved and aren’t due very soon. I will definitely not be doing any sewing for them, which is fine because I’m not really in a fabric sort of mood. I think stepping on a needle this evening sealed the deal for me, at least for awhile. ;P

Working on these swaps has definitely reaffirmed my interest in playing with color combinations in my creative projects though. Color is just a very exciting thing to look at, enjoy, and experiment with, and after my recent art class on the subject, I really want to play around more, especially with what I learned about color schemes. I have plans for a few “colorful” series of projects, focusing on paper for the time-being. Here’s what I consider the first piece for one of these series:

Like I mentioned the other day, I have a few swaps and a birthday gift to get out by July, and I’ve been collecting items for them all. I just need to finish the handmade items, so yesterday I cut out and pressed a bunch of fabric to make several tote bags and zippered pouches for them all. I had some trouble getting the sizing right, but it eventually got done.

This morning, I had the sudden realization that I should really get a few things mailed out today, due to the long weekend. As soon as I got dressed, I started sewing away, starting with a tote bag for my sister’s birthday. I should have been good to go, what with everything ready from yesterday, but it went so poorly. I ended up with crooked seams, holes where there shouldn’t have been, and slight imperfections everything that were so glaring to me. I almost ripped it all apart at that point, but I just left it and walked away. Eventually, it was fixed for the most part by folding the top over like a cuff and sewing over that.

I took a break and worked on a few other things, but I decided to scale back a bit on my swaps. One handsewn item per swap is probably good enough, and the recipients will understand if they’re not immaculately done. They’re not meant to be as good as store-bought, especially since I’m not very experienced with sewing yet, and besides, the results aren’t that horrible.

That said, I think I might take a break from the rest of the sewing for now. I have the whole weekend to work on everything and with how poorly things have gone so far, I don’t want to ruin the rest of the day for myself. It’s beautiful outside and I want to enjoy this great weather before it gets too hot again. I’ll leave you with some more “work in progress” and finished project images.

After the knitting thing didn’t seem to be working, I dug around my stash to find something I could actually do and feel good about doing. I found a kit from the DMC Linea series and decided to go with that. Basically, you get a fabric base item (purse, pillow cover) with a pattern already printed on, and then you can pick your own colors and stitch it all out. I ended up choosing some pinks and ended up with this after a few hours:

I think this series is DMC’s attempt to get a younger, more “hip” crowd into embroidery, which is fine by me, especially because it’s so easy to do and the kits are pretty nice. I don’t know if they’ve done well, but I know they look a lot better than the usual embroidery kits you find in the same aisle. It’s kind of depressing to look through all the same old designs of clothes-wearing teddy bears, fairy-filled fantasy scenes, and awful, inspirational quotes, so when I saw these, I was pretty pleased. I hope to work on a few more of these, and then move on to some of my own designs.

Originally, I was thinking that I’d buy some readymade items and embroider them, but after looking through some newly acquired craft books and fiddling around with my sewing machine, I think I might make some of my own from scratch. Awhile ago, I’d emailed Sarah of Hip to Piece Squares about how she makes her tote bags (aren’t they all just gorgeous?!), since I couldn’t find any good patterns elsewhere, and she offered a lengthy set of instructions to get me going. I put off trying it out for awhile, but after making a zippered pouch at our last South Bay Craft Group meeting, I was able to figure it out. The approach isn’t too different really, with one using handles and the other a zipper.

I messed up on a few bits and even had to rip out some stitches at one point, but I like it as a first try. I even made a little zippered pouch to go with it!

I’ve also been trying to catch up on old projects and intended projects lately, and it feels so good to get them done. First, I finally washed and ironed a major embroidery piece that I worked on for months and that is a very belated wedding present for a good friend. (No photos yet, but after it’s been framed and delivered, I’ll post some.) And then I sewed up a pillowcase that I had intended as a Christmas gift for my sister. It was so much easier than I thought:

She’s attending my alma mater and is a lot more “rah rah” than I ever was, so I thought this would be perfect for her. We’ll see what she says when it arrives though.

Anyway, I feel so much better having worked on all of these projects now. It’s just no fun being in between projects, so I’m hoping to keep up this momentum and move on to other things. It’ll help, considering that I have a bunch of swaps on Swap Bot to work on over the next month or two!

Swap-O-Rama has a color theme every month, and then everyone can send pretty much whatever to their partner, though at least one item has to be handmade. It’s pretty open beyond that, so people send things like craft materials, decorations, beauty supplies, and other little gifts. I ended up including a little bit of all of these, and here’s a photo of it all:

For the handmade part, I started by making a mini envelope/flat card set, much like ones I’ve posted previously, but using some new metallic papers I bought recently (Stardream FUSE).

I didn’t feel like this was enough, so I made a purple and green drawstring bag next.

I thought I’d do a bit more though, so I played around with the wrapped postcard/flat card idea as well. I had some problems with the first batch, and decided to use one as a note inside the swap, but I made another set to give to my partner.

I really hope my partner likes what I chose, though I’m somewhat worried that I went a bit overboard. I have a tendency to put a lot of effort (and often money) into my swaps, mostly because I want to send something good stuff. You know, the rule of send what you’d like get. Unfortunately, my partners in group swaps don’t always reciprocate, so sometimes it’s disappointing when I get my package. Not that I am expecting something specific, but you know.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking more about doing one-one-one swaps instead of group swaps. It’s just so much more personal that way, and the effort is more often worthwhile. So…is anyone up for a crafty swap with me?

The first one looks more like a wonton than anything, but I got to use some funky felt that had metallic strands of tinsel embedded in it. I’ve been meaning to try this out ever since I saw it in the fall issue of Martha Stewart Kids, and it was really pretty easy to make.

As for the other one, I started with a shape from a paper punch I have, and then enlarged it on the computer until it was a decent size for an ornament. I made a template from that and then the rest was pretty simple. Just a bit of cutting, stitching (blanket stitches and French knots with tails), and stuffing. I wanted to make a whole bunch of them, just sort of lost the motivation for that. Ah well, perhaps later.

I swapped with Amytha and here are the very cool ornaments she made:

Although my ornament plans didn’t quite go anywhere, I did have a sudden interest in making cards a few days ago, though well after I’d already written up and sent most of mine. Here are the results:

Most of the bits I used were from a kit I bought awhile ago at Joann’s, with some additional stickers mixed in. Nothing too overly splashy, but I like the simple sort of cards best.

I did spend the day yesterday working on a few items for a swap organized on Craftster though. The theme is “Hello Kitty & Tare Panda,” and here are the goodies I made for my partner:

I’ll admit that I bit off more than I could chew with the stuffed Hello Kitty head, seeing that I’ve never made a stuffed anything before. I had some initial problems when I threaded my sewing machine wrong, and nothing seemed to be working. After a short tantrum, during which I vowed never to sew again, I calmed down and got some help from my roommate, and we went through the manual together, just to make sure everything was in its proper place.

So, I machine-sewed most of the head, pillow-style, and then attached the eyes and nose by hand-sewing them on. I think next time I’ll do that before pulling out the machine, though it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I stuffed the head and then hand-stitched the rest of the head. And the bow was entirely hand-sewn as well. Of course, it isn’t totally perfect, but that’s just my critical self speaking. For a first project, I think it’s pretty good.

As for the drawstring bag, I’ll admit that I made it in September, during my initial sewing experiments with the new machine. It is made entirely by me though, so it’s not a full-on cheat.

And finally, the card set was done with a bag from a Sanrio store, and then I just used a Coluzzle template to cut the envelope shapes. Pretty standard for me at this point, so I can pretty much make them without thinking too much about it. I’d like to get to that point with sewing someday, but it’ll take a bit more practice.

Now I just have to pack everything up and off they’ll go! This was my first real swap through Craftster, and I will definitely be approaching the next one differently. Like starting a bit earlier, so that I don’t forget until the weekend before. And making sure I can actually make what I want to make.

I think my next project will be felt ornaments, with at least one or two for an ornament exchange with the South Bay Craft Group (next meeting is on December 7!). If I can manage more, then perhaps I’ll make some for our own tree or even as gifts. But we’ll see how the first ones go before I promise anything

   

This one went a little easier, for the most part, though I did screw one part up and had to tear out a few stitches. The fabric is pretty similar to the first, but I like it a lot. It makes me think of little pieces of candy, and they even had a pink version that I’ll probably do next. It’ll be a series, I guess.

I’m still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the machine itself though, which is funny in contrast with how comfortable I am with other machinery, like computers. I’m pretty good at tinkering around with software and am comfortable enough to open a computer up and poke around if I need to. And yet, this mere sewing machine seems intimidating to me. The good thing is that I recognize that I just need to try things and learn by doing and keep practicing them, and eventually I’ll probably feel as comfortable with my sewing machine as I do my computer.

I was out when it arrived, and was pretty tired at that point, so I didn’t spend too much time with it. I did open the box and check out everything, including the manual. It felt so overwhelming, with all the complicated parts involved, so I decided to leave it until today.

Before I got started today, I went shopping for a few basic sewing supplies at Joann Fabrics, including some dressmaker’s scissors, thread, and a few bits of fabric for playing around. When I got home, I sat down with the manual and figured out how to thread a bobbin and the machine itself. I had a little bit of trouble with the latter, and my roommate actually helped a bit on that. He took home ec in high school and had to sew a bit for that, whereas my only experiences with sewing were limited and completely devoid of knowing actual machine maintenance.

Once I got everything threaded, I played around with bits of scrap fabric at first, just testing out a few stitches and getting a feel for the machine. It got a bit frustrating at points, so I took a break before attempting my first project, a drawstring bag.

I used a pattern that I found on a LiveJournal community, and it was pretty easy to follow. They didn’t give any measurement suggestions though, so I just winged it a bit. Here are photos of the end result:

   

It’s not perfect, but I think it turned out pretty well, especially for a first project.. I think next time, I’ll wash and iron the fabric first, and definitely cut it a little less crookedly.

Edit: I changed the bag so that the drawstring is now a ribbon. Photos have been updated as of 09/05/05.