Man Gift ONE - Leather Patch Scarf

Hokay! We're rolling.
The first Man Gift project is quick, easy and a blatant designer knock off (a triumvirate of fun!) The "inspiration" for this scarf looks like this:

Cute right? Suave with just a hint of geography teacher (totally my favorite flavour).
It's A Maison Martin Margiela Leather Patch Scarf. And it can be yours (or your sweetie's) for the bargain price of three-are you kidding me- hundred and ten dollars US.
OR you could make one that looks a bit like this:

With buttery soft suede and a boiled wool mix that's so soft it's like it's made of kitten parts. For about $15-$20.

Wanna try? You'll need:
4 Suede patches (two ovals two rectangles) OR one "recycled" suede/leather item (coats or skirts give you LOTS to play with) OR suede/leather by the meter.
Scarf weight wool mix. You could either use the length (selvage to selvage, approx. 150cm) which means you can get away with using just 20-40 cm (be aware of patterns) OR you could buy 1.70-2 m it you want a longer scarf or if you're making a few scarves.

The nice thing about buying the smaller amount is that you can get The REALLY GOOD STUFF (you know the wool blends that are so expensive they make you kind of sweaty? Doesn't happen to you? OH.) Anyway the small amount combined with a 50% off sale at Fabricland means that the scarf is seriously luxe feeling but only cost about $12 (and 40 cm is enough to make two scarves).

The first step is to get your straight lines marked out:
I folded selvage to selvage, then marked my line with chalk.


(just as an aside, when I asked the lady in FabricLand for really straight cut she acted like I'd peed in her cereal and was super eye-rolling rude. But this is what a straight cut looks like there. So whatever lady... Phew good to get that off my chest.)

Right. Once you've got your STRAIGHT sides cut you should have something that looks remarkably like a scarf. Mmmm and soft.
With a boiled wool like this you could actually just leave the edges but I think that frayed edges look more scarfy. So I did that next, see:


The next part depends on weather you're using premade patches or recycled leather.
to make your own patches the first thing you do is make a template. I used a little serving dish to make mine. Mark your cutting lines (bog standard pen worked fine for me, chalk made a mess).


It you're using an old jacket or skirt bear in mind that the "wrong" side of the leather might be just as soft and less marked. And that you can rebuff suede (or make it even softer) with a clean, dry plastic scouring pad, just lay it down on a flat surface and scrub in little circles.

Next cut your patches out. I used my pinking shears because the patches on the original scarf have pinked edges but you totally don't have to, leather won't fray.

Right. Got your patches? Good. The next step is to sew those suckers on.
Getting the patches to stay in one place is half the battle here, because using pins will leave holes in your leather.
If you have some of that spray sticky stuff (um, the kind that quilters use? What is that called?) then have at it. But DO check if it marks on a scrap first. If not you could either...

Just wing it, holding you patches and fabric firmly and going really really slowly.
Or
Use a bit of tape like this:
('scuse the lousy picture)
I used low tack masking tape and I stuck it to my shirt first to make it even LESS sticky. And of course I tested a whether it left marks on a scrap piece of suede first (nope it didn't). You need to stick it down as close to the edge as possible as you'll be sewing INSIDE the tape.

And... Sew away. ( I don't have a picture of this step - not enough hands) But I can tell you that I bought special leather needles for my machine. And then totally forgot to use them. So a regular needle works fine, turns out. The other thing is that you should go SLOW. Really really slow, adjusting and making sure you're flat when you need to.

Well HEY! almost done.
I put my patches on different sides. Like this see:

So the wearer can have softie suede next to their neck, and the oval patches are still visible. But you can do whichever.
A voila. One Man Gift!

Oh, and I shared here, here and here.

Manly Man Gifts

I'm pretty sure that I'm preaching to the choir here but firstly of all, Handmade gifties = finest kind.
They say, "Hey, I love you and I spent some time making this with my hands because you're awesome".
Which is easy when it comes to the girl types and the under 10's on one's list (and by "one's'" I totally mean mine).
But you guys. Crafting gifties for men folk over the age of 12 or so. YEESH.
So with that in mind, over the next three weeks or so I'm going to be working up some tutes for manly manly Man Gifts! And because I'll be making them the prerequisites are super easy and relatively quick. Quirky, useful, funny or beautiful (or a combination of those things) is a bonus.
They're all things that I have either given my boys (to good response) or they're things that I'll be giving them this year.
If you want to play along feel free to grab a button from the sidebar there ->
or hit me up with suggestions or links (ooou yes! links please!) to what YOU'VE made for the guys in your life in the comments.


Now! On to the projects...
First up a Designer Knock-off Leather Patch Scarf
Secondly, a Leather 'Tache Keychain
Third, a guest post and a MAN BAG (murse!?) from Farah Makes Stuff
Fourth, get your GOOGLY on with Googly Eye Magnets.
And watch this space!

Sushi Combo B - or "I can't believe I'm doing this again"

Is craft amnesia a thing? Maybe? I'm going to go with yes it is. Because what else could possibly explain the fact that I am making ANOTHER all-hand-stitched felt Christmas present for my bear?
Here's the rational,
Just recently Teddy has been ALL about the play cooking and play cooking needs play food right? (Right? Right?) And my kid's favorite food in the whole world is... sushi.

OK, firstly of all, I KNOW that makes me sound like a pretentious urbanite. In fact I just rolled my eyes at myself. But I can explain! Honest I can.
It's not like he honks down slabs of sashimi (well, aside from tuna, kid loves him some tuna) he just likes avocado Maki rolls and Eel nigiri and Miso Soup with big chunks of "tofes" (soft tofu).
Which when you break it down isn't that crazy, it's just rice and food that is squishy.
And I've been taking him to the sushi place for lunch since before he could sit up by hisself. Because I LOVE sushi (I lived in Japan for a while). And my sweetie DOESN'T like sushi, so Teddy and I go at lunchtimes about twice a month, and he's really good company.

This was taken almost a year ago, his hair is EVEN crazier now.

So Yah. That's why I'm making felt sushi. Want to see how it's coming on?

Like ziz! California rolls, partly finished Nigiri and Tamego.
I kind of love them. And they're super fun to make.
I've been making the design up as I went along and I thaught maybe I'd write a tute. BUT a quick cherche around the internets turned up this one from Carrie at Tao Of Crafts that is completely awesome. I'm SO making some edamame! Cuuute!

Who needs historical accuracy?

So, here's the next installment of knightly accessories for my own Sir Poopsalot (my sweetie says I have to think of a better name for him than that).
It's a shield. A... heraldic one? (I'm not putting too much effort into historical accuracy here).
And here's what you'll need to make it.

• Foam floor tiles - Ours came from the dollar store (of course). We've had them since the bear was learning to sit up, they're not beautiful but the sound of his little bald head bouncing off of the hardwood was too much for me
• Craft foam for adding decorative details
• Some felt for making arm straps
• Scrapbooking brads
  
• A cutting implement. I used a set of cheap metal snips ($2 from the dollar store) as scissors to get through the foam. My actual scissors were a bit too puny but the snips worked like a charm.

The first thing to do is decide on the size and shape of your shield. I went for a basic shape in toddler size. But if you're thinking of something more complex or fancypants then try goggling medieval shields .

Once you have a vague idea of what shape you'd like you can either make a paper template or just freehand the shape your foam in pencil.
Then cut it out:



See? Looks like a shield already!


but it might need a bit of something by way of decoration.


I added my decorations with the scrapbooking brads because I like how they kind of look like rivets. BUT they totally could be a choking hazard, so you could use hot glue to attach them if you're worried or your pookie is less than three. The bear doesn't really put stuff in his piehole but I keep a very beady eye out.



I chose to keep my design simple because I'm lazy for the sake of authenticity, but you could get all crazy and cut out the family coat of arms and unicorns and things. This site here has HEAPS of free heraldic imagery clipart for inspiration.

Next you need a way to hold the shield that will free up the hands for ummm... combat. Or eating cookies?
To do that you need to cut a strip of felt and attach it to the back of the shield like this:


I doubled over the felt to make it stronger where I attached the brads and I gauged how big the loop should be by jamming it around Teddy's arm.
I did two armband thingies, see?


Flip it over and you're done.
Time for some gratuitous bear shots:



Teddy is all about the dragon rights. "SMOOCHES NOT SLAYING", "Dragons are people too".

Regal. Super Super Regal.

I'm slowly making the bear a knight costume to go with Castle Awesome. I'm hacking together toddler friendly versions of all the accoutrements that a good knight might require. Though to be honest I suspect this might be more my thing than his. Still, I'm hoping to brainwash him encourage his interest.
Here's what I've got so far:

A crown,

SURE it looks like it might be too big for a 2 year old but JUST THE RIGHT size for a grown woman... but it's.... not? OK FINE, I made this one for me.

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL!

But I made one for him too. The trouble is he HATES it. He doesn't even like me wearing mine. I guess he has moral and political objections to the monarchy? and hats? At any rate I wasn't able to get a picture of Teddy in his but it looks like this:

Here's what you'll need to make your own crown,

• Craft foam
• Scrap booking brads
• scissors

It just so happened that our dollar store has pre-cut crown-shaped craft foam (I suspect they've been reading my mind again) which is awesome.
But if you can't find pre-cut crown shapes then you could cut out a crown shape from standard rectangular craft foam, either freehand or using this PDF that I threw together.

For my crown I went with kind of a She-Ra/Red Sonja circlet as opposed to the full-on crown, but the idea is the same.
You cut out the shapes,


then poke the brads through the foam and open them out to hold the crown together.


You could get all fancy and add some PRECIOUS PRECIOUS GEMS! Or not. Your call.
Stay tuned, next up is The Shield.

Brrr Bear necklace

Colbert might be right about bears being "soulless, godless, rampaging killing machines" but awww, the cute!
So look, I made an effigy! To wear about my person!
And it's not just ANY bear, it's a Polar Bear; and dude, Polar Bears really will give you a righteous killing soon as look at you. What can I say. I like to live dangerously.

This bear is made of craft foam, scored from the dollar store today and whipped up this evening whilst pretending not to watch CSI Miami. Oh Horatio, why you got to be so orange and creepy?

The idea is from Christine at Jane Avion who, you guys, does SUPER AWESOME STUFF. That you should go look at. Really. All I'm saying is Cardboard Moose Head Trophy, but you'll see.

Equus EVILUS!

QUICK something not related to bodily fluids... well mostly.

So I've mentioned in the past that my embroidery skills have a touch of the maximum security wing about them, but it turns out they also have a bit of CREEPY VOODOO ZOMBIE POWER. POWAAAAH!

See this guy?


He is one of the prototype horsies that I am working on for Sarah and Erin's Intercontinental Horsie Sew-Along/Stitchnbitch (might need a new name for that). The pattern is working out OK. The problem is, well, I accidentally made him the most sinister creature ever.
Look at his malevolent grin. And his evilly portentous squinty eye (only one eye squints, the other roves). He's evil I tell you. Evil.
Here's how it went:

Me: There. Now you have a mouth. *thinks* Kind of a sinister mouth, but whatever.

Horsie: Oh hey, yah I do. With teeth in here!

Me: Teeth? I didn't put any....

Horsie: But you should know, I have like, little to NO urge to eat your brains while you sleep.

Me: WHAT?

Horsie: What? I'm trying to be reassuring. You and your delicious family are totally safe.

me: Yah, not that reassured here.

Horsie: Hey, you got any hot sauce? You know how everything tastes better with hot sauce...

Me: You my friend, are SO not getting legs.

Horsie : Awwwww What? Really?

So, there we have it. Come on back at some point (Saturday maybe?) and I'll have the tute/pdf ready to go. Or go HERE if you simply must have a head start on your sinister horsie army.

I Pledge...

See the button thingy in the side bar? The two months wardrobe refashion one? Well MEEEEP!
I got my invite to the Wardrobe Refashion, and you guys, I feel like I've ARRIVED!

If you don't know what it's all about you should race over there right now and find out, and if you came here from there then HI!

I have a pile of stuff to make into other stuff and a bloggy kick in the pants to do it. Such a kick in the pants in fact, that I actually refashioned something; as opposed to poking it, prevaricating and putting back it in the closet to be unworn for another 6 months.

Here's what I did,
This is the before. One cheap, three sizes too large, Old Navy sweater, in bright turquoise.
Now I love that colour, that colour however, does not love me back. In fact that colour writes stuff about me in the girls' washrooms. And also kind of makes me look dead.

And see the pocket? That pocket is all
"HEY HEY HEY! Oh hey. Look at Erin's midsection. TA-DA! Whooo!"
Now, as I have what the inimitable Reachel Bagley refers to as a "soft delicious center" (read "chubs in the middle") this is not the super- superest look for me.

So here's what I turned it into:

minus pocket, plus bow ('cause what's not better with a bow?) and a totally different colour. it's still too big but I think now it looks more, sort of chicly louche? At least in my head it does.

Wondering how I got it to change colour? I bleached it.
With bleach.
The stuff that you toss down sinks to get rid of the funk.

I was actually inspired by the weirdest thing, Liv of A field Journal used bleach to change the colour of her teeny weeny Christmas trees in this post here. and in my head sweaters and teeny weeny Christmas trees are PRACTICALLY the same thing.

I was a bit wary on account of the giant dress ruin of '08*. But I plucked up some courage, unpicked the pocket and bleached it first. It turned a nice marled shade of Tiffany blue so we were ON.
I used about half a liter (maybe a touch more) of Clorox bleach in a bucket of tepid water, mixed it up, opened the windows and hoped for the best.
Twenty minutes later the sweater a was the colour you see above. I gave it a rinse in some clean water then tossed it into the washing machine on super hot with an extra, extra rinse.
When it came out of the drier I tried it on, then decided it needed something. So I made the pocket into a bow and tacked it on.
If you're thinking of doing this and are after some actual instructions/science stuff I found a bit about the process here (it's a PDF).

*Yours Truly dropped a laundry bag containing 5 (count'em) of her favorite dresses and a bottle of bleach on the laundry room floor. The bleach bottle cracked. ALL 5 dresses were total write offs. I sat on the floor and cried (yup, pathetic, I know).

Some Very Weird Things

Remember the gifties I mentioned? The ones I made whilst taking a mental health break from sewing Castle Awesome? Well, now they are safely in the paws of their (bemused, slightly disturbed?) recipients, I can show you what they were.

For my chum Ali (of zombie walk fame), who is a horror movie aficionado I made this happy couple

It's ALIVE! it's ALIIIIIVE!

They're actually not finished in this picture, I popped them both on a key ring fixing, back to back. They're made of felt and have innards made of scraps of flexible chopping board plastic leftover from castle awesome.
I like that Doc Frank's Monster is rather punching out of his weight class, girlfriend-wise.

And for our chum James, a hand sewn leather mustache keyring. Of course!


I made a few of them for my favorite chaps, from a spot of recycled leather; but I didn't take pictures of any of them before giving them away, so here is James using his as a cunning disguise.

Castle Awesome - The Big Reveal

How the devil was your Yuletide? Ours was SUPER fun times. With PIE!

I finally put the last bloomin' stitch in the last bloomin' crenelation of Castle Awesome on Christmas Eve. The delay was because it was either take a break and make something else or toss the whole damn stinking thing down the garbage chute. On fire.
So I made some Very Weird Things, pics of the which will be posted once the Very Weird Things have been handed out as gifties.

As soon as I had finished the castle my sweetie decided that a photo shoot was in order, here's how that looks in his head:
Yup. Stormtrooper, Boba and a sand person. I LOVE it.

And here's what it looks like sans Lucas
That is Fred 2.0, notice his hair (mane?) and hoofs. And slightly skinnier neck. He's built for speed.

And here's the big reveal:



The longer version is HERE.
Opening gifties and lounging around and watching the bear poke his presents happily was HEAPS of fun. Also fun was how Crazy excited my sweetie was in the run up; Christmas eve he planned the big tree/present reveal with military precision and he wrapped all the Bear's presents so they were easily OPE-able by small monkey paws.

On Christmas day itself he rustled up a roast beast and trimmings and was ALMOST gracious about the catastrophic buttock kicking both he and I received at Monopoly.
Seriously, it was a brutal. Our chum Ian handed us our collective ass, but it was almost as if my sweetie had particularly angered the Monopoly gods by pooping in their knicker drawer. He was in jail 6 times. And he had a grand total of two properties. TWICE.

Present wise, I scored some very pretty earrings and a lovely sweater but more importantly, I had the BEST time with my boys AND my sweetie isn't back at work until after New Year's.
Oh and hey! did you see our tree? If not this is what it looks like:
and it smells yummy. OK. Done now.

Felt? It'll Never Withstand the MIGHTY Trebuchet!*

You guys can keep a secret right?
Want a sneak preview of what I'm making my bear for Christmas? O do say yes! 'cause A'ly I'm dying to tell someone and two'ly if you have any super-clever ideas now would be the time to pony them up.

I'm making a felt castle. With a drawbridge and turrets! I snaffled the idea from here (isn't she clever? Yay for her!)

My version is a bit bigger, and instead of using cardboard I'll be using plastic, (because I hate the environment, though ironically, the felt is made of recycled plastic bottles).

I'm basing the basic shape on Bolton Castle, which I have renamed CASTLE AWESOME in my head. It's a late 14th century stone quadrangle fortress and it looks just like a castle should.
See:


So far mine looks like this:
Um, if you squint you can think of it as a post-siege castle. Heh.
But come back tomorrow, I'll be posting a picture a day as I go along. What I have made is THIS fellow:


He is Fred, the majestic charger. And he's MAJESTIC dammit and pose-able! He has a pipe cleaner skellington. Eventually he will also have tack. and eyeballs.
He's all my own design (could you tell, on accounta the bizarro?) and If you too have need of a majestic charger I'll be throwing together a tute over the next few days and if I'm feeling racy there will be a PDF.

*Such a nerd.