Monday, January 11, 2010

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.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Monkey Magic, Robot Wars


Versus

Confucius, Aristotle, Nietzsche. Luminaries throughout the ages have all pondered the same immortal question...

"DUDE? Would you rather have a MONKEY or a ROBOT?"

Now that question is the theme for Teddy's second birthday party. And you guys are, of course, all invited.

I whipped up these fellows to grace the invitations, once again reminding myself why graphic designers go to university to learn that stuff. I'm still not completely happy with the monkey's eyes but I think that they look OK ish overall. For a rank amateur using free software. I mean, you can tell what they are right?

I had to restrain myself from giving the robot scorching laser eyeballs and pointy, ripping/crushing teeth. As you might have gathered, I'm on Team Monkey (simian 'til I die bro). My sweetie is a robot guy. I'm pushing hard for Teddy to be a monkey guy, but it's not looking promising. He says "'BOT", I don't really know where he picked it up from, and my sweetie swears blind he hasn't been coaching him.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Horsies Are A Go!

SO!
Here they are. Softies for the sinister horsie army.
No WAIT.
Softies to make the world more awesome. Yah that's better.
My sister and I shall be sewing up a batch of these fellows to sneakily give away to random strangers via The Toy Society.
If you don't know who they are you should race over and check them out. We'll wait here.
(The deal is, you make something squishy, then you leave it someplace it will be found with a label saying "TAKE ME HOME". You post your "drop" on The Toy Society flickr group and maybe, if you're lucky, the person who finds it lets you know that it has a good home.)
Which, really, what's not super lovely about that?
Want to join us? We'd love it if you would. You know, even if you happen to have a hankering for a sinister horsie army.

What you'll need is:
  • A spot O' felt. wool, acrylic, recycled plastic bottle, homemade felted sweater all are good.
  • Some embroidery floss (floss?) for details and a mane and tail. (I've used it for all the sewing on account of my lazy)
  • Stuffing/wadding stuff.

The first thing to do is print the pattern out. To make a horsie that's 3 and a half inches or so at the shoulder you need to open it with adobe (there's a button at the top leftish), then change the print setup to landscape, then when you hit print you need to select the page scaling option fit to printable area.
Ok, got your pattern?
Good.
Cut out your felt.
Now might be a good time to add embroidery details (like a super sinister face!) or an embroidery floss mane if that's what you're doing (details on that in a bit).

1. Sew the Leggies to the one side of the body "wrong" sides facing each other. Start dead center of the front leg panel and finish dead center of the back.



2. Use a blanket stitch. Or whatever you like really.


3. Once you have one side of the body done, flip down the "loose" leggies. Sew them onto the other side of the body in exactly the same way. You don't even have to change thread. This is what you're aiming for:

4. Next, continue to stitch up the neck and around the face. Stitch the ear panel into place the same way as the legs. Stop just behind the ears. It's stuffing time!

5. Poke stuffing down into the leggies. Use a pokey implement if you need too, as you're looking for quite a solid fill. Then poke stuffing into the face and head, but not the ears.
Sew and stuff from the neck down, through the body, poking and adjusting as you go; until you reach the horse's bottom.


6. If you're going with the embroidery floss tail then you need to cut your strands at twice the length you want your tail, then tie them tightly around the middle with a spot of thread like this:

then poke the folded, tied end into the horsie's uh, "tail area". Secure it with a few extra stitches as you're closing the hole. heh. "hole".

If your horse is looking a little splay legged then ad a few more stitched towards the feeties from the tops of the leggies at the bum and chest.

Now, about that mane. Here's my own "Mane-for-sinister-horsie-army stitch" But go crazy if you can think of another method. I think it's prolly easier to see than describe, so:


this is what it should look like:


you just repeat until you have the desired amount of equine hirsuteness. You could do double rows like for a puffier "do".

And there we have it. You guys, if this isn't clear enough then PLEASE do let me know. I'm hoping that my sister and I will coordinate our international Toy Society drop off dates, so if you'd like to get in on that too, then just give me a shout.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

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.

We STILL have barf...

Lots of it. The short fellow is recovering but really slowly. He was at the doc's on Tuesday, which was not a lot of fun; poor chap just wanted to sleep but OH NO, we dragged him to the Doctor's office and made him wait for an hour in a room with no toys, AND we wouldn't let him play with the jar of tongue depressors or lick the door frames AT ALL, because we are CRUEL CRUEL people.
When Doc Hui got to us he poked and prodded Teddy in the tummy and scrotum, checking for a hernia. It was a tough call as to who looked more horrified, Teddy or my sweetie, who was holding him. At any rate, the result of the poking was, "It's a virus, sucks to be you, go home" (I'm paraphrasing a tiny bit). So we came home.
Turns out the bear is contagious, and I spent Tuesday night in stomach virus hell; it was lousy and that's all I have to say about that.
Wednesday was a write off for me and my sweetie was off work looking after Teddy.
So today is what? Thursday I guess? The bear is still not up to full steam, I feel mostly better BUT as of about 7pm tonight my sweetie is riding the porcelain train to Nofunsville.

MAN, 2010 better get more awesome than this or you guys, I am SO building a time machine. Anyone know where I can get a Delorean and some uranium?

Monday, January 4, 2010

Dispatches from the Laundry Room...

Well hey.
We have barf.
Bear barf.
Apologies if you've just become a follower and are now thinking "What the noodles...?! Lady, I did not sign up for puke updates".

My bear is not a barfer; even when he was tiny he wasn't ever even a spit-uppy baby. In fact, in his whole 22 months of being a person he has thrown up maybe 10 times. 6 of those were yesterday. Once was today. The tele-nurse folks (and my ma) patiently sat through my hypochondriacal hyperventilating and kindly instructed me to get a grip. That it's not actually PARVO, because you guys, apparently that's a DOG disease.

So, fluids, rest. He's actually a lot better now, and it looks like the barfing today was down to some genius (me) giving him wholewheat toast with butter instead of white toast with nutthin.
GAH.
T-Bone is having yet another spa treatment. I've been "indulging" in a little laundry room Wu Wei and I think it has has given me what might be an idea.
I'll let you know, when there's less barf.

Until then, a gratuitous bear shot:

Sunday, January 3, 2010

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).

Friday, January 1, 2010

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.


It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life... and I'm feeeeeeeelin'...

tiny bit hung over 'acshully.*
Last night was SO much fun you guys! Chums and chocolate and cheese and a spot of very good champagne (thank you lovely Mark!) a super New Year's make.

I made heaps of truffles, something I love doing, coating little balls of yum in more yum is really satisfying.
Here's what was left of them this morning as I (as blooming always) forgot to take pictures of them when they were all artfully arrayed,



Our chum Ian is a vegan, so I whipped together some Reese's PB cups inspired truffles sans dairy. And some almond and dark chocolate ones too. If you've a hankering for the recipes just let me know and I'll post them.

Our chum Ali brought cheese aplenty and caused something of a feeding frenzy. Mmmm cheese. And while we had intended to play Monopoly, we didn't get around to it, on account of the riotously fun times.

I hope you guys had as awesome a time as we did and are feeling as all "HELLS YAH!" about 2010 as we are.
xxx
*apologies to Nina Simone!
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