Pintrest Christmas placemats

Pintrest is the devil.  Or at least his little sister.  I try to limit my Pintrest browsing time to during my morning coffee but sometimes that becomes two cups of coffee and then whoops- it's noon.  As a crafter my biggest beef with Pinners in general are the missing links.  I hate it when someone links to a tumbler (last time I checked at tumbler was a glass!) and there are no directions on how to accomplish the look in the pin.  I try to always link my Pins to good sites, even if I have to link back to my own blog.

This year due to money < time, I made all of my family place mats for Christmas.  The first set I tackled were for DT's brother and his family in Chicago.  Frogs have a special place to DT's family so I designed these place mats based on this pin.  I giggled the entire time I was designing this place mat.  I freehand drew out out the pattern, using the pin as inspiration.  The light green fabric is rit dyed Osnaburg cotton that I had dyed for a tunic (and promptly went yuck!) and cotton twill.  The buttons came from my button stash.  I made 2 frog place mats and 2 lily pad place mats with lotus flowers.  Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the lily pad place mats but DT liked them so much I will probably make a set for us this summer.

The second and third place mat projects I made were both easier and harder.  Easier because they are squares- yay!  Harder because these took forever to finish- at least a full audio book.  I made 12 place mats for DT's brother here in Columbus and 4 place mats for my sister's MIL.  I used the same fabric for both- a cotton yarn like weave from the fabric stash with a rust red cotton twill backing, again from the stash.  For DT's brother I used 2 sizes of cranberry grosgrain ribbon for trim.  My sister's MIL has a much more neutral decor and I used the below gold braid.  I also neglected to take a photo of BOTH d'oh!  I still have some of the below fabric.  I think it was purchased when I was still in my RenFair phase and thought I would make bodices and sell them.  Turns out I detest both Monty Python and the Holy Grail AND The Princess Bride and couldn't imagine spending my free time sewing for people who could only quote those movies.  I'm glad this fabric found a use, it was getting lonely in the WTF box in the attic.

Disney Christmas Dresses

This is the first Christmas in the past 15 years that I have had the gift of time.  I took my last final at Columbus State on Dec. 11th and since I am a poor college student with a fairly large fabric stash this is going to be a Pintrest Christmas. My first project I tackled were Disney inspired Holiday Dresses for my nieces, Gigi and Emma.

My sister and her family have been planning a trip to Disney World for February 2013.  Knowing that they needed Christmas dresses AND something cool to wear to the Magic Kingdom, (and something non-scratchy and washable!) I climbed into the attic and like a dragon with gold, started sorting through my fabric stash.  I have no clue what the cranberry cotton velveteene was going to be, but it became a Holiday Belle inspired dress for Gigi and a brothers Grimm inspired dress with pinafore for Emma.

Gigi is always HOT so I made sure her dress had short sleeves.  PopPop helped me pick out the gold and creme crepe back satin.

Unlike her sister, Emma is always cold so her dress has long sleeves.  The pinafore is made from white on white cotton purchased from Joann about 10 years ago. The trim on the pinafore was purchased at Pennsic and the velvet ribbon is from Momma Tingley's ribbon stash.  Both dresses have a generous hem and are a little loose so if they grow I can adjust the length.

 The dresses were a great opening project for me to get back into the swing of creativity.  I am hoping the girls have a wonderful time at Disney World and are still excited to wear their dresses at Be Our Guest Restaurant for dinner!

Thanksgiving

Ever since my life changed thanks in part to the cervical dysplasia, Thanksgiving has had new meaning. Thanksgiving means running shoes and thermal running tights.  For the past four years I have been getting out of cooking dinner by running in the Flying Feather Four Miler. Last year DT joined me in the Thanksgiving tradition. He was nice enough to run with me last year. However this year DT wanted to WIN. Not only did he want to win but he also wanted to run with the gazelles...dressed like a bunny rabbit. As much as I wanted to see him with a poofy tail, I just couldn't find bunny ears.

So I dressed him as a turkey instead which is more appropriate for a turkey trot. I used burlap and dowel rods and assembled the tail like a fan. Unlike the blueprint, I just stitched around the edges of the feathers and the dowel rods. My mom knitted DT a red scarf which because it was over 50 degrees the day of the race, almost caused him to overheat. Normally it's in the 30's during the race, last year it rained/snowed so I planned for the worst when I designed his costume. I felt bad but DT was a trooper and didn't ditch the scarf.  His post race report of the costume revealed that for next year, the arm loops need to be tighter.  I also want to make the tail feathers a brighter yellow/orange/red.

I finished at 41:49. Not too shabby, but by no means a PR (personal record) on the course. This just means I have room for improvement for 2013!

PS:  DT finished in 26:55 and in 61st place out of 4,000 even with a turkey tail!
PPS: You can sign up for 2013 Feather here!  Where else are you going to get a long sleeve technical shit, hat, gloves AND A BOTTLE OF WINE AT THE FINISH LINE!?!?

It's been ages...

It's been ages since I've felt the creative bug. Working 60+ hours out of town for seven years can really cut into your creative juices! I'm happy to say that after slugging it out in corporate America, I am now a student again! I am pursuing a degree in Nursing at the local Community College. Why community college instead of THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY? Cost benefit analysis, my friends. Columbus State tuition is outstanding- $1,800 for next quarter. It's also close, easy parking and I should be done with my RN in 2 years. From there I can transfer to OU and take my RN to BSN with only 50 more credit hours. It's amazing what having a set plan can do for your creativity. Especially when you have a month of winter break to use your Pintrest ideas! I'm currently working on some Christmas presents and as soon as they are unwrapped I will upload details. On the superhero front I have a project that I will begin working on in January. Stay tuned for updates!

Green Lantern- Fun with bodysuits

I was delighted when one of my friends contacted me about making him a GL suit. However I've never sewn a body suit for a man...and never one with now front seam! EEPP! I had no pattern to go off of so to the interwebs I went! I found this: and thought that it "didn't look too hard". Well I'm still muddling through the directions- hopefully I will be able to grok what the frack is going on...soon.

So while I wait for EmKay to get me some more measurements I am going to try this method on ME and see if it's even feasible.