Self Portraits Part 3~

Hope no one is getting bored of these! Here are the latest of my self portrait project. I have been feeling sick lately, can you tell? :(

Spoonflower Swatches!

   I ordered a set of swatches from Spoonflower not that long ago and I am just thrilled with these ones! :D The kitties are Lucifurr and Patch. I don't think I need to point out who is who, do I? ;P

   The roses was just me being bored with my wacom tablet, I also made one like that in coral but haven't ordered a swatch for it yet.

   I am super happy with how these turned out! Can't wait to get some fabric of these! I think the fabric of Patch with the balls of yarn would make a cute little dress, what about you? ;P

   I made the rose patterns with a skirt in mind, but I may wait until warmer weather to make little rosey skirts, haha.

Self Portraits, Part 2

   Last time I blogged, I shared my project of the month with you. To take a self portrait every day for November! I'm almost halfway through the project now and really enjoying it. It has made me need to get a little creative at times (not at all a bad thing) and definitely has helped me learn a bit about photography, my own makeup and poses, lighting, and of course self portraits.

   I just finished editing the photos for today while watching Repo! (still watching, hehe). So here is the photos I've taken and chosen for portrait of the day since the last blog post.

   All the photos link to the same photo on my flickr, btw. :)

   So what do you think? Any favourites? ;P

My -BIG- Project of the Month and Other Recent Happenings

   At the start of every month, I write out a little list of small to medium sized goals to complete within the month. Sometimes I don't make all of them, but having that sort of reminder of what I want/need to do and the time in which I need to get it done has helped me a lot of with my depression and lack of motivation, both of which are not constant problems anymore. More of fleeting moments, but I'm not ready to retire my monthly goals list.

   This month, one of them was to take a self portrait every single day of November. Photography has been a fairly large part of my life for a while now, but my passion for it dwindled for a bit there. Self portraits were always what I was the worst at as far as photography goes, and it would be nice to improve to have nice photos of myself as well as building the skill to take good self portraits for this blog and it's posts.

   So, so far I'm on day six and have taken seven photo-of-the-day-s, haha. Here they are:

November 1st, 2013

November 3rd, 2013

November 3rd, 2013

November 4th, 2013

November 5th, 2013

November 6th, 2013

   And here's the photo from Day 2, which wasn't included above because it contains artistic nudity. So instead of making it automatically visible, I thought I'd give ya'll the choice to view it if you want to.

   I'm really happy with how my self portrait project is turning out so far, and may just post the results on a weekly basis, if anyone is interested. But for now, my set for my self portrait project is here, and this is my whole photostream. :) BTW, little mini blogs are posted in the caption of each self portrait of my project and the other self portraits that I didn't choose as 'photo of the day'.

   Besides taking probably too many photos of myself, I've been crocheting a slouchy colour block beanie, which is my third crochet project (and third hat, since all my crochet projects have been hats :D). I plan on making a matching scarf and mittens for this, wish me luck as I haven't even tried to make either yet!

   I've also been practicing my banjo every day. I got a banjo for my 22nd birthday in September, and I haven't really started practicing it until recently. I am a complete, complete beginner! After sharing the photo I took today of me and my banjo, someone shared with me that my finger picks were on backwards, so when I say complete beginner, I mean it! I've wanted to learn to play one for a long time though and I'm so happy to have one to try and learn on.

   And speaking of banjo, today on Spoonflower I made my first sell on a pattern I designed! It was My First Banjo! Woo hoo! The order was for a fat quarter of the fabric and I made almost two bucks on it. ;P I'm really excited to have sold some fabric though and it will be nice to use that towards buying myself some more fabric of my own!

   Well, I guess that's all I have to say before I go back to crocheting. I hadn't blogged in a week or so, so I wanted to share what I had been up to. Have a wonderful, crafty day!

Einstein Dress!

   I'm super excited to share what I sewed up last night! It ended up way better than expected, though I had to alter the pattern a little to get it the way I wanted it.

   This dress's pattern is McCall's 6754, the black fabric I used on the sleeves and bodice is some lightweight jersey knit fabric I found on eBay for $4.50, and the bottom half is of some fabric I designed myself!
  

   When I first joined Spoonflower, the first design I uploaded was this vectorized image of Einstein. And seeing and working with the fabric in person, I can say it totally turned out better than expected! The background on the fabric (which is the organic cotton knit) was supposed to be black, but it turned out dark grey. That's my only complaint about it, and shortly after my fabric was shipped, Spoonflower actually started making the organic knit with "blacker blacks and brighter brights". My luck, right?

   I unfortunately didn't take any process shots of making the dress. I finished it in an hour or two, and I kind of really got focused on sewing. Sorry!

   So the only alterations I made were to shorten the skirt of the dress, because I can be my own worst critic and decided only to order a yard of the Einstein fabric just in case I somehow totally messed it up! So I shortened just as much as I had to to get all the pattern pieces I needed cut from it.

   I also made a little 'belt' out of the black jersey knit because how the skirt and bodice joined bugged me a bit since the colours did not match. It's a little hard to see in the photos, but it's just a strip of fabric that I sewed on to lay over the seam.

   The last thing I did was decided not to add the elastic strip to the dress. I felt the dress looked good enough without this and it would probably be more comfortable without a piece of elastic over the widest part of my stomach, haha.

   So that's it! That's my dress! And I love it! Here's a few more pictures to share. ;P

   So, what do you think? Pretty spiffy, right?

   What type of fabric do you think I should design next? ;D

   P.S. I posted a ton of photos of Einstein and my other little kittles, in case you are a cat fanatic like me and would like to see. :)

Pet Portraits

   I make out a little list of goals for myself to reach at the start of each month. It helps keep me from falling into a lazy slump!

   This month, one of the goals was to take, print, and frame portraits of each of my cats (well, all four of my cats and Lucifurr, who's not mine but lives with me. His owner can't keep him with him at the moment and I love little Lu lots, so pictures for him too!)

   My mom came up to visit and left early this month, she taught me to crochet and taught the cats about their new favourite toy: yarn! Especially yarn I'm trying to work with, haha. I decided all the photos should have a yarn theme.

   I know it seems like a silly goal, or a "crazy cat lady" thing to do, but this is my family. And one day all I'm gonna have of them is photos and memories, so those photos and memories are important to me. :)

   Here's why I'm posting: I took too many photos! I want to have two photos per cat, but I picked out the best of the shots and I still can't choose two each! So what do you think? Any shots stand out to you? Wanna help me out (or just look at how cute my little ones are)? ;P

   Each photo links to the same photo on my Flickr, but larger and without the little title on the photo.

   So, what do you think? Any gems here? Or any that just aren't good shots?

   Also, I know this is a 'sewing blog'. I've kind of more been using it as a creative outlet and a way to share my other creative outlets. Now including photos! But if you feel it doesn't fit, just let me know. I won't be offended, and I love feedback. I'd like to have a blog people like to visit!