Long time! I'm still here!

    I have not blogged my last handful of crafting accomplishments, gosh! So slow! Most have been knitting and there's a couple of things I'm not ready to share yet (as they are gifts), but here's two items I am so happy about and proud of!

   I posted these photos to Flickr as well, if you want to follow me there. :P

   The first project, my knit bandana cowl, I started on the 17th and finished a couple days later, but that's just for this attempt. I attempted this same cowl three times until I realized I was reading the instructions wrong and that's why it kept coming out absolutely humongous.

   I am so in love with this cowl and wear it almost every time I go out! It doesn't help that I really don't have a collection of neck warming accessories, but I still just adore it. The pattern is Purl Bee's Bandana Cowl and the yarn is just some cheapo Simply Soft that I picked up at Walmart to use as props for my Christmas kitty portraits.

  

    Since I began knitting and crocheting, I have not been showing enough love to my first crafting obsession, sewing. But a couple days ago I started (and finished) a new pair of blue jeans. And I am so, so please! Not only are they the best I've made yet, but they were the fastest to work up as well!

    I think the reason these turned out so pleasant to make and lovely to wear is that these are the first pair of jeans I made a muslin for. All the rest I got the size closest to what I wanted from the pattern and worked them down to the size I wanted all on the finished piece. This time I found out exactly the size I wanted to be working with first before I even touched my denim fabric and I am so glad I did!

    This is still Butterick's B5682 pattern in boot cut, which is the only cut and only jean patterns I have tried so far, but I have plans to try out the skinny jeans cut from the same pattern soon. Maybe I'll work on the muslin today. ;)

    There's been a lot of improvement in my homemade jeans since my first pair, but still a few things I could improve. The only things I really messed up on this pair was the butt pockets not being spaced evenly apart and my waistband not being cut long enough, which resulted in some bunching when I sewed it on. I have some a problem with pants not properly holding in my butt-crack and underwear though (TMI? Sorry. :P) so it being a bit tight around the waist is not entirely a bad thing.

   Tomorrow or today I will be shipping out a couple of handmade items I made to participate in a Secret Valentine exchange, so once my recipient receives those you can expect a new blog post!

   Outside of crafting (but still inside my artsier endeavors) I have started taking self portraits again. In November I made it a goal to take one every day of the month. I didn't finish that goal because I ended up feeling very burned out, and it took two months to set up the tripod and load up EOS Utility again, but last week I took my first new one in a while.

   Then a couple days ago I took the ones shared above to show off my creations. Does it say something bad that the only thing I really take photos of anymore is myself? (Well, my cats too, but I don't really put a lot of thought into those shots.) I always veered more towards portraiture but I have been feeling pretty disconnected from people for a while now and that doesn't really fuel the spark I previously had for photographing others, and photography in general actually. I don't really consider any of it a bad thing, I'm pretty introverted and don't have that much of a social drive but it has made my photography a bit more boring. Anyways, that's all I have to share for now!

   I hope everyone is having a wonderful new year!

December Projects!

   Wow, I have not blogged in a while! Life was catching up to me for a while there, but I'm back ahead of it. Last month I dedicated a lot of my free time to practicing my banjo and doing a self portrait project (which I did not finish), and not a lot of time making things. This month I want to change that up though.

   I have recently started to learn to knit. I am really new to this and haven't even made anything yet! I bought a 'learn to knit kit' from Barnes and Nobles on impulse, and I decided this will be a great new hobby! My sweetheart got me One Skein: 30 Quick Projects to Knit or Crochet on Black Friday, since Hasting's had a "five used books for twenty dollars" sale.

   I also ordered some books off Amazon. None have arrived yet but there was a 30% off books sale that I just couldn't pass up! I am awaiting The Ohio Knitting Mills Knitting Book, Knits for Nerds (totally looking forward to the Firefly themed projects here!), Getting Started Knitting Socks, and Woodland Knits!

   This month I decided a couple of my goals to be to begin and finish (at least) one crochet, knitting, and sewing project each. I need to get back to making things! I feel at my best when I've accomplished making something beautiful. :)

   Here's the three projects I've got planned. I may decide on something else later, but for now I look forward to these:

   The Larissa moto jacket pattern from Burdastyle.com, which I want to make in denim! :D

   These cunning Jayne Cobb style socks from Knits for Nerds!

   And this triangle fringe scarf from Crochet Boutique!


   Well, that's all I have to share for now! I just wanted to peek in and say, "I'm still here!!" and share this month's upcoming projects with ya'll. Which one is your favourite?

   Have a craft day. ;P

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.

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. :)

My First Jacket!

     I finally, finally finished my very first jacket! I posted previously (kinda) about it before it was finished. :) It's certainly far from perfect but it's the largest project I've tackled so far and I'm happy with how it turned out. There may be things I go back and make better later, however.

     The pattern was McCall's 6531, and for it I picked out some very soft brown fabric for the lining (this wasn't part of the pattern, I just worked it in myself) and an army green kind of canvasy fabric. I am not yet very good at identifying different fabric types, so if you can tell me what these are specifically, I'd appreciate it!

    So, the first thing I did was make a muslin of my jacket. I didn't want to waste any of my fabric and I wanted a perfect fit! Making the muslin also let me know which of the pattern pieces I needed to cut extra of in order to make my lining.

   I stitched together my lining and was just super happy with how well it fit and how good of a job I had done so far! :D Yay me!

      I had a helper, of course. ;)

     After I sewed together the same pieces in the sturdier outer fabric, I was a little less excited. Once again, I picked a little poorly with my pattern. The armpits are kind of saggy? But that's okay. Purpose number one was personalized warmth, and it's achieved that and some. However, next time, I think I will look more closely for non-fitted sleeves/armpits.

    So, now I have a new jacket that may have some flaws I wish I had not made and a few errors in judgement as well, but I still love it. :) It's my first jacket and I'm sure it will keep me plenty warm!

    Mind the strong that I missed, haha. It apparently also doubles as a cat bed.

   Hope you guys enjoyed my blog! If you have any tips or pointed on sewing a better jacket, or sewing in general, I'd love to hear it. I am still fairly new to sewing. ;P