That time of year again...

Hello all!

Well it's that time of year again... The time where I spend all my free hours working on projects that I can't show you, because they are meant to be surprises for friends and family. As a general rule, said people read this blog, so we're going to keep it all hush-hush until the 25th.

Let it be known though, that I have a lot of cool stuff to show you!

There is one present, however, that I can show you, because I gave it to my friend yesterday (because I won't be seeing her again until after the holidays, not because I randomly decided that I was going to give her her gift 11 days early.)

She is a huge fan of the Percy Jackson book series, more specifically of Percy Jackson himself. She told me all she wanted for Christmas was Percy. So, I took her word as my command and...

Voila! Percy Jackson! 

I followed the description of him from the book: green eyes, black hair (maybe not that long, but oh well)... He also wears an orange t-shirt. I decided to make it a sweater because who wears a t-shit when it's below freezing and snowing outside?

The letters on the sweater are CHB, which stand for Camp Half-Blood which is the main setting of the Percy Jackson series. It's a camp for demigods. Don't judge me because of the B. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get it right and this was as good as it was going to get.

So I made this doll out of stretchy cotton jersey again, which is a fabric that I have a love-hate relationship with. The result is really nice, but the sewing is horrible. So this time, I cut out the same pattern twice, once out of the cotton, and once out of white fleece. I sewed the two together, which eventually meant that I was basically handling the fleece instead of the cotton. It was a good idea, one that I still have to fine-tune, but I think I might be onto something. 

As for the pattern itself, I based it off of the one I used here and tweaked it a bit to make it smaller. 

For the sweater, I basically knit four squares (two for the body and two for the sleeves) and sewed them as best as I could. I'll eventually learn how to make a sweater with just circular needles, because I hate sewing sweaters, no matter how small they are.

So there you go, the first Christmas present that I can show you guys!

I've discovered that I have a really bad method when it comes to making presents. I started off by knitting half a hair of gloves. Then I sewed something that I still haven't finished. Then I sewed this guy (in two days, I'm really proud of myself). Then I sewed something else. Then I knit the other half of the pair of gloves... You get the idea. It's not good.

To all those who, like me, have one more week before winter break, stay strong! We will make it! There's only one week, which is really only five days by school standards! 

See you all soon! 

Alba

Hello!

I made a doll a while ago.

Her name is Alba and she's really difficult to photograph.

She is entirely my design, as you can probably tell by the lopsided arms but we don't talk about that. She is made out of the same weird stretchy fabric that I made this guy out of. It's so hard to sew and a pain to stuff and I still use it because, I mean, come on, it looks really cool.

Her hair is made out of fake white fur (and is the primary reason why she is hard to take a picture of) which gives her a cool punk look, but as she is wearing a cute collared flowery blouse you know that she is more of a fairy than a punk (maybe she's a punk fairy?). Anyway, I was going to give her wings, and then I was going to give her elf ears and then I didn't because she looked fine the way she was and I didn't want to mess her up by adding too many other things.

So there you have it! Two days of my Thanksgiving break! It was worth it, I think she's very cute. 

Hopefully, I will have more time to make stuff as the winter break is fast approaching, but probably not, because the universal high school teacher agreement is "Oh three weeks? Let's cram in as many things as we possibly can!" It doesn't leave very much time for creative endeavors such as this, as you can imagine. 

Have a lovely week (well, end of week at this point) and all that!

My pride and joy

Hello!

Okay, so to make up for my utter lack of doing anything creative-sewing-related in the last few weeks (that's not entirely true, I have been doing creative things, just not sewing and/or knitting ones. I've been costuming!) I made something really, really cool.

Something that you may not know about me is that I love giving gifts to people, which is why I like birthdays and Christmas. The other day was my friend's birthday and I wanted to give her something really, really brilliant.

I started drawing, planning, thinking. It actually only took about five minutes to design the whole thing. The problem was, I had nearly none of the materials I needed, so yesterday, mom and I raided the fabric-craft store and finally, I could start.

I drew a pretty picture last weekend, and now, it has come to life. I think that people should sketch their ideas simply because once they're finished, it's amazing to see how one idea became a drawing became a tangible... thing.

I have no idea what his name is, but let me explain the story behind the design. My friend is a huge fan of many of the same things as I am. So, I decided to make a doll that would be filled with references. 

The blue scarf is from Sherlock BBC. 

The shoes and trench coat are from the Tenth doctor in Doctor Who, and the purple shirt and black pants are from the Ninth Doctor.

The fluffy black hair is loosely based on some of the YouTubers that we both watch, but also because many characters in all of the series have black hair for some reason.

Now, as for the materials. The shirt and face are made from knit jersey fabric. Here are the pros and cons. 

Pros: Looks really cool, and the one I used for the face was the only fabric that was the right color.

Cons: Terrible to sew, doesn't stuff well (it gets all lumpy) and most especially, something that you can't really see here, it rips. I was putting in the eyes which ended up with two rips in the fabric. I sort of fixed it, but if I ever try this again, I will find another way of putting in the eyes.

I made the coat from felt, the scarf from a scrap of fleece and the pants and shirt from cotton. The hair, however, is one of the coolest parts of the doll. It's made from fake fur, which was a brilliant idea of mine (I'm kidding, although it was my idea). The fake fur was a stab in the dark because I had absolutely no idea how I was going to pull it off. Eventually, I made a sort of hat in the shape of a fringe and a full head of hair for the back and sewed it on as best as I could. Fake fur is one of the worst thing to sew as soon as it exceeds a quarter of an inch in length. 

So there you go! My insane weekend project! I made this while watching Doctor Who. I may or may not have watched half an entire season. Best Sunday ever! I'm giving this to my friend tomorrow, I really hope she likes it, because I am ridiculously proud of it.

Have a great week and I will attempt (that is not a guarantee) to post more often.

I kept my promise sorta kinda not really

Hello!
See, I had said that I would make a shirt and pants for Theo.

I didn't. Make a shirt, that is.

Sorry! I tried at least three times to get the pattern for the pants that they gave me to work, sewed three pairs and realized that it didn't work because they were much too small. I got mad at the pattern, stopped trying for a week and then made the right size with a pattern I drew myself. So there. Ha.

 Hemmed and everything. Not very well hemmed, but oh well, I learn these things as I go along. There's also an elastic at the waist but I may or may not have overstuffed my doll, meaning that he is pretty fat and the elastic is stretched taut. I had trouble with the elastic because, being me, I disregarded the instructions to make the elastic hem two centimeters and made it one centimeter instead. The result of that was ten minutes trying to get the elastic through the hem to follow the other side and nearly destroyed the fabric.

Follow the pattern's instructions, unless you're like me and are ready to accept the consequences of not following the instructions.

I think that the pants turned out all right. They're a little shorter than I wanted, but it's okay, they can be shorts. (See what I mean about accepting the consequences?) The fabric is a scrap left over from some shortened curtains (not shortened by me, which is probably a good thing).

On another note, I said that I would keep you updated on the sweater that I'm knitting. Well, the knitting part is finally over! That, however, means that we have come to the most dreaded part of knitting sweaters.

Sewing.

Nooooo!! Oh and blocking. I am in the process of thinking about maybe blocking it. This means that in about three months' time I might be finished. I'm kidding, but I really need to block it, it's going to be impossible to sew otherwise.

 Another picture of Theo, because he is one of the cutest thing that has ever existed. I love his little nose. Note the embroidered eyes. I can't embroider for my life, so this is quite an accomplishment.

Have a nice day (or you know, afternoon or evening, depending) and I will keep updating this blog a little more frequently; I felt like I was really neglecting it. The only excuse that I have for that is that I hadn't finished any projects and my work-in-progresses didn't look like anything.

I'm Back!

Did you miss me?
I was gone for the time it took me to find the gloves I wanted to photograph.

Here they are, the color is still not accurately represented and I can't figure out why.

They are based off of mine, with some tweaks. These are made of pure alpaca yarn, I believe, though it seems that I have misplaced the yarn label, so I can't be sure. For once I was organized! I had kept the label to be able to know exactly what yarn it was. Now I can't find it.

Anyway, I got something crafty as well (more than one in fact, but I've only done one so far) for Christmas.
Since I am a very mature young adult, I wanted....a doll. Yes, that's right. A doll.

Not just any doll, though, I wanted a Waldorf doll. I wanted a little boy Waldorf doll.

Here's the thing though, so that I don't appear to be too strange. I wanted the supplies to make said doll. I wanted to prove to myself that I could make something using a pattern and have it turn out all right, because these dolls were considered a challenging sewing project.

So I got my doll. And I was very, very nervous about starting to make it. The fabric was nice, new, soft....There was so little of it, no room for mistakes. I gulped, took everything out of the paper bag that it was all neatly packaged in, put everything back in the bag and went back to being nervous.

Now, I'm nervous about starting any project with quality materials, but when I see those needles and that yarn, or that fabric, new and clean, just waiting to be turned into something wonderful....I am very weak.

It took me three hours. I worried for three hours, then started sewing.

It was all handsewn, luckily for me, and the hair is basically a crocheted hat sewn onto the doll's head, then you thread each individual strand of hair onto his head, oh my god, it took five hours and that's not even an exaggeration. It really did. So long, so, so, long. And my doll has short-ish hair, so I pity anyone who makes long haired dolls.

Without further ado, here he is, Theo, my adorable little doll that love.

Isn't he cute? So far, I've only made him that little sweater. I realized that the buttons are two different kinds of greens and I apologize, it will teach me to add finishing touches to things at 10 when the lights are dim and I can't see anything.

I will (eventually) make him a pair of pants and a t-shirt. For now, his top half is warm, so that's that.

He is 40 cm tall, blue eyes, bright red hair that is way too long but that I really don't want to trim.

There you go! That's the extent of what I've been working on.

Also, I thought I might add that this little guy was born under very good musical vibes. I said that I would post some music for you. I haven't done that yet, so here is a small list of the music that played while I spent hours threading hair onto a little plush doll's head.

Good Morning Sunshine, by Alex Day
It's Time, by Imagine Dragons
Radioactive, by Imagine Dragons
Love Is Easy, by McFly
One of Me, by Carrie Hope Fletcher
Some Coldplay but I can't remember what
A lot of Killers' songs

And many more that I can't remember, but those are always good.

Bye!