A big thank you!

Hello!

So, I just hit 2000 views on this blog!

That may not seem like a lot to the bigger bloggers out there, but I haven't even had this blog for a year, so this is incredible to me.

Thank you to everyone who has visited my little corner of the Internet!

As a sign of my gratitude, here is a picture of my cat.

I imagine she thinks she's helpful. Poor dear, she't not very bright.

Happy friday!

Some earrings for some friends

Hello!

So I put my new light box to the test today, and it once again wielded wonderful results. 

I love my light box.

I'm going to a friend's house quite soon (within the next hour) and I wanted to make her and my other friends some earrings because why not? Also I missed their birthdays. 

That type of earring takes about ten minutes to make at the very, very most and if you're watching videos online at the same time, like I was. 

There are the silvery-swirly-gold ones, the moon ones and the Gryffindor ones, because my friend is a huge Harry Potter nerd (as am I) and as she must wear a uniform to school, I figured she would still be able to show her house pride by wearing her colors like this!

Blue Cat, out!

A very loud idea at the back of my mind

Hello!

I've had this idea at the back of my mind, well not really at the back, more like screaming whenever I took pictures, but I've been wanting to do this for a while.

I wanted to build a light box.

So I built a light box.

Using this link here I knew how I wanted to make it. I scavenged the materials from here and there (seriously, the cardboard box was the hardest to find) and today I finally had everything I needed, including time.

Here's the best part: my dad just got a lot of used professional lights and I get to use them! So that's my lighting (I would have used some of the brighter lamps we have if I hadn't had the pro ones) and now, all that remained was to make it.

I kid you not, my entire day has been building up to this. I had a chemistry test to study for (which I did for a very long time) and math exercises (which didn't take as long as I thought) and once those were done, I could start! I even used an Exacto knife for the second time ever, which was a little worrying because I like all my fingers where they are.

But enough chit chat and suspense-building: look!

I took a few pictures of my little bear and then my brother came in and I took pictures of his Legos for him. I'm still playing around with the zoom and the background, but that's details. 

Just like all the cardboard that is covering my bedroom floor right now.

Details.

My room is a mess.

But what you should really take away from this post is that it is currently pitch-black outside my window and I still managed to take decent pictures! This is my revenge on horrible winter light.

Have a wonderful day/night/whatever!

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.

A time-traveling dragon companion

Hello my fellow Blue Cats!

So recently, I have become infatuated interested in a British TV show that most people have, if not seen, at least heard of.

I speak of course, of Doctor Who.

And what do I do when I discover a new show to love? I make myself a little companion to watch said show with. You may recall my infatuation interest in Sherlock BBC at which time, I made myself an Otterbatch.

Now to completely explain this new companion, let me just say that you may have noticed a trend in the stuffed animals that I make and yes.
Yes.
I do love dragons.
I enjoy drawing and sewing dragons (although to be fair to myself, the sewings are often much nicer than the drawings).

And so without further ado, I present to you...
Tardis the dragon!

This is Tardis, he is a dragon. And to all those hardcore Whovians out there, yes, I am aware that the Tardis is a female, but I decided that my dragon was a guy named Tardis and that's that.

He has become my loyal Doctor Who watching companion. He is the perfect size for hugging when something sad happens (which is quite often) and for perching on my shoulder when I feel like being a pirate.

I think I may have messed up his back spikes because they don't stand up right, but oh well. He wouldn't be a Blue Cat creation if he was perfect (I feel like I always say that, but it's 100% true. )

I made him out of dark blue fleece for the main body, light blue fleece for the belly and feet pads and snowflake-y light blue cotton for the ears and spikes.

He is made using this wonderful pattern that I got at the start of a four-day weekend. It's been awhile since I've made something for myself, it was nice. I finished sewing him in maybe two days? I followed my bad habit of watching TV and sewing at the same time, which means that I missed half the episode and had to pull out quite a few stitches, but he turned out all right.

Tardis is entirely hand-sewn except for the details on his wings and ears. (Which incidentally was the hardest part to do because for some reason the machine never does what I want it to. I never have that problem when I hand sew!)

My attempt at a photo shoot until I eventually build myself a light box and am able to take proper pictures.  The Converses are my little nod to the Tenth Doctor. (As always, if I'm making references you don't understand, ignore me, this hasn't got anything to do with sewing.)

So there you go! I actually sewed him last week, and I've been incredibly lazy when it comes to uploading, but now that I've got my computer back, I will attempt to stick to a more regular schedule. That is, of course, assuming that I actually have time to make stuff, which might be a little hard to juggle. I'll do my best!

Tardis is patiently awaiting a time-travelling mad man to whisk him away in a blue box to travel the stars. In the meantime, he's stuck on Earth with me. 

Have a lovely day!

Fun fact about Tardis the dragon: he has two hearts. I literally made two little hearts and stuck them in when I was stuffing him, just like they do at Build-A-Bear's workshop. 

A quick quote and some nice music

Hello!

As I don't have a proper post set up at the moment, here is some food for thought.



"When you're a kid, they tell you it's all grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid, and that's it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. So much darker. So much madder.

And so much better."



That's from Doctor Who, by the way.

And because we're not doing anything specific with this post, have some music:

Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Deep Blue Something
Sinnerman, by Nina Simone
This is War, by Thirty Seconds to Mars
Everything Has Changed, by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran
Let Her Go, by Passenger

I may have mentioned before that I have very eclectic music tastes.

Hope you're all having a lovely Back To School week (or just a lovely week for those who aren't returning to school)!

A little summary

Hello!

I have returned! I think that it would be far more interesting to show you than to tell you what I've done.

Exercises in photography

The island of Bréhat

More exercises in photography

 This was in Brittany in France (otherwise knows as the most gorgeous place on Earth) and then we went to the British island of Jersey (which is the closest I've ever gotten to visiting England).

No one can ever tell me it's always raining in England

And then we went to one of the most magical fantastic places I've ever been to. It's called Les Machines de l'île and I promise that no matter how old or humbuggy you are, you will shed your worries and you will become a child again, filled with wonder and awe. All the details and information are on their website.

(Blogger is being weird on me, so I'll just tell you here: there will be a normal post soon, in the meantime, enjoy these pictures!)

You can ride an elephant (which I did)

or a caterpillar (the finished version will be twice this size)

or you can fly with a heron (he's asleep at the moment)

I rode a terrifying sea horse

and admired a mischievous dragon

Well hello Mr. Turtle

 A walnut shell for the smaller adventurers

I highly recommend you go there.