Ahoy!

Thinking of my sailor today, he'll be home soon! Excited beyond measure, as are our children! The little guy turns 3 years old the day Daddy comes home and I keep telling him he gets the best birthday gift EVER! He returns the excitement and anticipation with his silly grin, squinting eyes and wrinkled nose.

I thought it was only appropriate today, being on the topic of Sailors, to try another sailors weave bracelet.

This time around, I used a cotton rope, the same kind that you find in the DIY section of Home Depot, made of cotton, used for blinds or Roman Shades.   I also wanted to incorporate a bit of tie-dye nylon I found at Benjamin Franklin Craft Store.

Here is what I used:

 

My wrist is a little on the big side I think, about 6 1/2" around and this Dasani bottle worked perfectly for my size wrist.  I have also used a baby food jar to make these bracelets.

 I follow the directions in my book, but for a good online tutorial on how to make a sailors bracelet, check out More Design Please's Blog.

Here is my bracelet:

 

I really wanted to make it a little bit funky, in retrospect I probably should have just let it be natural, but I took that red bottle of spray dye and started spraying away at this piece. In turn, it is sort of funky but a little too splotchy for my liking. 

Did you like that effect of it on the Hibiscus plant?? Nice color coordination right? Haha, at least something turned out kind of cool. So I wait for the dye to set and got a little distracted and snapped a few shots of Miss M. with some bracelets I have made for her:

With the dye set, I set in to make this piece yet more funky with the dyed nylon pieces. I weaved the nylon throughout the sailors bracelet and Ta-DA! Here is what I got:

Not too shabby. Next time, I wont use the dye but I might use a piece of raggedy scrap fabric. I adore this one that I've seen on Pinterest, which also belongs to Under the Sycamore's Blog.

Overcoming creative distance

Have you ever taken a break from something for a while? You go back to "it" with some trepidation or fear? That's what happened to me this morning.

My sewing machine and I had a stare off for about 10 minutes. I have been working on a t-shirt for a few days now. I wanted it to be more than the usual t-shirt. Knowing my girls, so do they. So, I designed it and then took the leap of faith that I could figure out what to do with it, after I cut off the neck and the sleeves.

Walked over the my fabric supply closet, pulled out a jersey knit and thought, I need to use a special "foot" for this but which did I use?  Went back over to my sewing table, looked through my presser feet and found THE ONE.  Oh yes, the big chunky, slightly scary, takes a little manuevering presser foot.  My nice friends reminded me that it's called a "Walking Foot."

I attached that scary thing and continued on with my project.  Cut a piece of striped jersey knit, used my straight stitch spaced wide to make a soft ruffle and attached that to the bottom of the t-shirt.  Time to tackle the neck and sleeves (well, the holes that I made when I removed the sleeves that is!)  What is so great about the walking foot is because it feeds the fabric evenly, you don't get the pulled look on the jersey knits. So I was able to hem the neck and sleeves without any problem.

Isn't that such a cool contraption? Look at it eating my jersey knit so smooth and effortlessly! 

I thought about adding this striped knit to the sleeves and making a sort of flutter sleeve, but I gathered the shoulder seem instead and made it more of a tank top, which makes this more of a sundress.

My beauty is at school right now but when she gets home I'll take a photo of her with her new getup. She will probably need to put leggings as I dare say, the knit is slightly sheer. But she'll be looking all Punky-brewster-ish with her new attire! 

So, as I wait for school to end, I'll share some more of what I did today. Have a beautiful day everyone!

And School has ended, here is the final product. It's OK, I do need to work on making the sleeveless area a little less revealing next time, thank goodness for undershirts!

♡ ąℓexąnʠяą

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I was a little bummed with this project.  I designed the interior fabric, thought it would make a really cool keep-all and I paired it with this Premier Prints snazzy fabric from my fabric stash. But after I put it all together I realized that a portion of the white on the P.P. fabric had a stain that I just could not get out. SO, this has turned into my new fabric pen keep all!

And, I tried my hand at a simple wire wrapping this morning and I came up with these sweet, ever so feminine earrings!