Swapped: Piratey Goodness

I’ve been swapping up a small storm to get over the post-holiday crafting doldrums. I made these pirate-themed crafts for a person on Craftster who was flaked on in a pirate swap. Since I love all things pirate, I stepped up to send her an “angel” package.

Sister Diane’s salt dough struck again for this ocean-y garland. I was kind of thinking Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean version) and his heart/key thing, plus the sealife that takes over the undead pirates on the Flying Dutchman. But in a subtle way! This garland says “beach house” to me a lot more than “pirate.”

I love how the starfish turned out! The salt dough texture is perfect for starfish skin!

I stamped these notecards from a hand-carved stamp I made awhile back.

I made a calendar out of a CD case (I designed all the pages, too). You can download and print the calendar here and make your own!

And I crocheted a quick pirate choker with a fun skull & crossbones button from the dollar store:

The thing I most loved about what I made was that I used what I had to make it! I get a buzz from stashbusting!

Swapped: Fingerless Gloves from Felted Sweater

I’ve been swapping up a small storm to get over the post-holiday crafting doldrums. Here are some fingerless gloves I made from the arms of a felted sweater. These sewed up in about ten minutes, including the heart applique, which is awesome. Of course, I could have just made them without any sewing… but they needed to be a bit snugger. I like them! Wish I could have kept them, but I think the swap recipient was pleased.

Fingerless Gloves from Felted Sweater

To make:

1. Stick your arm in the sleeve of a felted wool sweater and decide how long you want your gloves to be.
2. Cut off at determined point.
3. Cut small hole in seam of sweater for thumb hole. Either stop here, or…
4. Embellish as desired. I actually cut my gloves open at the top so I could machine-stitch the heart applique on. When I was done with that, I stitched them back up.
5. If you want to make fit of gloves snugger, sew a seam from the thumb hole down to the bottom of the glove. To determine this point, you can try the gloves on inside-out and then pinch the gap in the gloves together at the bottom and pin at that point.

CROQ Zine Best Posts of 2008

Here are my favorite posts/projects from 2008:

• Edible Finger Paint
• Make Nature Walk Faces
• Children’s Art as Lino Prints
• Calavera Sandwich
• Painted Toast
• Autumn Wreath using found materials
• Make a Super Easy Toddler Sewing Card
• Reverse Applique Trick

Stashbusting Series

• 15 Reasons to Bust Your Stash
• 15 Reasons to Build Your Stash
• 15 Ways to Bust Your Stash
• My Stash: What I spend money on

Zine Watch: soulcraft by Alma Stoller

Alma Stoller just announced her newest zine project, soulcraft. Alma is an artist who makes beautiful zines full of handmade details. You can just tell from this cover how much time, care, and soul went into the creation of this zine!

Alma describes the zine this way: soulcraft is a mixture of zine, journal and workbook made of recycled and original materials. Take in all the little bits and pieces included in this zine and see the hidden potential. Inside you will find collage items, images, original rubber stamp designs, fabrics and inspiration.

Check her blog entry to see more photos and read more description of this zine. She’s going to list 20 for pre-order on her etsy shop.

I have been the lucky recipient of one of Alma’s zines and I can’t tell you how amazing they are!

Handmade Holiday Stuff For Me

I made a couple things “for me” during this holiday break. First, I made two stockings for my sons, who have been without personalized stockings since they each were born. I made these red corduroy with cream corduroy cuff jobbies for them to go with the ones I made for my husband and myself years ago. I wisely thought ahead and got a metric ton of both corduroys in case of offspring. I still have enough left for maybe five more kids, so I think we’ll be covered for any future children’s stockings. Or maybe by then I’ll want a different style of stocking!

I thought the cropping on this photo was funny, since my 2 year-old was trying to reach into the frame as I shot the picture.

I used a super-narrow zig zag stitch on the sewing machine to make the “embroidered” names. I wrote the names on the fabric in pencil and then sewed over them. Straight lines look awesome, but the curves gave me a bit of a challenge (see the “S” above). Also, the “W” was a little weird, but oh well!

Since I was just using an idea out of my head to make the stockings, I didn’t have the specifics that a pattern would have provided (although while I was sewing I was imagining what markings I would put on a pattern if I drafted it, and the instructions to accompany the pattern). I think I made the stockings needlessly complicated, when I could have done a super simple lined stocking with no real-working cuff, and it would have taken me about twenty minutes.

I did some fancy-dancy stuff with the cuffs, which turned out fine when all was done. Since the cuff was going to be turned over when displayed, but had to be sewn on inside the stocking, I remembered to put the name-part of the cuff upside down, attached to the lining. But I had a few hilarious mishaps with the placement of the fabric loop at the top of the stocking.  Basically, the fabric loop ended up: 1) underneath the cuff once it was turned over, then 2) on the toe-side of the cuff (not good for hanging! like one of those “what’s wrong with this picture?” 4th grade puzzles), and then 3.) sewed to the lining and looking a little funky, but passable since it took me so much time to correct my first two mistakes.

Anyway, it was fun. I love making things with no pattern. I know it’s weird but I really like it. It’s a sudoku-like challenge for my brain.

Here’s the lining fabric from my Christmas fabric stash. I think it’s pretty cute! Too bad you will never see it!

I also made this quilting-inspired table runner from some of my stash fabrics and some of the cream corduroy. I have almost no holiday decorations, so I wanted to start building my arsenal. I love the way this turned out. LOVE the red topstitching, too!

The reverse side is more of the stash fabrics string-pieced together. I love it!

I had a great time crafting for myself. I almost never make things with myself in mind. I think my New Years’ Craftolution will be to make more things for myself. I am working on black and white granny squares to make into an afghan for myself. I should be done sometime this year! I have about fifty squares, but I need about a hundred or so more! Plus assembling them.