Totoro and crafting

     I first saw "My Neighbor Totoro" in my early 20's and just feel in love. The art is just amazing, but the story about 2 sisters, and their adjustment to their mother being ill and away recovering spoke to me deeply.
The first version that I saw was a bootleg fandub, then I think I actually owned a "legit" copy but it's was lost to the soot sprites several moves ago.
I recently picked up the Disney version, the voices are different then what I'm used to, however, the story remains the same.

     When I got this notebook with a set of purse accessories, it hit me like lightening that it was Totoro grey and I knew what I had to do.
I went into my felt stash and using only scraps (and pretty small ones at that) came up with a quick and easy way to liven this up.


     I cut a circle out of white felt, then very carefully trimmed the 7 little crescent cuts. I recommend very sharp scissors and a lot of care. I still have a healing divot that I took out of my finger.

     My next step was the eyes and I went through a bit of trial and error with these. Luckily, after 3 or so tries, I figured that the reference page I was using was almost the same size as what I had in front of me. Everything was a piece of cake after that realization.
   
     I got everything else cut and laid out with very little drama. It was pretty late by the time I had gotten everything that way I wanted it, so I wrapped it up and headed to bed. I did have to take a few quick pictures just in case any of the cats thought that it was something I was making for them. Rotten things can get into just about anything they set their minds to. The latest being taking things off my work area and bringing them upstairs. Buttons, socks, my camera case, ribbons and the most recent, a snack size bag of bobbins.

     I used my a toothpick and an old favorite, fabri-tac to glue everything down, let it dry for about an hour and popped it into my purse. It goes wonderful with one of my stocking stuffers this year.

     I have a pouch that's the perfect size to hold my tablet, and a business card holder from the same set that I'm going to trick out as well. Just waiting on the next idea to pop into my head.

The color Orange is haunting me

So the second Iron Craft challenge is the color orange. Which would be killer if I hadn't used almost every scrap of orange in the last craft.
You should know that I've made a few extra rules for myself for these

•  The end product has to be something that I will wear, use, need for the house, or can gift/consume.
•  I have to recycle, up-cycle or use something from my massive fabric stash in every challenge 
• I can't spend more then $10 on anything I have to buy for a challenge
• I can not make a purse or up-cycle a tee shirt every time.

So heading off to the fabric store to end all fabric stores was going to be hard. I can't help it, every time I've gone there I've spent a small fortune. It's amazing and I could happily live there. There is fabric everywhere you look and almost a wall of trim.

This is just a small taste of the place.

I swear I walked in and the only thing I could see was orange, it just wouldn't leave me alone.

 I was really into the dotted ribbon, mostly due to the purple in it.I just couldn't think of something great to do with it,  

 Then, I almost spent $25 a yard for the massively gorgeous raised print. I had to be talked out of it and regret it still.

 However, it's not practical, doesn't go with my plan for the re-vamped living room in progress thing I've got going on.. It wasn't meant to be alas, just a passing fancy, something to look back, and sigh about. 

  Apparently, I'm fickle. The moment I walked away from the 1st fantastic love of my life, I fell head over heels for another. 

I actually left with exactly what I went for, the orange for the challenge and a beautiful black for a full length skirt that I'm making. I think it's a first.

Iron Craft Cotton challenge 2013

For my very first Iron Craft Challenge, the theme is cotton. Since I remake, restyle and re-purpose tee shirts more then anything else I was thrilled when I read this. Especially since I found out about Iron Craft 2013 the day before I was going for minor surgery. I'd really wanted to do a weekly or a bi-monthly craft challenge this year so get back on top of blogging and crafting.
Since it was something that I truly felt I could do in my sleep,  I wasn't too concerned about the possibility of "biting off more then I could chew."

*I have never written a tute before & this may not make a lot of sense*

I knew exactly the shirt to do a little Hack and Slash to, I saw this a few months ago on Ript before I had to go cold turkey from tee shirt sites for the holidays.
 This was an "instabuy",not only am I all about Star Wars, but I love WWII nose cone art. I forget that men's shirts are just to boxy and for every kick-ass one I get, I have to alter. I tend to have a pile around cause "Instabuys" happen a lot.

I wanted to make the neckline from a crew to a boat neck, take in the sides to fix the fit, and have it look more flattering.
I measured out 5.5 inches from dead center, and about an inch below the existing neckline and connected the marks with a gentle curve and then cut it out and double checked on the soon to be infamous duct tape dress form.


I then laid out the sleeves and using the shoulder seam for a guide, cut out about 1/2 inch. I do this on a lot of my shirts to insert a contrasting fabric, lace, or too add a drawstring to gather up the sleeves.

I used a great leftover orange jersey and cut it into 2 inch strips. Using a 1/4 inch seam allowance and a jersey needle and put a panel in each arm.
I had to stuff the sleeves to get a decent shot of this, as the infamous duct tape dress form has kinda jacked-up shoulders. 
 At this stage I was really thinking that I was just going to use a twin needle and turn over the neckline.
However, the more I looked at the great contrast between the orange and the grey, the more I needed just a bit more.

 On the fly (hence no pictures), I took 3 of my 2 inch strips of orange and starting that the center of my new neckline I stitched them on, right side to right side,
 folded them to a v in the front and then in half and stitched it down.  I have to say that I love this look so much. I really love when a happy accident works out well.

I then flipped it inside out, took a shirt that fits me exactly the way I like, and used that as a guide to take in the sides.

My finished result is actually better then I had hoped going into the Cotton Challenge.

Teaser for Iron Craft 2013

 I'm going to be 40 in less then a month and still (and will continue too) buy geek tee's with a vengeance. This is my current favorite and what I picked to possibly destroy for my first Iron Craft challenge.
The challenge is cotton and since I just about hack about every cotton tee I own, I figured I should go with my strengths.
I found out about Iron Craft 2013 the day the first challenge was announced and the day before I had minor surgery. I wanted to do it, but really didn't want to stress myself out. I ended up doing another shirt to make sure that I could do what I wanted with my Star Wars one and therefore ended up doing 2 entirely different shirts.
Only I can double my workload for creativeness sake.

Tomorrow is the big reveal and I'm really excited about it.
Check back and see how it came out.

Bare Bones of a house

The Christmas decorations came down this weekend, and as always it made me sad.

It goes from looking like Disney's Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.
All happy and cheerful, full of light and color, something that just makes you smile when you see it.

After everything is taken down, wrapped up and safely put away until next year it looks empty and deserted. A bare bones of a house.
Normally I'd be posting the pictures that I took. The lovely pictures of the 3 wreaths I made, the 3 trees we decorated this year, and the multitude of lights that my husband strung up.

However the pictures are still on my memory card.
 I haven't used my card reader in so long I've flat out forgotten how to. It's sad and horrid and just awful that I'm sitting at home waiting for my husband to get home so he can fix it. However it's better then the alternative that happens every time I try to fix something on my own.
That usually involves a weekends worth of work for the husband and seeing as it's only Tuesday, that's about 5 days sans computer for me.

Since 5 days sans computer is just something that I can't live with, this will have to be a fitting placeholder.

It's time to get back into the swing of things. I have had a rough 18 months filled with a crappy illness, a knee surgery and a few things I didn't care to share with the world at large. Hence the blog had to go dark.


Now I'm back and with a massive goal this year, I am joining up with Just Crafty Enough for Iron Craft 2013
One challenge every two weeks for the entire year.

http://justcraftyenough.com

 

As well as filling in everyone with the things that have kept me semi-sane for the last 18 months. I've gone to a few great places and created some stuff that I can't believe I actually made.

CBLDF is live

I'm just thrilled that this has happened! The link for the auction is http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170637733014

I have to admit that I'm fighting a slight bit of panic. What if no one bids? I'm sure it won't be the case, he's just to cute to just sit there. Of course it means that I'll be checking the eBay page just often enough to drive myself crazy.