next on the list: the office

Usually I am in bed by now, because by this point in the day, my mind shuts down and I drift off to sleep. And I'm old. Today, however, I had a raging headache, fell asleep for 3 hours, then thought it would be a brilliant idea to have two caffeinated cups of tea at 7PM. Biiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake.

It is now after midnight and my mind has transformed into a friggin' craft circus.
WHAT PROJECT SHOULD I DO NEXT? It keeps saying. Painting? Sculpture? Quilting? Glass? Dental crap? Nah... I think I'm into redecorating my office space.

OK. When I say redecorate, I'm not talking about getting rid of my treasured shit in favor of new fancy shit that I won't use purely for the vanity of it. I love my space and my shit. But lately the dark orange paint is getting on my nerves. The room has always been dark orange, I never 100% liked it, but I worked around it. Now it just seems heavy as hell.

Like when you go to a restaurant, your eyes are bigger than your stomach and you get everything covered in Alfredo sauce, type of heavy. After awhile you stop and think, oh man... I can't take any more of this f***ing sauce.

My gosh, take a look at all this shit. There's a damn pig under my desk.

So here is what I'm thinking. Lose the dark orange. I think I'm going to do a faux-brick white-washed wall on the only exterior wall, which also has a window... goodbye forever to the stupid brown blinds, because I f***ing hate blinds. The desk is going to change a little. It's going to have some areas fixed because a bunny nibbled the bottom. Also, all of the cubby-areas that were painted orange will go white, or a sunny yellow color. The sliding stained glass panels... I might do another set in shards of light colors that I have collected over the years.

One wall will hopefully be just floor to ceiling art. I don't want to loose all the colors I have in here... just lighten the walls to make it feel bigger. Some furniture will have to be rearranged... things will get cleaned out, reorganized or donated. I'm not sure on the closet space yet. I made a shelving unit in there and everything behind it is that damn dark orange. Maybe I should just not cut corners, take it down, repaint and assemble again.

The ties will be hung and color coordinated. LIKE YOU HAD ANY DOUBT ABOUT THAT.

Not sure where I should start, to be honest. Maybe with just repairs of the desk first, and go from there. I think this will be a pretty cheap but very dramatic change for the better!

in my spare time, I made a f***ing quilt.

I have NO IDEA how I did not post ANYTHING about this over the past couple of months. I literally started this quilt... almost a year ago I think? AND NO. NOT ONE POST.

Not a look I bought fabric! post.
Not a I washed, pressed and cut all these squares! post.

some sample colors that I wove together for your viewing pleasure.

Not a look how many squares I made or look now the squares are sewed into blocks! post.

NOPE! NOTHING! So I'll have to summarize my misadventures in my 2nd, yes 2nd! quilt.

Back last May, after I took my board exams, passed! and was waiting (im)patiently for my license to practice, I decided to go to Jo-Ann's because damnit, I had a coupon. I bought 20 fat-quarters of fabric, a couple yards of white fabric with tiny little birdies on it, and an Omnigrid 8.5" square template. I didn't know what type of quilt I was going to make, but damnit, I was going to make another quilt.

Seriously, nothing against my first quilt, but it's not exactly big enough for our bed. I'm afraid one night we're going to rip it in half because we always seem to be yanking it to cover our feets.  Here's where it gets confusing. 

Each fat quarter gave me 4, 8.5" squares of colorful fabric.I now have 80 colorful squares. I then cut another 80 squares from the white fabric. Every colorful square was sewed to a white square, then cut down into 8 triangles. You can see below how I drew, on each white square: Diagonally with a 1/4" allowance, then in half. This made a total of 640 squares. Unfortunately, I needed to sew an additional 10 squares from scrap fabric, but I found this out early, allowing me to incorporate them seamlessly into my quilt!  SEAMLESSLY. GET IT?

Every triangle was then pressed open into a square. Then came the hard part: Trying to decide how I was going to assemble all of the now 650 squares. So I'll leave you with some pictures... the first set is just showing how I actually assembled the blocks, and the last photo is of all the colorful blocks! There were so many patterns to choose from, but that'll have to wait for yet another post...

a new... something

Heads up: I've had wine! 

After I finished up the t-shirt quilts, I decided that it was finally time to focus in on one for myself. I found this AMAZING but complicated pattern in a quilting magazine that I purchased (YES, I buy quilting magazines. Thug life.) but there was a problem: It was a pattern for a twin quilt. I don't need no stinkin twin quilt. Another problem: I already had way too many scraps left over from my first quilt, I thought it'd be a waste not to use them... but how?

So... I just started sewing. I took out my box of scraps and basically just started machine stitching them together. Since all of the scraps were tapered, they started looking like colorful fans. I had another interesting thought. What if I sewed these fans into a wave? Then what if the wave became a column? And what if I sewed these columns together to form a sort-of-painting? 

 So many questions! One final product,  though.Once I finished sewing the columns together, I quilted it with gold thread. Then stapled the s*** outta it onto a canvas. Soon I'm going to frame it. SOON... SOON.

 

 

phl -> atl

Recently a good friend of mine departed the Philadelphia area to start life anew with his beautiful fiancé in Atlanta. As sad as I am when friends leave the area, it is always exciting knowing that they are literally embarking on a new phase of life. I always wanted the balls to pick up and move. I mean... I'm only an hour away from home home, but it's not like I moved to an area that's easier to get to by plane then by driving. How cool would it be one day to be like I'M SELLING EVERYTHING I HAVE AND MOVING TO A DAKOTA OR IDAHO BECAUSE WHY NOT.

Anywho, I wanted to give them a going away present. I failed miserably getting it to them on time. The thing was... I couldn't figure out what the f*** to do. He sent me some photos of things that they liked. Which I guess I pretty much ignored in the end. Sorry about that John.... just realized that.

I was like, if I were them, what would I want to remind me of home? That it's not too far away? So here's what I came up with: A painting that you could flip.

I started with blocks of color, which I haven't done in years. Truth is, my hands aren't as steady as they use to be, so some lines are wobbly. <--- that could be symbolic, like "just as these lines aren't straight, neither is the road in life... HA!

Then I decided to paint the skylines of Philadelphia and Atlanta. The area in between was a little harder. I originally wanted to put a couple walking hand-in-hand to both skylines, but there wasn't enough space. So I decided to paint a PHL-> and an ATL->. One day, if they're back in Philadelphia, they can always remember the home they made in a new city. I'm happy with the way it came out, and I'm hoping that it reminds my good friends that no matter how far, home isn't that far.

NOW I JUST HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET IT TO THEM.

t-shirt quilts, part 1

A friend of mine asked me to make two t-shirt quilts for her sons. One is in a Phillies motif, the other is Flyers. Quilts are fun to do, but they can be difficult if you don't choose the right materials. T-shirts: You cannot just sew them together. You have to use fusible interfacing to stabilize the stretchiness... if you don't, you'll end up with a bunch of stretched out-crazy looking t-shirts that you'll want to burn instead of cuddling up with.

The first thing you need to do with t-shirts is cut out the BS. So, that means cutting out the front of the shirt and the back, and tossing away the sleeves and seams. Then you have to measure the width of the actual design on the t-shirt... This will help you organize the shirts into columns. For the two quilts that I'm doing, each one has column widths of 11", 12", 13" and 14". Once you organize everything into columns, you have to determine what length each shirt will be... then you're ready to cut everything out. Straight edges are keeeeeeeeeey in this step! If you don't have a perfect right angle, your quilt will be wonky. Keep some of the excess shirt scraps... you might need some later on.

Once everything is cut out, set yourself up in front of the TV and pour yourself a glass (or two) of wine, because it's time to iron on the fusible interfacing. Like I said, it'll keep the fabric stabilized when you sew everything together! Then the fun begins... arrange allllll yo' shirts in their columns, and start sewing errrything together! Be sure to always press the seams open with a hot iron, this will ensure that the quilt lays flat n' lovely.

Remember some of those scraps you saved? If your quilt is too short in some areas, cut out scraps in that size and fuse the interfacing to it: Then stitch to the quilt so it's the correct length!

NEXT UP! Cutting out the backing fabric, choosing a batting and assembling everything together.

necktie tree skirt

Back in December I noticed that my tie collection was getting a wee-bit out of control. I needed to make something out of ties before I ran out of places to store them. Since it was Christmas, I decided to make a tree skirt out of neckties. It was a good project, all done by good ol'fashion trial and error. 

I shared my project with a few classmates and faculty members at the college I attended, and one person expressed interest in me making one for her. She came bearing a bag full of ties! HUZZAH!

Flash forward 6 months...I'm not good with directions. I mostly, like I said, do everything by trial and error. But I'll try to replicate my goings-on so you can follow what I did. 

I cut 36 ties to a length of 24" (the big fat ends) and saved the skinny ends... I arranged them into 6 groups of 6, then used a zigzag stitch to sew the 6 groups of 6 together. There are 5 ties that I cut to the length of 14". You know those skinny ends I saved? I zigzag stitched each of the 5 fat 14 inchers between two of of the skinny ends. Here comes the hard part.... assembling errrthing.

I arranged the 6 panels into a circle, and then placed those 5 smaller panels in between. Zigzag stitch the shiiiiiiiizzzzz outta that circle to form... you know... a tree skirt.

My gosh, even I'm not following how I did this.

Then I cut out 2 yards of black felt and stitched it into a big ol' circle. Then sewed that circle to the tie circle. Beeeelieeeeeve me... there's A LOT of fabric, and it takes A LOT of muscle to get this shizz through a sewing machine in one piece. If you're trying this one, do yourself a favor and get yo'self some extra needles for your machine. You'll need them! But the payoff is awesome-sauce.

Truth is, I could have taken better pictures. I kept forgetting. That's the way it is, dangit.

week overdue

Yes, I was supposed to write a post last weekend to update all of the crazy fun stuff that I've been doing, but my time ran short on every single day. How does that always seem to happen? I'm not that popular, so that's not it. I am planning a wedding though. I'll blame it on that. Things are going well, quite well if you ask me. You didn't ask me though, but I'm telling you that anyways.

After about a month or two of consideration, I've decided not to send out my quilt for finishing. To meet the criteria of having it finished off by a long-arm quilter, it would have had to be damn near perfect. And it wasn't damn near perfect. It never will be damn near perfect, because it's my first quilt and quite frankly, I don't want it to be damn near perfect. There were ripples. It didn't lie completely flat. And if there were any rogue strings or threads exposed during the quilting process, it could have torn the quilt and destroyed everything I worked so hard on.

So. I sucked it up. I picked up that quilt on Sunday and started quilting the columns again. And GAADAMN it wasn't easy. Imaging running a full-sized quilt through a sewing machine. It looked a lot like this:


AHHHHHHHH QUILT EXPLOSION!

But, like I said: I sucked it up! I kept the quilt as taught as I could, constantly changed the needles and kept the bobbin completely stocked with thread. After what seemed like hours, I had all of the columns completely finished. MAJOR SCORE. After almost a year of not working on it, I was happy to see it and feel it again. Yesterday, I started working on the rows, which will be a lot tougher than the columns. You see the columns are all perfectly straight. But the rows.... ehh... not so much. Again, I'll rely on MSPaint to express myself.

 

When I go to stitch a row, they don't line up completely. So as soon as I get to an area where the row doesn't line up, I have to turn the quilt, stitch along the column for literally less that centimeter, then turn the quilt again to continue sewing the row. I set myself a goal of completing two rows per day, and it should take me about 7 days total, unless I double up a little over the weekend.

HERE'S TO GETTING SHIT DONE.

sew whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I had an amazingly productive craft session last night thanks to the stimulating combination of getting my sewing machine back from the shop, sweating it out in an awesome gym session, and being scared s***less from watching The Walking Dead. Between the feelings of excitement, exhaustion and adrenaline, I was wasn't even friggin' blinking.

Yes. I do step aerobics.

No lie, I was like a kid in a candy store yesterday when I picked up my machine at Modern Vac & Sew. They literally restored my machine to factory condition. The tension is perfect, the stitches are even and quite divine.... AND! It sounds like a sewing machine again! No more k'chunk k'chunk k'chunk .... it's more like a rrRRMmmmrrRRMmmmrrRRMmmmrrRRMmmm. It's a thing of beauty. If you need repairs, go see them. <--- Look, I made a recommendation!

Word to the wise, if ever decide to take your machine to the shop, I'd recommend cleaning and wiping down your machine first, before you start sewing any important project! Oils and lubrication added to the machine during the tune-up can leak a little at first, so do a couple test runs on scrap fabric, then wipe the machine down with paper towels. You'll thank yourself for doing this. Besides, you gotta treat that s*** nice, yo.

I completed three 'original design' wine bags, complete with tiny ties and brand spankin' new fabrics! Plus, I also sewed the looped handles on seven (SEVEN!) 'new design' wine bags. I think between today and tomorrow, I'm going to write up my Etsy listing for them, and hopefully take pictures of the finished products. With any luck, they'll be online for sale by the end of the week!

And of course, I did not forget the most important part. THE STAMP. I'm thinking this should be my new slogan: "If it doesn't say Nodyl's Noodles, then that shit was ripped off."

don't be jerky.

While I was in the midst of being proud of my increased sewing productivity on Sunday night, I noticed that my trusty sewing machine was getting a little loud. Actually it was getting A LOT loud. I guess it kinda sounds like this: k'chunk, k'chunk, K'CHUNK, k'chunk, K'CHUNK... And it was jerky.

NO NO NO. Not JERKY. You know, JERKY!

[jur-kee] characterized by jerks or sudden starts; spasmodic.

It also started shaking as the speed of the stitch got progressively higher. I think my poor machine was trying to tell me something: So I decided to take my pride n' joy to Modern Vac & Sew for a little tune up. I'm sure it will be well worth it for the amount of sewing I do. I'm going to call them later today to find out the diagnosis, and hopefully they might give me a time frame on when I can pick it up!

Last night I started piecing together the wine bags. And I'm glad I did, because it took me about two hours to pin the straps and the interior fabric to the exterior! And, since I had extra tie-ends, I ended up piecing together nine new bags. Now when I get my machine back, I'll be ready to roll!

all tied up.

Figuratively. And literally. But not like that. Figuratively I've been tied up with wedding planning. And ceiling fixing. And ignoring basic responsibilities in life while watching the Food Network. Literally I'm not tied up. How would I be typing this if I were tied up?

I've been sorta off lately, needless to say. I haven't felt much like blogging, crafting, or  all the other yadda yaddas. Most people I've told this to say that it's normal for people to relax and not be "productive" all the time. But for me, not doing those things becomes literally depressing. I feel like I should be working on wine bags, poof ball flowers and be all sunshine and smiles. But when I try to find the motivation in me to start sewing or crafting... well, there is none. So I sit down instead. And think of all the things I could be doing. And I don't do anything. Except I watch the Food Network. F***ing Food Network. Everything is so ga'damn delicious.

Luckily, that all changed yesterday. I finally told myself ENOUGH ALREADY! No more excuses!

I went out and got 7.5 yards of fabric. Today, I sewed the exterior of 7 new wine bags, in a completely new design! And I cut the inside fabric for a total of 16 wine bags.

new tie pattern!

new fabric!

In other news, I kinda looked like Where's Waldo today.

don't hate.

diy meets life event: flowers

Let's face it folks. I live in the land of DIY where I'm the president, vice-president and CEO. When I have craft nights, it's like, all the leaders of different crafting countries coming together for the G8 summit. But we don't wear suits and we don't have awkward country-tension. I love to craft and create art. Just sayin'. That being said, I think it would be almost impossible for me to have a life-event and not do some crafty projects for it. That would be like ...I don't know... A pastry chef asking someone to bake a cake for them? You know what I mean, right?...right? This whole explanation was horrible.

FUN FACT: Did you know that I say horrible wrong? I pronounce it whore-able. Lou teases me because it's supposed to be haar-ible.

So, here's a project I'd like to tackle for the upcoming nuptials. But before that, a little disclaimer. Let me make something quite clear. This will not become a wedding blog. I'm simply not that kind of girl. Now, now, don't get me wrong. I'm stoked to the pumped about the wedding. It's going to be a ton of friggin' fun! To have an event with my family and friends all there? YEAAAAAA BOYEEEEE!

OK. Now onto a craft project I want to tackle:

photo courtesy of Anthony Carbajal via Offbeat Bride

photo courtesy of Anthony Carbajal via Offbeat Bride

Handmade yarn pom-pom flower bouquets. I found this awesome article on this site called Offbeat Bride detailing how to make them. I thought this would be so super cool to have instead of live flowers. I think live flowers are so pretty, but $300.00 for a bouquet? You shittin' me, bro?

Obviously, I'll have to make one for myself, my sister, and then people who like, wear flowers. Parents and such? Maybe future husband? Who knows. I don't want them to look tacky or cheap, but I thought it would be a simple fun way to add a shit-ton of colors and fun to something that I would otherwise just pick out from a catalog. Fun pom-poms on sticks collected from the Wiss? I likes the sound of that.

Here's a little test I did with yarn that my sister gave me and sticks from out in our yard. I think they need to be bulked up a little, and the sticks need to be twigs or smaller so they can gather a little easier. I think it'd be cool! I hope family agrees.

Glasstacular!

ALRIGHT, now I don't know what my problem is, but I've been having an awfully hard time updating this blog lately! Especially when I was all like "I'm going to upload pictures on Saturday!" Sad. That Saturday was 3 WEEKS AGO. Jill Fail.

So, to go back in time a little... Here is a post that I started and I totally planned on posting. But I didn't. ONWARD!


I can't lie. I'm so proud. I finished that glass, and I friggin' dominated it. I was all like, I'm totally going to finish you on time, and it's going to look so ga'damn professional that even you'll think you were made by a professional. And it was all like I'm glass so I can't talk, but OK!. It's probably one of the best one's I've completed to date. Alright, I'm done with my horn tooting. OK one more. TOOT.

Now onto logistics. After my last post, I evened out the seams at the 45 degree angle with wood filler, and let it sit until it was totally dry. After a quick sanding with my trusty mouse-sander, I gave it a light coat of primer. I knew there would be imperfections, and the primer totally told me where I needed more wood filler and sanding. After filling and sanding again, I gave the frame 2 more coats of primer, let it dry, and then rolled on 3 coats of a satin interior/exterior paint. The slight roughness of the roller pad gave the frame a great finish. I removed the protective papers, cleaned it up a little and set onto my next task.



Joints filled, awaiting it's first sanding!

Joints filled, sanded, primed, filled, sanded, primed, then painted! Waiting for the paper removal!

I began to think... how would I hang this? Should I do it, or should I let them do it? Just to cover my bases, I decided to write up detailed instructions. Not only about how to hang them, but how to clean them also. I decided to use two evenly placed rubber coated eyes-hooks on the top of each frame, which would hang neatly from a linked-chain, which I attached to screws.

When I got to their house, it was decided that I would hang the glass. Hell, I had the directions to follow, so why not!? After measuring and marking, I carefully drilled four pilot holes and screwed in screw-eyes that had the chains attached. After some slight adjustments, we carefully hung the glass. With my job complete, I snapped some photographs and bid my friends farewell for the evening.
 

You can see the eye-hook and chain detail a little in this picture.

Thanks, car. For photo-bombing me.

 

anxiety painting

I've been quite the fan of splatter paintings lately. You might recall my last two, abcdef FAIL. and Time to Eat??. The first part requires me to squeeze copious amounts of acrylic paint onto a 5x5 canvas. Controlled messiness is fun! After that, it's all about what I find in my mind to apply to the surface.

I started a new one this past week.. reds, creams and yellows. I accidentally blew a load of glitter over it. But I ended up liking it, thank God. There's no undoing glitter. Once it's there, IT'S THERE. It looked to harmonious, so I added silver. I remembered that I had my mom's old medical dictionary from when she did nursing... so I pulled it out and started perusing through different afflictions, disorders, viruses and diseases. Good times, indeed. Who knew that SO MUCH could go wrong within your own body?

I'm not sure what order I found things in, but I discovered various medical drawings of the body and explanations for anxiety disorders. I started combining them together on the surface, adding my own paintings and ink drawings to blend them all together. I'm still not finished, but here's the progress so far.

framed! part duex

finished frame, sans stain

I now have two... TWO! paintings that are properly framed and ready to ... well... HANG for lack of better words! Over the weekend, I finished building the frame that I was working on by cutting pieces of 1"x2" and securing them to the back of the frame: It added much needed depth and sturdiness to the piece. Once the glue was dry and set, I ran the sander over the frame one last time to ensure that all the surfaces were smooth and even. A dark walnut stain was applied soon after, and once it was dry, I secured the three paintings inside and sat back to admire my work. To say I'm happy with the result is an understatement, since I'm famously HORRIBLE at woodwork. I always wanted to design a frame for those paintings that would become part of the piece, not just an accessory to it. The horizontal flow makes me swoon. Iz uber prowd.

On Monday, my super cool frame from PictureFrames.com came in, fully assembled and ready for Material Experiment #1! The painting fit in it perfectly and was secured with canvas clips: The ornate bright silver frame complimented it quite nicely.

The last step I needed to take with both frames was to finish them off with paper backing, wiring and labels... which I've never done. But, after watching about ten minutes of You Tube videos on the subject, I had brown paper, double sided tape, wire hanging supplies and spray adhesive in hand and ready to go. First I applied the double sided tape to the back edges of both frames. After cutting the paper to size, I pressed it onto the tape and went over it with a fid to make sure it really stuck. Then, I screwed in the hardware and twisted on the wiring. Finally, I sprayed the labels with a little adhesive, and stuck em' on.














So both paintings are ready to be displayed. Look at me, finally finishing something! With any luck, Sunset at the Beach will sell at the MRAC-RDC Silent Auction on Thursday, May 3rd: I'm donating it for the their fund raising effort. And hopefully, Material Experiment #1 will be selected to be displayed at MRAC's May show, which opens on May 6th. Maybe you'd like to come visit and see them in person...?

glass be owned.

On Sunday, I finished cutting out ALL of the glass for my friend's sisters wedding present, and I couldn't be happier! Since I have ten different glass colors (numbered one through ten, of course) I decided that it would be fun to cut the pieces out per color, and cross off the ones that I completed as I went along. I was so excited to finally get to number 10 and cross it off the list! I'm thrilled to think I'm finally getting better at cutting and breaking glass. This window saw far fewer mistakes than ones in the past.

Again, there's no full pictures of both glass panels because I'd like it to be a surprise when it's finished! Obviously I'll post it once it's framed, delivered, and hung but until then... let your imagination run wild!