A Plush A Day Challenge! Day Two - Baby Socktopus

A Plush A Day: Baby Socktopus

In order to make myself use up this embarrassment of tshirt material, I am instituting a Plush a Day Challenge to myself. Essentially, I have to make some sort of plush creature every day.

This one doesn't involve tshirt material, but it definitely took care of some other scraps I had in my scrap bag!

A Plush A Day Challenge! Day One - Stripy Kitty

A Plush A Day: Stripey Kitty

In order to make myself use up this embarrassment of tshirt material, I am instituting a Plush a Day Challenge to myself. Essentially, I have to make some sort of plush creature every day.

I wonder how long I can keep it up? Let's find out!

Catching Up - October's Vest

The Vest I made for Nick
I can't believe I forgot to post a picture of Nick's finished vest!

These are pretty dark pictures, I'll have to catch Nick out in the daylight sometime (more difficult than it sounds, actually). Overall, it turned out very well.

The only thing I screwed up was forgetting to trim the excess on one of the armholes before turning it right-side out, which means around one armhole is a little more difficult to get flat.

My next big sewing project is going to be either a vest for Will, or an elastic-backed lolita skirt. I need a project to force me to learn how to sew in elastic!

Skill Acquirement

Shooting at the Range

On Saturday, Will and I went to a shooting range and I shot a "real gun" for the first time (before then, I'd only shot my parent's BB gun). It was an interesting experience, and I'm not a bad shot. I'm more excited to know the anatomy of a gun and how to disarm one.

Being in a shooting range sounds and smells like being inside a fireworks display - even with the ear protection. Also, in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, they did have zombie shooting targets to practice on.

This upcoming weekend, on Saturday November 14th is the Wake County Library Booksale with 300,000 books! I can't wait to go! Is anyone else going? Should we coordinate?

Friday Find! Blog - Sweet Sweet Life

The Home of Sweet Sweet Life's Amy Hanson

If you enjoy my Friday Finds, then you will love Amy Hanson's Sweet Sweet Life blog.

Her blog is full of lovely pictures from her own home (like the one above) and tons and tons of links to etsy shops, projects, and artists online, all of them beautiful, whimsical, and adorable in turn.

Amy's Bookcase

Her style is very clean and playful with bright colors, she describes it as "sock monkeys and rainbows." I love it, and I love almost everything she links to! So do other people, since she's been featured on Apartment Therapy and Etsy Storque, to name a few.

So, if you have room on your blog roll (which is more like a biscuit than a cinnamon roll *I* think) for lots of bright, cheery and cute images, then by all means, go to A Sweet Sweet Life!

All images copyright Amy Hanson
Friday Find! is a weekly post where I link to awesome things I've found on the internet

Sing a Song of T-shirts!

The Piles of Tshirts in my Studio

I don't know why I keep wanting to sing songs at you, especially since you can't really hear me. But here's another one anyway:
(to the tune of What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor)
What do you do with a million tshirts?
What do you do with a million tshirts?
What do you do with a million tshirts -
Early in the morning?

I'll admit, that one wasn't so original, but I have it stuck in my head! And we all know the only way to get it out is to get it stuck in someone else's head, or exorcise it with the power of The Final Countdown.

So! As you can tell I have a great deal of discarded tshirts ready to be made into things. The reason: they usually have something cool on them we want to cut out and keep (such as The Pixies tour tshirt) - which gives me the rest of the shirt to "do something with".

My dilemma is that there really aren't that many interesting projects for tshirts, unless you want to make them into a different kind of tshirt. I think the other options are
- bag
- scarf
- quilt
- pillow
None of these really appeal to me.

Lenuta & Spot

So far, the only thing I've done is make stuffed animals. But I'm thinking of making some underpants, and maybe a scarf or two?

It's hard having this much raw material and only a few notions of what to do with it. Expect a lot of art/crafts made from tshirts in the coming weeks!

If there are any cool tshirt projects you can think of (that don't involve knitting/crocheting) then please post them! Pretty please!

Fabric Challenge: Garden of Eden

The Psychedelic Garden of Eden Fabric Detail
(Click here to see entire fabric print)

While visiting, my sister gave me an awesome present - some fabric that she had gotten for me from a lady that "just had it in storage." (It seem everyone has secret awesome stuff in storage!)

It's about four yards of neon psychedelic polyester fabric, one yard width. The image you see here is a repeating border image that takes up more than half of the fabric, the top half is primarily neon pink with white doves and sometimes, flowers.

So, what kind of project should I do with this? Anybody have ideas?