All posts filed under: Arts Crafts & Hobbies

Grandma’s Fabric Stash

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My grandma passed away a little over a year ago. She was the most amazing lady in every way; plus she was a super crafter. From knitting to sewing to doll-making, beading, cooking, and baking… she did it all! She also ran a ceramic shop for many years.  We grew up with handmade dolls, sweaters, afghans, ceramic ornaments… basically everything you can think of that can be made by hand.  Looking back to 2003… I had gone off to college. Among other things, a couple of my friends and I decided to join a crochet club. It was called STITCH (which stood for “Students Taking Initiative To Crochet Hats”). Awesome, I know. They taught me to crochet. Then I went home that Christmas and had my grandma teach me how to knit. She gave me my first pair of knitting needles and they are still my favorite! I cannot even say in words how glad I am for that time that I was able to spend with her and the fact that I gained a …

Christmas Crafting

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No better time than the holidays to get your crafting on. Here are a few things I’ve worked on recently: #1. Fabric Ruffle Garland This started out because I was trying to make a backdrop for our Christmas card photo. I cut strips of the leftover fabric I had from Grumpy’s costume, left the edges raw, and put my sewing machine to work. No need for a ruffle foot (maybe one day I will actually look up what that is)… just set it to a long straight stitch and bump the tension up to 9 (as I learned here). The ruffles worked out great (SP15)… but the backdrop was a work in progress and looked something like this: Not exactly what I was going for… so I used the fabric strips as garland instead: #2. Merry Christmas Banner (see above)… with this as my inspiration, I cut the letters from leftover shiny paper I had from making the Evil Queen’s mirror for our Snow White Halloween display at the pharmacy and put it together with …

No-Sew Fabric Box

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I will definitely be making more of these now that I have loads of scrap fabric lying around. Basically just followed this with a Keurig K-cup box… but with fabric instead of paper and glue instead of tape. Anything that makes just a little bit of my world more organized makes me happy.   Here’s the making of:     

Bark and Wine

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Last night was BDAR’s 3rd Annual Bark & Wine event! It’s a big fundraiser for the pups at the Historic Hynds Building in Cheyenne… there was food, a band, tons of silent auction items and of course wine and adoptable pups… plus one live auction at the end that we had a very hard time not bidding on (it was a week-long vacation at a luxury Steamboat cabin that held up to 12 people). I had my reluctant sidekick with me (Danny) – we decided on two items and I put down a few other bids but got out-bid on everything but one – a photo of one of the Union Pacific trains. We’ve started collecting photos and such from places that we go… so this one will be a good Cheyenne memory :) OH, they also had a “Name a Foster Dog” donation thing going on… so Danny donated to name a pup Donut… I just can’t wait to see who they decide to give the name to. I made two items for the auction… a …

Seven Dwarf Costumes

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Seven Dwarf Costumes – Part Three Tunics and Hats! (see also: belts and shoes) Also, a fun word that I learned in the process of making these: armscye aka the armhole, refers to the opening to which the sleeve is sewn. Who knew!? (well, probably a lot of people… but not me!) So here’s my makeshift pattern (not to scale) and process. Each tunic used approximately 3 yards of fabric; some a little more some a little less depending on the size. For Dopey’s tunic, it ended up taking a full 5 yards of fabric. I used solid flannel for 5 of the tunics and broadcloth for the other 2. STEP ONE: GET MEASUREMENTS Here are the measurements I took from each individual for the tunics: Length from neck to knee (or however long they wanted the tunic) Shoulder width Arm length (shoulder to wrist) Abdominal circumference (I used this both for the belt and the tunic) STEP TWO: MAKE PATTERN AND CUT FABRIC Note: I only ended up needed to make one pattern to go along with …