Preliminary of a Project

I told you a while back Here that I really wanted to build my own thread board.  I told you a couple weeks ago that I'd started it.

And right now is when I show you some preliminary pictures of it.  Nothing fancy--my camera is a basic digital that's about 8 years old.

Pictures!

I was going for a steampunk look because why not?  Even though it's a trifle ridiculous to have a steampunk thread board.  Steampunk!

So I chose a deep red color and a bronze and copper to be my main colors.  I aged the framing by painting it bronze first and letting it dry, then painting it a mid-brown color and quickly wiping off most of it, just giving the bare impression of aged wood grain/stain.  Then I swiped a bit of the copper over it for fun.  :)

The main board was painted the red and then I dry-brushed the copper over it.

And the reason I have these cool looking corners are because I'm terrible at doing frames (never done it before, I'll do better next time I promise!) and my corners didn't match up.  So making a virtue of necessity I followed a friend's advice and added metal bits.  After repainting them in copper.

(see my little terrible gears in the corner?  Aren't they awful?)

And here's a not so good close up of the center of the board

Yes.  That's my hand shadow.  Grr angle of sunlight.  Just concentrate on my lovely swirly paint job.  Yay!

I was hoping to have finished it today but that didn't happen because I was trying to put nails into the board to hang my thread spools on--only the nails didn't want to stay in and kept falling out.  So we go to plan B.

Umm....plan B?  Is there a plan B in the room?

Oh, you sir?  You think that putting screws in would do nicely?  Oh--ah, but I'd need to add bolts to keep them from falling out.  Right.  And if I wanted to have the screw head facing out instead of under the board--oh I see, then I'd need two bolts, one for each side.  Right.

Plan C anyone?

Crafts and Cleaning

Every so often I get one of those days where I feel inspired to do everything.

Or else I've just been putting it all off so long that it catches up with me.

Such was today.  :) 

I made a good start on my thread board--although I do believe I'd rather clean a whole gym's worth of toilets before I do a frame again.  They're evil.  Especially because I somehow miscalculated the amount of framing that I needed, so I had to cut my board down to fit the frames that I had.  Grrr.  But a little bit of sandpaper, a lot of glue, and some pretty copper and bronze and burgundy paint--not to mention a whole lotta nails--and I'll have the prettiest thread board ever.  :)  In about a week or so when I finish.

I also made good headway on a shirt re-design that I'm doing.  I was given a plain yellow blouse and I decided to do something interesting with it.  I cut it apart and redid the neckline to look something more like this:

 But without the skirt.  I think it'll be pretty nice when I'm done, so I'll try to post some pictures.

So much for the Crafty part of today.  But since the cleaning part is far less interesting, I will sum up with a few words: my room looks less like a disaster zone than it did.  Yay.  :)



Happy Birthday James MacAvoy!  Keep making fun films!  And even if you don't, yay for the ones you've made!

Colors!

So I said yesterday that I got a lot of thread.  I believe the number 101 was used in jest.

155.  No jest.  I counted.

But what to do with it all?  I can't just leave it spread all over my floor like it is now.  (so pretty!)

After countless hours wading through the Internet (one page of searching) I have found my answer.

Tada!

This lovely lady posted a very helpful tutorial Here. 

Is it not perfect?  All you need is a bit of peg board and some dowels and lots of wood glue.  The pretty trim on the sides is optional, but it may be hard to resist adding such squee-ness. 

And since I love having things in order, I'm making plans to make sure my threads will be organized by color.  Even the ugly ones.  I mean, I know a lot of this thread is old (50 years, some of it) but it pains me to see the 'avocado puke' color on a spool. 

(leetle blurry, but my camera was not made for extreme close ups)


Seriously?  Someone thought this was a good idea for a color?  And what on earth am I going to do with prom dress pink? 

Or Easter Rabbit purple? 

Search me.  But there is such a lovely collection of greens (emerald!)

and blues (all the colors of a monochromatic rainbow!)

and I'm sure I'll eventually have to used that greige color for something.  Maybe the next time I make a peasants outfit out of burlap.

Day of 101 Threads

Today was a long day.  Atypically for me, I actually went to work.  (yay getting paid!)  I was helping a friend of the family clean out certain parts of their house that hadn't been cleaned out for years.  In the specific case of their laundry room, it was 12 years.

It was a very long day.

The morning dawned bright and clear as our hero (heroine just makes me sound like a druggie) sallied forth to do righteous battle in the dark and gloomy cave of The Laundry Room.  Verily she stepped over heaps and mounds that had been left by the locals who had ceased trying to plumb its depths and now only threw more on top in order to appease The Laundry Room.  The piles resisted our hero's footsteps but she was armed with the shovel of Hard Work and armored with the breastplate of Persistence.

Hours passed whereupon the hero could be seen ferrying armfuls out of The Laundry Room--and she was mocked for it.  For if she were to carry all the piles out of The Laundry Room, would not the place where she carried them become a new Laundry Room?  But our hero was not dismayed.  She insisted on following the principles of 'throw it away if you haven't used it in ages,' and 'everything must be organized.'

Our hero grew weary but the task was still not done.  She began to bring the contents of The Laundry Room back inside it, and lo, the locals were afraid she would never reappear.  But even as the light heralds the dawn, so the sound of the vacuum cleaner heralded the end of the domination of The Laundry Room.  At long last the hero emerged triumphant and allowed the locals to do homage to her and shower her with many gifts.

And that is exactly how it happened.

Some of the gifts that I was showered with (ow ow ow ow) were part of the collection of the mother of the owner of the house.  She had been a dressmaker and the family still had a lot of her sewing supplies.  Most of them were given to me--and I couldn't say enough thank yous.  And although my post title says there were 101 threads, I actually have no idea how many are in the bag I brought home.  Probably less than 101.

But as my Bubby always says: Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

:)



UPDATE:  I've done some counting, and in total I have 155 new spools of thread.  Where on earth am I going to put you all...

I made a shirt!

I made a shirt today!  And almost finished it!  So exciting!

It is the most wonderful soft stretchy nylon mix and it is dark brown and oh so comfy!  I bought it on my last fabric run and I couldn't resist making something out of it.  So when I got up today I cleaned my room up (not too much work since I'd done a deep clean last week) in order that I could go into craft mode. 

Craft mode needs lots of space, and has been known to take up that space for months at a time--see Eowyn dress--much to the chagrin of my mother who believes in cleaning house every week promptly and thoroughly.  Sorry Mom.

So after cleaning I got out two different fabrics that I wanted to make things out of: the stretchy brown, and a most wondrous olive green cotton (think the softest designer t-shirt material, woohoo!).  I'd had the green for a while, but the brown just called to me more so I made it today.

Did I mention I made a shirt? 

Shirt!

It's just your basic long sleeve semi-casual, but the sleeves are extra long and widen out over the hands so that they flop nicely when I wave my arms, and the neckline is a sort of oval scoop neck, with the thin part of the oval pointing down.  Don't know what that's called, but it probably has a term.

So I cut it out and sewed it together, but then I had a quandary: should I add some floppy ruffly hems in a bright gold material that I had?  It might look quite nice. 

We can skip past all the agonizing and tilting of the head and considering and wishy-washing over what to do, and end with; I tried it out on one sleeve and didn't like it, so no gold fabric this time! 

Which is almost a relief because I think this might be the first simple project I've ever done.  No, seriously.

First sewing project was a bodice made from leftover jeans and my graduation gown (who ever uses those things again, anyway?) but I had to do it all by hand because I didn't have a sewing machine yet.  And it was the first thing I ever really made and I didn't have a pattern so it came out with some slight problems.  So Difficulty Level = High.

Second sewing project was a reproduction of a Napoleonic war era British officer's uniform from the 95th rifles.  (Sharpe's Rifles, anyone, anyone?  Bah.)  The real thing looks something like this:

(Sean Bean rules!) 

And mine came out like this:

11 hours on that braid alone, grumble grumble, and don't get me stared on the buttons.  There were nearly 60 of them!  And I should have done the braid first instead of the buttons, but guess what?  You don't really think about it until you've done it and then it's all 20/20 hindsight.  Oh, and there is a specialized sewing machine foot to do what I did with all that braid, only it's a million times easier.  Grr.  So Difficulty Level: Extreme.

My next project didn't come out so well.  My first time using a brocade fabric and I didn't double over the seams so it fell apart.  It was another bodice and it was so pretty!  'sigh.'  Still a bit of a bummer.  Difficulty Level: Fail.

I also made two winter cloaks, one with a very very long nap (nap, when referring to fabric, means the length/depth of the fabric.  Think of a really fuzzy material: the nap is the distance from the bottom of the fabric to the top) that kept getting caught on my sewing machine.  I had to keep a pair of scissors handy just to cut the fabric loose each time it snagged.  My sewing machine nearly committed hari kari after that one.  So Difficulty Level: High.  The other cloak had a far less fuzzy lining, so Difficulty Level: Moderate/Low.

I then decided to make a Steampunk jacket.  Steampunk is fun!  Piping is not.  Piping is evil.  Piping caused me to rip out my seams so many times I wore out my seam ripper.  Grr.  Came out pretty nice, though.

Check out my awesome sleeves!

So that was generally awesome, and Difficulty Level = High.

Next was a light summer shirt where the sleeves were laced up with ribbon from the elbow all the way to the shoulder.  Very nice, very awesome, but I lacked proper tools to punch holes for the eyelets, so Difficulty Level = Moderate.

Now, the Eowyn dress.  There was so much difficulty there I almost don't want to even list it I'd feel so depressed.  It was my first time using an embroidery machine, and since there was no pattern for Eowyn's embroidery, I had to make it up myself, using two patterns from online; slicing and dicing and generally getting very frustrated for 11 straight house.  And then I could actually start using the patterns to make what I wanted, so another 10-15 hours to do that.  And then my grommet tool broke and I had to improvise and etc etc, Difficulty Level = High.

 (but so pretty and fun to wear)

Somewhere in the middle of all of that I also tried to make a pair of boot slippers for myself and failed.  Made a pair of moccasin slippers for my Mother and succeeded.  Tried to make a pair of lace up leggings that were also a failure.  Succeeded in making two Christmas stockings for my sister.


Whew.  I'd almost forgotten all the things I've made over the last three years.  I almost feel accomplished!


Which leads us to my latest endeavor: brown shirt.  Difficulty Level: Low.

The closest project to make to match that was the second winter cloak: moderate/low difficulty level.  But now I can say that I've done a basic sewing project!  Woohoo!

Anyone else get the idea that I've been going about this all backwards?  Perhaps I should have started with the easy shirt....

(pictures forthcoming)

Does anyone want to give me an Embroidery Machine?

They look kinda like this:

They're awesome.  They automatically embroider cool designs onto whatever you want.  (within reason.  And you need to buy the patterns.  And a couple other things that make it a bit of a hassle)

Believe me, I know.  I borrowed a friend's machine to help make me this:

It's me as Eowyn at a Renaissance faire!  I made that!  Except for the hat.  I'm in a funny hat shop!  

But let me tell you, the embroidery machine can be evil.  Of course, I insisted on designing my own pattern and it took me near 24 hours from start to finish....

Which is why I never again want to have to design my own patterns if I'm doing embroidery.

This is where the internet become my friend.  Not too long ago I found a really cool website that specializes in awesome embroidery patterns.  And when I say awesome, I mean that in their website charter it specifically states that they wanted to design things that would be used in actual fashion: not just potholders.

Their patterns range from the beautiful:

To the adorable:

 (just tell me you can resist saying awwww.  I dare you)

To the humorous:

To the geeky:

To the just plain weird:

And did I mention their wonderful assortment of steampunk?

Thought I hadn't.  :)

And this is only the smallest sampling of all the inexpressibly cool and awesome and wonderful patterns that they have.

After my last project I knew it would take a lot for me to ever want to use an embroidery machine again.   Well, it seems 'a lot' has occurred.  And it is mind-numbingly pretty.

Now all I need is an embroidery machine....


 And Happy Birthday to Levar Burton and Christopher Eccleston!  The both of you represent the beginning and the current sci-fi geekery that is my life.  Go Star Trek: The Next Generation!  Go Doctor Who!

Click Here for Urban Threads (the website I've been going on and on about)