One down 5 more to go ......

One of my neighbors emailed me a few weeks ago asking if I could make chair covers for her. I said yes without really thinking too much about it. The chairs are an odd shape is why she has not been able to buy covers. And she wants the covers because she is Indian and has 2 small children and apparently Indian food, though it tastes lovely, stains particularly bad. She said she now realizes why all the Indian moms she knew as a kid had the plastic covers on their chairs.

So she needed something that fits the chairs well but is washable. And will look nice in her new dining room. We settled on a price and set to work.

I have never before made chair covers without a pattern. And the whole reason she needed me to make the covers is the chairs are odd sized so I could not use a pattern. I was a little terrified. Until, I found mu inspiration, this great book Fabric Remix by Sandy Stone.  In is she shows you ways to use fabric to re-do things that is very creative and she makes it all sound so simple.

Step one: She brought the chair to my house. I made a pattern from it so that I could figure out how much fabric I need. Basically what I did was drape fabric over the chair and trace the lines of the chair. Then I had to measure out and draw in the seam allowances to make sure that the cover would be tight but have room to adjust if needed.

Step 2: Next I sewed the muslin pattern pieces together to see if the pattern worked. Fortunately it was mostly right on the first try and I just had to make a few small adjustments. So I estimated that we would need 2 yards of fabric for each chair.
These chairs are very tall and I decided I wanted to do the entire back in one piece. Each cover only has four piece, back, sides of the back and the seat.

Step 3: Go shopping for fabric. This was more challenging than my client expected, but I knew what we were in for. She fell in love with one fabric and then there was not enough of it. After a couple of hours she liked one fabric but wanted to make sure it was washable. So she took a sample home and washed it.

Step 4: Since the fabric washed well, I went back to the store to buy it. Fortunately it was still there and they happily cut 12 yards of it for me.

Step 5: Ignore and avoid this project for about a week. I admit I was nervous and was hiding from this project a little.
 
Step 6: Make the first cover. I have to admit it went so smoothly I was not sure why I ever doubted myself? I guess all artists / crafters question their abilities from time to time. But apparently I was up for the challenge.

So as of now I have one cover completely done and 3 more cut out so I just need to cut 2 more and get them done and delivered!

Peace Out - C

More stuff I have given away.....

A while ago I got his cute shark fabric thinking I would make kids aprons out of it so I could sell them. Well I would have been able to except I cut the apron out upside down. And the sharks are all swimming on their backs. Opps!

But I did at least find these mistake aprons a new home. I finished them quick and easy. And sent them to preschool with the Divine Miss M.  They were planning to make pancakes today so it worked out perfect.

M wanted to wear her apron to school so here she is modeling it for you. She also wanted to be able to tell the other kids who could wear the other aprons. I told her they belong to the whole class and she has to share ;) Will be interesting to see how the morning went.

If this were a close-up you would see that I just serged the exposed edges and used a long strip of bias tape to make the neck strap and waist ties.

Oh and yes M did get a haircut. I took her and she told the lady she wanted it short. She is loving it because she normally will not let anyone touch her hair or brush it. And I am loving it because it looks nice with a minimum amount of battling to brush it. 

Here is how it ties in the back. For quick and easy they turned out pretty cute. And I am sure they will get good use out of them.

Hope you are doing well.
Peace Out - C

Reorganizing my sewing room

My sewing office is a mess right now. I decided I need to reorganize. I have fabric in the bathtub, in the closet all over the floor. Yes basically everywhere.

I took almost everything out of the closet, went through it and started putting in back in. How do I have so much stuff?

Part of the problem is when I like a fabric I buy at least 3 yards of it. And I have trouble thinking small. I have tons of scraps that I have no idea what to do with.

I have a few books about scrap project but thinking small is such a struggle for me. So I gave a bunch to my friend Marla who uses them and a bunch to M's school. I also sorted through the scraps and the ones I am keeping are now sorted by size.

In addition to the actual supplies I have a ton of books, magazines, catalogs etc... that I like to keep around for inspiration.

Some of them I love and look through over and over again. Some I have not looked at in a while. But as you can see they are starting to overwhelm me a little. 

In addition to sewing space, some regular desk space would be nice. Hubby keeps asking why all my junk ends up on his desk, and really that is a good question.

Right now my grandmother's sewing machine is not working so I am using the cabinet that it is in as my computer desk. Funny in the picture my computer is not on the desk and is in fact on the floor and I am lying on the floor typing.

I went to Ikea and bought a bookcase (that my sweet hubby did most of the work on putting together). See all those nice magazine holders, they are actually holding all the magazines. And there are a few empty ones so I have room to grow a little.

I also go a new desk chair so that the dining room chairs can go back to the dining room, imagine!

I am hoping to finish the clean out today so that next week I can get a ton of sewing work done! Another goal is to not buy any more fabric for the rest of the year! Any bets on how long that one lasts?

Peace Out - C

Painting and Photography Classes

So in my search for who I am and what I want to do with myself I am taking a painting class and a photography class.

You guys saw where my painting started when I posted about that a couple of weeks ago. So here is where my painting is now.....

It is getting there but still needs loads of work. I only have one more class session so lets hope I can manage to get this thing done.

For the photography class I wanted to learn more about how to use my digital camera and take better pictures. I am working on focus and lighting.

I dragged a bunch of stuff I needed to take pics of for Etsy outside and took pictures of my products for practice. See how the zipper is in focus and the leaves are all soft and out of focus. I was actually trying to make that happen and it worked! Like Magic, crazy! I know.

This one was on accident but is a cool effect too. I was trying to get a close up of the bag and managed to get Miss M in the background. But she looks all soft and fuzzy rather than in focus.

So that is what I have learned so far. I need a lot more practice and maybe another lens for my camera and I will be off and running. Well shooting.... but that sounds funny.

Hope you are having a great day.

Peace Out - C

Why am I always trying to figure out what I want????

So this weekend I did the FolkFest over at the Atlanta History Center. I thought my little booth was pretty cute! And considering the fact that I did not have to pay a booth fee, I did alright. But I was a wee bit disappointed that I did not sell more items. Well such is life.

Lucky for you that I am working on listing stuff that I did not sell on Etsy. Here is a link to my shop: CLICK HERE. For the next week or so I will have FREE SHIPPING on all items. Even better if you are in the Decatur GA area I will bring it to you.

So what next? Do I want to go full on festival? Do I want to go big or go home? I really have hit the point where I need to decide what it is I want out of this little business. Is it for fun? Is it for profit? I am leaning a little towards the "go home" option. Turning your hobby into a business takes a little of the fun out of the hobby and ads a lot of chores of work to something that I used to be able to just walk away from.

Also I have been taking more custom orders. And I am not sure how I feel about that either. One is for chair covers and another is a skirt. These are both sort of fun challenges and things I would not do on my own. So maybe I go this route? And just do things for people on a job by job basis rather than having "inventory".

Any way... I am still for now working on Halloween and Holiday stuff and will just keep you posted on my life long quest to answer..."what the heck am I doing?"

Peace Out - C

Mama you paint so SLOW!

Over the weekend we went to my sister's house is Raleigh NC for the baptism of my nieces. A fun family time was had by all. We left Sunday to come home so that we could avoid terrible Labor Day traffic and have a nice day at home all to ourselves. It was a brilliant idea. After a couple nights of no sleep and a full day of kid play it was nice to have a non-stressful drive home. We even stopped at the outlet mall and went shopping since it was so easy breezy getting home.

Monday Marion and I decided to do a little painting. I had purchased several Halloween themed embroidery patterns from my fav little company Urban Threads. I printed them out to work on and since they do rather look like coloring pages I ended up letting Marion use them as such.

While I was rather meticulously painting my pumpkin she produced several works of "art". Apparently speed and quantity are the things she admires most in the production of art. While I was trying hard to make sure I was staying in the lines.

I am working on making trick-or-treat bags to sell with some of these designs on them. Since I did pay for the designs, Urban Threads is cool with this I checked. I am trying to use their designs as inspiration and make them my own but I do have to give them credit where their credit is due.  Plus their stuff is awesome and I could not have done it better so why not start there?

For this pumpkin I hand painted it and then I sewed over each of the black lines in sort of an applique / embroidery combo. I think it turned out pretty neat.

I hand painted this skull and reverse / appliqued it behind some felt. The outer of the bag is felt and the lining is the orange and white sort of floral damask I used to make the pumpkin bag. I think it turned out pretty fun.

This last one is not made into a bag yet. But I basically did a rough sketch of the original design and then thread traced it. I do not have an embroidery machine so I did all the tracing on a regular old sewing machine. Sort of like drawing with thread. It is not as detailed as the original design but I like it and think the abstractness actually adds a little creepiness.

I am really enjoying making these. Even though I had a little help with the designs I still feel like they are more creative and more unique than a lot of the things I have been doing (napkins, snack bags) and I am enjoying making some one of a kind pieces. I feel all artsy and creative rather than just pumping stuff out. The downside of course is that I have fewer items ready and I have no idea if people are going to like these. Only one way to find out...... I will be bringing them with me to the Folk Life Festival at The Atlanta History Center on Saturday. See you there!

Chrissy Weeks aka BEST Aunt in the World!!!!

So my nieces H & H are being baptized. And you know it is in a church and all. And well my oldest niece (she is 5) has her fav little stuffed animal buddy, Tiny Monkey and he is part of the family so he needs to come to the event. Apparently he did not have a thing to wear. And as all you sewers know the answer to that is "Aunt Chrissy, can you make a suit for Tiny Monkey?" How could I say no to those huge brown eyes? Both H and Tiny of course.

H & M wanted to make sure I knew what he looked like for his suit.

So I agreed to make a suit for a monkey. I was glad to hear that there was a back up monkey available for fittings, since the real deal lives very far away.

Back up Tiny Monkey in his natural state

The pants were easy, which is funny because I have a terrible time fitting pants on myself. I got them right the first try. No problem at all. I even remembered to put a tiny hole in the pants for his tail.

The shirt was easy too. But I admit I took the wheenie way out and did just a dicky rather than a real shirt. But I think the tie turned out nice.

On the fourth try I got the jacket right. Ok you try a set-in sleeve on this tiny of a suit coat. I did the whole thing out of felt I thought it was formal enough for the occasion and I did not have to worry about finishing the edges.

Monkey, Tiny Monkey (like Bond, James Bond) he he he he...am I the only one laughing??

I think over all he looks rather dapper. And I know my niece will be happy and her monkey will be properly dressed for the event. Now if we can just get all the non-monkeys to look this nice.

I think the pocket and pocket square just bump it up a notch, don't you?

Hope you have a great Labor Day! There is a TON of stuff going on in the ATL this weekend, Decatur Book Fest and DragonCon are my top 2 suggestions.

Peace Out - C