Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Holy Crap on a Cracker it is cold!

Halloween in GA is usually a pretty safe bet that you will be sweating through your costume. However this year because of old Sandy we have been having bizarrely cold temps. I even busted out my UGGS. And they are ugly as heck, but I like to have warm feet so when it is actually cold I do wear them.

Since this weather caught us by surprise, the Divine Miss M did not have a warm jacket that fit at all. She was wearing sweatshirts and little hoody jackets and was just fine.

A couple of years ago I bought 10 yards of this love bird fleece that I fell in love with. And I also fell in love with this pattern McCalls M5743.

It is so easy to make and comes out crazy perfect, every time. I have made several changes to it and it is just so versatile that I use it over and over. My two older nieces and a few clients have all gotten love bird jackets from me.

M and I went shopping and the people at the store pissed me off. So instead of buying her a jacket we went home and I made her one.  I mean seriously you don't have a dressing room? What is that? The whole reason we came to the store is to try clothes on! If I wanted to buy a bunch of stuff and roll the dice as to whether it fit or not there is this thing call the internet and that is what it is for. And yes she could have tried on a jacket without a dressing room. But it was the principle of the thing! Ok back to making a cute jacket.

The only thing that has ever been a challenge with this pattern is the button holes. Apparently two layers of fleece is just a little too much for my machine. The pattern calls for three little buttons at the top. But M likes BIG buttons and lots of them so added more and spread them out. This handy little gadget lets you evenly space button holes without having to actually measure. And we all know how much I do not like actually measuring anything.


My machine was ok on the first 3 button holes. But it just gave up on me in the end. I had to do my own tight zig zag stitch and fake the last 2 holes. They actually came out looking better. So next time I make this coat (and we all know there will be a next time) I will just make faker button holes. Basically I make my machine go through the steps of a 4 step button holer even though it does the fancy automatic ones. Next machine I buy will have an old fashion 4 step button holer! Fancier is not always better. See how you put the button in the back of the foot and it measures it for you and everything. Well it is all good in theory but that foot gets hung up on think fabric really easily.

I got the jacket done (from start to finish in about 3 hours) and M was kind enough to model it for me.


 This is what you get when you ask a 5 year old to smile.


Hope you guys have a safe warm Halloween! I am trying to get my Halloween Spirit on so I hope to have some good pics for you tomorrow.

Peace Out - C



 

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Halloween 2012, Part 1

Those of you who know me personally know I LOVE HALLOWEEN. In general it is the best idea ever. You get to dress up in a costume! You get to celebrate all things weird, spooky and macabre. Macabre is one of my favorite words. Look I even spelled it right, I think.

I say this post is "Part 1" because as usual our Halloween celebrations are many fold. Last weekend was he first test run of our costumes. E & M have new matching costumes, but due to budget cuts and time constraints, lack of creativity and a dash of laziness I am tweeking and re-wearing an oldy but a goody.

I made Marion's Lorax costume out of orange fake fur. I can tell you it is not my favorite material to work with! Every time you cut into it, it all goes POOF and flies everywhere. I was tasting orange fur for two days after I made it.

I pulled out a jump-suit pattern I had used for M's costume last year and quickly discoverd she is MUCH taller this year. I had to add over 4 inches to it and make some other modifications to make it more Lorax-y.

I added a big butt, since the Lorax has a chubby rear that he lifts up to dramatically fly away.

I also decided to make it sleeveless. Because we do live in GA and even a sleeveless furry suit will most likely be too hot on Halloween.

I made a hood out of stretchy orange material also to make it a little less hot. The signature Lorax eyebrows are made of felt as well as the mustache. The mustache is a little too big. But it is hard to properly measure and fit things on a wiggly 5 year old. I plan to make some adjustments before our next appearance this Sunday at the Home Grown Decatur Halloween Parade.

Here she is posing with the class scarecrow (that I also made), but that is a whole other post. Sadly this is the best picture I have so far. The mustache needs work and she took off the costume after about 30 minutes because it was HOT out.

The Onceler was a little more successful. But by the end of the festival his hat and gloves were off and he looked a little melted. When I measured for the jacket he was wearing different pants!! I should have made it a little longer. We need to work some kinks out of this outfit as well.


The Onceler and the Medium Witch in the school cafeteria. Picture taken by a young artist.

Hope that we there will be fun had by all tomorrow at the parade. And that we get some better pictures! However M & E are sick so we will see how this all shakes out.

Later Peeps!
Peace out, C





Thursday, October 18, 2012

More Bandana Headbandy-ness

Back in April 2011 I did this post about turning a bandana into a less bulky headband. And strangely it still gets about 50 hits a day with people looking for info on bandana headbands. So the last time I was ordering up some fabric I saw bandana print fabric and added a few yards to the old shopping cart.

Then I had to come up with some sort of pattern to cut out and make the headbands so I worked on that for a while and here is what I came up with.

I do not have any where near as much hair as I did when I first did that post in 2011 but it still looks pretty cute on.

It is really hard to take a picture of yourself/ I need a tripod or something. Or to you know remember to take pictures when other people are around or something like that.

I look more cheerful in this one. But you can see the headband less and my need for make-up more.

Alas I think you get the general idea.

I am selling these little beauties for $10.00 each over at HomeGrown, in Decatur GA. If you are interested in one and are not able to get over to our lovely little store, email me directly (c@chrissyweeks.com) and I will see what I can do to get you one. Right now I have dark blue, teal and read ones made and in the shop. But I am thinking about other colors and such once I see if they sell well.

Happy Thursday!
Peace Out - C

Friday, October 12, 2012

Firemen Pin-Up Dolls

In the past week I have made Halloween Costumes, Shirts, Napkins all sorts of crap for other people and the shop and nothing for myself. And well this project was not really for myself but was fun and stress relieving ... so it broke me out of my sweatshop grumpy funk.

I got this really funny Alexander Henry fabric, with fireman pin-ups on it. And I just wanted to make something out of it. I have seen them sewn into little pillow dolls before, but that just did not seem like enough to me. So I came up with the idea to add word bubbles to them. I have some printable fabric so I spent about an hour yesterday coming up with funny sayings for the firemen and printed them out. All that was left was to cut and sew. It was so much funner than cutting out squares for napkins that I was actually happy to cut out squares today since I had so much fun yesterday.

I know, I know but I just could not resist. So freakin funny, right?!?


These beauties will be on sale at Homegrown Decatur soon. I have the Holiday Pin-ups waiting to but cut for the holidays. And if anyone knows a shop that has some of the lumberjack pin-ups in stock leave me a comment. I have the construction workers and cowboys on order.

Have a great weekend!
Peace Out - C

Monday, October 8, 2012

New stuff over at HomeGrown Decatur

I was doing so good. I was posting on an a rather regular basis and making cool stuff. It is rather ironic that my last post (over a week ago) was about getting a lot done. I have had time to write posts and get stuff done I just have not felt like talking about it.  Occasionally that is the down side of having a blog, I just get tired of hearing myself talk. But it passed and here I am again.

I thought I would let you all know that I do have my stuff back over at Home Grown in Decatur once again. Tomorrow is my first day working in the shop! So if you are around stop by and say Hi. I will be there 10-2. If you ever want to check the schedule and see if me or any of your other favorite artists art working just check here.

Here are some pics of the things I have over there right now.

Headbands


Dinner Napkins


Lunch or Cocktail size napkins.
Tote Bags. These are an updated version, the handle is longer and each bag is completely reversible. There is a super cute little hidden pocket in the lining of the bag that is perfect for your cell phone and keys.


In progress and coming to the store soon are:

Sandwich and snack bags. I have changed my lining. Now they are lined in fabric that is not totally waterproof but it is nylon or rip stop and will hold up well. The cost of the polyurethane fabric was just getting too high.


I do have a few more items in the works and hope to get them over to Home Grown soon. I am also working on planning to be at some holiday craft shows. I will keep you posted.

I have some Halloween costumes and personal projects to work on too. When I was deciding if I was going to go back to Home Grown or not we decided it was important that I also make time for some personal sewing projects. Because if I make sewing only about business I don't love it.

Here is a sneak peak at Marion's Halloween costume. Can you guess what she is going to be?