From the Archives (and by The Archives, I mean my brother's closet)

I just found an old shirt I figured I might be able to craft a blog post around, so let’s see how it goes.

I actually screenprinted this tee at the apex of the House of Holland craze- hence the huge block letters- but it got lost among my little brother’s things until this morning. (This actually isn't as strange as it sounds- 95% of his wardrobe is black, so it was kind of a natural place for this shirt to end up.) The lettering might be a little passé by now but, fortunately for yours truly, no one in the Midwest really knows who Henry Holland is and they’ll probably just think I bought the shirt at Forever21.

In the future I’ll have to remember that $.99 paint doesn’t show up terribly well on black cotton, but I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a surefire excuse to bust a move AND some witty commentary on fossil fuel dependence. Which reminds me, if you represent a news organization and happened to fall in here by mistake:

Please stop telling me about the primaries. Knowing who won in New Hampshire won’t help me make up my mind, but knowing what the candidates think about things would be incredibly helpful. Oh, I also don’t care if Hillary cries or how many times anyone said “change” in the facebook debate. Kthx.

Knitted Stuffed Elephant

This is Elgar the Elephant, whom I knitted for my cousin's new baby for Christmas.


I got the pattern from this book, which is full of really beautiful patterns that don't take a lot of time. The stuffed animal patterns (they also include one for a teddy bear and for a bunny) are supposed to take between six and eight hours but Elgar probably took me closer to 10 because I'm not terribly diligent. I'm really happy with how he turned out, especially because the project involved a lot of techniques that I had to learn as I was working on it.

I was pretty sad to see him go, even though it was really rewarding to see the baby laugh and cling to him. I might have to make myself the little bunny to ease the pain.

---

This has nothing to do with crafting (except maybe I'll knit on the bus) but I get to see my boyfriend in 3 days and I'm super excited. :)

black shirt recon

So last night I broke out the sewing machine that I got for Christmas. After totally botching a huge grey t-shirt that I'd been saving for a project, I took a deep breath and turned to a plain black T, size Youth L, that I bought at Michael's over the summer. I'd been waiting for some inspiration for the shirt, and an old Urban Outfitters catalog plus some geniuses on livejournal gave me the idea for some quick changes.

For the back of the shirt, I cut a deep V from the shoulder seam down to about the small of my back and hemmed it up. The black band was originally meant to hold the shirt up and together, but I realized afterwards that it actually covers up a bra band, which is pretty handy. I just realized that there's a lovely toilet backdrop in this picture, haha.

The front:

Here's the design- a white grand piano with some vines coming out, music notes and a happy pair of stencilkids. I drew sections of the design on freezer paper, cut them out with an Xacto knife, ironed on the paper and painted over it. In the past, my screenprinting attempts have usually ended up with a few mistakes, but this time the paint seemed to stay pretty much inside the lines.

And here's a more detailed picture of the couple in the stencil. I think they're pretty cute and I have to show off because I drew/cut this about 50 times before it actually worked.


I think it's one of the best stencils I've ever done and, since I have a machine now, the best sewing job by far. I'm really excited to dig out some more old clothes to play with, hopefully yielding some more pieces to share.

knit blanket for Christmas

For my first real post, here are some pictures of the blanket I knit J for Christmas. It was knit (and crocheted around the edges) on a huge round needle using about 7 different kinds of yarn. The colored stripes switch off between garter and stockinette, so it has a bunch of different textures. All together, I'd estimate it's about 6x7 or 8 feet. I can wrap it around me a bunch of times and there's plenty of length on the floor when I stand up with it. I'm a little bit jealous that J gets to keep it, but I do get to cuddle with it whenever I'm at his place.



If you're short on time, I wouldn't really recommend knitting anything bigger than a small throw on a deadline. I got in the habit of working on it everytime I sat down for a few minutes, but it added up to a lot of hours. J loves it, though, so it was worth the several times I almost set it on fire.