Dog Kerchief

This is Penny. She's my dog niece. I bought the fabric a few months ago. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to make with it, but I knew it would be for her. I thought a kerchief might be nice. I found this one, that I liked.

Because Penny is 65 pounds I had to up size the one from the website. I knew Penny wore a collar that was up to 20 inches in size. Since the one on the website was 16 inches I calculated the 4:5 ratio and did a little math.

I ended up cutting out two 11.25" x 12" pieces of fabric. When it came down to folding the flap down to make the casing for the collar to go though I opted for 1 3/4" instead of the 1 1/2" she used.

I have to say that after my previous two projects this one was incredibly fast and easy to make.  If I were to make her another, I might opt to make it a curve instead of having the 45° angle cut to it. That little tiny flap tends to fold up anyway. But, damn it, she looks good!

Fueling My Laziness

Our bedroom, though the largest in the house, is crowded. Between the excessive furniture; queen size bed, two nightstands, and two dressers, one of which is monstrous, there's also an eight foot closet. Which means there's very little wall space to put anything else in the room.

On the wall, between the closet wall and my nightstand, I have a lovely earring holder that Joe built for me. Below that I have a row of hooks where I keep my necklaces, bracelets, and anklets (yes, I still wear anklets occasionally). And, then, below that is our trash can, because that's the only place the damn thing fits.

Of course, I'm paranoid that my jewelry is going to fall in the trash can, so there is a piece of cardboard that lays on top of the can to block it. Now, for the most part the only thing we throw away in the bedroom are the occasional Kleenex and alcohol wipes from doing morning and bedtime shots. We're both diabetic, you see.

Part of the reason I'm a Type 2 Diabetic is because I'm lazy. One of the things I'm lazy about is not getting back out of bed to throw away the trash from doing my shot (I'm short, it's a pain to crawl in there repeatedly). So, then it piles up on my nightstand, and, every so often Joe comes along and throws it away for me.

Well, I'm also lazy about putting my jewelry away, so imagine my chagrin that last time I put it all away and I was missing an earring. A brand new pair that I got to wear at my college graduation. Ugh. He threw it away with the trash from my nightstand. I had to dig through the trash can to find it, but there it was. It's been cleaned and is on the holder now. Joe put a tray on my nightstand for jewelry, but the trash was still driving us both nuts.

So, my big fix was to make this little bin. I made it last night and put finishing touches on it this morning. It will go on my nightstand. I will put my trash in it and once a week I will take the trash out. In fact, I think I'm going to get rid of the trash can under my jewelry, too. Yeah, see, it will make the room feel bigger. I didn't just do it so I could continue to be lazy. Ooh, wait, no, that's exactly why I did it. Apparently, I'll be productive just to produce more laziness. Either way, it turned out cute and is totally functional.

Knifty Knitter Project-Completed

Okay, so it took me a lot longer than I hoped, but I finished it.  

It was a giant pain in the butt, but I'm still glad I made it.  It's ugly up close.  My stitches are messy. 

 The pockets ended up larger than I planned.  Still not sure how I did that, since my hubby and I both worked the numbers, but apparently the rules of physics don't apply in my craft room.  I added some velcro strips to hold the big pockets closed and it looks much better.

Regardless of all that, I love it!  So much better than having that damn red bin in the way every time I want to do something.  And, having to dig through it was a nightmare, so woo!  I got the idea for the pockets based on this video I found.  

Knifty Knitter containment

          Okay, so I have a Knifty Knitter set, actually, I have three of them.  Two of the round sets and one of the straight sets.  I've had them for years.  I like the concept, but I just don't seem to use them.  I've decided part of this is because they don't store well.  
          As you can see from my current situation, above, it is chaos.  They're just shoved in the bin.  They don't even fit in it really.  So, then the bin doesn't fit anywhere.  The shelve, that I used to use those bins in, has been repurposed as yarn storage sans bins.  It's open and I can see the yarn better.  So, this bin has been tucked in the closet getting in the way of everything because it's not contained (I have all my fabric hung on the closet rod and they catch on the protruding parts).  It's a pain to have to pull everything out to get to the one you want to use.  
          My goal is that this will be the before picture.  I've designed, hopefully accurately, a new storage system that will hang from a hanger in the closet next to the fabric and out of the way.  One side will have two large pockets to store the round looms, thankfully they nest, and the other side will have five long pockets.  Four of the pockets will be for the looms and the smallest will be for the loom tool.  
          I haven't sewn much lately, and this seems like a large project to me.  I'm making the holder out of broadcloth, but it's a little thin.  I've not used interfacing before, so I'm sticking with my standard of flannel for beefing it up.  I'm going to have to make each side with it's corresponding pockets and then sew the two together adding the straps needed to attach it to the hanger.  Not counting the straps it's eighteen different pieces of fabric.  Ugh.  I've got eight cut out so far.  
          I'm hoping to get the others cut tonight, but I'm getting lazy and I've already snuck off to tell you about it, even though no one is actually reading this blog.  Makes me think of the Demotivators poster about procrastination.  Something about hard work paying off after time, but laziness pays off now.  Word.  Back to the trenches.  At least I have my iPod to listen to while I cut.  Do people still have iPods?

Time flies!

Well, so much for consistency in blogging.  Ha!  I've been meaning to get back to this blog for ages.  

When my brother and his family moved in with us, I had to give up what was going to be my craft room.  When they moved out I was able to reclaim it.  I affectionately call it, my croffice.  I've been working on getting it organized and fully moved into for months now.  I'll get something in place and think I'm making progress, but then something else comes in or I realize that something was only placed temporarily and have to move it again.  It's like a 3D life-size game of Tetris.

Thursday and Friday I finally finished organizing my bead/jewelry stuff into new bins and getting them tucked away in their new spot.  Of course, they went where some yarn had been.  I had yarn that I had bought when I was married to my first husband (next month we'll have been divorced fifteen years) that I still hadn't done anything with, so I gave it away to a very grateful hooker (affectionate nickname for people who crochet).  

Since the beads were out and I was consolidating packages, etc into the new bins, I decided it would be good if I actually made something, so Thursday I made the watch necklace.  I love how it turned out.  It's got a little weight to it because I had to make it so long, but, damn it, I'm getting old and the eyes just aren't what they used to be.  That was the worst thing about turning 40.  Like clockwork, my eyesight got worse just as my optometrist predicted. 

 

Friday I was apparently in a green/Celtic mood and a necklace and several earrings.  I'm not in love with the ones on the right, but I love the left and bottom pairs.

It's been a while since I made any jewelry.  I like the new bins and think they are accessible enough that I can get to use the croffice more for crafting.  I have quite a few sewing projects I want to work on, too, so fingers crossed it won't be four and a half years before I post again.  Yikes!

Today's craftiness

So, I have managed to work on my crafts over the last week, BUT not necessarily finish anything.  I am close on something I did a few days ago.  Just need to sew on some snaps for that one. 

But today I managed to crank out this tissue holder for my niece's car.  She loves Hello Kitty.  And who doesn't like having Kleenex on hand just in case.  I modified the dimensions from this tutorial.  It was for a small pack to carry in a purse and I wanted one for my car.  This is the third one I've made.

I'm gonna count this as crafty...

Okay, so I didn't do anything new today, but I did wash and press the cross stitch I finished yesterday.  I also got it into a frame.  So...here it is!  What do you think?  Besides the fact that my french knots need help!