Love Thy Window

My boyfriend and I live in an apartment near campus, and as many of you know, it is hard to make an apartment your own with minimal holes in the walls and no paint. But this is where my love of fabric and texture can really take center stage. Our bedroom has an East facing window. I love waking up with the sun (most of the time), but in the summer, this means waking up as early as 6. No thank you.

Our blinds fixed most of the problem, but the sun would manage to sneak through the minimal slits anyway. I decided that with my new sewing machine, I'll make curtains!

Why not? It seems easy enough. All the seams will be straight. I took a textiles class just this past year about calculating the yardage. This seemed like a very doable project!

Well, about a month later, I am finally done! And I love the results!

You like it? I sure do! They are light enough not to weigh down our small bedroom, but thick enough to diffuse the sunlight. 

Let me just go over a couple of my difficulties:

I am impatient. That creates a problem in and of itself. I found the perfect fabric.

I bought 3 yards before calculating how much I would really need. As I started sewing it, I figured out I had just enough, and continued on my way.  I decided to sew the top hem first (which is now the bottom hem), then sew the sides. See the dilemma yet? Yeah I did- AFTER I already did it. Sewing the side hems prevented a rod from going through. 

Then I thought, well now it can just be the bottom hem! A few more calculations later, I realized with this giant bottom hem (which I now love), that I was now in a fabric deficit. A few weeks later, and I pick out the solid aqua to match. This was WAY better than I had imagined! 

Going back, I would have had both fabrics, and sewn them together. THEN side hems before anything else! And lastly I would have cuffed the bottom hem and added the top one for the rod.

Its all experience right? And even with the odd way of putting them together, I am rather fond of my new curtains.

Mr Sun, tomorrow I will choose when we say hello :)

Sew Happy!

... That I have my new sewing machine!

 

It was a graduation gift from my mama. :)

I have been wanting one basically since my grandma taught me to use one in like Elementary school. And now it is mine!

I got this thing yesterday, and have already gotten busy with some old clothes I found in my {overstuffed} closet. Wanna see?

 

This scarf was a pair of warm albeit large and ugly pair of sweatpants. I cut stitching off and made 4 rectangular panels {front and back of each leg}. I then took two panels, sewed them end to end, and did the same for the other. I placed these now extra long panels on top of each other, and sewed with a straight stitch all the way down the middle of the length. {Actually I sewed from end to middle seam, and again from the other end} I then pulled to top stitch by hand to scrunch the fabric from both ends, working my way to the middle, and tied off and cut the remainder thread. Voila! A new {very cozy} scarf.

Next was a tank. A tank I love. It fits me perfectly, is soft and just perfect. 

Except for these little guys that decorated the top:

 They were starting to fall off, and they weren't even that great looking to begin with. Here is the shirt after I took a seam cutter to it. {I don't have a before picture, I thought about it too late.}

Cute right? 

But now it needed something else. A little extra to make it a loved item in my closet once again.

 Flowers? Yes please. I love them. I love real ones, fabric, origami. Doesn't really matter. flowers are wonderful.

So let me add some to my newly stripped tank:

Like? I love!

I used a {newly bought yesterday} rotary cutter to slice up an old tee into strips. This tee also happened to be grey. The same exact grey. This was totally meant to happen :)

These strips I sewed down the middle and scrunched, just like my new scarf above. I then loosely spiraled them and placed them on my tank. I then hand sewed them on, which took all of 10 minutes. 

With summer finally kicking in here in Oregon, I will say this is going to be worn a little too much :)

Hopefully this is the first of many sewing adventures I go on with my new sewing machine as I teach myself {with a little help from all of those other crafty blogs out there!} to make more lovely things!

Where's Waldo? {or reasons to decorate your grad cap}

This is what my graduation will look like this Saturday. Yup, I get to walk into Reser Stadium, among countless others, sit, stand, receive my diploma without my name even being called. And friends and family are coming to witness this..... or try to. 

I debated long and hard about decorating my cap. I didn't for high school, and I was really considering against it again. 

Until I talked to my professor. She explained that decorating a cap is a nice way for your friends and family to find you in the crowd of black. Good point.

So my new decision was how. How on earth was I going to decorate my cap. In a way that both reflected my personal style, and that I wouldn't cringe at later on in life when I reminisce over pictures. My plan?

Keep it simple, sweetie.

Yup, that is my plan, and let me show you how I interpreted it:

Oh yeah, did I mention that my college {Health and Human Sciences} has pink tassels for its "school color"? Yes, yes it does!

I wanted something that wasn't necessarily permanent, so this is actually scrapbook paper. I found this awesome paper a couple years ago at either Michaels or Creative Crafts, a local Corvallis craft store. It is already a cut design, letting the black cap show through, to create an awesome black and white top! The paper was a 12x12, so I simply used a pencil to follow the curves so it fit inside the cap's perimeter, and cut away. It was handy as well, because I was able to center a part of the cut part right over the tassel button, so no extra cutting was needed there! 

After doing this, I decided the cap needed just a little something to pull the look together. So I pulled out ribbon that I was originally going to use for my graduation announcements {and later decided against}, and used it as a border. This I also got at Creative Crafts. This little ribbon shows off my school colors {Powered by Orange!} while matching nicely with the vividness of the pink tassel. Both the ribbon and paper were attached with double stick tape, but I must admit glue dots would be MUCH easier. Unfortunately I did not have any on hand right then, and I am an impatient artist. 

Now my family can find me among the masses with their zoom lens cameras and binoculars!

What do you think? What did or will you do for a graduation cap?