fairyguts – Page 13 – No Chaos No Order

Silk painting 092610

Posted on September 27, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random .

So, I think I’ve finally caught up on all the things I’ve finished so far that I wanted to share with the world. Now, what I’ve really been wanting to do, which is post as I’m working on projects. Yay! So, here’s one that came out of nowhere…

My boyfriend arrived home one evening last week with a silk painting kit. I’d never contemplated silk painting, but now I needed to. As soon as possible. So, today I worked through the kit. The kit came with two long silk scarves and I believe his mom put in two silk handkerchiefs.

Since the mordant could only be mixed up once, I felt like I had to paint all the items to fix at the same time. I decided to paint flowers on the handkerchiefs, but the paint spreads much more than I thought it would, even as it continues to dry.

anemone

orchids

For the really long scarves, I decided to play with the spreading. Since the scarves were laying on plastic bags, the way the dye spread was pretty cool. On the stripy scarf, I sprinkled rock salt, which is supposed to marbalize the dye as it dries. On the blotchy scarf (my favorite so far), I experimented with scrunching up the plastic and a water spray bottle.

blotchy

Now, I have to wait 24 hrs for them to dry. I’ll iron them (to heat set the dye) and then swish them around in a mordant. Let them dry and then iron again and they should be rather pretty.

… I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them, though… But silk painting was fun! I can’t claim that I’m an incredible artist w/lifelike representations, but its hard to make anything ugly with such pretty colors!

I’ve seen instructions on how to paint on a frame, which would eliminate some of the spreading artifacts. And there were instructions on how to use a resist to keep colors from combining. So, I think this is a technique I’ll be able to use in future costumes.

Camp box: Complete!

Posted on September 26, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random .

So, I finally finished my camp box enough to put stuff in it! I still would like to put a vinyl top on the primary work surface and get/make some little shelves/drawers, but figure I’ll do that when I a) plan another camping trip and b) have some extra funds that aren’t needed for my automatic cat feeder. Here are some pix!

This is as far as I got in my woodshop class – milled and cut the wood out (with many mistakes) and initially assembled. In this picture you can see that the screws are the steel/zinc (?) ones. This photo is in my craft room, after moving from Beaverton. I’d had those things in my car since January..

pieces of the camp box

Now we’re at the Davis’ Compound Wood Shop where I have finished cutting and assembling my inner box. After I had it all dry assembled, I took it apart, glued the pieces down and used pretty brass screws.

inner box assemled

Here is the whole-y assembled box. This is what you’ll take out of your car.

whole box

Slide the outer frame off and place where you want your cooking station to be.

base

Slide the sides off the inner box …

sides

… and place them where you’d like. Here, one is set on top of the outer frame as a side-counter, and one as a bottom shelf.

more sides

Then place your inner box on top of the outer frame and – wa-la! – you have access to all your cooking gear with room to work!

done

1950’s red dress

Posted on September 11, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

Saddly, I have already altered this dress once to fit my smaller size and need to do it AGAIN! SHEESH!

But, it’s pretty awesome. This is the first dress I made using my duct-tape body double and it fit perfectly (at the time). Since then, I’ve donated the double to Fat Fancy (an awesome resale store in Portland) and am waiting until I get to my “optimal” weight and can maintain that for a while before I build another one…

SO! Here are some finished pictures of it!

Here I am in my Red Dress!

with apron

Spur-of-the-moment Fairy Costume

Posted on August 26, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

This was a fun, spontaneous costume! The girl I made it for had a beautiful leather mask with opalescent colors to it, so we went down to the local fabric store and picked out fabric. She wasn’t really interested in flowers, or butterflies, or ruffles, lace, etc. So, to give the costume some vibrancy we seleceted three fabrics which I pieced together before sewing the garment. She loved it!

Putting the fabric together to make each pattern piece

Putting the garment together

I like how this shot shows all the layers

Current craft room and sundries

Posted on August 25, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random, Sewing .

So, it’s still not completely organized, but the main furniture is in place and its even more workable … but there’s a long way to go. Part of my plan to get there is to finish some projects that have been hanging around for years!!! ARG!

But, first, I needed to make some curtains for the living room. There are already those roller shades, but they block out most of the light and I’ve never gotten along well with their type. Also, I like light and want more in the house, but I want to feel secure walking from my bedroom to the bathroom that I won’t scar someone. That, and W doesn’t want people scoping out our technology. SO: Curtains!

BUT, but! I noticed as I was sewing the tab curtains – the easiest curtains to make! – I found myself getting angry. ANGRY! Was it the fabric, slippery as it is? Perhaps the sewing machine, with gnarling bobbin thread? No, and no… it was while IRONING! Hm, ironing a flat piece of fabric should be calming and pleasant, yes? Normally, but in this case the ironing board cover kept flipping up onto the ironing board and shifting around and just making a nuisance of its self. So, now I suddenly have a new project that I felt compelled to start and complete RIGHT THEN.

CURTAINS: I used some old curtains that warren had, cut them up, threw out the lining and pleating, hemed the edges and sewed on some grosgrain ribbon as tabs. Easy!

Original curtain I cut up and made new ones from.

clean and breezy!

IRONING BOARD COVER: I wanted the cover to NOT MOVE while I ironed, so I used grommets to tightly lace it. A few items of note… I bought Soft and Natural batting for the padding, but I washed it and it destroyed it. I was embarassed and already spent money and wasn’t going to spend any more money, so I used pieces from some old sheets (visible on the chair) and cut out eight layers of fabric which I sewed along the top edge to keep them together instead. Turned out very nice actually – dense and sturdy! I also laced it up wrong the first time. You can’t open the board up when the laces criss cross in the tapered bit, so the next picture shows the final lacing. And then there’s the final board! Boring, but sturdy, clean and effective! Yay!

Lacing up the ironing board wrong.

Fixed the lacing

Ready to use! Nice!

2010 Skirts

Posted on August 22, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

I’ve been loosing a lot of weight recently and discovered that my pants/shorts would just fall off without liberal use of electrical ties or suspenders. And since altering pants/shorts is very tedious, I decided to sew up a bunch of skirts. This way I’ll be able to take them in much easier as I loose even more weight. They’ve been done for a while, but I wanted to share them as “Completed projects”! Since I have so few of those, sometimes…

These were all made based off a hip sloper I made in a pattern making class at the TechShop. The sloper is now too big, and TechShop has gone bankrupt. But once I’m at a more steady weight, I plan on drafting some pant patterns from a fitting sloper. Should be nice!

I just remembered … I gave away the body double that was made from me because it was too big and now I am without one. 🙁

lots o skirts

New craft room

Posted on August 19, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random .

I moved over a month ago and am slowly working my way to an organized and efficiently useful craftroom. So far, I have it “servicable” which means I have a lot of shuffling to do for each project I want to work on, but I at least have space on my table. I also took a couple nights to create a lovely fitted ironing board cover because I was getting way too frusterated while ironing new curtains for the living room. PHEW! Here are some ‘before’ pictures with ‘current’ coming soon. I’m hoping to have ‘finished’ pictures by the end of the month…

Messy craft room

More mess

Even more!

Winter coat, revisited

Posted on July 29, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Sewing .

So, I finally finished the coat – enough to wear anyway… It looks great, feels oh, so warm, and gets many compliments! 😀 Yay!

If I ever have so much time that I can’t think of anything else to do – which, being laid up on the couch with a hurt knee may be considered one of those times, but I’m not bored enough – I may sew more vines on it. But its wearable and therefore, done enough.

Wearing my coat with my 1950's dress and crinoline underneath.

Here's the coat hanging on the wall.

Coat back.

Close up of flower.

Winter Woodshop Class

Posted on July 29, 2010 by fairyguts Posted in Random .

I finally finished my stool, and am still in the process of completing my campbox. I had planned to work on it this Saturday, but a family tradgedy has put that on hold. Perhaps Sunday if I am up for it… So here are my pictures of my stool!