Back to the drawing board

As it turns out, I'm not exactly an expert "fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-coming-up-with-stuff" person. After hours of tedious work, I ended up having to scrap the whole thing because it was just a big mess. I spent more time today ripping seams than actually sewing them. Needless to say, I think I went about this the hard way... which also happens to be the wrong way. I've got an idea in my head about how I might be able to do this in an easier way, but I'll have to get back to that another time. For now, my back is killing me and I'm thoroughly frustrated. I hope to have something crafty to show you tomorrow, but we'll have to see if I can manage to whip something fun up in between doing some soon-to-be-due school-work.

Mobile Blogging, My Ass.

I have my cell phone set up so I can send blog posts via text messages when I'm not on my computer. I'm in the midst of a new adventure today & thought I'd drop a quick note about it and try out my mobile blogging in one shot. Well apparently it didn't post. I shake my fist at you Blogger!

The post that should have been:

Designing something of my own imagination. Hit a few bumps in the road, but can't wait to reveal it. Should be done by the end of the day!!

Also, blogging by text message (or trying to anyway). What a fun way for quick updates!! (if it actually worked, that is.)

A quick pic of me tearing the whole thing apart because I messed up haha, whoops!

Valentine's is made for crafting!

I know it's been a few days since my last post (4, to be exact), and I do have to apologize for that. We've been sick on this side of town, so the thought of doing anything has not been appealing.... just ask my dishes.

On the plus side, I do have a fun post today! The reason this post is so. much. fun. is because everything I am posting right. this. second. was made for less than $5! Now, I did manage to get some sale items, so that definitely helped the wallet, but overall I worked with inexpensive materials. Felt, to be exact. $0.20 felt, to be even more exact! Plus I was able to get some super cute Valentine's ribbon on sale for $0.99, which we all know I love me some dollar ribbon!!

This week for the sew-a-long challenge we were given a choice of making pajamas or anything Valentine's. Well, I don't know if you'll believe this, but I am in no way prepared to jump into pajama making. Add to that I don't own pajama-making fabric, and was not looking forward to buying any. So that left me with the Valentine's project. I'm sure you can tell that I'm not one for actually coming up with ideas on my own, so this proved to be a challenge in and of itself. After some uneventful Googling, the hubs and I headed to JoAnn's so I could have a look-see. I decided on the felt because it was cheap & in my head I had an idea for some hair clips. Add to that some ribbon and you've (or I've, or my cousins' daughters) got some super cute Valentine's barrettes.


 I think they're pretty darn cute. Sadly, not very much sewing actually went into these. In fact, I only actually sewed two lines. In the top & middle set, you can see the line down the middle of the hearts where I sewed to attach the hearts to one another. The rest was good ol' Tacky Glue. Heck, the bottom set doesn't have any sewing, period!

So what is a gal to do? Well, I did have to come up with something else, that's for sure! So I sat, and I thought, and I cut out hearts. I did this until I got an idea. I cut off a slice of felt, sewed on some of those hearts I had, and voila! instant bracelet.

Sadly, my "bracelet" left something to be desired. So I sat, and I thought, and I cut out some more hearts until I had an even better idea. Napkin rings! Simple, inexpensive, Valentine's... perfect!

I cut out a few more slices of felt, added some decorative stitches to the edges, and created a makeshift button hole (to keep the felt from ripping as you slide the hearts through) (also, they're makeshift because my buttonhole setting is temperamental, and while I was able to make fantastic buttonholes the other day, for some reason I was unable to get my machine to cooperate today - thus a simple box sewed 2 times over). The hearts act as buttons to keep the ring closed. I suppose I could have just sewn the circle closed, but to be honest, I didn't think of that until just now.

I don't actually own fabric napkins, so I slid some leftover felt through instead. Tada! Valentine's napkin rings!! Of course, this could easily be adapted into a cute bracelet for little wrists, so feel free to wrap a Valentine's napkin ring around whatever you deem fit!

And just to ease your frustration when you attempt this on your own (because why wouldn't you?), you'll never cut two hearts the same, ever. So just stop trying now. If you get two that are even remotely similar, thank your lucky stars and move on!

Also, I know I need to get better at taking pictures. My apologies, and I promise I'll try harder.

Midnight Crochet, Party of One.

I was determined to make this ice cream cozy work. I had a pint of ice cream sitting in my freezer just begging to be eaten, but I refused to eat it without a cozy! So I decided the extra large cozy must have been user error, as we all know I crochet big. I chose my 4.00 hook and went at it. At the end I had a cozy to keep my hands warm while I dug into my Phish Food.

I'm in love with this green gradated yarn, but I'm 100% positive it's not the right color for an ice cream cozy. The yarn itself is Lily The Original Sugar 'n Cream in Lime Stripes. It's 100% cotton worsted weight. I love this yarn. It's so easy to work with and is super cheap. 

It's not the purple I wanted it to be, but that's because my purple yarn was tied up (pun intended) in a half-finished ipod cozy. Now that the ipod cozy is finished, and my purple yarn is free, I'll be making another ice cream cozy. This purple yarn is also Sugar 'n Cream in Country Side Ombre. I found the pattern for the ipod cozy on Ravelry. You'll have to sign up to view it, but it's free and awesome, so you should already be signed up! The actual listing is:

patterns > injenuity > Ribbed iPod Touch/iPhone Sock (iPod cozy)

I'm thinking I definitely want to add a flower motif applique.

 

So disappointed.

I've had 2 failures today. My first was the ice cream cozy. I finished the cozy up and asked the hubs to bring me home a pint so I could try it out. When he got here, I was was sad to see that my cozy was far too large. I imagine my gauge was just way off. I knew it didn't look like the picture, but I hadn't imagined it was that off. I unraveled it and will hopefully be able to figure it out soon.

The 2nd failure was my 5.00 hook. As I tried out a new pattern for an electronics cozy I noticed that my hook kept getting caught in the yarn. I finally took a close look at the hook & noticed there was a chip in it! Needless to say, I can't keep crocheting with it. I am so so so upset by this. I had been wanting to purchase a set of bamboo hooks forever and just never had the money to build a set (usually you have to buy them individually). I love the look of the bamboo hooks & I really liked the idea that they were made from a sustainable material. I'm going to have to return these, as I've only had them in my possession for 10 days & I only started using my 5.00 today!!! I'm also really hesitant to purchase another set of bamboo hooks, for fear of it happening again. For now, I think I'll return these and purchase a set of aluminum hooks. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford to acquire a better quality set of bamboo hooks individually.

I'll take a picture of my chipped hook in the am.

Warm hands

...wrapped around a pint of ice cream is one of my all-time favorite things. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than freezing your butt & your hands off on a very cold day as you try to get your ice cream on. I've been meaning to alter my coffee cozy (yes, I know I need to make a post about that) to fit a pint, but I just have not gotten around to it. I think that is partially because I've been laying off the pints recently, but mostly just because I'm lazy (holla!).

Well I recently found this pattern at Ragabaebe and seeing as it's a quick crochet, I figured I'd just whip one up. This saves me the trouble of having to adjust the measurements of my coffee cozy, cut out the pattern, trace the pattern, cut out the fabric (I. Hate. Cutting.) and then sew it all together just to see if it fits!!! That's very important to note, because... well... it might not fit the first time! This way I'm only out a couple minutes if it doesn't fit, & unraveling yarn is far less stressful than having to use my seam ripper or throw away the fabric. Plus, yarn is so easy to reuse!

Unintentionally matching my cozy to the pint

I'm waiting for a response on a question I had about said pattern, so while I'm taking a crochet intermission, I thought I'd share my progress! I'm only on Row 4, so not very far, but I'm happy with what I've managed to whip up so far. I believe I'm at the point where the cozy will turn up and wrap around the sides of the pint. I cannot wait until it's finished so I can try it out. I also can't wait to make sure it works ok, because I have an aunt who will be going into surgery soon and I thought this would be the perfect get-well-quickly-while-eating-pints-of-ice-cream present! So very excited!

Maybe I should run to the market while I wait for a response!!

Will update with finished product soon!

Updates

As you can hopefully already see, I'm adding some new updates to the blog. A lot of this will probably be under construction for some time yet, but here's a look at what's to come:

• Tabs: You can see at the top that I'm adding tabs to the page. This will allow you to easily access some fun new additions to tianamatopoeia, including a "How to Crochet" page for all you would-be crocheters! 
• Picture watermarking/stamping: I'm not saying that my pictures or my crafts are so spectacular that you're all clambering about to mark them as your own, but you never know who is out there. This is a work in progress to back-stamp my already pictures, and I will start stamping new ones from here on out. Now you'll know the pictures & crafts you're looking at are truly a product of tianamatopoeia. 
•  HTML: I'll be editing the HTML on the blog. Right now I'm using a stock Blogger template, but I hope to be making some changes which will make tianamatopoeia unique.
• I'm hoping to have a fun new title block soon too!

I hope you all enjoy the changes that are coming. Please bear with me while I make them. In the end I hope to have a much more professional-looking blog that is fun to hang around on!