Crafters In Disguise

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Epic New Blog!

In order to bring you more crafts, more often, my friend SmallRiniLady and I have started a new blog together:

Crafters in Disguise

Please follow me on my new blog!

Every week we will have new posts with crafts, art projects, costumes, etc. We'll be alternating between the two of us for variety and scheduling posts ahead of time... in fact we are already booked with lots of posts up through the end of the year!

Yes, I will of course re-post crafts from this blog as well but I will add new text and even some new pictures, and I promise to have new crafts as well, as fast as I can make them!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Organizing the House


Since moving in I have spent many hours unpacking and organizing what we have, attempting to set up the new house utilizing what we have in order to minimize what we will need to purchase. I did stop at Ikea this week to pick up these wire basket drawers, which have turned out to be really great for fabric storage. I love being able to easily see all of my fabrics, organized by color.


In the craft room I also moved my desk to the corner to make more room for the ironing board to the right of it (not pictured). This also puts my drawers of thread and tools within arm's reach while I am sitting at the table.


This is the extra bedroom, all that it has so far is a twin bed, which I have draped my quilt upon. I need window treatments and bed linens! I am thinking about doing a painting for the wall above the bed, or perhaps a grouping of smaller pieces. The closet in this room houses my costumes and the vacuum cleaner.


This is the library/music room. I picked up the chair at Ikea, which I might make a new slipcoved for someday. I think I might add an area rug and curtains, but I haven't decided where I want to go with the style yet. I would like to get better bookshelves first (these are falling apart) and perhaps MORE of them, but that will have to wait for another day. Right now it is clutter-free, organized and functional, which is more than can be said for the rest of the house!


We ran out of space on the first two shelves so I picked up this white one at Target. It is the RE brand and cost about $27. I do not recommend this bookcase, I actually returned the second one I had bought because it is not very sturdy. It is basically one unit sitting on top of another and might actually be dangerous around children. If we ever have any of those, then it will definately be time to upgrade the bookshelves!


Lastly, here is the office. My husband helped me hang the curtains last night. I still need to steam or iron them and hem the bottom, but I think they look nice and they make the room feel airy and cosy. I managed to crop most of the boxes and clutter out of the picture, but you can still see this room needs help! I'm thinking a bigger desk and some storage/organization, such as shelves.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Quick Quilted Pillow


Tonight I made this pillow! I had fun picking out whimsical fabrics from my collection of fat quarters. I love the yellow print especially, it looks like it was inspired by Mary Blair. I tried to pick out coordinating fabrics that also looked like they could belong in a Mary Blair painting.


To make this 8"x12" pillow, I cut out stripes of fabric 9" long and of different widths from the five fabrics. After sewing them together with half-inch seam allowances, I cut out a 9"x13" piece of fabric for the back and two duplicates of a plain yellow fabric (which I had leftover from a Gryffindor Quidditch robe), and then I sandwiched quilting batting between the nice fabric and the plain fabric. I quilted the layers together by hand-sewing with three strands of embroidery threads in vertical lines one inch apart, alternating between two lines of orange and two lines of lime green thread.


After quilting both the front and back, I put the two quilted pieces together back-to-back and sewed the edges (except for 4 inches on the bottom), clipped the corners, then turned it right-side out and pressed. I stuffed it with polyester fill and hand-sewed it closed. Ta-da!