Rogue Trader Cape

My husband is playing in a long-term roleplaying and LARP campaign set in the Warhammer 40K universe, as part of a Rogue Trader crew. Their crew is consistently the best costumed (here is a picture of them from last year - I wasn't able to find a link to a more recent photo), but his outfit at the moment is made up of pre-existing pieces put together, nothing custom made for this character.

I'm making him a short cape to go over his outfit, and to make it very special I'm embroidering a symbol on the back. I'm using the Truly Victorian 1890's Cape pattern TV590, not because I think it is the best 40K look I can find but because it is one I have access to! I'm going to use some interlining to make the shoulders stronger and more masculine, but this Rogue Trader crew is all about the gaudy, so a Victorian pattern seems to fit that. The fabric has a nap, and looks like suede. The colour of the fabric has not come out clearly in these photos, it is a darker, warmer red than that. The lining will be in a gold; I haven't found quite what I'm looking for but as it should take some time to finish the embroidery I have plenty of time to look.

They have a crew symbol, and his own symbol is very slightly modified from that - the skull at the centre has a monocle.

I've just started doing the embroidery on the back. I'm doing the outlines of the empty shapes in chain stitch with DMC metallic gold thread (two strands). I traced the lines I needed onto greaseproof paper, basted over it with white thread, and then ripped the paper off, so I could embroider over the guide lines.

For the solid sections, I'll pad with yellow felt and satin stitch over the top. I'm leaving the words til last I think, as they'll be the most fiddly.

Here it is, ready for me to start the second phase of the embroidery.

I'll post more updates as the cape continues. I hope it looks quite striking when it is done. I'm quite pleased to have something I can craft and give as a gift to my husband - he's a very hard man to craft for. He's been involved with the planning of this from the start, and it has been fun getting him to make decisions about collars and styles of cape front and what embroidery stitch he wanted me to use (although he did say 'I can't really see much difference between them' when given five different stitch options. Sigh)

Plane Shapes Soft Cube

Who doesn't want their kids to play with toys that teach them stuff about maths? Crazy people, maybe. So anyway I can't even remember how this idea started but I've been playing around with Spoonflower, as I mentioned before with my Pencil Pals design, and I've been working on these shapes for a while.

I designed them with the idea in mind of making a soft cube toy, and maybe later a dodecahedron (I have 12 shapes ready but only the first 6 in swatch form yet).

Excited about ordering organic cotton, I ordered them in the organic cotton knit, and then realised what a fool I was when they came! I don't know, but I'm pretty sure a real stretchy fabric won't make a nice crisp cube. So I used some iron-on interfacing that I had. Actually that has turned out pretty well because the panels have a nice soft knit feel but a solidness behind that.

On the downside though in the process of interfacing, some of the fabric stretched. The square is not so square anymore and the circle is not so circular. So next time, not knit.

Still I'm really proud of it. Time to order some more swatches and make another one. Or try the dodecahedron challenge.

Luckily since this guy is finished, I'm allowed to buy more swatches. I've set up a new self-control system - I must finish 2 craft items before I can buy resources for another. There was a period of ebay-related incidents.

Ok it isn't finished finished, but it's blog finished (fabulous expression, courtesy of Ric-Rac). The reason is that I'm thinking about getting a rattle to put inside. Although I'll have to finish two more things to buy the rattle. Darnit.

Soft Toy Design - Polar Bear versions 1 and 2

Inspired to experiment with soft toy design (a bit of a childhood dream), I started with getting a bit of practise and experience by sewing up some from patterns, including the Hedgehog and Puppy, and the Zombie Bear. My only recent attempt to make my own was the compost creature, who was a bit of an easy project in the sense that it was supposed to look like a pile of rubbish!

No offense intended, compost creature.

So for the next chapter, we start at school. I've been teaching Year 7 technology this year as well as maths. For the first 3 terms I taught the projects I was given, an electronic skills tester and wind chimes, but for term 4 I felt like getting out of the workshop, doing some textiles, and incorporating a teensy bit more design into the project. Since I wanted to explore soft toy design, I decided we'd explore together.

I've decided on a polar bear because we'll be providing the kids with plain calico, and I wanted to show them something in a white/cream colour to show that you can do a lot with calico.

After much sketching, here's my basic "2D" polar bear pattern shape:

I wanted to develop the pattern from simple to more complex to show the different options to the students.

Ok so I didn't clip my curves and corners, but it's a good start. I'm happy with the overall shape I drew, but I think maybe the legs and head could be fatter. But I want to add an underbody gusset anyway so I'll see how it looks once that is in. I'm following the lesson on Elements of Soft Toy Design on WhileSheNaps for this, if you want to get more detail on what I'm doing.

She says that it's a process, and designs usually need some adjusting. Glad to hear it! Mine sure does.

Apart from failing to sew on my lines properly (always a problem), I'd adjust a few things. I think my underbody gusset comes up too high for his little legs, especially at the back. I also think the foot shape needs to be rounded out a bit, as does the face.

His legs at the front have turned out well. Next step, a head gusset to round out that cute little face!

Post-Halloween Thoughts

My grand plans for an ethical and Australian Halloween didn't get as far off the ground as I'd hoped. But shifting my point of view did result in some changes and some fun crafts and foods, so I'm happy with how the holiday turned out.

When I was trying to pick a craft project for the party I focused my search on 'green', 'recycled' or 'ethical' Halloween crafts. This produced some great ideas, but I do have reservations.

Sometimes these craft projects are called "recycled" because they use one recycled item, but they require you to purchase new craft supplies to complete it.What I'm ideally looking for in a Halloween craft is something that uses as little new material as possible and can be appropriately gotten rid of afterwards - composted, recycled, eaten or returned to it's raw state. These pumpkins will be dinner by tomorrow night.

One that I liked the idea of was a Halloween flower centrepiece. Of course it's only 'green' because I already have fake flowers and some old fake bugs. But what I like is that the flowers can go back into my craft supplies, and the bugs can go back in the Halloween box in the shed. Nothing has actually been 'used up' for this decoration. And it was fun to do.

I didn't have that many bugs actually, and the flowers I had available we not so uniform or pale, so I couldn't aim for the same look. But I had lots of little skeleton hands for one thing.

And this worm that is really slimy to the touch. I like the idea that in their lifetime, this plastic crap will at least have seen a lot of Halloweens, and been used in a wide variety of ways.

Now it's time to start looking ahead to Christmas. Awesome.

Pre-Halloween Craft Party

On the weekend I had some friends over for an afternoon of Halloween cupcake-decorating and pumpkin painting (and an excuse for more gross punch) and an All Hallow's Read Secret Skeleton.

Having tested some cupcake designs earlier, I decided the best ones were the Owls and the Creepy-Crawlies, so I got the stuff for those and we started with those. Then we improvised, with extra help from a bag of lolly facial features.

First up, here's the punch. Another round of frog spawn punch...

...and a second go at eyeball punch. The colour wasn't as good on this eyeball one because I mixed in some juices and soft drinks with a less vibrant colour.

Then later the colour leached out of the black jelly at the bottom and turned it all disgusting. Plus the eyeballs were starting to disintegrate.

Secret Skeleton was fun. We had struggled with knowing appropriate age books for kids, but it seemed to go ok.

Then we started on the cupcakes. Owls and creepy-crawlies (including chocolate-coated sultana ants)

Then the moustaches and mouths came out!

Oh no! I ate a bug!

Early Christmas Special - Demon Rudolph.

And with the most mutated mouth award, demon zombie panda.

I wanted to try painting on pumpkins this year for a few reasons. One, as I mentioned in my introduction to this year's Halloween series, is having no desire to set fire to anything in my house. Also it isn't dark when trick-or-treaters come. Also, good carving pumpkins are not easy to get or cheap here. I carved a Queensland blue once and it was very hard physical labour. So I picked a pumpkin I like to eat, and we painted instead.

Can't wait to eat some pumpkin.

I blatantly copied mine from the colouring-in sheets I'd printed for the kids.

What a fun Halloween-y day! Although I think we all had severe sugar crashes.

Why Pinterest just isn't working for me

I avoided Pinterest for a while not because it didn't look interesting but because it did. I needed another site to be caught up in about as much as I needed more hobbies. But I finally caved, because as my lacklustre attempts at healthy eating reveal, I don't have enough willpower to avoid temptation.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on perspective, I don't really like Pinterest. Clearly I had a vision in my head of what it would it be like, and when it failed to live up to that vision... I guess when you have a heap of things demanding your attention, it is easier to dismiss the ones that don't quite work for you. And Pinterest doesn't do it for me.

Part of the problem is the actual physical arrangement of photos. I'm a huge fan of inspiration boards - my current work alcove is plastered with sentimental, inspirational, pretty things to motivate me.

I also have a smaller cork board with wardrobe inspiration pictures.

So I guess I wanted Pinterest to be like that. A cork board on the internet.
But it isn't. The photos are all discreet and separated. Looking at my Pinterest 'wardrobe planning' board doesn't inspire me. It is a useful place to store images and links - but I have a browser bookmark folder for that, and I don't have to worry about copyright when I bookmark a Burda Style pattern.  I can't even work out a way to reorganise the photos in a board.

But I think I could get over that, realise that Pinterest isn't meant to provide the same facility as a real life cork board, and use it the way Tanith does, as a place to store things to try and go back to...
but I also find Pinterest demotivating.
Seeing the abundance of ideas and craft projects and cute things people pin doesn't inspire me. I look at all the pretty items and neat craft patterns and funky short-cuts and realise that there are a huge number of people in the world making largely decorative stuff. Should I be adding to their number?
It makes me question whether the world needs ANY MORE THINGS AT ALL.

While I can always work up enthusiasm for working on specific gifts, for a day after looking at Pinterest, I question our overall goal of ultimately selling our work.
So if I want to craft seriously, I need to stay away from Pinterest.  I've removed all my pins and boards. I haven't deactivated my account yet, as I would still like to keep an eye on what my friends are pinning. And in a few months I'll give it another try. But right now, no Pinterest for me.

Sparklies - mending outside my comfort zone

I like a lot of different crafts, but one I've only briefly dabbled with is jewellery making. I like the idea of it, and I get inspired easily, but actually doing it frustrates me. Part of the problem is wire - I just can't get comfortable manipulating it, and a lot of the suggestions for beginner's jewellery making involve wire. As much as I love crochet, and love the look and idea of wire crochet, the one time I tried it was a disaster.

I like jewellery though. And as part of the new ethical fashion direction (how many times have I typed that since we started this blog?!?) I wanted to do something with two garnet necklaces I own that aren't getting much rotation as they are broken. Kaput.

So while it isn't a hobby I want to do much of myself, faced with two broken necklaces I realised I was going to have venture into the scary unknown.Thankfully I have friends who are much more adept at this realm to give me advice. (Thanks, Linette!)

And nothing involved wire.

Necklace The First: 

I was given this as a present years ago by grandmother I think and I honestly don't recall when and how it broke. All that happened was the string (fishing line) snapped. Fixing this one was a (simple?) matter of rethreading the beads on a new line and attaching the old clasp. It was quite fiddly to get the knots secure and small.

I wore it out to a comedy gig the other night, and I'm happy to have it back in rotation.

Necklace the Second:
Another garnet necklace, this time on a cord, knotted between each bead. I was in the habit of wearing this tied in a knot at my throat, which I thought looked cool, and it all was great until the day I couldn't untie it. At all. I had to cut it off me. Left with a string of garnets, I thought about this carefully. As I was going to mend necklace the first, and I had another string of garnet beads anyway, I didn't need three garnet necklaces in my jewellery box. What I needed was... a bracelet.
I estimated that I had enough length to do a four strand bracelet, so I bought a clasp that had four attachments points. I used embroidery cotton in a close a colour match as I could manage, heavily waxed for strength.
I tied knots, etc, and while the attachment areas look a bit messy, I think they will hold.

the ends do look a little thread-ful

 And I'm very happy with the result. I get a cool, 4-strand garnet bracelet that I can wear, probably not with a garnet necklace, as that strikes me as a bit too matchy-matchy. But I think it gives good wrist coverage. 

 I even have a small pile of leftover stones that I've cut from their thread and can use in other projects.

I'm not sure I want to do any more jewellery stuff, but I am so happy with how these repair projects have turned out, taking two broken necklaces and giving me two pieces of jewellery I can wear and enjoy.