lazy may

i had a lazy may in that i didn't go very far out of my way to take photos for my photo.a.day project. i mostly documented my daily life---crafts and food that i made; restaurants that i went to and the food and people that i saw in them; people, places, and things i saw during my commute and around town. here are some of the results, the rest can be found here:

piggies & fish
nature
hwood
food

balls and owls

Today I made a ball. I realize this seems insanely simple, but it's my second go. I finally managed to figure out how to make the end look sealed up nice and neat!! This is using random scraps that I had left over from other projects, so the colours don't match as well as I would like. I'd like to make more of them and pay special attention to colour. I'd also like to try cubes. I saw similar ones on etsy today which searching for some fabric that I ordered. I was jealous of how neat theirs looked, so I gave it a second try tonight.

This is Whippet. He was born out of this tutorial. He's another one of my "make it quickly" experiments. I have little patience for long projects. I prefer to finish something on the day I started it. Whippet is my new sewing helper. Craig said it was wrong to stick pins in him. He makes a crappy owl, but a great pincushion!

I've been doing lots of tutorials lately, but it helps inspire me to come up with ideas of my own while learning new techniques and stitches.

A Crown For You From Me!

What a weekend! You know what is more exhausting than throwing one first birthday party? Throwing two.

My daughter did have a lovely time at both and we have thoroughly documented her smearing her first icing all over her face and hair. Unfortunately, I did not get a decent photograph of my much blogged about crown. But here it is, and it was quite the hit! As promised, the crown is now available for free download. I love to share my creations and this one is just too much fun to keep to myself. Once you print it out and cut it out and customize it to suit Your Majesty's desires, fancies, and whims, be sure to let me know how it turned out! Post comments and links on my blog, Lady Lulu's Braindump Hut and Craftarium or here so we can admire your handiwork!

Download me here! lady-lulus-crown.pdf (5.8 MB)

If It Will Please Your Royal Highness

I finished the image for my crown for the wee-one's birthday party. (Sorry the image is so small - I was having formatting issues.) After days of fiddling with it , I returned it to its simpler state. Next week, the file will be available for free at Lady Lulu's Braindump Hut and Craftarium, so anyone who wants a crown to call their very own, can have one! I was originally going to embellish my crown, but I printed it out on Legion Somerset Photo Enhanced, White Matte Velvet Inkjet Paper and it looked so lovely without additions. This paper is AMAZING! You could see so much texture and detail in all the elements of the crown and the colors are rich, rich, rich! So the crown is staying "as-is." I will post photos later.

opinions requested!

Okay, I need some help. This is the last assignment of the photography workshop. I can only submit one photo, and this time we get to do post-processing (cropping, color adjustment, sharpening, etc). I unfortunately didn't get out to shoot much over the weekend, due to crippling amounts of knitting (see previous post), so the only decent photos I got were of the tricklers towards the end of bay to breakers. The assignment is sort of open ended. One photo of a "decisive moment," which I think can be broadly interpreted as "something interesting is happening", with considerations for composition and use of color. I'd mostly just like to hear your reactions to these four photos. Gut feelings when you look at them, maybe which one (if any) makes you linger longer. Also, any suggestions on alternate crops are welcome.

mountain peaks shawl

FINALLY. I've been working on this shawl a long time - the mountain peaks shawl from mimknits.com. It's a belated gift for mother's day. The first chart took forever... there was lace patterning on both right and wrong side. I'm pretty happy with everything except the border... it was attached perpendicularly to the edge and at that point there were HUNDREDS of stitches, no stitch markers, and I was in such a hurry that I didn't notice that i had done the 90-degree turn (at the very bottom tip) incorrectly so the lines don't meet symmetrically at the point. Notice how it's conveniently obscured in this photo... I also tried to hide the mistake with forceful blocking. There's so much going on that hopefully no one will notice, but I will admit, somewhat shamefully, that I was completely, inconsolably hysterical when I first saw it after almost 2 straight days of knitting. Fortunately for my sanity, I simply did not have time to frog and redo, so it's done, shipped, and I never have to knit that border repeat again.

isak day 2

I missed the second session w/ isak so this is actually the third session, but day 2 for this sculpture. I tried to get as much coverage as I could to bring everything up to the same level. I really like the pose but tonight we picked a new one. (I didn't get any pics of the new sculpture).

photography workshop week 3

I wasn't happy with any of the week 2 photos. Here are some photos from week 3 of the photo workshop. We were shooting color for the first time, playing with color dominance as well as foreground and background dominance.

lucy and the cookies

This is Lucy. She's a bouncy crazy little puppy. Because she's a brand new doggie, she's exploring everything. After being freshly hatched from my own design (borrowing the idea of the legs from Lumpy), she wandered all over the house and found these homemade felt fortune cookies. What a great Sunday!

another tshirt dress and outdoor self-portrait experiments

i decided to make another tshirt dress by combining three tshirts. the first was one that a friend gave me but that i haven't worn in a long time---i left it intact since it fit well, and i modified the other two into a an asymmetrical drapey skirt, similar to the one i made last week but longer. the dress was inspired by the same book that i used last week, t-shirt makeovers by sistahs of harlem. i originally attached the skirt to another shirt but wasn't paying attention to the measurements and found the skirt wasn't wide enough---also, the shirt was a little too short-waisted, i thought it looked better with the longer top. after a lot of seam ripping, i came up with this...


Originally uploaded by cignoh

i haven't been that happy with the results that i'm getting photographing myself inside, so i decided to try shooting outside. i have a bunch of clothing projects that i made but didn't document since 2006 so i plan to experiment with taking photographs of myself wearing them. i even bought some reflectors today and was using them in the above photo, but i'm not sure if it's obvious since i'm so frontally lit (or maybe i put the reflector in the wrong place)...

below is a photo that i took earlier this week without using reflectors. it's a ruffled tshirt that i made, again from the same book. like i said, i really like the book... i thought the sunlight was too bright on the left side, and the shadow side a little too dark, so that's why i got the diffusor/reflectors, but when i went to take a photo in the same spot today, there was a car in the way, so i'll try again another day...

Originally uploaded by cignoh

seam tutorial

In couple of the comments on a skirt post, I was asked how to do a french seam. I actually tried to make a tutorial on it but it didn't turn out how I liked. Today, I was reading Sew,Mama,Sew and found this awesome tutorial for all types of seams and when to use each. To make this post a little more exciting. I've uploaded a picture of today's project. This is my first stuffed animal. I made it from a pattern from Melly & Me. This was a practice version with cheap fabric to learn about how things would work. I didn't like the felt eyes that were recommended so I've left her blind until I get some animal eye buttons. I've named her lumpy and she's wonderful, despite all of her faults.

sewing weapons 101

I like to sew. I also like hammers. I feel manly swinging them around. So when I realized that I could combine sewing and hammers by adding snaps, I was completely sold. I was convinced that snaps were so much easier than buttons. No more ruined fabric from failed buttonholes!! Today, I did not ruin my fabric. I sewed perfectly and didn't even have to rip out any threads. Today though, I did manage to ruin my sewing table!!! A few good taps is all it takes to put in a snap. Coincidentally, a few good taps is also all it takes to push the snap, snap setting tool and hammer through the top of an Ikea Corras rolling cart. Sewing can be dangerous. I'm not really equipped to face the dangers that come with it - burns from irons, cuts from fabric tools and the dreaded needle smacking your fingers when you hold the fiddly fabric. Scary stuff. I've included photos of the weapons ...errrrr.... tools that I use when I sew. =)

tshirt dress

Originally uploaded by cignoh

i went shopping yesterday and was looking for spring/summery dresses, but didn't buy anything. instead, today i decided to make a tshirt dress out of an old braveland tshirt from my husband, some brown jersey material that i had for the skirt, and a strip of wool plaid from a skirt that i made before. the dress has a tie-neck collar that is kind of hard to see in the photo, and the skirt has extra fabric on the side for draping. i got the idea from a book called 't-shirt makeovers' by sistahs of harlem, carmia marshall and carmen webber (i love this book, btw) and followed the basic form but made some modifications---the instructions called for a mesh material for the belt, which i didn't have, so i substituted the wool plaid. also, the right hip was a little bumpy (also can't see in the photo, but on purpose) so i reshaped the lines around that part, and the arms/bust area didn't fit that well so i sewed a darts on either side. as a result, the shirt no longer says 'braveland' but 'd' 'upside down U' 'raveland'. i like it.