Graduation unicorns

Have I ever mentioned what became of those unicorns? I don't think so... Well, I did manage to finish them on time, all the way back in May.

Five of these unicorns were destined to be graduation gifts and I've been told they've all made their new owners very happy and that much love has been bestowed upon these hug-happy horned horses already. Yay!

Iris the Unicorn was born at the same time as these graduation unicorns and she has finally joined her fellow green relatives in the shop.

Unicorn horns

Just a little update on the unicorns. Things have been going slowly due to my arm injuries, but there has been some slow progress...

I really hope I can finish these before my May 19 deadline... Thankfully the customer is flexible and understanding, and told me a delay would be totally fine. But I'm still going to try to finish it in time, as these unicorns are supposed to be graduation gifts.

Starting my unicorns

So I've started working on those unicorns I mentioned yesterday. I've already selected colors and cut out felt for the horse part of the unicorns:

But I haven't figured out the horn part of the unicorns, still deciding on the design of them... I'm really excited to work on these though! I have to be careful with my fragile elbow and wrist, but I have good hopes I will get to finish these without a lot of pain!

Sewing again!

Look at what I've been doing (very carefully while wearing a thumb splint, wrist brace and tennis elbow strap) today! 

I need to get back on 'my horse'; I need to and desperately want to start sewing again. But I must admit I'm a bit scared, because when I started (also very carefully) this little butterfly a few weeks ago, I ended up in the ER two days later, high on vicodin and percocet and experiencing a full-blown panic attack before the doctor injected three cortisone shots into my arm and wrist. Then my arm didn't hurt anymore but it was also useless for more than a week.

My arm is feeling a lot (!) better now, I've started physical therapy again, and it's time to try sewing again, I just hope there will be no consequences this time. All I hope to end up with this time is a cute little green butterfly.

Rainbow cupcakes

I'm not really good in the kitchen, so when I try out things I need all the help I can get. As you can see Betty Crocker was very helpful with this project:

The recipe on the back of the box just called for egg whites, but I'm not good at separating the yolk from the white, so I bought a carton of egg whites at the supermarket and used that instead. I made the batter and divided it over six bowls:

I added tiny amounts of food coloring (this stuff is really strong) to each bowl to create these six different colors:

I spooned the batter into cupcake papers. I wanted all six colors in each cupcake, so I ended up overflowing the papers with way too much batter:

Which resulted in these "exploded" but colorful cupcakes:

I smeared some frosting on top, and my rainbow cupcakes were done:

The cupcakes were exceptionally fragile (I wonder if that was because of those egg whites from a container), and when I tried taking out the exploded cupcakes from the baking pan some of the tops broke off. Which was unfortunate but those broken cupcakes did show how pretty they were on the inside:

The fragile cupcakes made frosting very difficult as well. Just a little push with the frosting spoon was enough to break off parts of cupcake. But as you can see from the pictures I did end up with several pretty cupcakes and they taste pretty good too! I made more than enough to share, so if you want one just come and get it!

Rainbow batter

This week I'm taking "What's cooking?" literally and I'm really cooking something, or rather baking. Inspired by all the cupcakes on this blog this past week and the Dainty Squid I'm trying to make some rainbow cupcakes. Here are my six different colors in batter:

The cupcake papers have way too much batter in them, but I really wanted all colors in each cupcake... I've just checked them in the oven, and they seem to be exploding. Wonder what they'll look like in 10 minutes, but I have some batter left to try again.

My first pdf pattern!!

I'm so happy! I finally finished my first PDF pattern! It doesn't even matter to me that I didn't make my February deadline for this. I started working on this in September and it was so much work, mostly on the computer, that I kept procrastinating. So when my physical therapist told me I needed that break from sewing, I knew it was time to finish it. I can't believe I did it! 

Before being able to put it in my Etsy shop I had one more struggle with Adobe left, because it refuses to properly display PDFs created on a Mac. I sent the PDF to Yasu's Windows computer and was shocked and frustrated to see what Adobe did to my hard work and my pretty vector images. It took me a couple of hours but I figured out a workaround via iPhoto which satisfied me. Pfew.

My PDF pattern and tutorial is nine pages long and includes a printable pattern template, a materials and tools list, a step by step picture guide (completely sewn by hand), and stitches guide. And after careful consideration I decided that customers can use the pattern to make moose to sell offline, not online. But I'm willing to make exceptions for charitable causes when permission is requested.

I'm really happy with the end result, and I'm definitely going to make more patterns and tutorials. Just hope they don't take as long as this one...

Monster Moose

I designed the angry moose for my brother Djamo, who's in a band called Monster Moose. He asked me to make his band a mascot and I came up with this angry moose ornament, which they can hang from the drums during a performance.

The band consists of three members and I decided it would be fun if they all wore their own little moose badge on their clothes when they perform, so I made three more moose in rebelious colors, which I hope matches their style of metal music.

I've sent the four moose off to Belgium to live with my brother and he's sent me a picture of when the angry moose attacked him! I hope he'll send me some pictures of his band on stage wearing the moose badges.

Making the felt versions of moose was the easy part, the PDF pattern has proven to be a LOT of work. Still editing and thinking of the right words to go with my step-by-step picture guide. It's coming along, but coming along slowly. Back to work!

Inkscape

Before I started working on my moose pattern, I needed some ideas so I looked around online to see how others have done it. Most of the patterns I saw consisted of hand drawn and scanned shapes, so I was going to do that, until I stumbled upon a pattern where the shapes were drawn by computer. That looked so much more professional and I wanted that for mine as well.

But I didn't know how to draw with my computer. I've always been interested in graphic design, but it is so expensive to learn, especially the software you need to buy for  such classes. I simply can't afford it. So I went on another online search, this time I was searching for free drawing software and free lessons that would teach how to draw simple things on the computer. I discovered Inkscape, an open source scalable vector graphics editor, and this blog with informative tutorials.

I've been working on my moose pattern with Inkscape, it's taking me forever, but I'm liking what it's starting to look like. For example, this is the template for an antler piece to be cut out four times from felt.

It probably doesn't look so impressive but I was ecstatic with this result. In any case, it looks much better than a scanned version of the hand-drawn template. And how about this stitch demonstation I made with Inkscape?

Yeah, I know, it looks kind of like childplay. But I'm pretty happy about it.

You can do a lot more complicated things with Inkscape. There are so many options and funny looking buttons, and I have no idea what they are for! 

But I'm learning and I've already used Inkscape a lot. All the monkey logos on this blog are made with Inkscape (and a lot of patience). But obviously, I still need to learn way more about this awesome software and I know there are so many cool things one can do with the program, but often I can't quite figure out how. Well, practice makes perfect... right?

Taking moose pictures

I’m planning to make my pattern with a computer program, but first I need something to turn into a (hopefully) fancy computer pattern. I used that angry moose sketch to cut out some felt, sew on some details, and this is what the moose looks like so far, pieced together, ready to be finished.

I want my PDF pattern to include a step-by-step picture guide of how to turn the pattern into a felt creature, so that means I have to take a lot of pictures while I’m sewing it myself.

I hope I didn’t forget to photograph some crucial sewing event. And I also shouldn’t forget to take pictures of the materials and tools used. I’m sure that’ll be helpful as well.

Sewing one of my animals takes a long time, and taking pictures of every single step obviously makes the whole process last even longer. But it’s fun and I’m excited about creating something quite different for a change!

Moose pdf pattern

I'm trying not to sew for a while, hoping my tennis elbow and thumb tendinitis will heal, allowing me to happily sew away once more. In the meantime, I need some kind of crafty project to keep me occupied and distracted enough not to turn to my felt and button drawers in a moment of weakness. 

So I've decided to work on my first PDF pattern. I've been wanting to make one forever, but it's just so much work and I've been procrastinating myself silly with this angry moose pattern.

I guess now that I've blogged about this, it means I'm going to have to finally start and finish it properly. The pressure of a deadline has always helped me stop procrastinating, and I want this done. So it's now officially my 'What's cooking?' project for February, so I'll have to finish it by the end of this month. I can do it! I think...

The rabbit family

Meet the Rabbit family! Just in time for February, pfew...

I managed to sew 5 new rabbits while trying to ignore the pain in my wrist and arm... It's just too much fun to try out a new design in several new color combinations. And I'm never sure which one will be my favorite until I'm done sewing them. This time I wasn't too sure about the yellow rabbit, but she turned out to be my favorite.

Meet Jacob (made with embossed felt), Ava, Logan, Madison and of course the rabbit that started it all, Ella.

Rabbit in progress

I've been sewing non-stop this past week. It's quite relaxing and it allows me to catch up on my favorite TV shows online at the same time. The only thing that sucks is that it makes my wrist and elbow hurt even more. The pain has made it hard for me to do simple things, like falling asleep and pouring water, and my physical therapist would prefer me to take a break from sewing for a while. But I'm working on bunnies now...

This is what the main rabbit looks like so far, I've also been working on more extravagantly colored rabbits. My goal is to be done with all rabbits before February. And I really want to see what they'll look like when they're done. After that I'll take a short break from sewing, perhaps.

Rabbit felt and buttons

After finishing the templates the fun part starts. I get out my felt and buttons and start choosing materials for my new creature. Because there are so many possible combinations, this always takes a very, very long time...

After making the tough decision of what colors to use, I cut out all templates shapes and piece it together to be able to imagine what it'll all look like when it's done.

I like this combination, it's very sweet. And I'm sure I'll make a few more bunnies in a lot more awkward colors as well. 

Rabbit templates

After giving up on sewing a rabbit on the sewing machine, I started drawing a design specifically for hand sewing purposes in the eleventh monkey style. Which is much easier because I'm experienced in that. It took me a while (my eraser came in very handy) because bunnies just seemed too cute and unsuitable to be turned into an awkward looking creature. 

Once that is done, I have to figure out what parts will be sewn seperately, what parts will be sewn on, and how many different colors of felt to use. And I carefully start cutting around the edges of the sketch.

I trace around the cut-out parts on thin cardboard, which will be cut out too to create templates which I inted to use over and over to cut felt.

Next: selection of felt and buttons!

What's cooking: complications

I figured out how to use the sewing machine and I've been trying out some things. Simply sewing small pieces of felt onto another piece of felt is not easy! It's quite difficult to control the machine, especially the speed with which it stitches and way too often the stitches go everywhere except where I want them to go. Most of the time I just practiced sewing instead of actually trying to make anything rabbit-like.

I think eventually (with loads more practice) I could maybe make something nice and creative looking, but something is wrong with my brand new sewing machine. The stitches it makes are unbalanced. The top and bottom thread are supposed to lock in the center of the fabric, and look like my top threads do (pictures on the left). 

But my bottom threads give the appearance of straight lines (pictures on the right), indicating that the upper thread is too loose (according to the manual that came with the machine). I'm supposed to turn the thread tension dial to a higher number to increase tension, problem is that it's already at its highest.

Now, I have to wait until Monday for Singer Customer Service to open and give them a call. Bummer.

So for now it's back to stitching by hand, which is so much slower, but also so much better for me. The result looks much nicer because I have a lot more control and it's more fun because it doesn't make me feel like such a klutz.