Did you know that there is something called Photoshop Actions? I didn’t until recently and that shows you how behind the times I am. Basically they are just preset adjustments you can apply o any photo. I’ve downloaded some from different sources and I can see that the nicely done ones are all happily enclosed in a layer directory and the shitty ones just add a bunch of layers all over the place higglety pigglety.

I haven’t used any yet, instead I have just been using picnik.com to do things like round corners, mess with exposure, temperature, saturation and contrast.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

First, the classic calendar style tea towel with sid vicious and some paint splatters:

And then another with God Save the Queen and a huge safety pin:

How to get a tea towel printed at SpoonFlower.

You can download an html (editable in Word) or a photoshop file of the calendar template over on spoonflower here.

I don’t know anything about Word so I have no clue why you would want to download something that is editable in Word. whatever.

- Create a new photoshop file that is about 27″ by 18″
- Copy and paste in calendar parts if you want.
- Grab some images and drop them in and arrange them. In this case I wouldn’t be to het up about your images resolution. Even a crappy downloaded from google images gif ends up looking mostly okay. Don’t sweat it but the higher the res the better.
- Once you have your image ready you can go to SpoonFlower.com and create a profile.
- Then go to http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/new and upload your photoshop file.
- Now it is time to order your tea towel. There are various fabrics you can choose from. I’ve made all mine with the linen-cotton canvas and printed it centered on a fat quarter. It’s the perfect size and easy as pie to hem. The linen-cottom canvas ends up being 14$ but I think the quilting weight cotton would end up working fine as well and those are 11$.

You can also order these tea towels straight from SpoonFlower here: God Save the Queen and the Sex Pistols calendar (comes complete with typos!).

Lat night Vim and I made English muffins with the Alton Brown recipe. DAMN! They are good. This recipe calls for cooking them on a griddle, which we don’t have. I just used a large pan and ended up sort of scorching the outsides of several of them. I would like to try an oven baked recipe next so that I can get that cornmeal on the bottom feel to them. I’m thinking on the pizza stone would work quite well.

Look at this lusciousness!

Coming soon: Some geek tea towels and more punk ones including Joan Jett!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Despite the long days I enjoyed Maker Faire again this year. Sunday morning I felt so sick I thought would die. A bit of food and a 45 minute nap in my car before the day started helped quite a bit as did getting to run around the fair looking at things.

If you would like to make your own pair of spats please download my free spats pdf pattern and have at it.

My Etsy shop is empty of spats for now but I am available for custom orders, please contact me through Etsy.

A big thanks to the Maker Faire organizers and all the organizers and vendors of Bazaar Bizarre! See you next year!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The thing is that the reason I didn’t wear these shoes very much was that they are too big and guess what?! They are still a bit too big.

The leather dye and paint were both pretty easy to work with.

I have a pair of white Miz Mooz boots (leather) that I could use the blue dye on and it would stay more true to the dye color. But those boots are too big for me too. Anything pre pregnancy, before I realized that I am actually a 6.5 not a seven, is too big for me but I can’t seem to let them all go. I think I’ll put a toe insert in the blue pair to see how that improves the fit.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

None of that sounds horrible, in fact, I am living in a slackers paradise. I get some shit done occasionally and Jack and I pretend to be giants, or play train station. What’s not to love?

I FINALLY made a new pair of spats. It took me forever because in between sewing a seam I would have to field calls from our real estate agent and stress about this house which I am STRESSED about. why why why did someone else have to bid on it? it was on the market for a YEAR. All caps, take me away! Why did we bid 5000$ less? It makes NO SENSE.

Back to the spats. They are a new design. instead of buttoning up the side they zip up the back. I learned a few things while making this pair, mostly that I need to cut the spats taller.

In the above picture you can see my newly altered boots. I have lamented in the past that my calves are too big for standard boots. I bought these platform CECE Fluevog boots on ebay and I took them to my local cobbler and I asked him to make them fit me. I was thinking something like an elastic panel but he said no no we will put in a leather panel to match the rest of the boot. And he did! It worked beautifully and I am so happy! SO! If you have wide calves and are looking for boots to fit you should buy any old boot and then get them altered.

In other crafty news I have made a few bags and zippered pouches. Nothing exceptional. I also am in the process of making some cute cloth napkins with the on sale Moda fabric that I bought a few weeks ago. Now what to do with them? Christmas gifts?

Speaking of Christmas. I am doing Handmade Holidays this year for mostly everything except some toys for Jack that I can’t make. He needs a kitchen set, more toy tools, a dollhouse and a guitar.

Other Stuff
– Best plants to plant in fall if you live here in the western US from Sunset Mag.
– Also for if you live here in the Bay Area, Grant writing workshops and other workshops for artists! Check out the Foundation Center.
– And somewhat randomly… Vim and I have been watching the show Connections, which was filmed in around 1978, which is awesome for several reasons.
1. you can pretty much endlessly make fun of the outfit that James Burke is wearing.
2. It has that soothing quality that makes me fall asleep just like Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
3. It’s very interesting to see all the amazing connections and how pretty much anything that happened in anytime leads up to an atomic bomb. Last nights episode had some great facts about pike warfare an the pike square that I really enjoyed. I always like nerdy battle formation info. We are getting the episodes from Netflix.

From Wikipedia:

It (Connections) took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrates how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events built off one another in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology.

Here is Jack looking casual but dapper at the wedding this weekend:

<

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m pretty sure the closet thing is going to be what ends up happening.

He went down for a nap after he and Sparkle got back but then like 20 minutes later he got up and wanted some food and winnie the pooh in Russian. Now he is back down and I have checked off so many of my list items AND finished my book that I am almost at a loss. Not really, but almost.

I breezed through Water for Elephants and really enjoyed it.

I can’t remember if I ever posted pictures of the lucky cat shirt I made for Jack:

Okay, scrath all that, it was yesterday and I forgot to publish.

Today, I go nothing done again. whheeee! Jack trashed every single thing I attempted to clean. We did go to Target where they have some super cute boys shirts for cheap. I got one that says “a is for astronaut” and one that says “I *picture of a digger machine* Dirt”.
I also bought some knee socks and a little set of plastic drawers that I meant to be a kid art supply station but LO, it does not fit a 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. USELESS! and ANNOYING!

Everyone is in the throes of getting ready for burning man. I see dusty trucks packed with crap every where I go. I am only about 10% sad we sold our tickets.

Finally he is in bed. and I am going to go pass out.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I made two: a star trek Federation symbol on a black tank top for Jack and a stencil of a forklift that says DAVE under it, also for Jack. I’m so jealous of the Federation symbol I am going to make myself one and one for Badger too.

I just read in a silkscreen book that you can use freezer paper as an indirect stencil with a screen. Which is great as it makes your freezer paper stencil capable of being reused. The book didn’t say how to do it exactly. I think I would use spray adhesive on the freezer paper to stick it to the screen.

I am so fired for procrastinating right now. I spent all night not doing what I should have been doing. No worries, I will pay pay pay for in the next few days.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have nothing to wear. In this closet of hugish proportions nothing fits or looks good on me or is appropriate to the weather. I would like to wear my new shoes but the leather squeaks if I wear them without hose. Hose do not look right with a summer dress. and if I am going to wear hose I might as well wear my boots and a cute skirt except that it is hot as all fuck in this town. But it will be cold later in the evening. You see, Vim and I are going to go eat out together and then see a movie with out the kiddo. So it would be nice if I wore something other than jeans a smelly 3 day old t-shirt.

Should I blow off my mom’s group meeting? Kiddo would enjoy the play cafe today but I would just be fretting about getting home in time.

I made this cute hedgehog shirt for Mr. Pants last weekend.

It came out well and I am immensely proud of it. It would def. be better if I had a serger to finish the seams.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I wrote up a bunch of notes on that previous silk screen post and it is GONE! I must have not hit publish?

I went out and bought a couple of Dover clip art books. They are mostly royalty/copyright free images and they come in high res on CDs. Handy! That’s where I got the Narwhal image and then I messed with it in Photoshop and added the text and printed it out on my ink jet printer. I printed out a few other images as well, the sugar maple seed sketch and my old gas mask girl image.

I ran all over the fucking universe trying to get transparencies made. I so fucking hate FEDEX copy shops. I shoot lasers directly from my eyeballs into the hateful soul of that place. All of them. I mean, Kinkos was bad enough once you could no longer steal copied form them by banging the key on the ground to set it back to like 5 copies but this new fedex shit is srsly awful. Neither fedex place could manage to do what I needed so in a desperate fit I went to staples which was another hell on earth.

Apparently the trick with transparencies or acetate as some might say is that you need to make sure they do it on a color copier and not a b/w one. Whatever.

So I burn my first screen with like 3 transparencies sandwiched together and when I went to rinse it off a bunch of the emulsion peeled off as well. So I reclaimed that screen and started over with my second one. For the second one I just oiled my print out. So take your print out, and smear vegetable oil all over it until it is saturated, both sides and then burn your screen. I made the second screen with the sugar maple and the narwhal. It came out pretty well but also had a bi of the emulsion peel off and a few pinholes so I used a brush to put some screen filler over those areas.

I used water based ink to print the shirts and on some test fabrics and papers.

The next class is in a few weeks and I will do a Thank You For Not Being Perky stencil, maybe to be used for a few t-shirts. I WISH I could find my damn resale license. Maybe they’ll resend it to me if I call them…

I’m also working on a cute Oakland/ Pacific Pipe rail road image.

Silk screening makes me feel mad with power.

Some online resources (to be updated):
Silk screen printing instructions

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A crappy picture of it anyway. It’s hard sometimes to take a good picture of yourself. It’s not that my camera doesn’t have a self timer but more about shot setup. I could have gone outside with the good camera and tripod but I’m lazy and the inside of my house is just too cluttered to make a good backdrop. This shot includes some cat barf and my husbands yellow crocs and the strap to the camera. Sorry about that!

I made this skirt with Timeless Treasures bicycle fabric that I bought at Hart’s Fabric in Santa Cruz. and some plain black lawn and some super cute ruffle trim from Joann’s. I with I had bought more of the black ruffle trim, I did buy a few yards in red that I haven’t used yet.

I copied one of my favorite skirts onto muslin and then used that as my pattern. It’s just a simple A line and only took a few hours. Here’s how I do it:

- cut main fabric and lining.
- take a lining piece and a main piece and sew them together at the top, right sides facing. Do the same for the second pieces.
- flip up the lining. on one side sew the lining pieces together and then sew the main fabric pieces together. on the other side sew from the bottom up about 3/4 of the way or to where ever your zipper comes down to.
- flip the lining into the skirt ans sew a top stitch along the top edge.
- put your zipper in
- hem the main fabric and hem the lining in towards main skirt fabric.
The End

How do you make a basic lined A line. Does my way sound easy?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I made a blurb book and it turned out AWESOME. I love it! It’s like an actual book! It’s small and square, hardcover, with a dust jacket and is about 100 pages of all full color photographs (some text), is great quality and cost about 30$. Well worth it, IMHO, for a book you will be ordering as a keepsake for yourself and family.

I’m feeling pretty grumpy right now. I’m PMSing hardcore. Once a month I become SO AGGRAVATED with EVERYTHING. Things that only mildly annoy me at other times become huge issues that make me stabby.

For instance, you know how everyone thinks their baby is totally awesome and cute and smart? I’m sure it is, but even if I love your baby and think it is perfect it is still a giant lumpy BLOB. So when you think MY BABY is a giant lumpy blob then welcome to the club, fuckwit. ALL BABIES are giant blobs unless you spend a lot of time with them. Talk about how great your baby is all you want but don’t then point out some other lady’s baby and whisper about how it seems like kind of a blob because I guarantee you that everyone thinks that about your baby as well.

Also, I swear I have been the recipient of no less than 3 fucking stupid junior high school moments in the past few weeks. OMFG! Grow up! I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes like 10 minutes or a day later I’m all, “wtf just happened?! Did they really insinuate that? WHY?” In my hightened PMSy state I keep going back over the moments to try to figure them out instead of just forgetting about it.

I just read an article in Vim’s MIT magazine about a drug that they can give people that dims emotional memories. So they ask the person to recall them memory in detail and then give them this drug and the memory loses it’s emotional charge. They don’t forget it but it just no longer triggers an emotional response. To this I say, “DISTURBING!” Well, fuck, if soldiers get PSD we’ll just give them this drug and it won’t matter anymore! Go ahead rape somebody! the state will just give them this drug so that they won’t care enough to prosecute. OMG. But then also, If you’re incapacitated by emotional memories maybe it would be an okay thing… but still, EW!

Fish tacos, chocolate and bouncing on the trampoline with kids made me feel slightly better. As did some retail therapy. I got a cute black dress on sale, some underwear, some shampoo and some crap at IKEA.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 2. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 3. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 4. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 5. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 6. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 7. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 8. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 9. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 10. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 11. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 12. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 13. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 14. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 15. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 16. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 17. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 18. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 19. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009, 20. spats for Bazaar Bizarre @ Maker Faire 2009

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The cupcake recipe calls for taking the cupcake out of it’s wrapper, turning it upside down and frosting each one all over like a cake. cute. but an annoying pain in my butt and not very practical for transport or storage. The problem is that now I have way too much frosting and am going to have to make more cupcake batter to deal with the situation. The key to these cupcakes is to make sure you frost them and then put them in the fridge – the frosting needs to set in order for all the flavors to come out.

Cut to festive day out and about in SF. A nice day lounging in the Dolores park even though it was SO HOT. Also, Jack was a it listless since I DIDN’T FEED HIM. I know. wtf. I mean, I gave him a snack but clearly he needed more.

Jack perked up amazingly after eating his Dal Mahkni and naan and then having some coconut ice cream and some black sesame ice cream. I love how he just puts his whole face in the ice cream cone and then moves his mouth around.

Man! the Mission was a teaming masses of humanity in the nicest way yesterday! Girls in sun dresses! men in cute hats! dogs every where! I love days like that where it’s like humanity suddenly exploded out of doors and we all had the same idea to get ice cream in the same park at the same time.

Vim helped me make his birthday cheese cake when we got home and it took SO LONG. I used this recipe based on the cute picture.

Once I get it plated I will post a pic.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I finished my dress except for a few odd threads that need to be trimmed oh and I really should stitch down the back of the collar.

I finished it last night and suddenly had a very let down feeling, like, THIS IS IT?! BAH HUMBUG. hand making shit is for CHUMPS. But then I put it on today and had a sort of happy feeling and I felt pleased with myself and it made me cheerful and I wore it around the house all afternoon with some cute Fluevogs. I took some pictures… have you ever tried taking self timed pictures with a toddler around? yeah, it doesn’t work so well.

This is the first picture I took. you can see the skirt of the dress peeking out in the right of the picture. I’m surprised that you don’t see a giant grubby baby hand coming right for the lens.

Here, I figured out that I needed to wisk him into the picture with me to keep him from mauling the camera. He’s so sweet. We are sharing a cold right now.

I probably won’t make this pattern again,like I said in a previous post, the collar construction was needlessly complicated and I am sure I can find a shirt dress that has less collar pieces. So I learned that my sewing teacher was right when she said to always take the pattern instruction out and read them BEFORE you buy a pattern.

I did end up using snaps and I like it very much although next time I will make sure to place a snap right at the nipple line and I will take more time hemming.

I’m excited to move on to a new project. BUT WHAT WILL IT BE? I purchased 47 buttloads of this cute chiffon with birds all over it. it was WAY on sale and I knew that I would want to make many things with it AND I am taking a ‘how to sew with slippery filmy fabrics’ class. But will 10 yards be enough, she wonders?

I think I will make a simple skirt using this cute black and red corduroy I have had in my stash for about forever.

RECAP of dress posts – Making McCall’s 4769 Dress Pattern

beginning the dress – part one
working on my dress – part two
my dress an update – part three
is working on her dress – part four

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

One of them I forgot to take pictures of!! it was cute – yellow birdseed by alexander henry with green minky and yellow binding and yellow flannel backing. oh wait, here’s one lame picture:

Next I made one big and one small blanket out of this great Japanese owl fabric that Sparkle picked out. I really loved how the dark blue and brown looks together and the owls are adorable.

Sparkle also picked out this cute elephant fabric (alexander henry again I think) and I used light purple binding and light purple flannel backing and more brown minky (i still have some left…).

There was elephant fabric left so I made a changing pad. I ripped off this design from a cute changing pad my friend gave me. I uses grossgrain ribbon as a closure and has two pokets for wipes or whatever. i also used some nice soft organic bamboo quilting on the inside. It turned out cte but needed a bit of work and could have been more neatly executed…

I have a few more baby items that need making since my cousin just had her cute little baby. I’ve been hoarding this cute brown with light blue dots smooth minky for a while for just this purpose. But I haven’t decided yet what exactly I will make her. A large blanket? A small one? a full on quilty thing?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I was in Peidmont Fabrics the other day when my hand reached out for this gorgeous Liberty of London cotton lawn print. I mean look at it?!!! Doesn’t your heart go out to it? However, my hand trembled and quaked as I check the price tag at 37.00 a yard. Instead of a dress then, I bought a tiny bit and made some handkerchiefs. Raise your hand if you think I am nuts.

Then i made a tiny one. Raise your hand if you have changed your mind.

The handkerchief goes really nicely with the pair of delicate rose colored with pearl trim spats I just made too.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I really like how each size has it’s own pattern paper. I would have been seriously annoyed it I had to use chalk to size it. This one is size 2.

I used some left over black fleece that was Vim’s (I think left over from his scary-ass bunny costume). And I took apart the very first thing I ever sewed with my crappy kenmore – a blue corduroy ‘body pillow’ pillow case. I was pretty proud of it then but since I no longer use the comforter that matched it I figured I was in the clear to rip it up. I also used the cute bunny buttons that I bought for Vim (i can’t remember why I bought them).

It;s kinda pimpin’ with it’s shawl-esque collar, dontcha think?!

I am planning on making Jack a ‘smoking jacket’ version. Black velvet with pink tie material will look outrageously awesome on him I’m thinking.

I recommend the sew baby wonder jacket pattern. The look and feel of this jacket are so easily altered by the materials, I guess that is true for anything… but I really like the way his jacket turned out. It’s cute and cozy for him and I feel pleased that I was able to make it.

I’ve started a new one already with this baby wale corduroy and some brown minky.

My next project for jack will be a pair of pants made form this fabric… heh.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

And then I turn around for ONE SECOND.

And all hell breaks loose as Jack grabs the tin and not only turns it upside down but done so in such a  ‘flingy’ way that buttons go into every single crevice possible for button kind. Then the rampaging starts. As I am frozen to the spot in utter horror he takes the opportunity to bend over and spaz his hands in the buttons while shrieking with joy. Then he starts running around and little buttons are stuck to the bottoms of his feet and make little clicking noises. Its hilarious but is such a disaster than I am almost in tears.

I’m racing around trying to gather buttons back up and he is flinging them everywhere making lunges for the tin I am trying to refill and doing a tiny godzilla tap dance of joy every time he moves.

Things will never be the same. Buttons are lost for sure and I see three still over by the dresser right now.

This was on Wednesday I think. So then, yesterday, he and I are in the baby killer craft room and I am sorting through my fabric stash and I come across one of those bags of pom poms that you can buy at Michael’s. You know when you need like 5 pom poms but can only find the HUGE BAG of 1000. So I think, “hahaha, it would funny to give him this bag”. HAHA. Indeed. Now it looks like a clown threw up in my craft room.

Yesterday I was struggling with my addiction. My mind was on buttons as you know and I was itching to try making my own fabric covered ones. So my sponsor happened to call and I confessed my thought crimes. “How can I justify buying one more craft tool? “. I whined. And instead of the voice of reason she’s all, “oh that sounds awesome you should totally go get that!!” Thanks Mom.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Thse are from some nice green velvet with white and goldy buttons. The lining is pink fake wood grain from Joel Dewberry. LOVE IT! The backing buttons are from my grandmothers button tin.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

..

.

.

.

..

.

The second pair are black and white houndstooth (canvas duck) with red flannel lining, cute red and black vintage buttons (got ‘em at the oakland museum white elephant last year), and some eyelet lace ruffles (like ruffly underwears. hahaha) on the heels

Both of these are now up in my etsy shop!

minniekins.etsy.com

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Great! I’ve just snooped on her blog and she seems funa nd creative, lives near me somewhere and has a son just a month younger than mine.

Woo! I can’t wait to make her a package. Back in the day I used to be a great penpal/sender of things through the mail so this will be fun for me.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.