Cartwheels and Pearls

Horse Silhouette Canvas

A quick shout out to the recipient of the horse silhouette canvas... my dear friend Jillian! Happy Birthday! Hope it's a great one! Well anyway, she's such a sweet nice girl and a great friend so I felt she needed a great gift. She's a fellow horse lover so I figured she needed something that had to do with horses. Oh did I mention I got a job working at a barn? oh and a job working as a tutor?

I'm 15 and already have 2 jobs. Oh dear. Anyway...

I started by printing out a horse silhouette I found online and finding a quote. I chose "Horses lend us the wings we lack." since she obviously likes horses. I laid it all out on my canvas, finally finding a way that I liked it. I used freezer paper and an exact-o knife to cut out my "stencil" I cut out some of the words but ended up getting bored and figured I'd do it later.

I cut out the horse head and ended up with this as my mane. I figured I could just wing it later since this was a total mess.

I painted my canvas using some pink paint. There wasn't very much and I somehow ended up with this cool looking tie-dye pattern.

And then I painted my silhouette on there and attempted to fix the lines. I also painted a mane. Note to self: manes are harder to paint then they appear. So I decided the horse would be more of a show pony without a mane and I tried to paint over it but ended up with that mess of gray paint above the head. It looked WAY worse in person.

After many coats of pink which turned gray, I finally decided that some white paint over top of it would be better. I ended up making a HUGE mess all over the canvas and my hands with the gray paint. How did that even happen?

I painted over the white once it dried and I ended up with a much better pinkness.

And after all this work, I decided that I didn't want the letters. It looked too good without them and I was way too lazy to cut them out, paint them, and then have to go through all the touch up mess again.

I personally think it turned out really great!

I wrote her a really long message on the back so she'd always know that it was from me.

I wrapped it in some beautiful birthday paper and re-wrote that same really long message.

Just kidding. One short sweet message and some christmas wrapping paper later, I had successfully finished a great birthday present. Good thing she liked it and is hanging it up in her room. And even better it matches the color scheme of her room. I hate guessing on stuff like this!

Oh and stay tuned everyone! I have a BUNCH of projects coming up! Let's just say we spent over $70 dollars at Jo Ann's the other day. That includes coupons and sales. I don't want to know what it would have been without that. *gasp*

I have three skirts, several bags, and a whole basement redo in the works.

3:53 PM
8 Comments

The "Mom Maxi" Tutorial

Clothing

A few days ago I posted the "Mom Maxi." It was a dress I made for Mother's Day for my mom. You can find it here.

I was planning on going to pick up some fabric as soon as a sale started at Jo Ann's to make one for myself but I stumbled on some fabric in my "DO NOT TOUCH" bin. I was so happy to realize that I had about 3 yards of gorgeous light blue linen. *gasp* I had gotten it at a garage sale along with a bunch of other fabric for around $2. Major score.

Just so everyone knows, this dress only takes about an hour and a half to make. And it's SO easy.

Anyway, you'll need around 2-3 yards of material, a t-shirt or tank top, and elastic thread.

I was so sad to part with think tank top I just had to get a goodbye shot.

Anyway, begin by wrapping the fabric 1 1/2 to 2 times around yourself. If you're taller or have a longer stride, go closer to 2 times. Mark it and cut it.

Fold it in half, right sides together and sew up the side seam.

Next, take your shirt and mark where you want the skirt to start. Make sure to take into account a bit of a seam. Then cut it, making sure to be careful.

Hand wrap your bobbin with elastic thread. Using a long stitch, sew around what will become the top of the skirt.

It should look somewhat like this. Using an iron and sort of steaming around the elastic thread will cause it to bunch up a bit more.

With the skirt inside out and the shirt right side out, insert the shirt sleeves first into the skirt. Try and line up the seam of the skirt with the back of the shirt. This will make the seam fall right smack in the middle of your butt.

To pin the skirt the shirt, gather a few inches of skirt between every pin in the shirt. The two are obviously different sizes and this will cause the gathering.

Sew them together using elastic thread in the bobbin.

When you're done it should look like this

There's a good chance it will be too long and hang really awkwardly. DON'T PANIC. We're going to fix that!

Take a moment to notice just how bad the dress looks without a belt or sash. I'm really not that big... at least I think I'm not that big...

Since mine was obviously way too long, I had to hem it a lot. Fold it up a certain length and iron it. I folded mine up one inch because I needed it to be a lot shorter.

Decide how much shorter it needs to be and divide that number by three. If it's reasonable (less than an inch), continue the steps below. If it's more than that, fold it up a lot, iron it and sew it keep close to the edge of the skirt. Cut off the excess material at the top and continue the steps below.

Sew a stitch (with regular thread as the bobbin) that goes around. I recommend staying closer to the edge of the fabric rather than the bottom of the skirt.

Fold it up two more times and sew again. Make sure to iron it too to create a nice hem.

And so this is where the sash comes in. Cut a long strip of fabric about 6-7 inches wide depending on how wide you want your sash. I had to sew a few strips together to get a long enough sash. I personally recommend going long. A nice big bow looks beautiful right on your butt.

Flip it inside out and iron it nice and flat.

Rusty water from the iron somehow spilled on my sash and I almost had a spaz attack.

The ends of the sash can either be just folded in and sewn or cut at an angle and sewn.

For the angle cut, obviously cut it at an angle.

Cut about a half inch into the seam and then the same amount at the crease in the bottom.

Fold them in and iron.

Sew it up and wallah! Repeat on the other side with the angle facing in the same direction.

Warning: The following contains posts of me after hauling heavy things around outside all day and unintentionally bathing in the hose.

There were so many ants in the flowers in wasn't even funny. I got about five on my hand. Yuck.

3:28 PM
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The Mom Maxi

Clothing

This is not some frumpy dress. NO! I'm calling it the "mom maxi" because it's perfect to be worn and made by a busy, mom on the go. I spent barely 2 hours on it. Like probably closer to an hour and a half. *gasp* That's the equivalent of a naptime or two depending. It may be the fact that I'm slowly aquiring sewing knowledge but this was SO easy.

I found the idea at A Small Snippet. You can find a full tutorial there. I was going to make a tutorial but only took like 5 pictures along the way. Definitely not tutorial material. Anyway, I'm planning on making one for myself and I'll make a tutorial out of that.

The first thing I did was enlist someone to wind the bobbin with elastic thread. I had my mom do it since I was making her for her.

I wrapped a piece of fabric 1 1/2 times around her and cut it. It's actually a bit more than that just because she's tall and has a long stride. (I obviously didn't get the tall gene).

I'd just like to share this beautiful bobbin. After about 3 or 4 failed attempts, I came up with this beauty. a

I also got some fuel for the job. A prize for going to the feed store and carrying who knows how many 50 lb. feed bags.

Also had my iphone to provide some tunes. I'm currently on a country kick so that's pretty much all I have on there.

Here's my fabric after the elastic thread. I was so proud of myself for being successful with that! I did spend about 10+ minutes with an iron to get it to finally ruffle up a bit.