Bridal Shower Gift

I just spent my entire evening/night/early morning hours making a present for my friend's bridal shower. I think the most time consuming part was my attempt at bedazzling [read as: rearranging iron-on rhinestones one by one into an aesthetically pleasing design.] The backbreaking work paid off and I am very pleased with the sparkles. Here's the part that took the longest amount of time!

Only drawback from this project--I am a bit disappointed with my fabric choice. I try to get similar fabrics for projects but I somehow ended up with one stretchy fabric among the normals and it made the project a bit wonky. Sigh, I have to settle for imperfections as the shower is this Saturday --hopefully the bride-to-be does not mind!

-will post photo of the gift post-bridal shower

EDIT: Here's the apron it all it's glory

Gingkoes and Sailboats

I finally finished the yoga mat bag for S...just in time for M's birthday! So, I whipped up a quick bag for her too >.< Wooooo!!

  

Yoga mat bag took me a couple months to make because I wanted it to be a bit more fitted than what I made myself and I am quite happy with how it turned out. The nautical bag, on the other hand, was made on the fly with less planning. Maybe this goes to show that I'm getting the hang of this sewing business :)

EDIT: I added a zipper to yoga bag to make it fit better. No pics, but it now fits the mat like a glove. Ooooh, yea!

Yoga Bag!

Yoga bag as belated birthday present for S is still in the making, but I made mine as I procrastinate from work...

I finished the hand-embroidered monogram for her bag.

Also drew out the design...but it won't be made for another week or so :/ However, better late than never?

I made my bag in a completely different design than what I'm planning to make for S. I thought this version would be simpler, but it took me a bit of time [~3hrs due to lack of planning and design changes as I sewed]
 

Hopefully my yoga mat will fit because I guess-timated on the measurements >.<

Wedding!

My cousin is getting married this weekend and the dress I bought for the occasion is perfect...except for the sleeve. It is a one-shoulder dress, but the one shoulder is wide and unflattering. I took apart the entire arm-hole and made it larger for my super buff arms ;]

 

As for the back of the dress...

 

Woop woop! Now the dress has space for my arm to actually move! Can't wait for the wedding :)

EDIT: Pic with one of my cousins at the wedding reception.


You can't see the rest of the dress, but trust me, it was gorgeous :]

90s Party!

Costumes chosen: Crysta from Fern Gully and Pocahantas.

               
Timeline:
Wednesday afternoon -bought materials for 2 costumes.
Thursday -picked up sewing machine and other goodies. Construction of Crysta costume (~6-7hrs).
Friday -Finished Crysta (~30min) then started Pocahantas (~5-6hrs). Party at 9pm.

End result: 2 costumes made in 2 days. Success.

PS. Are we really in med school??
PPS. Mocassin heels!!

 

Upcoming...

Since I know a couple people are now reading this...

90s party coming up on Friday. I have a costume idea. Tomorrow, I will get my sewing machine and fabrics that I left with my parents (and Step 1 First Aid that arrived!) and make my costume!

Get excited.

More crochet!

As I mentioned previously, I have taken up crochet as a post-exam stress relief activity and I have two more projects to share!

First: A shawl to use up the last of the teal yarn in my possession.
I was looking for new stitches and came across the Solomon's knot AKA Lover's knot. Using this blanket as a guide, I made my shawl in the Solomon's Grid pattern and added a decorative ridge. I'm not sure of the dimensions, but a guesstimate would be 6ft x 2ft.

  

Since I had some leftover yarn, S & S (both of their names start with S!!) told me to make a headband. As I am eager to please, I made it and I even wore it in class today!

P.S. I made the headband with no plan/pattern, but I used this tutorial for the flower.

Basket Weave Blanket

I was inspired after seeing a video of the basket weave stitch and decided to make a good-bye/congrats-on-med-school-acceptance blanket for N. I pretty much worked on it post-exam and carried it with me almost everywhere in order to work on it in my spare time.

Yarn: Teal Red Heart Soft
  

And since I thought that the calculations were impressive, I will share. :D

I used a little over 18 skeins so...
Total yarn length: 256yd x 18 = 4,608yd = 2.62 miles or 38.4 football fields
Weight: 5oz x 18 = 90oz = 5.625 lbs
"Box" = 10 stitches wide, 9 stitches tall; 25 'boxes' wide, 18 'boxes' tall
Each completed row of 25 boxes ~1 skein. I averaged 4 hours per skein so total time: 72 hours (I started in March and finished mid-July)

Carrying the blanket everywhere I went was pretty tiring, but the result is GLORIOUS if I do say so myself. Without further ado...my basket weave blanket for N!



I am very proud of the fact I finished and was quite sad when I had to give it to N, but his reaction and appreciation was worth the effort.

 

Crochet Project for Feb

So I was going to try a project/month...but school is quite time-consuming now. However, I did start up crocheting instead of sewing! I find it is much easier to start/stop on a whim. Sewing projects were hard for me to gauge in terms of time. Portability is also a bit of an issue. I can't be carrying a sewing machine wherever I go, right?

I got back into crochet when I saw a friend working on this infinity scarf pattern. Extra exciting for us was the fact she is also a med student!! If she can do it, so can we! It took me a couple weeks of working on it in spare time before I finished.

I will put in a pic once I find one/I'm not at home so I can't go into my closet and snap a pic >.<

EDIT: Pictures!

 

Hopefully you can see details in the pictures. It's super soft and super warm...which means I can only wear it maybe 2x/year in sunny Fl. *sigh*

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Over my christmas break, I had a couple weeks to rest and relax [AKA babysit and take a family roadtrip.] Fortunately, I had a couple days to sew and crochet so here's what I made!

For my mom and a friend, I made a linen grocery tote.

Then I fashioned myself a shirt after getting inspiration from Etsy.com. I used the same concept as when I made a version of the ruffle J. Crew shirt by buying a larger-than-my-size long sleeved shirt and then using the sleeves as extra fabric to make the ruffle.

Since this is the first week back to classes, I'm taking advantage of the little time I have free to sew as much as I can-especially since the projects I am working on are supposed to be Christmas presents. >.< So far on this wonderful Friday evening, I have made my friend a ruffle vest and will soon start on her le sac dress.

It feels good to be back at my sewing machine. It's been gathering dust for too long! Maybe a resolution for this year [aside from the obligatory "start exercising!"] should be to make something at least once a month. So far, so good :D

Happy 2012!