CrumpArt » Sewing

Swapperific

March 31st, 2008 by Crumpet

I received my Ravelry Bag Lady swap package last week! Hooray!

annie3891, who doesn’t seem to have a blog, sent me a beautiful felted evening style bag made from some handspun yarn she’d bought. I love it, but it was a bitch to photograph. Especially at 10pm when it was raining and dark outside… here it is anyway making friends with my sketchbook.

I also got Pocky (!), origami paper, a beautifully soft blue iPod cosy and some lovely lip balm! Thank you Annie!

I’m pretty sure my ‘target’ will get the package I sent today, so I’m happy to post pictures now.

I have a bunch of old laser discs sitting at home waiting for a crafting opportunity. While my swap pal doesn’t like horror films so much, I decided that Vertigo was the best one to use, considering her profession. Every single office I’ve ever walked into that’s part of this particular business has had a Vertigo poster somewhere. And I figured my pal could do with a pencil box. Or a ‘whatever she wants to put in it’ box, really. I added some arty extras to the box, keeping in mind something that I read somewhere while stalking.

Continuing on the Hitch theme, I sewed this bag. It’s made almost entirely from recycled materials (we had a $30 budget, and I’m doing Wardrobe Refashion, so I set recycling/upcycling/working from stash as a challenge for myself) — I used some op shop pants that once belonged to a very short, very round old man for the outer, and some unwanted handmade pants scavenged from Kym’s stash several years ago for the lining. The batting was also recycled from old manchester, and the pocket was made from some beautiful fabric that I received in exchange for some art years ago. The zipper was also recycled, and the magnetic snap was from stash. Hopefully it’s easy enough to guess which title sequence I was riffing off with the quilting…

I was originally going to put two pockets in the bag, but the construction method didn’t really allow for that, so I used the leftover fabric to make this cute little pouch. So easy, and now I want one for myself!

And considering that the Bag Lady swap was happening on a knitting board, I obviously had to do some of that. This is the Saturday Market Bag from MagKnits, made from stash yarn (Lang Filo, I think) bought years ago for a buck a ball at Lincraft. It even matches the lining of the Hitch Up Yr Pants bag! Next time, though, I’ll figure out how to knit this in the round, then do a three-needle bind-off at the base. Teh Seaming SuXX0r3d.

So there you go, swap pal (if yr even reading…) — I hope it arrives soon, if it hasn’t already.

Posted in photography, Geekery, Book making, Film, Swaps, Sewing, Knitting | | 3 Comments

Pants, pants, pants, pants, sing the praise of pants.

February 6th, 2008 by Crumpet

I have one month of school holidays left. That means I’ve been on holidays for three whole months. I feel like I’ve barely had a break at all, and I have so many things left to finish before I go back…

I have made some headway though.

I finished these awesome, awesome, wonderfully comfortable pants for work the other night. We have to wear all black even behind the scenes now, and even though I’m from Melbourne, I have very little black in my wardrobe. Some simple fisherman style pants seemed the way to go. These are made from the Burda pattern 8315.

I love them very, very much and have plans to make several more pairs to wear to school.

For mindless knitting (my favourite kind — I use knitting as a way of zoning out) I’ve been working on Stefanie Japel’s Cozy V-Neck Sweater, re-mathematised to be made from stash DK weight instead of the chunkier weight the pattern calls for. One of the great things about top-down raglans knit in the round is that you can try them on for size during the knitting. I’ve started the ribbing for this now, and am about 5cm into it. I’ve put it aside for the minute because the yarn comes in massive 200 metre skeins, which I have to wind by hand into balls because I have no swift or ball winder (hint hint), and I didn’t have time the other day to prepare another skein before leaving the house. So I picked up this.

Free yarn.

20 balls of free yarn.

20 balls of the most beautiful, lovely, squishy, soft, green free yarn.

It was a thank you gift for attending an ideas/information night put on by Patons. I was going for the fun. I had no idea there would be free yarn. Score! It’s turning into Stefanie’s Puff-Sleeved Feminine Cardigan.

And finally, the birthday presents have already started rolling in! And this one is the best kind of present anyone can give me. A friend needed to buy a gift for someone else, so they specifically bought something from my Etsy store as a gift to me. Totally awesome and thoughtful and kind and lovely.

I sent this off to the unsuspecting recipient today.

Posted in Etsy, photography, Sewing, General crafts, Knitting | | 2 Comments

Things that lead to other things.

January 27th, 2008 by Crumpet

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here already or not, but about a month ago Mr Crumpet was very naughty. He’d been talking about buying a projector, and when the secondhand one that we were going to buy fell through because of a technical fault, we agreed to wait and buy one when we’d saved enough money.

Apparently that was all a ruse.

And as angry as I was, I do really, really, really love it. It makes our front room look far neater and more spacious, and I can now watch David Boreanaz in bigger than life-size mode.

The next problem, though, was that I could only watch my favourite vampire after the sun had gone down (although that does make sense, in a way.) We have wooden venetian blinds on our windows, and while they look lovely, they don’t block out the light so much. So, we had some friends over for dinner and a movie, and they brought over their overlocker for an extended loan.

It’s a Husqvarna Huskylock 905, and after downloading a manual and spending a little quality time together, we’ve forged a happy relationship. This particular overlocker is very easy to thread and I have so many projects in mind to use it for. Plus it’s just fun to say Husqvarna.

But what does an overlocker have to do with a projector?

New curtains!

Not the greatest project in the world, though. Wrangling thick, heavy pieces of fabric bigger than the floor space in my studio is not so much fun. While they would have been better hand sewn, it was a project that needed to be done quickly, and I value my sanity. I did the whole thing on the overlocker using a “blind hem”. You’d actually have to be blind not to see some of the stitching that’s not supposed to be visible, but the job is done, looks relatively good and works well for us. Also, the front room is way cooler already, because the curtains are blocking out the excessive heat too. Bonus!

And now that’s over, I can work on things like this! (We can also finally have people like m1k3y over to watch a film. Hooray!)

Posted in Film, Sewing, General crafts, Art | | 4 Comments

Handmade with Attitude

November 30th, 2007 by Crumpet

We went to Mr Crumpet’s work Christmas party tonight, and in the spirit of handmade I pulled out a dress that I made several years ago, from the Vogue Issey Miyake pattern 2438. I loved the pattern before I sewed it, and I loved it after, but I didn’t have the guts to wear it anywhere. To wear this dress properly, you need a good dose of attitude and self-confidence.

I think I’m finally there.

That’s what I looked like at the party, but I’m thinking of adopting this look for my work Christmas party next week. A little bit Blade Runner, a little bit rock’n'roll. Do you dare me?

Posted in photography, Film, Sewing | | 5 Comments

It be hot.

November 17th, 2007 by Crumpet

The Gelato Truck tune sounds exactly like magic in this kind of weather. I got lemon, lime and chocolate. It was yummy.

I also scored a few other things today.

9cm! Metal! Zips! 50 cents each! ZOMG! I bought ten. I was tempted to buy more, but kept myself in check. The bottom fabric has a slight stretch was $5 per metre (150cm wide I think) and is a really lovely colour — peachy pink with subtle khaki threads woven in. The middle is a decent sized lycra style scrap that cost me $2, and the top one is a light cotton scrap that cost me $5. All from the It Inc. Alannah Hill/Dangerfield outlet on Brunswick St in Fitzroy. Hooray!

And why am I stocking up on fabrics? I signed up for something else…

Posted in Sewing, General crafts, Random | | 0 Comments

U is for Unavailable

November 10th, 2007 by Crumpet

I’m getting heartily sick of not having a camera bag, so tonight I started researching the handmade options. A few weeks ago I was looking at getting one of the Crumpler bags, but they’re expensive, and they don’t make exactly what I want. I can’t find much handmade, and I’m not completely sold on the few that I can find.

So… I’m going to have to make my own.

I want something that is hardwearing, looks interesting (I’ll probably end up printing my own fabric), is waterproof, has good padding and has room for a spare lens, a few little accessories and the battery grip. If this works out, I might make a bigger version to hold all our gear. I’m going to need to borrow my friend’s overlocker, and I might think of acquiring a heavier duty sewing machine (I’ve wanted one for a while — I tend to push my current one a little too far, and sometimes it struggles).

Yay for summer projects!

Posted in Alphabet, Summer Studio Challenge, photography, Sewing, General crafts | | 0 Comments

Pivot

September 28th, 2007 by Crumpet

I love scissors. The photo above is a close-up of my latest acquisition — a new pair of dressmaking scissors… my old hand-me-down scissors were getting a bit worse for wear, and all the others had been blunted too much by paper to be any good for fabric.

I don’t know what it is about scissors, but they fascinate me, and I have one old beat up pair that I find especially beautiful. So much so that I keep immortalising them in print. I’ve just recently done it again in some new work, but you can check some others out here and here in my Etsy store.

Posted in Etsy, photography, Sewing, Art | | 1 Comments

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