Sharpie Tie-Dye

When my fabulous friend, and fellow crafty bod, Becky posted a link on her facebook wall to a tutorial for "Sharpie tie-dye", I HAD to try it. I've never been one from understated, or for that matter, particularly tasteful clothing, and when you combine this with the chance for yet another T shirt reconstruction, I couldn't really turn down this opportunity...

Combining this shirt...

Meh. With an emphasis on the 'eh'

 ...with this tutorial and a quick cut-down and re-build resulted in this little beauty...

Cute, non?

It took me a few days to finish colouring the entire shirt, mostly because I was feeling crumby and the smell of the alcohol and sharpies was giving me a corking headache. I'd guess I probably only spent a couple of hours on it altogether. As for technique, it's wicked simple and my not-quite 5 year old Bear was working on his own shirt with me. You stretch the clean shirt over the top of a plastic cup, holding it on with an elastic band, draw on your design with Sharpies, and then drop rubbing alcohol on to the ink and watch it spread. Anyway, this was the shirt once dying was complete... 

Front

Not the front...

 And now for a quick reconstruction to up the cute factor... I'm a big fan of tank tops, and so clearly this had to become one...

Using a [slightly broken, awaiting repair] cami as a pattern, pin down the side seams and then sew together. 

Once the side seams were taken in, I cut the neckline to the shape I wanted. Instead of rolling the hem or anything else fancy, I used the off-cuts of the shirt to create binding to finish the edges. I won't call it bias binding, because it's not cut on the bias. It's 1.5" wide strips, cut as long as the T shirt scraps would allow, folded around the raw edges of the neck and arm holes. The binding itself has raw edges left to fray/roll as they please, but because it's zig-zag stitched to the shirt it's not going anywhere and give enough stretch to make it comfy and wearable.

I'm stoked as to how well it turned out, and definitely will be getting a ton of wear from it this summer, especially as the warm weather seems to have finally made it to Massachusetts...

Infinity Scarf

Mum sent me a package for my birthday and included two items of clothing. Sadly, while I love the prints, the fit and style of both the trousers and dress really aren't quite me. Nearly, but missing the mark somehow...  But I didn't want to donate them or throw them out, so I put on my thinking cap and came up with a plan. The dress will be cut down to make a maxi skirt (it's a really pretty African-inspired print, but that's a post for another day) when I get time. And a zipper. However the trousers were a really easy conversion. Originally they looked like this...

 To be honest I didn't even try them on before deciding to sacrifice them to the Gods of Craft. The fabric is super flimsy, the waist is elasticated, and when combined with my size 10 bum that's not going to be a great look. Besides, they're a regular inseam and that is NEVER long enough on my 5'10'' frame.

 However, I kind of love the print, even if my photography stinks today. It's raining, I'll blame that.... I'd seen a couple of tutorials online to make infinity scarves from flannel pyjamas, so the transformation became obvious. I started to do things the hard way; unpicking the seams, then when I realised that was a waste of energy I cut off the waistband with my rotary cutter (or, Current Favourite Toy) and carefully cutting off the pockets and crotch seam, before I figured out that in order for things to line up properly I needed two simple tubes with no fancy schmancy shape, so with the aid of my trusty cutter I lopped the tops off to create to tubes with straight edges. Putting one tube inside the other right sides together I pinned and then stitched around the top to create one long tube. I unpicked the hem at the cuff to make the scarf a teensy bit longer but that was probably an unnecessary step, then pinned and stitched this too, remembering to leave a gap of about 2 inches to turn the scarf right-side out. Once it's right side out, carefully stitch the hole closed (which probably means, don't use bright green thread on black and gold fabric like I did, it looks a little silly...) Et voila, one infinity scarf made by my own fair hands...

 The fabric is 100% viscose; I usually hate the feel of synthetics but it's incredibly soft and lightweight. I can see myself getting tons of wear out of this in the summer.

As for the creation on the dress form, that's an unfinished project for another day...

Monsters!

A good friend from camp, and a huge influence on how I'd like to live my life, has a daughter who turned 2 in March. For her birthday, baby J had The Most Amazing Cake Ever. So of course, never one to see an idea I didn't want to steal, I blatantly ripped off the idea for my own birthday cake. I don't own piping bags, so I couldn't make the buttercream monster hair as fine as I would have liked since the ziploc baggies I used kept exploding if I used only a small hole in the corner. I attempted cake pops for the eyeballs but they kept falling apart and nearly made me crazy, so I opted for marshmallows and chocolate chips instead, and I don't like fondant so instead of making a fondant mouth with teeth which would have looked better, I just went with more chocolate chips. Because I can never have enough chocolate. His insides are three layers of basic sponge, two of chocolate and one of vanilla, sandwiched together with more buttercream. Sadly I didn't get any in-progress shots, but here he is in all his glory.

Please excuse the mess, Cyril ate my maid. *cough*

 I called him Cyril. Cyril is delicious...