I just deleted more than half of the feeds I read on Bloglines. I am feeling overwhelmed by the craft blogs lately. I think I spend way more time reading them and following all their links than I do making things. I’ll make the updates to the site this weekend, plus the long-intended redesign (mainly brought on by almost hitting my bandwidth limit this month and realizing how big my background image is). So, fair warning if you want to take a last-minute peek at the links page before they disappear.

.

Anthropologie has had these shirts lately with some Japanese fabrics in them as accents. I was even ready to shell out the money for one of them, but it refused to fit properly. Then I thought, I probably have some fabric like that somewhere, and I know I have a plain shirt that could use sprucing up. Lo and behold, I had 3 fabrics to choose from, even. What with all the red and pink and turquoise going on in blogland lately, the choice was clear. Although this means I now have a shirt that matches a dress I made for Blythe.

It was pretty simple to make. Cut the fabric into two double-wide strips (mine were 6 inches, for a final sash width of about 3 inches) that are as long as the width of the shirt. Fold in half longways, wrong sides together, and iron to make the sewing easier. Sew up the long side and turn inside out to get a tube. Iron each tube into a strip, keeping the seam hidden in the back. Then just topstitch each strip down on the front and the back of the shirt, using stabilizer to help with the stretchy jersey. I decided on the topstitching approach because leaving the old hem looked funny, and there was too much bulk to make a nice join the normal way. After both strips are on, try the shirt on and see how much the bottom needs to flair to look good/fit. I tried to follow the natural slant of the seam from the shirt. This part is important because the sash won’t stretch like the jersey does, so you need to build in that give or it bunches up (speaking as someone who had to rip the whole thing apart and start over once).

.

I added a few new books to the library page. I finally broke down and bought The New Crewel since it was taking forever to come back in at the library. I’m glad I did because it’s a lovely book that is worth owning. Plus I finally added my quilting books that everybody else on the internet seems to own, and a funny sock creature book my sister got me for Christmas.

I also updated Crafting Japanese with all my projects from the last few months, including the corsage book from the last post, and tiny embroidery tiny garden for anybody who heard me mention it in my podcast interview.

.

Ww went to visit my sister-in-law and her family this weekend for my niece’s first birthday. While we were there, we did a little antique/junk store shopping, and I picked up this dohickey called the magic designer. It’s like a 1950s spirograph, but more complicated, with like 4 or 5 degrees of freedom. Crazy. Anyway, it’s pretty fun, and me and Mark and my other niece and my nephew quickly used up all the spare blank papers that were left in the box.

.

This is from my new Japanese craft book, Corsage and Something Like Corsage, which is like the best name ever for a Japanese craft book.

I first tried this really cute frayed petal, loopy middle flower, but it was a total bust. Still not quite sure where I went wrong with that one. So this is mark 2, and I’m really liking it. The fabric is from a swap, which I think is fitting since I’m sending it to someone to atone for being a month overdue on my swap package (so bad). It’s great big compared to the other flower pins I’ve made lately, like 3 or 4 inches across.

.

I’ve had my eye on this button cuff pattern for a while now. I even bought the buttons for it way back when it was first posted by annette. I’ve done some really bad crafts lately, bad enough to not bother posting even, and just following a nice repetitive pattern sounded like a sure thing. I used a dollar store button mix, and picked out all the aqua, blue, and grey buttons. They’re tied together with 3 strands of shiny rayon embroidery thread. Treasure Island is apparently going out of business and everything was like 50% off, so I now have one of every color DMC rayon thread and linen thread. The bracelet used almost an entire skein. If you read later in the Craftster thread there’s a better diagram on how to tie them together. The fastening is a button from the stash my sister got me for Xmas, plus one of those clear hair ties.

.

We had 2 days of spring this week before returning to our regularly scheduled cold weather. Maybe if I had one of these fantastic flowery necklaces it wouldn’t be so bad.

snapcrafty has a line called Lush. She also sells neat beads, so I bought a pack of the flowers last week to play around with.

I also really like Art School Dropout’s Juxtapose line.

.

Moki is holding another carved stamp swap, this time all stickers. I made a thimble, about an inch high.

.

I’ve been wanting a zakka-y skirt, like this ($460) one I saw in Daily Candy this week. Curse you, Project Runway, for making me think I can make my own clothes! After watching the finale last night, I made this skirt freehand, with two hours, a yard of linen from Ikea, a scrap from The Most Useful Ikea Sheet Ever, and a ribbon. “Project Hallway” as it were.

I went with the drawstring because it seemed like the easiest way to get the gathers I wanted. But, it’s a little unflattering in the hips. I still have some of the linen, so I might make a band at the top and install a zipper instead. Hmmm.

.