Think Inside The Box

Good day, Earthlings!... I mean, um... friends!

I have for you my first ever "how-to" craft post. Woohoo!

          Here I will show you how to make a sturdy decorative storage box for your collection of sewing patterns, and you'll need no more than an afternoon to do it. First up, a list of what you'll need:

- A sheet of foam board (Spring for the good stuff at a craft store. The "dollar store" may have a lower price, but it comes with lower quality.)
- 6 sheets of 12"x12" scrapbook paper (2 patterned for outside, 4 white for inside and bottom)
- X-acto knife
- Ruler
- Pencil, nice and sharp
- Mod Podge, paintbrush
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- About 4 feet of Yarn (optional but preferable)


Now that you have what you need, let's get started!

1. Use a ruler to draw two 5"x7" and two 5"x10-1/2" rectangles on the foam board and cut them out with your X-acto knife.

Step 1.

2. Cut printed scrapbook paper about 1/2" - 3/4" larger than the board pieces in each direction. (You should be able to fit two board pieces on one sheet of paper.) If you have a bit less than that, don't worry. It'll work just fine.

3. Use paintbrush to apply Mod Podge to part of the foam board and place it MP-side-down on the paper, making sure it's centered. Then keep pasting the paper down little by little. It may be tedious, but if you apply a lot of MP all at once, the board may warp from the moisture, so take your time. If the board does start to warp, place a large, heavy book on top of it while it dries.

4. When dry, cut into the corners of the paper to reduce bulk, and use MP to wrap the paper around the raw edges of the board.

Step 4.

5. For a clean look inside the box, trace each board piece onto white paper and cut it about 1/8" smaller in each direction. Use MP to paste the white paper to the back of the board pieces.

 Before and after Step 5.

6. Use hot glue to assemble pieces as shown. (Don't worry if glue seeps out the sides. The optional yarn decoration pretty much takes care of it.)

7. When dry and cool, place assembled sides on top of leftover foam board and trace the inside. Use a ruler to straighten the lines. Repeat Steps 2-5 for bottom using white paper and use hot glue to assemble as shown. (This piece should fit snugly inside the assembled sides of the box.)

 Step 7.

          Congratulations! Your spiffy little box is complete and functional. But if you're put-off by any hot glue that squished out the sides during assembly, here's a simple fix that also adds a bit of texture.

1. Cut 4-ft length of yarn in half. Put a line of hot glue on the inside corner of the front of the box and place end of one length of yarn on the glue. (I used the tip of a pair of scissors to press the yarn into the glue.)

 Optional Step 1.

2. Put another line of glue on the outside of the same corner covering where the board pieces meet and wrap yarn around the corner and press it into the glue.

Optional Step 2.

3. Continue wrapping the yarn around the end of the box and finish by gluing down the yarn end inside the other corner. Do the same for the other end of the box.

Optional Step 3.

          Yay! Now your box is even better than it was before! It's the perfect width for most store-bought sewing patterns and it looks lovely on your desk, dresser, or shelf. If you like, you could also make a cute label to dress up the front of your box or use other embellishments to really bling it out! Cut the foam board any size and make a whole set of boxes for all your sewing and crafting supplies, DVDs, or whatever you have that needs a place of its own.

Happy crafting!

Kayla

Change It Up

Greetings, lovely people!

     So I'm in the planning stages of crocheting a ripple-pattern blanket for my room here at school. I found a lovely pattern in the wonderful Crochet Today! magazine (yes, the exclamation point is part of the title). The July/August 2011 issue features a beach blanket that seems thick and cozy enough to keep you toasty in cold weather, as well. The pictures show a carefree woman walking barefoot on the beach on a breezy, overcast day, wrapped in a colorful ripple blanket.

     I am very excited to start this project, though I may not be able to do so for a while. The colors recommended in the pattern are a bit too summery to use at this time of year, so I plan to experiment with color combinations through the making of the ever-useful gauge swatch.

     For those of you who may be new to the art of crochet, a gauge swatch is like a sample pattern of the project you are making. It has you utilize the recommended yarn and hook size to make a certain number of rows and number of stitches per row, usually measuring four-by-four inches (unless it's a complicated pattern stitch, ripple, or worked in the round). If the swatch is too small, use a larger hook. Making gauge swatches is very important when you are planning projects that need to be precisely sized, like clothes. If you start a garment without making a swatch, the measurements may be wrong and pieces may not match up right, and by then it will be too late to start over.

     Gauge swatches are also a great way to experiment with color. If you like, try a variegated (multicolored) yarn, or create a stripe pattern. For this blanket, I am working with both solid and variegated colors to see how they look together. I'm working on using yarn I already own for now, using up my super-duper stash to see if I'd like to buy more of certain colors if they look good. Here are some of the gauge/color swatches I've made so far.

     Do you have a favorite? So far, mine is the yellow/burgundy one. I have a few more combos to try out, though. Maybe one of them will tickle my fancy more than these! The stripes will of course be thicker on the real blanket, but I only did two rows of each color in order to see the repeat pattern work out.

     I sure hope you found this to be a rather informative post. I'm glad I could share this useful information with you. Happy hooking!

Live long and prosper,
Kayla

The Chronicles of the Epic Monster Scarf, pt. 2

**UPDATE!!!**

     So the Monster has grown impressively over the summer to a cool 101 inches.

     Thanks to my handy-dandy calculator, I now know that is exactly 8.41 feet. Almost halfway there!

That sweet little fur-ball at the top of the pic is my baby girl Mollie. She is a five-year-old Bichon Frisee and she loves cuddling up with my yarn projects whether or not I'm working on them at that particular moment. So here she is as an impromptu model with Monster (for the sake of size comparison).

     It may be a while before I can sit down and dedicate an afternoon to working on Monster. The semester is shifting into high gear as we prepare for midterms and I dive into my independent study (future post!). Thanks for checking in to see my progress, and I well be sure to keep you all in the loop as this project (and my love of the Doctor) continues to grow.

Live long and prosper,

Kayla

Rainy Days and Wednesdays

     Today we take a bit of a break from my usual crafty nature for a tale of adventure and eventual defeat in my battle with an indecisive thunderstorm.

     Wet weather has never really been a friend to me or my long, luxuriously thick hair that frizzes at the mere mention of rain. So when I checked for today's forecast before bed last night, I groaned when I saw pictures of little thundery rain clouds next to "WED" and "THU." I placed my stripey purple umbrella on the floor next to my book bag before hitting the hay, and then I remembered I had left my only pair of reasonably waterproof footwear at home. Sure, they're snow boots, but they're no rain boots either. Even so, they're better than my sneakers. Which I ended up wearing today.

     Throughout the day, the rain seemed to come and go, sprinkle and subside. It wasn't that bad until just before my Spanish class let out and students in the next class were coming in literally dripping wet. I zipped up my jacket, pulled the hood over my head, and popped my umbrella open as soon as I was out the door. I had not taken a few steps when I saw what inspired me to take out my camera and document my trek:

This seems to be some sort of manhole cover thing. Whatever it is, it's filled to capacity with water.

     The downpour continued, and I carried on, pinning my book bag and my purse to my sides with my elbows in an attempt to keep them under the protection of my little umbrella. I got a brief respite in the Center for the Arts, taking a seat in the hall outside the theatre, where I looked over the last few pages of the first chapter in my Spanish book, attempting to prepare myself for this Friday's test. I chatted with a few passers-by and nommed on a free soft pretzel I picked up at a table outside the dining hall. After realizing that the rain hadn't let up (and likely wouldn't in the near future), I decided to brave the elements and set a course for my dorm building over a block away. And with my hood up, umbrella in hand, and a few well-wishes from my friends, I was off.

     After finding ways around and/or over the several curbside creeks that had formed in the streets I needed to cross on the block-and-a-half walk to my dorm, I thought I was in the clear. Then I remembered the worst was still before me. This raging river was AT LEAST 2 inches deep right next to the curb, and the flow was as wide as a car that was a few yards out of view of my camera. 

Looking up and down the street, I saw no part of this awful torrent that could be crossed with a single super-human stride.

So I jumped in with both feet.

Looking at these pictures, I noticed something that didn't occur to me at the time I took them:

The white line on the left in this photo is the white line on the left in the photo from before I hopped the stream. The flow of water was strong enough to move this Pedestrian Crossing sign a few feet down the street without me noticing right away. See how it even turned a bit?

This makes me sad.

Two sections of the sidewalk outside my building have sunken into the ground a bit, forming a small pit where rainwater accumulates and usually narrows the flow of foot traffic to the one side. But here, I had the same problem as before. Fortunately, there was an area that wasn't covered in more than an inch of water: the curb.

This worn-out path is a small shortcut to the front of the building, saving people the trouble of continuing down the sidewalk and making a 90-degree turn to get to the front door. But today, even that was out of the question, leaving sneaker-clad students (such as myself) to deal with the previous sidewalk obstacle.

     So after a cumulative 8-minute walk from Spanish class to my room, I got soaked up to the knee, an individual bag of green tea that was in my purse got soaked and stained my bed sheets, and I had to put my pants, jacket, and shirt in the dryer for an hour before I headed back out for dinner (by which time it had completely stopped raining). Like I said before, wet weather and I are not very good friends.

     Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about my seemingly mundane adventure on campus today. I also hope you all had a better day than I did.

     --Join me next time as I share with you some tips and tricks I learned the hard way over my few years of crocheting, in hopes that you will no longer be confused while following patterns or disappointed with how a color join looks in your project.

Live long and prosper,

Kayla

The Chronicles of the Epic Monster Scarf, pt. 1

Many of my friends from school know that I am an epic Doctor Who fan. Now, I know I don't know much about the original Doctors, like from the 1960s to the 1980s, but I've seen enough of the wonderful Tom Baker (aka the Fourth Doctor) to know that his costume is worth duplicating.

So this January (the very first week of classes, in fact), I began an incredible journey to replicate the most recognizable item in his wardrobe: the scarf.

Yes, this long, stripey awesomeness is indeed very wonderful. Please try not to swoon. Research tells me that the original scarf Baker wore was over 18 feet long, with a shorter version eventually used for stunts and action scenes. Understandably.

My mission is to create a full-length version of this super-dooper scarf.

Here's the yarn I'm using.

I decided to mix things up a bit with the stripe pattern by alternating certain colors: Say the pattern says a red stripe is next. I use the bright red yarn. The next time it says to make a red stripe, I use the burgundy. Then the bright red, and so on. I'm also doing this with the teal and gray, and solid and fleck shades of light tan and medium brown. You can see this pattern play out in the newer pictures.

Here it is as of February 2, 2011

Approx. 21 inches in length.

 February 19, 2011.

Approx. 39 inches in length.

Boy, I made a lot of progress these last two weeks!

Then schoolwork piled up, and I only got a little bit done at a time over a few weeks at a time. I snapped this last picture shortly after finals week released us from its iron grip.

May 19, 2011

Approx. 64 to 65 inches in length.

As of right now, it is longer than my tape measure and about as long as I am tall! How about that?

Anyway, I just thought I'd share my progress with you, my devoted reader. I'll be sure to keep you updated. Thanks for stopping in, and wish me luck in getting this thing to 18 feet!

Live long and prosper,

Kayla

Out with the old...

I would like to share with you my Draping final project. We were assigned old semi-icky prom gowns from department storage and told to redesign them, turning them into little cocktail dresses.

The Before:

                 The After:

As you can see, I reused the halter strap and uber-sexy broach from the back of the original dress and incorperated them nicely into the little dress you see the wonderful Jazmine wearing above. I used the original burgundy satin fabric and lining for the basic construction, and added cream-colored, metallic lace as a dreamy cascade on the front. I also reused the zipper and hook-and-eye closure, moved from the side of the "before" to the back of the "after."

This thing gave me lots of issues over the five weeks I had to work on it (draping the muslin on a form, making the flat pattern from scratch, figuring how to make the pattern fit on the fabric I salvaged from the "before" dress, etc.), but I think t turned out great! Hopefully my professor thinks so, too. Fingers crossed!

A big thanks to my dear Jazmine, who rocked it on the runway. I can't imagine how things could have gone any better. I was jumping up and down in my seat with the biggest smile in the world on my face when you came out on stage, and was getting thumbs-up and smiles from my friends who were sitting around me. I love you, sistah!

And thanks to you, my reader, for stopping in to see my latest awesomeness. I love you, too!

Live long and prosper,
Kayla

Dear Mommy,

Happy Birthday.

Happy first birthday in your true home.

This is difficult to write because there are so many things on my mind, things I need to get done, and, no offense, thinking about you makes me feel worse. I feel sick, and I can't really finish a full meal. But when I do eat, it's junk. Cake and cookies and brownies and pie. Your favorites. Today is also the annual Fashion Showcase, and the whole department is stressed out about getting things ready and being "perfect."

I miss you. A lot. And I have a present for you: the dress I made for my Draping final. My friend Jazmine is wearing it and she rocks it! It's your favorite color, too. I hope you like it.

I love you and Happy Mothers' Day,
Your Little Miss