Guy's Shirt

A sewing project has kept me so busy this week. You can read about it here: Guy's shirt. I'll be so relieved if I finish it by the deadline. I should get the first shirt finished today (knock on wood). I have to sew on the cuffs and make 2 button holes and sew on the buttons.  I think that's it. He's leaving for Great Western War (SCA) on Oct. 3, so I need to be done before that. I knew he wanted to dye one shirt and he has time for that but I doubt I'll get the second one done in time for it to get dyed and dried. I just cut out the second one this morning.

Making a Fabric Wedding Journal

I finished the wedding present just in the nick of time. It was a long drive there and the freeway was congested. We carpooled with friends. We literally got there 15 minutes before our friend walked down the aisle. Whew.
They didn't open the gifts at the reception. So I didn't get to watch the look on her face when she opened it.

Today I'm back to sewing a shirt. I'm tired though. I had to take a break.

Creating Internet Things

I just found out two of my sewing projects have to be done at the beginning of Oct., not the end of it.  And Friday and Saturday I have to spend getting ready for and going to a wedding. Yikes! Deadlines. I'm still working on the wedding present.

But on a good note I made 3 new Tumblrs, redirected my domain name to a new webhost so I can build a new website, and learned how to use Wordpress. Go me. Zenchantress: My hypnosis site
My fashion Tumblr  Splashion
My belly dance Tumblr Belly Dance
My creativity Tumblr Creative and Exotic
My hypnosis Tumblr Zenchantress

So as you can see it's been a busy day.

Beading With Delicas

I got up early and added new items to my Zazzle shop : Personalize me.

Yesterday I got my Delica beads in the mail from Fire Mountain Gems. Fantastic. I can't wait to try them out.

Then since we were already at Walmart, I got some of the beads from their new display. The Delica beads were five times more expensive than the Walmart beads, so they will only be used for bead weaving projects where uniformity can make or break a design.

I just hope I have time to make some jewelry today. I need to finish the fabric wedding journal for my friend's wedding on Sat. Eeep. I should work on that for at least an hour today.  Then we'll see about beading.

More quilting, beading and sewing.

I'm back from my two day mini-vacation. I got to work on my quilting blocks. I got three new ones cut out.
And I got to work on the brick stitch feather earring. By the time my beads get here next Tuesday, I should have all the bugs worked out of the pattern and then I can make a new pair with the Delica beads.

My boyfriend asked me to sew 2 shirts for him for an upcoming SCA war. I have enough on my plate but he puts a roof over my head so how could I say no? He's running out of time to do it himself and he's not sure he has the skills, and he was about to hire someone. But spending money isn't making money, so I should do it. I just hope they fit when I'm done because I'd hate to waste his material and that would definitely not save us any money.

Delicas

Last night I ordered Delica beads from Fire Mountain. I'm looking forward to seeing the colors in the sunlight when they get here. Delicas are the Legos of the beading world.  They fit together a lot better than your average bead. I ordered about twice as many as I was planning on.  The colors are just irresistible.

I'm still going to finish the feather earrings I started though, as the pattern is a prototype and it's good practice.

Now I need to get ready to go out of town for 2 days. I haven't even packed my suitcase yet...I've been too busy playing on the Internet.

Whatever the rest of you are doing today, I hope you are having some fun too.

Beaded Feather Earrings

I spent the better part of the day designing a pair of beaded feather earrings. I'm almost halfway done with the bead weaving on the first one. If you want to know how to do brick stitch, I found this page useful: http://bnb.jewelrymakingmagazines.com/en/How%20To/Basics/Brick%20Stitch/2006/08/Brick%20stitch%20basics.aspx I'm done beading for the day. It's hard on the eyes and the back. I'll take the project with me when I'm house sitting tomorrow.

I'm also going to take my fabric so I can cut out more quilt patches. I'm looking forward to that. I thought I'd be gone 3 days and now it's only 2. I need to stop being a cheapskate and order some Delica beads.  They really are better for bead weaving that the 'off the rack' beads I'm settling for. If I like the pattern when I'm done, I'll do it again in Delica beads.

Manipulating a Painting of a Belly Dancer with Picasa

I'm so excited I got the scanner to work. The first thing I scanned was a big beautiful belly dancer that I painted today at breakfast in my sketchbook. I used some sparkly watercolors. It's the only paint I had with me at McDonald's so the whole thing is sparkly. I cropped it and made some different shades of it to use on Zazzle products and other places.  But I thought I'd share it here as well.

This is the first in a series I'm doing of showing big beautiful woman in a positive light.

The warm tones feature on Picasa

The original full color painting.

I used the sepia tab on Picasa

I used the tint feature on Picasa

I used the tint feature on Picasa

I used the tint feature on Picasa

Scanner

Would you believe in all these years I've never had a scanner? My boyfriend just gave me his old one. Now I need to figure out how to use it. It will sure make matters simpler to put art from my canvases and sketchbooks onto my photo stream and Zazzle and Cafe Press and so on. But I hate fiddling with new (to me) technology.  Usually about the time I get so frustrated with the thing that I want to check it out the window, I figure it out.

New Hypnokitty logo

I've been playing around with my new logo. I wanted to use a button template for Photoshop but never did figure it out, but I tweaked my logo so I can put it on buttons someday.

Katherine Rose Barber on Zazzle

I saw some really cool shops on Zazzle tonight, but this one was my favorite. http://www.zazzle.com/katherinerosebarber It's fantasy art featuring curvy women faeries. Plus she has mermaids and other whimsical art and pagan friendly designs.

Another Day of Patchwork

It was Labor Day and I had no plans. It rained over night, so it was cooler but very humid today.  I spent the whole day working on my Gratitude patchwork blocks for my quilt. Even so, I only got the pieces for 2 blocks cut out, and half of one block sewn together. Patchwork certainly is time consuming, especially when I sew the wrong parts together and then have to use the seam ripper.  It's kind of like playing Rubik's cube on steroids.  I can swear I have the pieces the right way around, then once they are fitted together my mistakes jump out at me. Ack! It is trying my patience.  It will be worth it in the long run though.  The Fish Tales block is one of the more complicated ones. If I can finish that I should be able to sail through most of the others.

Tomorrow I'll need to work on the wedding journal or it won't be done in time for my friend's wedding. So if you were interested in that project, stay tuned.

Lots of Crafts For a Busy Weekend

I have a plethora of creative projects going right now. Yesterday I swung by a sale at Joanns and got fat quarters for my quilt.  I got panne velvet for my fabric banners and journals.  I got more embroidery floss and pearl cotton. And I got new blades for my rotary cutter because it was skipping a lot. Whew.

I still need one more color for the quilt so I hope to get over to M&L Fabrics today. I need a deep blue green. If you can see the swatch photo you'll see the blues I'm talking about.  The rest of the colors I either had or picked up yesterday.

Then I have my wardrobe project going in red, pink and gray.

I also started a new photography account on Flickr for my photography portfolio. I already had one that I posted everything under the sun into, but I found people didn't respect me as a photographer, only as that girl that took cool snapshots. It will be more work but it will pay off in the long run. You can check that out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnokitty/

All this and working as a freelance writer on the Internet is keeping me hopping.

An Apple a Day?

The Dr. sent me home with antibiotics, and hopefully with a little more rest I'll be able to get back to one of the things I love most, which is making things. I've been working a bit on the fabric wedding journal.  The idea of making little flat pillows is very charming to me. And I want to make a long banner. At first I was going to do 'pigglewiggins' but that's a long name and I'm not sure people could read it.  Then I thought maybe I'd spell out artist. It will be a vertical banner.  Now I'm more leaning on 'welcome'. I'd like to get some velvet for part of it. I don't buy velvet often but now and then I need it.

I haven't decided what kind of paper I want to put inside it yet. But it's going to have to be twice as wide as the journal so I can fold it in half.