Her look is similar to Close your Eyes, but I was bored so I drew another girl with the same look. Just no background for this one and done in colour. Made in TwistedBrush.
Still need to finish the straps but it was shot night and got to be too late, so I’ll do that tomorrow. Then need to iron the top since a certain kitty decided to lay on it… That’s why it looks all funky on the right side. I’ve discovered I can semi sew a straight line… semi… usually. Kinda. Sewing a straight line is about as natural as drawing one though. Brian said he could get away with a purse using this fabric and thinks he needs a laptop case made out of it.
Chick Purse
When I decided I’d attempt to teach myself to sew with nothing but a sewing machine, fabric, thread, zippers, a few questionable patterns, and the internet I told mom I was scared of zippers. I had seen a few posts of people saying zippers scared them. Even people who seem to sew a bit had mentioned online that putting zippers in purses scared them, eek. So I figured I’d be in BIG trouble. Therefore I am posting this picture that is half-fail and half-not-fail.
It’s a fail only because I wasn’t taking it very seriously. I have the crappy scissors and didn’t want to wait the rotary cutter to practice. So I just cut a piece of fabric from old pants with no real guide and not so straight, in fact it didn’t turn out perfectly square. But I didn’t care, I figured I’d be tearing it apart when I screwed up the zipper. And aha! I can, in fact, sew a zipper without making a mess of it, I think. It’s not ironed because I didn’t care and figured I’d be tearing it all apart 1,000 times, so it sticks up here and there and looks even less straight than actually is — oddly enough, while the fabric is a mess, the stitching is almost perfectly straight which is amazing for me, considering… It’s actually not puckered up, etc, just needs a good ironing and I’m lazy and need to re-stitch one of the corners first, if I care that much, I didn’t even care enough to use matching thread after all. But I sewed a zipper pretty darn well, on my first try of putting one IN something (I’d tried just sewing it to fabric but not actually hooking it all together before). Ha!
Zipper test
So far –
I figured out how to thread the machine even though I decided to skip the manual as it’s a joint manual for multiple models so all of the this may not apply to your model but this might = I might not want to figure out which does and which doesn’t. Decided to just go for online videos but videos are for machines nothing like mine as mine as a feature that auto feeds the bobbin in and me never having thread a machine in my life and really never having seen one that auto does it? I was confused. But I figured it out anyway.
So then I figure well I should practice sewing a straight line and forgot to buy practice material. Ooopsie.. So I tore apart one of the few pairs of pants I still had that hadn’t been given away but that look like one of those weight loss commercials if I put them on. But Dutchie the cat thought she’d help by sitting on the chair (better than the machine I’ll give her that) and wouldn’t move. So I sat around her best I could since if I moved her she just came right back, and found I could basically sew a straight line — oddly enough this impressed me because I found that when I tore the pants apart it seems that not so cheap clothes actually aren’t sewn with uber straight lines anyway, fairly straight sure, but perfectionist me would have thought it has to be PERFECTLY straight, guess not. I need to practice more goes back over the same spot — don’t get that straight every time.
Then I tried sewing the zipper from those pants onto the torn up material and think I can probably do that. So am getting the basics down. Fear me.
The new material arrives tomorrow. Not sure I’m ready to try the patterns yet, but getting there. Still not sure I NEED a pattern except for the wallet.
Besides a ton of zippers and some batting, I also needed an iron. They were out of all but a craft iron which my bf was sure was fine soooo, I was a little leery or it but since it was cheap we got it. It’s just like this one
Then I needed a replacement fabric since the cute skull fabric was sold out at Fabric Depot. Brian found a more traditional skull one. And then he picked out these for himself to hang on his wall or whatever:
And I just had to get this adorable kitty fabric. It says cuddle a kitty, meow, etc. And has fishbones, etc all over it. Brian says it’s ugly. I say he just doesn’t know cute. heh. The pink is because I needed something to go with it and Brian thought that pink was the only thing that MIGHT help it.
I apologize for the bad pics, bit shaky and off today.
I think I shall move my crafty adventures to this blog instead of mixing in with my VOX political / news rants. That was a silly place to post it when I have my art blog. Me trying to draw and me trying to be crafty goes together. My wtf is wrong with Republicans rants and purses, those don’t go together… well… sometimes they do, but not usually.
The fabric store that mom shops at in Portland is who I ordered from online. They just called to tell me they’re out of the cute skull fabric I was gonna use for a wallet. HA! Poor Brian we were already going to Joann’s this weekend to buy zippers / snaps since the online selection sucks (think they must only like sending or tracking the bigger / spendier items for online sales) and an iron (hey I don’t need an iron for jeans and t-shirts). Well now I gotta find a replacement material locally for the wallet. Oopsie.
Also the patterns arrived. I noticed a few things.
1. The more I look at them the more I realize that one pattern is the purse I use now. Identical other than this pattern has a pocket in “front” (decorated) where as mine has one on the “back” (front of the purse is decorated so the pocket is plain and on the back) and the strap on the pattern purse is attached differently and not adjustable. But seriously it’s identical is size, shape, etc otherwise.
2. Not so sure patterns are worth paying for. While both purses and the wallet are cute, if I knew anything about sewing and knew about how much fabric and what other materials were needed to make a purse like the one I have now, I suspect I could have made something like it without a pattern and saved $10 per pattern and could then sell them. Can’t sell ones made from these patterns. And calling them patterns is somewhat generous.
The more simple of the two purse patterns is made from two fat squares and does have a “pattern” inside showing you where to cut the material into the strap, etc. The more complex purse pattern is 4 pages of text with tiny pics that go along with the text. Things like pics of the stuff sewn together to show what yours should look like if you followed the text right. Or irons sitting on the fabric to show you what they mean by pressing. *blinks* Genius. The only pattern I really love as a pattern is the wallet. It’s five page of LARGE COLOR pics with easy to read large print bold directions to go with each picture. Granted it didn’t have the spiffy square — your fabrics should be this size — guides but it tells you how big each piece should be and I’ll give that up for these quality directions. Of course it’s also the most complicated one I can easily screw up… It’s probably the only one of the three I feel was unique enough to deserve its copyright / do not sell items you make based on this pattern notice, etc. I didn’t see other patterns like it. It’s actually detailed and worthy of the money I spent based on a glance. Maybe the others are too, once I get into reading them. But at first glance they don’t seem that special or unique, there were other patterns I considered that were similar to them, and don’t even offer much in terms of being a “pattern”.
In fact. Mom you were sewing and making patterns when I was a kid. Make friggin patterns that have good pics and stuff. These people don’t know what the word pattern means and they make $8-12 each for them.
She started out as a pencil sketch then I took her into Twisted Brush and digitally painted over her to turn that sketch into this. Fear my oh so mad skills. Brian says it looks like Japanese artwork, I’ll take that.
