Rayen

Despite a long stall my calendar project eventually went well in July; for my August tote I still need to decide on a design. The shabby prims are nudging me toward a Halloween themed project but it's a little too early for me to celebrate that -- next month would be better. I picked up this tablecloth to use as fabric last month, and the pretty colors do appeal to me. I'm just not sure I want to do another flower-themed tote. I also found a bunch of vintage textiles and quilt blocks at the antique mall in Wildwood last month (more on that shortly.) One or more of these might be the way to go. I'm going to look through everything, and if I can't decide I might roll the dice. Works for my crochet projects. :)

During my vacation last month I worked on making the bag project from the Summer issue of GreenCraft. For mine I skipped the driftwood and twine, and instead used a key I'd gotten on a mystery bracelet bag and left the drawstrings of the bag I tea stained intact. It's not easy stitching a bag in the bottom corner like this, but I managed by folding the top down down. I also couldn't get the haphazard look of the stitches in the project photo, but I prefer my version anyway. My finished bag next to the project photo. I'm using mine to hold my current personal journal. This was a fun and fairly easy project. :)

To start July on a happy note I made a basket out of fun bulky yarns to hold a collection of the more yarns with which to play. Over on the crochet blog I'm doing a series of posts about what you can make from one skein of yarn, so first I made a baby bird. I also made a patternless tray basket out of a single skein of Chinese t-shirt yarn. I crocheted a patternless gift bag out of one thrifted remnant skein. I crocheted a liner for the art yarn gathering basket I made back in June. I made this throw out of an unusual, very pretty yarn, a skein of which I got in a mystery box. I altered two pair of trousers into shorts and tailored a pair of pajama pants to fit me better. I completed the July tote for my calendar project. I made a little basket out of wool blend boucle yarn and two others from my stash to hold my rescued embroidery threads. I made a bag for my journal from a project in GreenCraft magazine's Summer issue. I made this holid...

I was looking for a Victorian era photo album to use for a craft project, and ended up purchasing a lot of vintage paper ephemera for $14.99. Along with the album I got some lovely old photos, scrapbook pages, three Asian figurines (not pictured) and a ton of journal-making inspiration. I'll use some of these pages for my craft project, but I may turn the old album into a junk journal. The three magazines I received are from left to right: Collier's September 22, 1951 issue (ten years older than me!), Life April 19, 1948 issue (this one is older than my guy!), and Look January 26, 1965 issue. The first two cost 15 cents and the last one was a whopping twenty-five cents. Last time I bought a magazine I paid $15.00 for it, so prices have gone up quite a bit, lol. The old ads in the magazine are often hilarious to read. Here's one for Hunt's canned tomato sauce, possibly when it debuted on the market. No one shied away from bacon in the olden day...

I have been stalling on the July tote for my calendar project -- vacation kept me very busy, and I again had some issues creatively speaking -- but I hope to finish it before August 1st. To see my progress, check out my album of pics here.

If I want to buy new shorts for myself I'll have to fork over between $15.00 to $20.00 per pair -- and that's at Wal-Mart, which is supposed to be cheap. I'd rather save money and make them, so I went to the local thrift and got these two pair of trousers (with pockets!) to alter, both for $13.98. To alter pants into shorts, you put them on, mark with a safety pin where you want the hem of the shorts on one leg, take them off, and cut off the leg you marked 1-1/2" below the mark in a straight line. Fold the pants in half, cut off the other leg at the exact same spot, then turn them inside out, double fold the hem inside out by 3/4" on both legs, pin and sew on a sew machine. You can sew them by hand but you'll need to use small stitches. The white pair of pants (I was tempted to keep these as trousers for winter, but I kept imagining how easily I'd stain them.) Here are the finished shorts. They fit me perfectly, they have pockets, and I...