Our kitchen was a little bare, so crafty person that I am, I volunteered to make some kitchen curtains for the big window over the sink/stove. Of course, I can't actually sew, so I cheated just a tad. $9 of IKEA fabric, several feet of Steam-a-Seam, and less than a Praire Home Companion's worth of NPR later, ta-da:



(The right panel looks a little crooked only because of my jerry-rigged curtain rod.)

My problem, however, is fairly obvious. I did not measure the windows before purchasing the fabric, and the curtains aren't quite long enough to cover the whole window. My question for you, fellow crafty people, is this—should I
a) leave them at their present length;
b) shorten them so they're closer to half the height of the window rather than their present two-thirds-or-so; or
c) find some matching/corresponding fabric (I'm thinking plain white) and add an extra panel at the bottom so they're actually window-sized?

I've left the bottom edge unhemmed till I decide what to do. What do you think??

This is such a tiny project I almost feel bad posting it... But it has completely changed my feelings about this piece of clothing! 

I bought this dress at a street fair a few years ago, but never wore it much because the halter top was weird and slightly uncomfortable. Also, too much movement led to unfortunate amounts of boobage on display—never almost never a good thing.


Oh no blurriness!

I got my mending done over the weekend and finally got around to fixing this poor, cute dress. It was the simplest thing ever: I took the halter off, cut it in half (it was one long strip of fabric, folded in half) and sewed it back on as two spaghetti straps, adding a few button-and-bead details along the way.

New and improved:


Oh dirty bathroom mirror, you embarrass me so.

Honestly, the most difficult thing was making sure the straps were lined up correctly and the same length. But by using another dress as a guide and with careful use of a measuring tape, I got it right. No more untoward boob appearances! The strips were a bit long, so I left the extra dangling down in the back (not pictured) so I can lengthen or shorten the straps as need be. To pretty it up (and cover my stitches where I sewed the strap to the dress) I added a button and a bead on the front, and a sequin and a bead on the back:


This shows the actual color of the dress better, too.

Along the bottom of the dress are a bunch of sequins in different colors. I didn't add them, but they're fun and sparkly and the reason I got it in the first place, so here they are anyway! 



So now I have a dress that I'll actually WEAR—yunno, if it ever gets warm enough (grumble growl).

Thanks for looking!

[your]

I just bought a cheap yet super comfy yet super boring-looking down comforter. It's not fancy down...... it's $25-on-sale-at-Target down. I got the idea today to stencil some kind of design on the blanket to jazz it up. (My usual technique is just your basic freezer paper, iron, foam brush, fabric paint.)

Then paranoia struck:

Can I iron down?
Will I set things on fire?
And make my apartment smell like burned feathers?
Will the fabric paint like leak through the outer part of the blanket?
If it does, will it damage the feathers?

Has anybody ever stenciled a down blanket? What were your results?

Please halp! The more I think about it, the more I think it would be fine, but heck if I'm worried I might as well ask!

I recently made a Belle & Sebastian t-shirt for a friend. We're both huge fans of the band so it was a lot of fun to make!

This was my first freezer paper stencil and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The edges were crisp and clean, the only smudging was from me filling in the bridges, and thankfully that was slight. I glued the freezer paper to the printed stencil before cutting, so it's sturdy enough that I might be able to use it again. Freezer paper rocked my world, it was so easy and turned out so much better than the few stencils I've done before (computer paper Scotch-taped to the shirts).

The one thing that bugged me was some schmutz which got ironed on when I was setting the paint, and ended up leaving a shadowy stain on the front. Argh!! Also, sorry about the crappy Photo Booth pictures... my camera's been on strike for a while. It looks better in real life.

The front:



Graphic is an adapted version of the cover art from their album "If You're Feeling Sinister."

The back:



The quote is from the song "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying" (coincidentally also from "Sinister").

Action shot!



Good thing it's not for me, since it didn't fit so well. I'm thinking about making one along the same lines for myself, though. Oh, and I can share the stencil if anyone is interested!

PS: This is my first posted project, hooray Thanks for looking!