I got a new fancy sewing machine for Christmas from my darling boyfriend, and it is extremely impressive. For the first time ever, I can sew stretchy fabrics with ease and without using fabric paper and/or stabilizer, woot! After resizing a few tshirts to test out all the different stitches, I managed to make my own top, from scratch! I didn't use a pattern, but I did use a fitting tshirt for the sleeves. The fabric is a stretchy knit and is from a shop in Dublin called Murphy Sheehys.

 I apologise for the quality of photos, my brain always shuts down a lot when I've finished a project 

 Front:
 

 Back:
 

 (By the way, in case anyone is wondering about those pants that I'm wearing, my awesome sister got me comic book pants for Christmas. Now I'm entertained no matter what part of my flat I'm in!)

So, it turns out that by putting all of our spare change into an empty cassarole dish for a year and a half, my boyfriend and I end up with quite a bit of spendy money! I stared at the €100 in my hand and decided immediately that I was going to spend it ALL on sewing. I've become a lot more obsessed with sewing lately and there was probably a mad gleam in my eyes as I made my way to my favourite craftatorium.
 Once there, I got a whole bundle of things, including a lot of amazing fleece that felt softer than a pile of kittens. I knew I wanted to make a blanket that would cover both myself and my BF but I felt that my material stash was rather lacking when it came to such a big project.
 And then, success! On my travels to a charity shop, I came across a magnificent red and white floral bed cover (and was inverted on the back) that would do the job.
 
 This is easily the biggest project I've ever worked on and it's not totally finished (I still have quilting left to do, but that's for another time). I spent most of my weekend working on this and my back is aching but it's so worth it to snuggle under it and be incredibly toasty warm!

It's actually so big that I don't have room in my flat to be able to take a full shot of it:


 
 Best part is? I still have €50 to spend!

I was in the wrong board initially!


 I was inspired to try this tutorial out:
http://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/2009/12/quilty-belt-tutorial.html

I didn't get any before shots, but the belt is a standard canvas belt with 2 D rings. Oh and it was brown and boring. Now it's fun and colourful!



Trying to photograph all the details...


Slightly blurry due to a feverish photographer pretending he's not all that sick (he is.)



 Thanks for looking, let me know what you think!

[An Error Has Occurred!]

Whenever I search for anything on Craftster, it keeps coming up with:

An Error Has Occurred!
Unable to access the search deamon.

(Methinks there's some Philip Pullman fans around here  )

It only started today.
 Is this happening to anyone else, or is it the new server just settling in?

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Ok, so it's not perfect but considering I only started embroidery yesterday. There's a couple of mistakes but I think I managed to patch them up neatly enough. I also probably did it all wrong but I enjoyed it anyway!

 I basically just made a stencil from the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy movie (which I had plans for spray paint stencilling initially) and tried to stitch it as neatly as I could!




It now proudly resides near my PC monitor!

Oh my! What's this? Is it a small model that someone spent hours and hours straining their eyes to work on?

 
Admittedly, no, it's just a trick in Photoshop but funky and deceiving nonetheless! I wanted to know if it worked (as in, that it looked like an actual model), so I showed it to a professional photographer/Photoshop guy, who was baffled that I managed to make something so small. It was totally worth the look on his face when I told him it was a method called tilt shift and it takes about 5 minutes to do in Photohop!

Here's a few more "models" 

Mini Choisey-Le-Roi, Paris


Mini Tractor


Mini climber


Mini Sleeping Man


 If anyone wants to try this for themselves, the finest tutorial is here!
http://www.thephotoargus.com/tutorials/how-to-tur-your-favorite-photo-into-a-miniature-masterpiece/

(Before I begin, I just want to say that I'm not soliciting for the gig! Just want to show you some digital art!)

I'm part of a new crew starting up around Dublin called Stomp-o-rama (just Stomp for short) and we put on gigs specifically for dubstep and drum 'n' bass acts. Mostly local (Dublin) talent as we're still fairly new and only had our first night last December (a free gig which was in conjunction with a psytrance night). Our second night is coming up in 2 weeks time.

 My boyfriend and I are in charge of making the flyers so we work hard together in order to make them stand out.

 This was the first flyer that we made: (I did the psychedelic side, he did the dubstep side.)


Now, the next flyer is what I've really been wanting to show you because I'm really very, very proud of it. Again, it was myself and the boyfriend collaborating using the fine medium of Photoshop. So far, we've gotten a big thumbs up from our Facebook page and the DJs are begging for big size posters for keepsies!


 So, what do you think? Any C&C muchly appreciated!

(P.S. By the way, my boyfriend is actually playing that night as well, his stage name is Shatterfreak  so proud of him!)

I opened a help desk ticket the other day in regards to this, but I think my internet just went berserk and maybe it was lost in the ethernets. That happens sometimes.

 Ok, so, myself, my better half and a mate of ours are putting on a gig in 2 weeks time. My boyfriend and I made up such a bad ass flyer for it and I want to show it off to Craftster people but I don't know if I can/should. I'm not trying to get people to go to the gig (as I don't know if there's anyone from Dublin here who also likes dubstep and drum 'n' bass and for some reason, I doubt there is), I'm more showing the artistic merit of the flyer.

 Can anyone help me out? Should I post it?

Hi all!

 I was just wondering if anyone could help me with a tricky problem I've been having. I broke my actual hearing aids case ages ago and I've been storing them in my glasses case ever since. However, I get mega nervous whenever I'm outside and take my glasses out (I don't wear my hearing aids all of the time and sometimes I listen to my mp3 player), I'm always just so afraid of them breaking or falling into a drain or if some rude person bumps into me and they damage them or or or...(they cost a LOT of money so no wonder I'm panicking!)
 
 So to save myself from freaking out, can anyone suggest a tutorial that I can sew or whatever and put my poor mind at rest?
 Then the only panic I have to worry about is "am I wearing them?!" while I take a shower

I love crafting  I also love crafting tools but I have quite of lot of them!
 I tend to get a little OCD when it comes to my crafting tools, which can be a bit of a problem when I have so much of a varied kind of different tools! Be it X-actos, pens, calligraphy pens, erasers blah blah blah, they all need a their own place.
 
 So, I did what I could with lunchboxes and a cutlery holder thingy (great for pens) but my sewing, knitting, crochet and jewellery tools needed to be separate (because I'm fussy like that!) and minus the potential stabbings I might receive if I'm not paying attention to what my hands are doing (probably from being distracted reading Craftster  ). It's happened, my seam ripper had a taste for my flesh for a while.

 So for my jewellery tools, I made this:


which opens into this:


 I'll admit the stitching is crooked, but honestly, I've improved since then. I'll even give ya proof with my sewing/knitting/crochet case!


 It's made from an old hoodie and a bit off an old skirt.

Inside, with my tools:

The pamphlet is from the website www.sewmamasew.com and it's a handy guide to different types of hand stitching and how to do them. I downloaded and printed it from here:
www.sewmamasew.com/media/blog/SMSstitchbook.pdf
Oh and for the record, I actually hate the colour pink and I only ever use that pink gel pen when it won't be seen. I'm consciously trying to wear this pen out because I can't throw away a pen until it's completely dry!
 (And by the way, those pencils are my current knitting needles! I'm a little broke at the moment so I have to wait until my mam gives me back mine!)

And all closed with all of my tools inside:



 I don't have any tutorials for either of these because I just made it up as I went along, but they're really easy to make!Once you figure out how to attach a zipper you're sorted!

 Thanks for looking!