Monday, October 22, 2012

Borg Costume 2012 - sneak peek

I spent my entire weekend working on this year's Halloween costume, and dudes - I am super psyched!  Eric and I are dressing up as the Borg from Star Trek as part of the Austin Comic Con that will be happening the weekend before Halloween.  I have been gathering supplies for a few weeks, and kinda sorta knew what I intended to do, but when I actually started doing it, it amazed me how well it was turning out.  

Sneak peeks?  Oh all right!

Base costume:   
Turn an ordinary black winter vest into robot-wear.

 



Accessories:
Start with thrift store body armor/sports padding finds, paint them all black, and "Borg" them out.




After all is said and done, I plan to post a step by step guide to my process.  
I plan to keep working long and hard this week to finish Eric's costume, the mechanical arms, and all of the fun details still to come.  I can't wait to show you guys the final product!  



Are you guys feeling the Halloween spirit yet?  
Vader Pumpkin says "may the spooky force be with you!"



  

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

An End in Sight


So, the first thing you should probably know about me: I am AWESOME at starting projects.  I get so psyched up to start a new craft project or learn a new skill!  I throw myself headfirst into things, and I love learning new techniques, and making new items. 

I am not always equally as awesome at finishing all of those projects.  I’ll just let that be known right off the start – I can’t promise to always finish what I start here.  But I work best with a deadline and accountability, so maybe you, the Internet, can hold me accountable to myself.   But probably not. 

I recognize my weakness though.  Walking through my house is a daily tour of unfinished projects: the box of incomplete homemade Christmas ornaments in my closet, the pinned-but-not-yet-sewn bottom half of a skirt hanging in the laundry room, the giant bag of polymer clays from my sudden inspiration to make my own gauged earrings.  (In my defense, I did make one totally awesome pair of earrings.  I’ll just wear those until they break, and then make some new ones!)

Maybe your houses are the same – standing monuments to sudden inspiration, temporary passions!  But I’d much rather my house be littered with dozens of finished projects.  So I’m trying to be better about finishing what I start. 

Case in point: The Knot Rug.   (Also referred to as a latch rug or rag rug)
Oh, the knot rug!  This bitch is my Everest.  I WILL conquer and finish it, and then I will cheerfully stomp on it every single day for the rest of my life.
I saw the idea on Pinterest.  (You’re on Pinterest, right?  Get on fricking Pinterest right now.  Pinterest makes us all capable of being Martha Stewart.  It’s amazeballs.) 

I read a tutorial, and though to myself, damn, that looks EASY!  Let’s make one of those! 
See, it’s a rug made out of old t-shirts.  You can use any fabric you want technically, but I had JUST cleaned out my closet, and had a bag of gnarly old shirts I would never wear again.  So when I stumbled on this wicked easy and almost free awesomesauce project, it felt meant to be. 

To be fair, this is a really easy project to do.  You just tie or loop little strips of fabric.  That's it!   If you have old shirts and know how to tie a knot, you can do this!  It just takes FOREVER to finish.  I don’t mean all day, or a weekend.  I mean I’ve been working on this thing for weeks and it will never, ever be done.  Ever.   But I am determined to try and finish it.  Eventually.  There are always things to get in my way and distract me: new recipes to bake, new books to read, new costumes to sew… but I will continue to keep coming back to the knot rug, and someday I will finish it! 

I’ll keep you posted on my progress of my rug, but in-between I'll be posting updates on all of the new projects and exciting things I do instead!! 

The start of my knot rug - each strip of fabric is tied INDIVIDUALLY!  

Getting into my stride - beginning to realize just how long this will take.  

Current progress - about 1/3 done

So FLUFFY! 

The bottom of the rug 

Detail of the bottom, showing each individual freaking loop 


Here is the link to a fantastic tutorial on how to make your own knot rug, in case you feel like being defeated by a pile of fabric for a long while! 
http://xoelle.com/2009/05/t-shirt-latch-hook-rug-tutorial/