Finished Quilt!

I finished my quilt from quilting class! It's a bit small, only a twin where we have a full bed and a queen, but it still looks pretty awesome.

Darling Ned gracing the new quilt with some hair

I'm really proud of myself, this was a huge undertaking! I have also discovered I really like quilting! Its really nice to work with the fabrics, the textures are pretty awesome. But it's also really difficult since the projects are inherently fairly huge so I still have to figure out how to deal with that.

Cheers,

Red

Move, move, move...

We're currently in the final stages of moving so all my stuff is all packed away and I have no where to work.

BUT! I am almost finished with my quilt from quilting class! I am working on the very finishing bits. I am hand stitching the binding down and I have 3 of the 4 sides all done. I have discovered why people have thimbles... My fingertips are all pink and hurty from all that sewing! I am very much not a fan of hand sewing but it looks so much better than using the machine on it...


As soon as I get more moved in and have an internet connection, I'll have photos.


Cheers,
Red

Artist Inspiration!

I just found the BEST blog.

Brittney Lee of California makes papercuts (and other equally awesome stuff)!

Just a couple of examples of her work:

From an Edward Scissorhands piece

This one's part of "The Introduction to the Owlry". LOVE IT.

I WISH I could make papercuts like this! I made some for wedding party invitations but they were child's play compared to this lovely lady's work.

So scurry, scamper over to "The Art of Brittney Lee" and be inspired... or possibly just fall in love.

Cheers!

Red

Zoom-Zoom

I did something a little different the other day. I tried my hand at still-life and I sketched one of our motorcycles. I haven't attempted motor vehicles in years. There's something about the inherent symmetry of them that I can't capture.

I worked on this for probably close to an hour.

I would say I did pretty damn good.

I guess I just need to practice more :)

Cheers,

Red

How I did it:

Pencil and paper

Christmas Revisited: Snow Bunny

Last Christmas I made a knitted hat and scarf for AV's sister.

Pretty standard winterwear :D

The hat is a beenie style and the scarf is a super long skinny scarf, maybe five feet long?

Cheers,
Red



How I did it:
Find some yarn! I used the super cheap tie-dyed acrylic kind.
     Scarf - knit two, pearl two, repeat 4x. Continue to your desidred length
     Hat - follow the pattern in this excellent book!


I STILL cannot figure out how to get my photos to stop getting rotated TT_TT

Quilting Class: Grandma-tastic

There is a really nice quilting store in the city AV works. I've been in it a few times (approximately as many times as I have been in that city...) and I've been wanting to take a class there. They do a table runner class which I'd really like to do but there isn't one scheduled until next month. So instead I decided to do the "Take 5 Quilt" class. It's a set of three, three hour classes. So today, I went to my first quilting class!

I really loved it, but I do feel a bit... old... now. In the three and a half hours I was there, I was by far the youngest person in the store... by like fifty years. At a few points some younger people came in, but only because they were visting/talking to the store owner who was their grandmother/mother. So, as the stereotype would suggest, quilting is for grandmas.

Any way... When I got to the store I had to pick out 5 fabrics to make the main part of my quilt. I picked different blue/green/purple batiks in the hope that my quilt would look a bit like water. We shall see...

The class was taught by the owner of the store, and since the other woman who was going to attend was unable today, I got private lessons! I learned how to cut out squares of fabric today. The way she showed me is so much easier than how I would have done it, she had me fold the fabric twice then cut instead of trying to do each block individually. CRAZY!

After I got all my pieces cut, we laid them out and started to make the bigger quilt squares.

Some pieces laid out at the quilt shop

Next I made up all the big squares which will make up the quilt, twenty in all.

All my blocks laid out!

Now I have to decide how to set them out for the whole quilt. The directions specify which way to put them out but I'm not sure if I want to do it that way. I'd hate to spend all this time on something I won't like.

This is how the directions specify the blocks.

But maybe turn them around a bit more?

I want to have more of a "wild" look I think, since I want it to be a bit like water. I'll just have to keep playing around. Next week I'll be making the rows and then connecting them into the big square for the center of the quilt.

Exciting!

Cheers,

Red

Learning new skills!

I just signed up for a quilting class. It'll be somewhat expensive, but I'm not nearly as good at learning from books as I am learning in a class/hands-on setting.

I am very excited!!

Cheers,
Red

Christmas Revisited: The Martini Man

AV's dad is known as The Martini Man; he creates and shakes his own martinis. He even has a website! When we set up the website, I designed the sweet logo!

Click through to go to the website!

 But the fun doesn't stop there...

For Christmas, I made a set of special Martini Man martini glasses! I bought a set of four martini glasses from Target (or maybe it was Walmart?) and used bakeable glass paint.

Ta-da! Color-fast and hand-washable!

Each glass has a different color base. There is actually only one line of color which then reflects up through the stem.

The Martini Man logo is painted on the outside of the glass so it will be seen as the drink level shrinks!

Cheers,

Red

How I did it:

Clean and dry glassware

Using Pebo Vitrea 160 glass paint, paint designs normally.

Let dry completely.

Bake for 40 minutes at 325 degrees F

      Put glass in oven

      Turn oven on to 325 degrees F

      Bake for 40 minutes

      Leave glass in oven as oven cools

      Take glass out when it is at a safe handling temperature

Let's Go to the Beach, Baby

I also finished a toddler outfit today. This isn't 100% finished actually, but since I don't have a toddler with an upper thigh and waist I can measure, it's done*.

The outfit includes a diper cover, a little sun hat, and a sundress with adjustable straps.

The front of the sundress.

Back of the sundress and the hat

The straps cross across the back and have button holes for a hidden button located on the inside of the dress. I worked really hard to match the pattern along the bottom of the skirt on the back seam. I would say I did pretty excellently :D 

Again, I apologize for the sideways photos, I don't know why this is happening...

Cheers,

Red

How I did it:

McCall's Pattern M4424 in XL

*The diaper cover requires elastic in the waist and legs but the pattern tells you to measure the child and add an inch to the measurements. So, short of completely making an arbitrary guess, I can't do that part.

Sweet Sweet Sleep

I just finished a pair of flannel pajama pants. You know, so I can wear them during the frigid 70 degree summer nights...

The pattern was actually a pattern for scrubs because I like my pjs with pockets so I can keep my agenda* in there.

The print is a bit busy, so you can't really see, but there are normal pockets AND cargo pockets near the knees.

I left the legs fairly long since they're just for lounging around the house anyways and I prefer them to cover my feet.

I did make a size too large so I had to take it in on both the front and back center seams. It worked surprisingly well. I started by taking it in about an inch at the waist on those seams then gradually came back to the original 5/8 inch seam near the curve of the crotch. Normally, I would take it in on the left and right sides, but I went and got all fancy with the seams there so they wouldn't be rubbing my legs and it would have been awful to have to take those out.

The left photo is the pocket and side seam, the right shows what the seam looks like on the inside of the leg.

I thought these were called French Pressed seams, but when I looked that up the seams they were making were slightly different.

You might have noticed my helpers in the photos... I can't do anything without some extra aid anymore.

Sorry about the sideways photos, the uploader is doing something strange to them and I can't figure out how to remedy it. I've rotated the photos in Paint Shop but for some reason they're rotated back to the original format when I upload them. I'll try to fix it on a different computer.

Cheers,

Red

How I did it:

Simplicity 4378

Flannel fabric

 

*This is in reference to a Dimitri Martin stand up comedy act. The specific one of which I cannot find on YouTube... but the point being:

I got some new pajamas with pockets in ‘em. Which is great, because before that, I used to have to hold stuff when I slept. But now I’m like, ‘Where’s my planner? There it is. “Keep sleeping.” All right, perfect.’

Fairy Tale Princess Dress-up

Last summer I picked up a little white purse and a pair of girl's red dress shoes at Goodwill. I was planning to make a dress-up set but I just never got around to it.

Fast forward a year and I finally had the time and drive to do it! Presenting the Fairy Tale Princess Dress-up Set! Both the shoes and purse are blue, purple, and pink with white stars and a lovely silver sheen. If I had a kid I would dress them in these things all the time!

When You Wish Upon a Star!

If you have a little girl with size 10W (I don't know what this means?) feet, I have a pair of adorable shoes for her!! These would look so so cute with a little frilly white dress :D

Cheers,

Red

How I did it:

Find a pair of shoes. Fake leather works best.

Paint them with thin coats of acrylic paint.

Stuff the inside with newspaper and spray the outsides with clear spraypaint (3+ coats)

Let dry at least 3 days (to get the tackiness and paint smell out).

Wear them and be awesome!

Thursday Project Update

I've been finishing up a lot of projects lately! Today I clear-coated a pair of little girl's dress-up shoes and two light switch covers. The other day I finished a pair of heels and I figured out what I was doing wrong on a dress I'm sewing. I also started working on a toddler's jumper set complete with hat and diper cover; all the pieces have been cut and the hat is almost complete!

Tomorrow I'll unveil the Fairy Tale Princess Dress-Up set!

Bad-Ass Window Box

My fiance's grandmother gave him a set of brass knuckles a few years ago. He's been keeping them in the paper Walgreen's bag she gave them to him in since then. But we thought, what's the point of a bad-ass heirloom/antique if nobody ever even knows you have it? Obviously we can't just carry them about and whip them out, so I did the next best thing. Window box!

The paper inside is the one on which his grandmother wrote the description of the brass knuckles. It reads "These are Original Brass Nuckles (KNUCKLES) from the 1920's-1930's gangster days in America"


Cheers!
Red

How I did it:
Opened the window box and cleaned the glass.
Aligned the knuckles and note, then marked it on the back board of the box.
Drilled three holes under where the knuckles would lie.
Cut a red piece of scrapbook paper to size and glued it to the board.
Threaded thin wire around knuckles and into holes, twisted the three individual wires together on the back of the box.
Added glue and tape as extra security on the back.
Glued note to the red paper.
Cleaned the glass and closed the box.

Show Me Shoes!

I'm currently working on two pairs of shoes, a pair of little girl's shoes and a pair of heels. I don't have any photos of them right now, so instead I'll share photos of shoes I did in the past!

Check out some of the shoes I've made!

Welcome to Little Red Studios!

Welcome to the blog for Little Red Shoes!

I am a 24 year old artist living in West Michigan. I work with acrylics, fabric, and photography and sometimes even cooking!

Stick around to see what I have been working on!