Apocalyptic Swap: Sent!

Like usual, I "procraftinated" and did the most work during the last week of the swap! So what did I send my partner? Here's a sneak peek:

The largest item, and one of the medium items, was made from an old London Fog trench coat. This coat has a long history! It belonged to my boyfriend's favourite aunt who died of cancer many years ago. His brother adopted it and wore it until a tragic accident ripped it from hem to pocket on the front. It languished on the back side of the butler for who knows how long! When said brother finally decided to go through his old jackets, I adopted the worst damaged to take off the fasteners (buttons, zippers, etc). And now that worse-for-wear trench has a new life as TWO pieces of steampunk apparel!

As for the rest, the goodies include new and vintage lace, new and vintage buttons, a vintage zipper, wire, chain, suede leather, a feather, a rock, an acorn and a fluffy cloud of polyester yumminess.

After the End-Times: Dirty Chic

The Apocalyptic Fashion Swap is in full swing, and everyone is crafting like mad! It is because of this swap that I discovered an amazing new tool. Whoever invented the online pinboard is a GENIUS! Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to create a fabulous collection of Apocalyptic fashions from ALLLL over the interwebz :D Here's a few beautiful pieces I've collected so far:

How to Look Fabulous After the Apocalypse

Yet another Etsy treasury! This one is inspired by the Apocalyptic Fashion Swap going on at Craftster.

How to Look Fabulous After the Apocalypse

My First ATC (plus: I'm Swapping)

I have long been intrigued by ATCs. Every time I see a new one in the Recent Projects line-up on Craftster, I am once again filled with wonder at the tininess of these works of art. It just so happens that I love arty things as much as crafty things, but I never got up the nerve to try an ATC. Until NOW!

Camping Swap is Good to Go! Plus Iraqi Bundles of Love (IBOL)

YAYYYYYYY!
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I sent my package to my partner and 6 of the other 8 camping cards. Somehow, 2 of my camping cards lost pieces in transit, so I'll fix them and send them off tomorrow. I can't WAIT to post what I sent my partner!!!! I'm really proud of one of the things I sent her, so much so that I wish I could have kept it :P We never do these awesome things for ourselves, though, do we? Hehe!
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If you want to check out the swap gallery, where we'll be posting our goodies as they're recieved, go HERE. The link in the first post is to our discussion thread. *EDIT* I am most proud of this:
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In other news, check out Iraqi Bundles of Love. I thought it was a scam until I read his blog. I wish I could participate, but I won't make the September 7th send-out date due to lack of funds. I just spent 20 bucks on sending envelopes and a bubble mailer :P

Yarny Plannings and Other Plannings

I've been doing alot of crochet. I learned how to increase and decrease! I really wanted to make a faux-hawk hat for my little brother. I started crocheting with black acrylic yarn, but I either did something terribly wrong, or the pattern has something wrong with it. More likely it's just me :P It ended up eight-sided instead of six-sided, somehow. That made it parabolic-ish, and it was tres tres wonky. So I undid it all and went on the hunt around the interwebs. I found some hats with flappy bits like I wanted, but I didn't know how to double-crochet (still don't, really; only tried a swatch, and it was ok, but haven't actually made something with dc yet), and most of those patterns wanted dc, tbc, hdc and other wierd stitches. I finally found a simple beanie pattern in single crochet, though. I used the technique suggested by the first tute to make the earflaps.
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After that, I snagged a bunch of gray-blue, light gray and dark gray wool felting yarn from Todd's mum and started the LOOOOOONG process of cutting and weaving little strips into a mohawk. If I ever make this hat again, I'll hold it to 3 or 5 rows, but this one for Mikey has 7 rows. Then I decided I wanted it to felt PERFECTLY. So I picked apart each and every single piece of mohawk yarn. Then I combed every row. It's now a wonderfully fuzzy multicoloured mohawk. I just have to toss it in the wash in a pillow case and c'est fini!
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Project deux is a surprisingly large amigurumi teddy bear (now that I know how to increase and decrease!). A woman on Craftster wanted a few people to test her pattern and I decided to jump on the chance to try something new. I think I shoulda snagged a 3 mm or 3.5 mm from Todd's mum, because the 4 mm must be too big. The teddy is sposed to end up 14 cm tall, but if his head is this huge, he's gonne be ENORMOUS. I'm making him out of black felting yarn, though, so I think I'll just felt him :D Then he'll shrink, and if I comb him, he'll be slightly furry-ish.
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I'm also taking part in a swap! YAY! It's the Camper's Swap on Craftster. This is only my second swap. My first was the March Birthday Swap. Thankfully, I've been partnered wih a fellow Canadian, so no shipping internationally, YAY! It's only a 4 point swap, but it's gonna be pretty intensive anyway because we are making little travel cards featuring a camping location that we like (not telling what location I picked, in case a fellow swapper mosies on over here). I've already got the layout for mine on the computer, though I may change it up. Once I have the layout all decided, I'm printing out seven of them (cuz there's 8 in the swap including me), then papercrafting my little heart out :D I got supplies from the dollar store and some goodies from Canadian Tire to include.
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I also had an AHA moment while at Dollarama. I'm not gonna say what I'm making, but I'm hoping that my swap partner likes it! It's something I've never done before, and I'm pretty excited. I still need to MacGyver a couple things, cuz I'm not going to buy more supplies if I can help it. It's probably more art than craft, because it's something meant for display, rather than use, but it IS camping related.
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Modified Buttercup Bags (and pouch)

I signed up for the March Birthday Swap on Craftster. You post a list of five crafted goodies you want, plus a list of supplies you want, plus a list of nifty extras you'd like. I think the budget was 20 bucks or something. I picked a girl in New Zealand who said she'd love a new day-purse that wasn't so huge as to eat her stuff and leave her digging for things all the time. I'd never made a purse before, but the Buttercup Bag by MadeByRae has been all over the net lately and I thought it would be a good pattern to start with.

I KNEW I'd have to do a trial run, because I always mess something up, and besides that I had some changes I wanted to make to the pattern. I added a bottom piece to make it 3-dimensional, plus the lining has the same top-piece as the outside. Gotta love messing up the pleating... I just ended up putting two pleats in the middle. AFTER the purse was done, I realized "aw nuts, the pleat marks are supposed to MEET!"

The purse itself is made from a quilting cotton leftover from making a corset a few years ago. It has a beige ground with pink cherries, white cherry blossoms and green leaves. The lining is the lightweight interfacing I had flatlined to the corset pieces for strength/stability. It's also got about 3 yards of vintage pink piping on it (I bought part of a late-sewer's trimmings stash), the very last of the beige cotton eyelet lace from the corset project, and a pink vintage button (from a different late-sewer's stash).

*ALL PIX ARE CLICKABLE THUMBS! YAY!*

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For the NZ girl, I basically made the exact same bag except with a 32 inch strap because she's pretty tall. I used a vintage cotton (looks 70s to me) that I got at a rummage sale with plant bits and geometric stuff (and some metallic print, too!), scrap brown twill, blue vintage piping, a brown/orange vintage button, and the lining is leftover from a cotton short kimono for my boyfriend to wear with his hakama (japanese pleated pants). I also interfaced the bottom piece of her bag, so it holds it's shape a bit better.

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I'm pretty proud of myself :D Neither is perfect by any measure, but I think I did alright for my first ever purses. I'd like to give magnetic clasps a try, though, because buttonholes are notoriously difficult for me.

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I also made a little matching pouch for the brown purse, but because the buttonhole on the purse killed my sewing machine (not permanently, I fixed it), it didn't make it in the package to New Zealand. Dunno what I'll do with it, other than send it to New Zealand :P It's inspired by the Buttercup Bag, drafted by me and made out of the same mats as the purse. It closes with hook-and-loop tape (velcro is a brand name :P like calling all facial-tissue kleenex, nyar).

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