Stencils

Recently, I’ve taken up making stencils a lot more than I used to. I’ve always made stencils to print shirts. Now I’m making patches from old pants, and stencils for activities of questionable legality.

I make my stencils out of anything I have at hand. Index cards, printer paper, sketchbook paper, photography backdrop paper… It really depends on the size and the durability I want.

Something I’m going to sew through like I did with the skull shirt, a light paper is best so that it can be torn out of the stitches.

For patches, something that covers the entire patch or is shaped like the patch (for alignment purposes) is best. A stencil that covers the entire patch is good if one is using spraypaint, something that I’m experimenting with, because it prevents overspray. A stencil the same size and shape is good for spraypaint or handpainting with acrylic or fabric paints.

For tagging, something that can be folded into a notebook, or rolled into bundle like an art student carries. I have an index card with my signature cut into it. I use an index card because it is small, reusable, and rather modular.

Spraypainting patches is interesting. I’m using Montana artists spraypaint (in black and pink) and Krylon indoor silver metallic paint. My fabric, so far, has all been worn black corduroy. The silver washes out of fabric unless a base coat or three of the artists’ paint is put down.

This is my biohazard patch and my signature patch. The biohazard stencil is cut from a piece of printer paper, and the signature from an index card. Both of these were cut from a bigger patch that I made with just the silver spraypaint and then washed, only to discover that the silver washed right out.

These are the same patches, stitched down over some decay in a pair of pants. They’ve been washed once. One can see that the silver is coming off a little bit and exposing the base coats of paint. I used one layer black, one layer pink, and two layers silver. On the signature, I moved the stencil a little bit, and the layers got rotated from each other, so now I know not to check the layers until I’m done.

Here is the card I use for my signature. You can see how much overspray you can get with such a small stencil.

Overspray from index card use can be seen here, too. I made the “calm yo tits” for my room-mate, it being something of a joke between us. The Above guy is /everywhere/, and is getting kind of annoying.

Stencilling things on walls is a while different kind of operation. Too much paint and it drips, too little and it looks even worse. And then there’s the whole stealth element.

Read Or Die is cut out of sketchbook paper, sprayed in black, and the rays are handpainted in red acrylic. I didn’t use my signature stencil on this one because I incorporated it into the design.

With walls, stencils, and spraypaint, there is a limit to how thin and long one can make  their lines and have them look good. In Read Or Die, the lines that make up the books are too long to support themselves. Especially in the top one, a spot that looks like overspray is clearly visible. That is where the stencil pulled away from the wall and the paint went under it. That can be cured by putting a connector across the line, so that it holds itself together in the middle. Those lines are about 1/4 inch thick, and my connectors are usually about 3/16ths inch wide.

String Bag

Everybody has one, apparently. I got one from the library a bajillion years ago, and it’s finally falling apart. And with enough persuasion, even ripstop nylon can be caused to rip.

The obvious answer is to make a new one. So I did! (I could have just sewed the old one back together.)

String bags are pretty easy: They’re 14.5 inches by 18 inches and made out of two panels of cloth sewn together at the sides and the bottom. There are seam allowances not included those dimensions (1/2 inch on all sides, except the drawstring side which gets 1.5 inches.)

Instructions

• Sew the drawstring parts first: Fold top inch over, then fold 1/4 inch under, to make a tube. Pin and sew.
• Sew the other three edges together, right sides together. Iron the seam allowance over to one side, fold cut edges under, sew down to seal.
• Turn right sides out, sew off at a diagonal. Poke a hole in the corner for the strings.
• Finish the edges of the tube by hand, getting the edges turned under and sewed down. I’d recommend doing this part by hand.
• Pull strings through (tie to safety pin, pull.) Tie off at the holes.

Or something like that. I did it differently. Same principles, different execution. Instead of sewing the seam allowances over to one side, I put light strapping down the outside to protect the seam from damage and in the process of doing that, folded the seam allowances under and made the seam a self contained unit.

Because of the way I did the seam allowances, I had to cut the end of the tube free of the seam allowance to tuck it back inside. Then I finished sewing the strapping down over the raw edges.

Pictures and commentary!

The key differences between this bag and the original is that this one is cotton and the straps can’t be untied- I just sewed them to the reinforcing strapping.

…I managed to get pictures of the inside and the outside of the same part of the bag! How odd. Anehweh, in the top picture, the seams on the inside of the strapping can be seen, along with the slightly crude joint at the end of the tube. Below, the much neater outside, with the end of the strapping covering the crudeness visible on the inside.

Millennium Penguin

Millennium Penguin: Millennium Falcon, Aquatic Edition. …*perfectly straight face*

Freshman year? Sophomore year? My parents got me a penguin lunch box ’cause tetra had one and it was really cool. Anyway, a couple of years of hard use destroyed it and it’s been sitting around, looking forlorn and cute.

The first thing I did was to take it all apart- all the seams holding it together came out, along with the lining and remainder of the lame thin foam they used. The front/back/sidepieces were measured and patterns were created from the measurements. I intended to use the original outside with new foam and lining to preserve it’s looks, but the bottom side was completely destroyed (…loose weaves don’t stand up to full waterbottles that well, apparently…) so I created a pattern to replace the bottom, which was originally part of the sides. i Then cut fabric and foam from the patterns, and assembled.

Materials: Original penguin lunchbox, packing foam, lining fabric, black fabric for the bottom (I used fabric left over from butchering a pair of pants), paper for patterns.

The original penguin:

Some of the damage:

The damage on the inside. In the lower right hand corner, the damage to the lining and foam can be seen.

Penguin parts:

All of the parts flopped on top of each other. The side pieces, connected by the strap, used to have a bottom piece as an integral part. I cut them apart to make replacement easier. The straps had pulled on the shell and broken the plastic in the fabric, so I sewed the straps through the fabric and the foam to stabilize it. The foam I used is old packing material, about 1/8th inch thick, and significantly thicker and stronger than the original.

The front and the back, with their new lining over the foam.

Assembled:

I assembled it much the way it was assembled originally. The order of the seams was different, though. I put the separate pieced together- shell, foam, lining and sewed them together, and then put the assembled pieces together by sewing the edges together.

The new foam makes the penguin a lot stiffer and harder to squash than the original. More use is obviously in order.

All hail the penguin!

Ruffled Cuffs

My sewing machine came with a ruffler. It’s an alien looking gizmatch but I believe it to be the /coolest thing evar/. At least, when it’s in operation. The day I figured it out I made rather a lot of ruffles-

-and I’m still finding the silly things in my bed. It’s quite ridiculous.

This is the attachment and a sample ruffle.

But I haven’t really done anything yet. I’ve just spent a day being gleeful. *puts glee to use*

Spats

They make me feel spiffy.

I came up with the idea, totally, and then checked the way to do it against the threadbanger guys (link at bottom)- and I was right!

What I made:

My thought process:

• I need to get these beige pants off my desk. I want spats. This seems like a good match.
• pattern? nah. I’ll just make stuff up!
• but if I mess up, I can’t just cut a new piece to fix it…
• pattern it is. Has anyone made one that I can steal?
• threadbangers
• cut up old tee-shirt to make pattern.1. Pattern.1 is held together with masking tape and has none of the divisions between parts in the right spots.
• make pattern.1 flat by cutting down the front and back and side where the buttons go and tracing it onto paper to make pattern.2
• add seam allowance and spaces to sew buttons on to pattern.2.
• figure out where the patterns fit on the pants (and take out the seams on the pants for seam allowance sharing. That’s how close it was…)
• cut, stitch together.
• find buttons, create buttonholes in outside piece, sew buttons on underside piece.
• discover that they’re too big because of liberties taken in the patternmaking and sewing process and fix that

A note on stitching- It is a good idea if you hem(get the raw edge of the fabric turned under and inside a seam) these, especially if you are using a fabric that sheds a lot. I didn’t and my universe is full of beige corduroy fluffies. Sigh. Also, stitch the pieces together, then do the button flaps, then do the top and bottom hems.

There is a strap that goes under the arch of the boot. Because I didn’t account for that in my patterns and plans, I have a rather embarrassing piece of yarn and a safety pin.

I have just enough fabric left to make matching gloves, so that’s my next step. Then I might work on a skirt I bought fabric for last winter… DO EVERYTHING ELSE LIKE SRSLY

This post moved up from three weeks from now to nao because fern is awesome and asked pretty. Hi fern!

Fern~

Here are all the patterns and stuff. I don’t know how useful they’ll be, though.

The three patterns together. The middle one goes on the inside of your right leg, the other two on the outside of the same leg. The ruler is a standard 1ft/30cm with HOLOGRAPHIC DINOSAURS. (It is the best ruler ever)

The button side ones. The strips down the middle get folded under and sewn down.

and the button side patterns with the button side of the spat to maybe make it a little clearer.

Threadbangers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfxGVQ3WpSc

Tool Holsters

Dad suggested that I make holsters for the tools I picked up at Cabin Fever- two vice grips, a micrometer, a finger sized adjustable wrench- out of Kevlar thread because kevlar is cool. Ebay, kevlar thread, lifetime supply, $15-30. It takes forever to make anything out of thread as we discussed over dinner that evening, and it was decided that I would have to wait until June to get Kevlar thread. June? June is Far Away. I dig out my crochet needles and some nice grey wool/acrylic yarn and get to work.

A week later I have these:

From left to right: micrometer, leatherman, eensy vice grip. The leatherman and eensy vice grip have grommets hammered into the top with cute little clip earing holders that fit through and hook onto my belt. The metal in the clips is soft, so I expect fail from them. The micrometer has grommets but no clips because I have no more clips and haven’t found anything else that doesn’t require me to be overly clever. The eensy vice grip has a little loop+bead closure to keep the holster shut. I made the bead out of fake turquoise stone.

This is the wrench. Instead of a beltpouch for it, I macraméd(?) a lanyard for it. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the wrench unclips from the lanyard with a clip I stole off my usb key.

This is the holster for the big vie grip. It’s designed to fit around my leg. I originally intended for it to go around my thigh, but discovered that it slid down. FAIL. so I changed it to fit around my calf, which is a much more satisfactory solution anyway- it doesn’t interfere with my cargo pockets that way.

yaaaaygeeking

All the holsters were made pattern free- I just made it up as I went along, occasionally holding the work up the the tool to make sure I didn’t totally mess it up.

Watchpocket

…because I can :D

I designed and added this pocket after I made the vest. It would have been much easier to make if I had known when I made the vest.

These are the patterns I used to make the pocket.

The one on the top left if the intricately folded model I used to make the pattern below it. I cut the fabric from the lower left one. The one on the right, once trimmed of its faux-pocket, become the pattern for the flap.

The pocket fits under the flap of the bigger pocket to hide horrible stitchery.

And the watch in the pocket. It has its own flap to keep the watch in- it fell out several times during Cabin Fever when I had the pocket without the flap- and to further hide my bad stitchery.

So much of my stitchery is bad on this because I had to try really hard to not sew the big pocket shut by contorting the vest, which made it difficult to sew in a straight line.

Needle Pouch

I recently reached into the box that holds my sewing machine and impaled myself on my needle collection. Having had quite enough of that silliness, I fixed it.

Brightly colored because it contrasts with the black of my sewing machine.

I measured all the needles I would be putting into it and made the pattern to fit. It’s roughly 3 inches wide and 2 tall when folded up and snapped shut. I made it out of a fold in the fabric so that I wouldn’t have to sew that side shut.

General instructions:

• fold wrong sides together, sew quarter inch in from edge, leaving gap to turn
• turn, iron
• sew quarter inch in from edge
• fold in thirds, mark the folds, sew down the marks, iron folds in
• add a snap in each corner, located for best visual effect

Corduroy Hexapod

Every year the clarinet section does Spirit Bags for dome. Every year, I make a small stuffed animal for the sad person who gets something from me because small adorable animals are more awesome than candy.

Creative process

• What do I want? Adorable, no bigger than two hands side by side, easy to make.
• What makes things adorable? Big eye spots, fuzzy, looks like it wants a hug, non scary teeth if any, warm or bright colors… (felt, yarn, soft/stretchy corduroy or denim, contrasting threads, lotsa arms/legs)
• Easy to make means two flat pieces that get sewn together around the edges with no shaping at all- but also means the pattern is slightly more complex to take into account the warping the fabric will undergo when the animal is stuffed.

Step 1: The pattern-

Creative Process

warning: post with a lot of words

This post is spawned from Harte’s comment, “I want to know how you come up with these ideas. You take some seemingly random items that you wouldn’t normally associate with each other and by the time you’re done you have this really cool item!” and my somewhat inadequate response…

The short answer is that I have a problem and I do whatever is necessary to solve it.

The long answer is a combination of the two… I don’t regard what I do as a process, rather more of a series of questions that goes something like this…

Has this been solved already? (yes)

How did they solve it, is their solution practical for me, do I like their solution, did they solve it well, is it better for me to replace/purchase the item or give up? (poorly, no, sorta, yes, no, this is a challenge!)

How do I solve it? This takes into a lot of factors. I go for the best solution- and best can be determined by almost any factor (cheapest, quickest, easiest, prettiest, closest to mental picture, oddest…)

Do I have the materials I’d /like/ to use? (maybe at best)

What can I use to replace the materials I don’t have/can I replace them? (stuff, yes) This step can and frequently does modify to final outcome of the solution. This is also the step that brings in all the strange things that you wouldn’t expect, usually…

make it, revising materials and solution as needed.

wow, that sounds so dry when I write it out like that… Does anyone want me to put a synopsis of how I came up with something in the project description in future posts?

What makes what I do cool? I just do stuff (and other people tell me it’s cool. I don’t get it.)