If you sew each stitch from back to front, the stitches are invisible on both sides.
I could stop right now and call it a cat bed.
Tag: DIY
Upcycling
I’m in the process of turning a stack of old T-shirts into a braided basket for Franny’s toys. I should be finished sometime in June.
The Tale of the Hideous Tuffet
Before
After
The tuffet is comfy and the cats love to lounge on it, but it is hideous. The upholstery is some sort of velour that attracts cat hair and is impossible to clean. I wanted to cover it, but couldn’t find anything that was soft enough to feel nice but that also was not a hair magnet. I finally found a polyester shower curtain at Target that wasn’t too ugly. The teals go with the teals in my living room, and the red in it is about the same shade I’m planning on painting my project dresser. And, it is slick enough that hair brushes off it.
My Next Project
A coworker gave me this dresser. It’s from the 1930s (I think). I don’t know woods well enough to tell if it’s walnut or mahogany. Mahogany, I think? I’m really not interested in stripping it. Too much work and I am WAY LAZY. But it needs to be painted. Badly. I keep waffling about the color, though. Red, I think? Everything else in my living room is either boring beige (carpet, sofa, walls) or some shade of bluey-greeny. I think red would complement the blues.
I Hoard Books
Remember my giant wall of bookshelves? I am out of space, but I keep accumulating books. It’s a sickness, I know. So last weekend I finally got fed up with the stacks of books lying everywhere and decided to put up more bookshelves.
The obligatory before shot of the short wall in my living room that is, shockingly, full of NO BOOKS.
Step 1: Cover the cheap-ass, fakety-fake wood boards. They were beyond ugly, so I wrapped them in hippie love-in fabric.
It’s super easy to do. Just pretend that each board is a giant present.
Et voila.
After
In Progress
I’ve got a bed-length strip done that’s four squares wide. (The color is a little off on the photo, because I took it under fluorescent light, but I don’t have time to fix it.)
Quilting
I managed to get my sewing machine set up, which was an adventure, and I even got a few squares sewn. I also managed, somehow, to slice my thumb open. It’s not deep, but it’s on the inside of the joint, so it hurts every time I bend it.
I also now know why people buy pre-cut quilting squares. Cutting brazillions of squares of fabric is a ginormous pain in the ass.
Quilting Prep
I’ve been saying for years that I wanted to try quilting. Nothing fancy, just four or nine patch quilts made mostly of old clothes. I finally got bitten by the obsession bug today, badly, so I went over to Hobby Lobby to get thread and pins. While I was there, I looked in their scrap bin and found a few ends of cotton that I liked.
I also bought an ironing board. Please feel free to laugh. I’ll be 40 next month, and somehow, I’ve managed to get along without ever owning an ironing board.
Anyway, if I can figure out how to use my sewing machine (again, feel free to laugh), I’m going to actually start sewing tomorrow. I’m excited!
Organization Pt. 3
This is my DIY planner. As I warned, not earth shattering, but I’ve yet to meet a planner that is, so wev. Anyway, I took it for a test ride yesterday afternoon (1.5 hour meeting) and today (30 minute meeting), and it worked great. It’s nice to have real paper to doodle on, for a change!
Organization Pt. 2
I finally got my planner problem sorted out last night. There may be pictures forthcoming, not that it’s anything earth shattering. What I did was tear down some light-weight watercolor paper. I punched holes in it, et voila, blank planner inserts. They are ready for list-making, calendar creation, and doodling.
We’re having a division meeting this afternoon, so I’ll have a chance to take it for a test ride.
red paper boat 