101 Crafts to Make = Sewing Machine Cover #86

It has been a long time since I posted one of my 101 Crafts to Make. I haven't been slacking off in the crafting department, just in the posting department.

Here is the Sewing Machine Cover that I made for my Singer. I used to have the plastic cover that it came with but somehow lost it over the years. Needless to say this one is 10x more stylin than the plastic one ever was!

I had this cute fabric lying around and finally knew what to use it for. You will need to measure your machine (height, width and length) and then add for seam allowances. The top edge is on the fold and the sides I serged together.

Divide the width of your machine + 1 inch in two. My machine was 4 inches in width so 4 + 1 / 2 = 2.5.

Now cut out a square from the corner using that measurement, mine was 2.5 by 2.5.

Repeat this for the other corner. Now you will need to sew these edges together.

Fold the fabric in half so the side seam matches with the fold line. Sew across. Now you can topstitch the side seams down (of you want). I serged the bottom edge of my cover and then hemmed it up neatly.

The Finished Sewing Machine Cover!

I love the way this turned out and it was super super easy to make!

Hallowe'en 2010 - Starcraft Nova Costume

Hey everyone!

Last time out I was consumed with making my Hallowe'en costume from scratch. I hope you will enjoy these pictures! WARNING: This will be a long post as there are a lot of pictures. : )

I found out that I would be out for Hallowe'en only two weeks before the date, so I didn't have a lot of time to construct my costume. I decided that I wanted to go as Nova (Ghost) from Starcraft (a computer game).Tthe costume ended up being a lot more work than I thought it was going to be.

First I have a whole bunch of photos of the finished costume. I borrowed Brendon's Air Soft gun for the pictures but didn't take it out with us as it looks too much like a real gun.

In this one you can see a lot of the lights that we incorporated into it.

Aren told me I wasn't supposed to smile because people with guns don't smile. I'm not very good at looking serious for pictures.

Now on to the construction phase of the costume:

What a huge mess!!

This is my original sketch for the bodice armour. I decided afterwards that having the shoulder pads point downwards was going to be much too restrictive.

These are front and back flat sketches for the one piece. All of the style lines are included, although modifications were made in the final garment.

I drafted a pattern for the bodysuit and initially I was going to make it all out of PVC. Well that turned out to be a horrible idea as it pulled and bunched all over the place. Luckily I had some bamboo stretch fabric at home that I could use. I drafted the pattern and made two different prototypes before I finally made the suit itself. All of the piping is black PVC, tricky to sew!

I constructed the body armour with PVC, tape, glue, papermache and LOTS of time. It took me forever to get it properly formed.

Nova's suit lights up so of course I had to have LED's and EL wire in it. The store only had 6 blue LED's though so I am hoping to work on the costume more and add more lighting to it.

Yes folks, ALL of the piping was hand made by moi.

Piping and sewing part of the bodice.

Piped in the middle and piped around the outside. PVC is sticky when it sews so I had to buy a roller foot.

Inside of the outfit.

Outside of the outfit.

The foam served as pattern pieces for the PVC as well as gave the bodice extra shape. There were battery packs hidden inside here and the backpack as well.

While We Were Out:

Me with Master Chief. You can see the lights better in the dark.

Aren and I. He didn't have as much time as I did to make his costume but he was a Nintendo controller and SUPER proud of it. He made the whole thing on Saturday before we went out. He said he is going to do some more work on it and make sides and stuff too. It was super sweet either way!

Did I mention he was Super proud of being a Nintendo controller? This is us with two of our friends.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures of our costumes.

As I said earlier, I plan on putting more lights on mine and reworking some elements. I had no idea it would be quite as much work as it turned out to be and would have liked a bit more time on some parts.

Until next time,

Grey Cup 2010 -Saskatchewan Roughriders!! (and my New Camera)

So today I post about the 98th Grey Cup (late I know) and my new Camera!
The day I got out of camp I received a message from my dad asking if I wanted to go to the Grey Cup - of course I did! My family are all HUGE Saskatchewan Roughriders Fans. In the end my Mum, Dad, Aren, my Sister, my Brother and Myself all went to the game in Edmonton.
Our beloved Riders didn't win but we sure had a lot of fun cheering them on!

My Brother and I all decked out or the game enjoying some Timmy's.

Here we all are pre-game (Aren is taking the picture). Luckily it wasn't minus 25 or anything, I think it was only minus 10. We were bundled up for sure once it got underway!

My Sister and I with more crazy Roughrider Fans. The Mad Hatter, Gumby and an all Green Joker!!!!!!!

It was a sea of green in the stadium, Rider fans are the best fans around.

Go Riders Go!!!!!

Our new camera took amazing photos of the game, you can't even tell how far away we really are.

Did I mention it was cold? My Sister and I all bundled up with Mum and Dad in the background.

Can you believe the stadium? Something like 60,000 people were there!

Now you can tell how far away we are......

It was sad that we didn't win the cup but like I said it was super fun to be there. Originally we only had 4 tickets in a row so all 6 of us wouldn't have been able to sit together. I devised a plan though whereby Aren and I bought slightly better tickets than the ones my sister had bought and then traded them with two people who were sitting in the same row as my family. It worked!!! And we actually paid slightly less per ticket than my sister had because we got them pretty last minute.

Go Riders Go!

And this is our lovely new camera! Aren bought it for me last month but I was unable to take it out to camp as I didn't have a proper protective case yet. I am super excited to try taking some sweet pictures outside at camp - Northern Lights!!

Coming Soon : Hallowe'en Costumes!

Ciao,

Gingerbread House! (and Addicted To Plastic)

So I know that I promised I would tell you all about the movie I was watching (Addicted to Plastic) and I will in just a minute - I just got distracted by these pictures from my Gingerbread house! I love Christmas and I adore Christmas baking. I didn't actually get to bake the house myself since it was made while I was out at camp - I did get to decorate it though! Isn't it the cutest little cabin you ever did see? It is actually the Domco retreat office (I know the close up is blurry - I apologize... I didn't have the new camera yet). I had so much fun working on this and thanks a bunch to Trudy who took the pictures for me!

I made the windows out of melted candy and the trees are ice cream cones covered in icing. I plan on taking some new pictures when I get back out at work this month, then I will be taking the *NEW* camera with me! Hurray! The baker also told me that they will be creating a village with all of the houses that people made and that could be finished when I get back in. Exciting!

These last two pictures are a couple I took off the balcony tonight - the colour was just amazing! Nothing like a sunset to brighten (darken??) the evening.

Now then - about that movie. So I watched Addicted To Plastic (among other documentaries) the other night and I must say - very interesting. Okay that is an understatement.

For those of you who know me, I am already a bit of ... hmm.... how to put this kindly..... an earth loving nut? Okay maybe not quite that extreme, but I do care a lot about the Earth and the way people treat it. I guess you could say that I feel that we were given the Earth as a gift and should be good stewards of what God gave us.

Sooooo on to the movie: it talks about how plastic surrounds us in our daily lives and how we have basically  taken it for granted. Instead of treating it like a valuable commodity we treat it like garbage. The filmmaker brings up a very valid point however: plastic doesn't go away! There was a really crazy scene in the movie where they use this "manta ray" trolling system that skims the ocean for plastic pieces (small pieces). The water they bring up is a veritable soup of plastics in all forms. The craziest part is that they are miles and miles and miles away from shore.

The film also talks about the toxic effects of recycling, manufacturing and disposing of plastics and the effects it has on the developing world. While some of the information was stuff I already knew I found it quite interesting and also thought provoking.

The movie got me thinking about a project concerning garbage production that I had done for the Science Fair when I was a child. People produced a lot of garbage then and I bet it is even more now. I had to sit and think about how much garbage I produce in a year (it's a lot) and what I could do to reduce that amount.

I would recommend the film to others because it will get you thinking. The movie doesn't propose that we get rid of plastic completely but rather that we treat it with more respect. I hope you have a chance to see it! (Family - you can borrow it from me anytime!)

What are your garbage production reducing strategies?

Ciao!

Cooking, Reading and Watching Movies

Hello all of you in cyberspace!

I took the vehicle in for servicing and had a chance to do a little reading while I waited. I am not near to being finished the book but it is a really good read and I would recommend it to anyone who feels that they are rushing through life too fast. I bought it at the thrift shop yesterday for $3.99. Awesome.

For lunch today I made a panini sandwich - amazing! I used french bread with a bit of butter on the outside and some mayo on the inside. I sliced up some Roma tomato and mozzarella cheese and fried some onions, garlic and  fresh mushroom to make it delicious. Naturally I chopped up extra onion and garlic for tonight's supper and I am glad I did - that turned out to be a particularly potent onion and I had tears in my eyes (this hasn't happened in... oh .... a long time anyway).

Grilling grilling grilling! Thanks to my Mum who bought us the panini press a while back.

It makes good food!

My Lunch.

Sliced apples, Panini, Water and Glogg.

Glogg is basically Swedish spiced (non alcoholic) wine and since I can never find Gluhwein (German spiced wine) at the store I bought a few bottles when I found this. You can add wine to it of course and I do have a recipe to make my own Gluhwein from scratch but decided to try this. It is really sweet so I have been mixing it with water to keep it from being too overpowering.

Panini Close-Up

I am still hard at work on my button covered pillow. It is definitely a lot more work than I thought it would be, but so far it looks wonderful.

And last but not least two pictures of my supper :

Tomato Zucchini Tart and Swedish Potatoes. Yum Yum.

Hopefully I will finish the button pillow soon, but for now I have plans to watch a movie entitled:

 "Addicted To Plastic: The Rise And Demise Of a Modern Miracle"

Movie Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daSFXZT-HYk

I'll let you know how I liked it tomorrow.

Ciao!!

Lydia