Erica re-purposes a scarf.

I was just thinking to myself that I haven't posted any DIY projects in a while. I have tons on my "things to sew" list but I guess sewing for craft shows, gifts and custom orders takes precedence over projects for myself. And, to be honest, I've also become a little lazy on the weekends. A few months ago, I reconnected with an old friend who recently split from her long-time boyfriend. She went through her closet and gave me a bunch of clothes that reminded her of him. She thought I would like the bright colors and could use them as fabric for my pillows & stuffed animals. Around this same time, I was looking though some pictures that I had pinned online. One was a quick three step picture tutorial for a kimono. Time for the stars to align...

As I am writing this, it is currently a causal Sunday afternoon, which is the best time for me to open up the blinds, let the sunshine in and get creative in my sewing room. The tutorial I came across showed three pictures: a photograph of a stylish woman posing in a cute kimono, a large piece of patterned fabric, and some dotted lines with the words "Cut Here". I thought I would try to create the kimono from those pictures and also provide a little more instruction. I am using one of the scarves my friend gave me as the fabric. I chose it because it is trimmed in lace and fringe, which I thought could add some nice detail. If you are purchasing fabric (instead of re-purposing an old scarf), I would get at least two yards; more or less depending on how big you want the finished project to be.

1. Turn the fabric inside out, fold it in half and lay it on a flat surface. Make sure the creased side is facing the top. Measure 1/2 yard from the top and 8 inches from the outside. Draw a line from those measurements on both sides of the fabric.

2. Draw a straight line from the first line down to the bottom of each side of the fabric. You should have two upside-down "L" shaped lines; one on each side of the fabric. If you use your imagination, you can already see the outline of the finished kimono.

3. Pin along the drawn "L" shapes and cut.

4. Sew along the pinned lines. Sew one straight line from the bottom of the kimono to the edge of the sleeve. I actually sewn twice, one straight stitch and one zigzag stitch, to make sure the finished project wouldn't fray or tear.

5. Draw and cut out a neck-hole shape. Only cut through one layer of the folded fabric.

6. Draw and cut a straight line through one layer of fabric only from the bottom of the kimono to the neck-hole. Once cut and turned right-side-out, the fabric should open up and resemble a kimono.

7. Hem both sides of the cut line. I started the hem at the bottom of one side, sewn around the neck-line and all the way back down to the bottom of the other side. One nice, long, frustrating hem. LOL

And there it is... a fun summer kimono to throw over all of your casual outfits. Its not perfect but I think the fact that it is billowy hides all the crooked lines and the uneven hem. God bless loose & flowy fabric to hid all my sewing flaws! I used a Pashmina scarf as my fabric. If I had to do it again, I would chose a light cotton or jersey; only because it would be easier to work with. What do you guys think? Was it worth cutting up a nice scarf?

Erica and Lacey make cosmetics pouches.

Can you believe these are made of plastic sandwich bags and Duct tape? They're so cute! 

Yay, a DIY blog! Monday Craft Night is back. Sorry it has been a while (craft shows have taken priority this month). A couple of weeks ago, I came across one of those "Duct tape hack" videos on Facebook. I normally don't find those videos very inspiring (and most of the time, the "hack" takes more time to perform than the problem its trying to solve... just buy a bathroom rug or fix a leak the old fashioned way!) But, the project in this video was simple and the supplies were cheap. I invited Lacey over and we recreated the project.

I saw this majestic unicorn Duct tape and knew that I needed it in my life! 

The cosmetics pouches turned out to be so friggin' adorable! Duct tape comes in so many printed designs (did you know that it is also now stickier than ever? The packaging proclaimed that the adhesive formula is stronger. Too sticky in my opinion.) and sandwich bags come in so many different sizes. The sky is the limit with this DIY project. The pouches don't have to just be for cosmetics, either. My craft supplies box was a mess so I'm using mine for organizing craft supplies instead.

DIY Cosmetic Pouch Tutorial-

Materials needed: Duct tape, sliding zipper plastic sandwich bags, scissors

1. Decide what you want to put in the finished pouch. Using that as a guide, measure how big you want the pouch to be.

2. If you want the pouch to be smaller than the original size of the sandwich bag, fold it to the new desired size and tape it in place. 

3. Cover the sandwich bag in Duct tape. Make sure to tape both front and back sides of the sandwich bag. Although the Duct tape was super sticky, I still found it fairly easy to tear pieces off of the sandwich bag if I accidentally placed it in the wrong position. To avoid air bubbles, I found it best to place the Duct tape on one end of the sandwich bag and slowly press it down, moving from one end to another, instead of placing the entire piece of tape on the sandwich bag at once. Also, be cautious of the zipper at the top of the sandwich bag. I stopped taping just underneath the red zipper. 

4. Repeat step #3 so there are two layers of Duct tape over the sandwich bag. (You can probably do multiple layers depending on what you plan to store in the finished pouch and how hefty you want it to be but I stuck with two layers.) 

5. For the first layer of Duct tape, I folded the edges of the Duct tape over (as shown in the picture above step #3). For the second layer of Duct tape, I left the edges hanging over. Once you're completely finished taping, cut all the extra tape off the edges of the sandwich bag. 

Athena enjoys crafting with us!

All done! In about 15 minutes, $10 worth of supplies and five easy steps, you've got a nice collection of matching pouches.

Erica made an infinity wrap last year.

I've only sewn a couple pieces of clothing...my most impressive being a skirt -- read about that here. I usually just hem up pants and skirts (because being short blows) and mend holes in clothes. I would like to start sewing actual articles of clothing but I haven't had much time. My mom sewed all of my clothes from birth until about 6th or 7th grade. At the time I hated it because it made me stand out even more as "the weird sheltered Chinese girl" but looking back at old pictures, I now see that I had some pretty bitchin' outfits. Popular kids and bullies be damned. I wish I still had a homemade wardrobe but I sadly have not been able to wear or make any more Ngo creations.  

I made this "Bina Brianca" infinity wrap last autumn but never got around to blogging about it (I think I started it the night I made the wrap but never finished it). It's getting chilly now and I'm wearing it again so I thought, "Hey, what a great time to bring this blog entry back out!" 

I saw the wrap online and kinda stole the idea but homemade infinity wraps are everywhere so I'm not the only one ripping off the Brianca company. It took a ridiculously long time to make because I took a really long time to measure the cloth properly but it's a really easy project. It literally can be done in two steps. 

After reading chapters about my honeymoon vacation, you guys need a break. So here's a short and sweet (and easy!) tutorial for this week.

INFINITY WRAP TUTORIAL:

     Materials needed- cloth (preferably jersey or something "flowy"), scissors, tape measure, sewing machine, pins

1. Section out your cloth into three pieces. 

     One for the middle (back) and two for the sides. 

     The middle piece should measure four times your body width (aka you can wrap it around yourself 4x). 

     Each of the two side pieces should be half the size of the middle. So, each side piece should be able to wrap around your body twice. 

After this is all measured, cut the cloth into the three sections.

2. Now you will pin the pieces back together (yeah, it sounds a little silly since we just cut them all apart).

     Before doing this, I folded & sewed a hem along the inner edges of each piece of cloth to keep it from fraying in the future. After you have your hems sewn, pin the two side pieces to the middle piece.

Sew each side piece onto the middle piece from the top to about a third into the middle, then sew from the bottom until about a third into the middle. 

     You're basically sewing it back together and leaving ample room for arm holes.

As promised, done in two steps. There are infinite ways to wear the wrap (see what I did there?) and you can google them all but I mostly like to wear mine as either a scarf or a shawl. Keep warm and happy late Thanksgiving!