Letter-A-Day: In Review

Here's all the pictures of my Letter-A-Day Challenge. They look good together. If you would like to review everything I made follow this link. My favorite project was the underwear because I would have never thought of making underwear if it wasn't for this challenge. What was your favorite?

Letter-A-Day: Z

Yay!! Today is the last day of my Letter-A-Day Challenge. I thought of quiting many times but I didn't and here we are today at letter Z. I cheated a little in that I made the thing for today a few days ago because I wasn't going to have a sewing machine in the hotel and I needed it for my trip. For today I made Zipper Bags.


My next post will be a review of all of the letters. This was fun, you guys. I would have never done this without you!

Letter-A-Day: Y

Even though I spend 4 hours in the car, I didn't forget my Letter-A-Day Challenge. In the car I made some yo-yo's.


I don't know what I'm going to do with them but here they are. One more letter to go...

Letter-A-Day: X

I thought of making an X rated video for my Letter-A-Day Challenge today but I am going on a trip tomorrow and have lot of things to do so an Xtreme Close Up of Dinsky is going to have to do for today.

Letter-A-Day: W

In the past few days I have gone from toilet paper to thumbs to underwear to vaginas. You probably thought I was doing a Winky for today's Letter-A-Day Challenge. I would have but I just thought about it. Besides I can't think of a pretty way of making one. Anyway, I thought I should tone it down a little from now on and keep the PG rating of this blog so today I made so Woven Sketchbook Covers.


They are made of woven strips of silk fabrics and inside is a blank book. At the beginning of this challenge I said I wasn't going to buy anything but I broke my rule and bought the blank books. I did pretty good if I made it to letter W without buying anything. Funny how you can just put a vagina on your blog and your traffic doubles.

Letter-A-Day: V

There is a movement around the country to stop violence against women. Every year all over the US there is a play that is preformed by anti-violence groups to raise funds and awareness towards the fight against violence. The play is called The Vagina Monologues. The day the play is preformed is called VDAY so it made obvious sense to dedicate my thing today to my thing. In Paducah, the play is performed to benefit the Merryman House Domestic Crisis Center. This year it is scheduled for March 8 at Tilghman High School Auditorium. After the play, they are going to have a raffle and they are asking for donations so I made something to donate to the raffle. I made the VagiBag (name courtesy of my BFF).


Hopefully, outside the context of The Vagina Monologues, it is not too obvious that it is a vagina and you can use it. Maybe it is so awful that they will never ask me for any more donations. Hmmm... there's a plan... Anyway, if you want to be the lucky winner of this purse you are going to have to attend the play and buy lots of raffle tickets. Good luck!

Letter-A-Day: U

I struggled to find something to make today with the letter U. I looked in a dictionary, asked people, looked on the web and I didn't realize that the answer was under my pants all along. Yes today I made some underwear.


I used a stretchy shirt I had and made it into underwear. It was amazingly easy to do and it is actually comfortable. I may have to do more. I took one of mine and traced it to make a pattern and then I cut the shirt, sewed it, added elastic and a little crocheted flower I had laying around. I know you all want me to model it but I want to keep this blog family friendly. Ok, you can have a little peak.

If it wasn't for the Letter-A-Day Challenge I would have never thought about making underwear. Watch out Victoria's Secret!

Letter-A-Day: T

Today I made two things. For the first thing of the day I made toilet paper.

Look, the toilet paper is wishing you a good morning. Who could have a bad day after seeing this? He is even polite enough to look the other way while you do your business. I wish I had thought of it but I didn't. I saw it in the mochimochiland blog. When I saw it I knew I had to do it today but then I felt a like guilty for copying someone's idea so I made something else.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know of my understandable obsession with thumbs. If you don't understand, read this. So today I decided to make some thumbs.

And had some thumb photo fun


Six more letters to go...

Letter-A-Day: S

For today's Letter-A-Day Challenge I made a smock.

I don't like it. Maybe is the fabric. Oh well... getting close to the end and I'm running out of steam. Do all my clothes look alike?

Letter-A-Day: R

For today's Letter-A-Day R Challenge I refashioned a dress. I turned a too-big-for me-long dress into a baby doll dress. I'm pretty happy with the results and it is definitely my style. Here is the dress I started with:

And here is the refashioning!


Here's a diagram of what I did in case you don't believe that it is the same dress. Click on the image to see a larger version.

This is good start to my Wardrobe Refashion Challenge.

Letter-A-Day: Q

Today's Letter-A-Day Challenge was letter Q. Obviously I had to make a quilt but I have to let you in on a secret. I am not very interested in quilting anymore. I keep saying "This is my last quilt" and then I make another one. I really think this is my last serious art quilt. But I will probably change my mind again. The quilting is hard to show on pictures but here is a detail shot.

I pieced it about a month ago. I had the idea for the quilting and it was a design that I knew I couldn't do myself or if I did it would have looked awful so I asked my friend Sally Terry to quilt it for me in her big nice long arm machine and she set up time off her busy schedule to do it just in time to meet my Q challenge. Seriously, I don't know when she has time to sleep. She is writing a book that comes out in a month, she is revamping her whole website where she is going to have quilting online classes and live chat and live help, she has all these quilts to quilt, she is renovating a house, she is helping her daughter move, she... But she was kind enough to separate two full days just for me. Sally is not your average long arm quilter. She is a nationally certified instructor that travels all over the country, she has written books, won awards, judged quilt shows, etc.. I'm not just going to let just anyone quilt my quilt! Here's a little video of the process



Now I have to explain something about long arms because I know what all of you out there are saying "Well, is easy when the machine automatically does all the work". Not so, my friends. Ok, there are long arm machines that are programmed to do everything automatically and you just press a button and go get some coffee. But that is not the case here or the majority of long arm quilted quilts. It takes a lot of skill, patience, work and thread to use those machines and be good at it. As my friend Caryl said "quilting in a regular sewing machine is like drawing moving the paper instead of the pen, quilting in a long arm machine is like drawing moving the person that is holding the pen." A long arm machine is just a tool like a computer is a tool or a camera is a tool or a paintbrush is a tool. It is up to the person using it to make something beautiful with it. And Sally did.

So for today's challenge I can't actually say I made something. I watched someone make something. Does that count?

Letter-A-Day: P

For today's Letter-A-Day Challenge I made Pincushions. They are made out of Merimekko fabric. They are good pincushions but I think they look great as decorations around the house.

Letter-A-Day: O

I present to you Octopussy. She is an octopuss that got mixed with a kitty. She has a kitty face but the fabric is too busy and you can't see her face. She has kitty ears too. Dinsky isn't very happy and made it very clear that he is the only cat in this household!

Letter-A-Day: N or I Should Have Worked For Hallmark

Continuing with my Letter-A-Day Challenge, today I made Notecards. My boss is moving to another city. Today we are having a Good Bye Party for him so I made some notecards that he can use to let people know of his new address. I tried to make them as masculine as possible but I don't know how successful I was. What else can a girly girl do?

They were so quick to make that I decided to make more. As I started thinking about occasions and sayings for the cards I thought "What would I say if I was a greeting card?" And that is how sarcasticards were born.

Click on the image to read what the cards say inside. People that read this blog but don't know me well may have never seen this side of me as I'm always being in my best behavior here. I had fun making these and there are many more on the works. I know these are not for everyone but let's see what is the reaction.

I decided to have a blog contest to increase the blog participation. I see people all the time that say to me "Oh, I read your blog!" but I had no idea. The most fun part of writing a blog is the comments you get, otherwise, you feel like you are talking to yourself. Some people may enjoy that but not me so I will choose a name at random from everyone that leaves me a comment in this post and he/she will receive six sarcasticards. See at the bottom where it says Comments? That's is where you can leave me a comment. Click on the word "Comments" and follow the directions. It's that easy! The contest ends March 1st. I will announce the winner here. Good Luck!

Letter-A-Day: M

Finally finished my M project. My BFF had surgery and I wanted to make something for her. She got a new laptop. I mean a real laptop, not one of those fake computers she plays around with. She got a Macbook Pro. Woo Hoo! Anyway, so I made her a Mac Messenger Bag to carry her laptop to Etcetera CoffeeShop because that is the only place she goes to.

I'm not very happy with the way it came out. The sewing is good and it is functional but it is, as Bizzy would say fugly. Form over function always! I put some things inside she could use in her encaustic pieces and a CD of Kate Nash inside. She is a whiny chick with a weird voice so Nikki must like her. I would understand if she doesn't use it but she has never been a form-over-function-kind-of-girl, which is weird for an artist/graphic/web designer. She seemed to like it. Anyway, is a good thing that is the thought that counts.

Letter-A-Day: not quite yet

You may be wondering what happened to my Letter-A-Day Challenge since I haven't posted since Sunday. I have been working on it. I started working on letter M on Monday and since Monday is my day off, I did an Ambitious Monday Project. Then life happened and by life I mean too many dinner parties with too much wine involved and not a lot of creating time. Lack of time + Ambitious project = not finished product yet.

But I have been doing other M-related things like I had a beautiful Mocha at Etcetera Coffeeshop made by the stylish Jean. I also did a computer illustration of My Face that I think came out pretty good. It is funny how you give me a pen and paper and I can't draw to save my life but give me a computer or a sewing machine and I can do something decent.

My mouse looked lonely and cold and my desk was getting all scratched up so I made a fabric-covered Mousepad. Doesn't that look much better?

For my real M project you are going to have to stay tuned.

Letter-A-Day: L

For this day in my Letter-A-Day Challenge, I made two things. For the first thing, I made letters. I used the website fontifier.com to make a font from my handwriting. They give you a form to print, then you write each letter, scan it, send it to them and for $9 they make a font of your handwriting that you can use in any program. Since I'm going to be redesigning my website, I thought that using my own font will give it a more personalized effect. I hate my handwriting but how bad can it be, right? Well, pretty bad is the answer. Judge for yourself.

To justify my bad handwriting I have to say that when I had the car accident, my right hand never recovered as well as the left hand. I was right handed before the accident and had to learn to do everything with my left hand. Still, it is pretty bad.

So to compensate my sorry attempt of making something for this day, I made a small quilted landscape. It measures 3" x 5".

Letter-A-Day: K

Look who joined me for coffee this morning. They are kitty toys designed by Teresa Levy and are filled with catnip. When I was making them yesterday, I knew that Dinsky was going to go bezerk when I started filling the little mice. So I closed the bedroom door before I started. In the middle of the operation, the door opened and in comes Dinsky. I have my hands full with opened mice in one hand and a bowl of catnip on the other. Immediately Dinsky detected the catnip and attacked! Catnip went everywhere! It was all over me and all over the floor. I tried to save as much as I could but Dinsky was going crazy so I left the room, closed the door behind me and waited for the catnip high to calm down.

This morning I had a very nice time with the gang. They turned out so cute that I didn't wanted to give them to The Dinsk to destroy but he found one anyway. Here's a video.

Letter-A-Day: J

I used to subscribe to quilter Susan Favreau's philosophy. She use to say "If you ever see me wearing quilted clothes, just shoot me!" But then I saw this jacket in the movie Before Sunset and I realized that quilted clothing doesn't have to be god-awful and look like you just got out of bed and the quilt got stuck to your back. And lets not talk about the extra padding; one thing my body does not need.

When I was learning to do free-motion quilting I took a yard an a half of plain white cotton fabric and just practiced random designs. So I had a yard and a half of quilted fabric and I decided that I was going to make a jacket. Very appropriate for this day when ice was falling from the sky. I looked thru my patterns and I didn't had a jacket pattern so I went to BurdaStyle.com again and got a free pattern for a jacket. It wasn't the style that I wanted but maybe I could modify it. I was feeling adventurous! It said I needed 2 1/2 yards but I though "What do they know? Plus, I'm little..." So I went ahead and started cutting the fabric. Well, it turns out that I needed more fabric than I had and I was too lazy to quilt more so I made a lot of changes and this is what I came up with.


It was meant to be longer and with long sleeves but I didn't have enough fabric. It was easier to make than I thought. I made a lot of changes and it is a minor miracle that they worked. I think I'm getting the hang of making clothes.

Letter-A-Day: I

Yesterday I decided that my website needs a makeover. Who knows when I'll actually do it but I thought that for the letter "I" I would make some new icons for the website. Here they are:

Obviously, I'm changing the color scheme of the whole website. These may change but this is what I did yesterday. I think they came out pretty well for being the first icons I ever make and that I'm really not a graphic designer, I just play one on the web.. They are going to be for my etsy shop, my art quilts, my graphic design portfolio, my web design portfolio, my blog, my videos and the last one I'm not sure yet, the idea of making altered clothing has bounced around a few times so I made an icon for it. I should make one for my contact information.