Gidyup Buttercup!

Yesterday, I made a buttercup bag, and this video to go along with it.



The bag itself wasn't that hard to make, there are a few minor mistakes on it such as the seam holding down the pleats is viable beneath the band along the top, and the band itself is wrinkled in one spot, but it came out a lot better than I thought it was going to. Here are the photos at the end of the movie for a better look:







As you can see, after I finished recording I added some decorative buttons to the band of the purse. I remembered my sewing machine had the ability to sew on buttons and I thought I'd give it a try. It took over an HOUR to sew on all three buttons. I'm about 90% sure it was my fault, but NOTHING would go right as I tried to do this. I popped out the manual and thought I was following it to a T, but the threads ont he underside kept making huge loops and catching, and there is NO way to tell this until it either catches or by waiting till you are done sewing on the button. I must have blown a mile of thread trying to get it to work, and every time it did I have NO idea what I did to make it work. I just kept adjusting and re-threading again and again, and through some sort of ancient faerie magic, it would accidentally work.

Now, I know what you are thinking, "After the first one was such a pain in the ass, why didn't you just hand sew the rest? It takes like, 3 seconds." Well I thought of that. And the answer is: it was a challenge. haven't you ever started doing something that was supposed to be very simple, but it was giving you such a hard time you just HAD to finish it? There was no way I was letting that machine win. It was sewing me some buttons, if it was the last thing it ever did.

Tea Time!

Hey guys! WOW it is cold out there. I think winter has finally kicked in, now all we have to do is wait for the snow. I used to live in Ohio where it snows just about every winter, in huge amounts. You could go a month plus without ever seeing the ground. Here, on Oklahoma it snows a little bit, but what really hits them hard is Ice storms. Overnight, the sky coats the land with a sheet of ice meant to spell everyone's doom, yet somehow they make it through. Nothing is safe from this deadly encasement of frozen H2O, not the streets, the sidewalks, trees or cars.. we've had to spend an afternoon chipping away at the ice on the Ion just to be able to get the door open and see out of the windows. Yes, brutal ice storms are not enough to keep the Rugged Oklahoman indoors, no-sirree. But I'll tell you what is. Friggin' Snow.

Like I said before, Oklahoma doesn't actually get much *snow,* or at least it didn't used to, so I hear. However, every year since I moved here, it has just Avalanched snow at least once per winter, sending the entire state into emergency lock-down quarantine doom until scientists can wrack their brains to figure out what this really, really cold wet stuff is outside that somehow isn't a 5 foot thick layer of solid ice. Cities literally shut down for just a few inches of snow (no joke, it snowed about 4 inches a few years ago and businesses were closing, no one dared to go out). The sand machines (Really guys, sand?) were working full tilt to try to make the roads passable, while in Ohio the SALT trucks were actually melting the snow and ploughing the way. There are hardly any snowploughs here; they never used to need them so as soon as a few flakes fall, car accidents go up 100,000% and no one has a single clue what to do. It's actually kind of amusing.


Anyway, enough of that. Look what I did!



I know, right? it's a tea wallet! I had no idea what that was either, until I got to the bottom of the little tutorial and it all made sense to me too. Here, let me give you a hint:



I KNOW right?? What a great idea! You can take your little teabags with you to work or wherever and they are all together in an adorable little pack. I think I know some people who are getting these for Christmas. The last is a picture of it empty. it looks a bit more wobbly than it is, I actually made this a few days ago and left the tea bags in it, and they wrinkled the fabric a bit. Anyway, I'm super proud of it. Maybe I'll make one for a giveaway? Hmm?

Not Dead

Still here guys, totally not dead, I swear. The problem is I am pretty bad at filler posts and I haven't sewn anything else! Aside from my SUPER SECRET PROJECT! Which I need to edit the video of an post. You got me there.

With a limited income it's hard to get the materials to sew things I'd really like to try. I recently sold a table to someone who WASN'T a murderer on craigslist.com and got a few extra bucks which I am going to spend on supplies to make a few more of those t-shirt bags, experimenting with the style a bit. I *REALLY* like them and if I can get any good at them I think I'd like to try selling them, especially if I can work out this whole screen printing thing and actually create the design on the bags myself.

Glory Be!

I still haven't found video recording software I am pleased with. it actually took me a lot of searching to find the one I use on the big PC, it allows you to stream live while recording, save using MANY different types of compression, play with the white balance, etc, plus it was free. If you know of something like that that doesn't leave a watermark or logo in the corner, PLEASE send it my way, I can't make videos until I find one. But I can take pictures!

I've made a few things with the machine so far, actually. At first I just did some random stitches down a piece of cloth, which I think I accidentally threw out. Awesome. After that I made 2 simple little drawstring bags out of some rectangles cut from a sweater my boyfriend hates, and an old skirt I have that is falling apart. A little wobbly, but not bad. Nothing I'd give to someone else, but I'd use them. I'm actually keeping my extra little sewing machine parts in the bag made from the skirt. The machine has a compartment for them but it opens sideways. So if I were to open the drawer, everything would just spill out. ..Whyy..? Anyway, yeah, super sweet.

I saw a project a few weeks ago in the internet, and I thought I'd give it a try. It's one of the MANY t-shirt recon projects out there, and I have a shirt that I haven't worn in ages due to a hole I had no idea how to fix, but I just LOVE it and have had it for probably half my life. The project is to turn it into a tote bag using either staples or sewing, and some duct tape. Here's where I found it originally, but I found other tutorials in which people used a sewing machine in stead of a stapler. So I bought some purple duct tape at my local Hobby Lobby and got to work, and made this AWESOME bag!!





Whatever's on the front of the shirt ends up being on the side of the bag, but that's alright, off-center things are pretty cool! This will be a great bag to use during the fall season with Halloween and general spookyness abound. It was also good practice for sewing on a curve. I made a line around the opening of the bag and the armholes, mostly for decoration, and they were curvy pretty much all the way around. None of the bag is by any means perfect, but it holds itself together and I think it looks pretty awesome! The only problem is that it's pretty huge, if only I had some sort of smaller bag to put inside of it for tiny things that like to roll around.. hmm...

So today I made a zippered pouch! I know, ambitious, but I'm the kind of person to dive right in, and I am *so* happy I did, it came out so cute! I used this tutorial and fabric I purchased from this etsy seller in a fat quarter pack which I LOVE. The zipper I got from Hobby Lobby. I used some interfacing which I got there as well. PICTURES!!





The fat quarter bundle I got came from the same set of fabrics which all go together, so it was easy to pick 2 to make a really cute little pouch. The tutorial up there is *REALLY* great and has step by step instructions on how to do it. I was really afraid of sewing zippers but I got through it without a hitch with her instructions. I love this pouch and I can see myself making many more in the future. Well, that's it for now! Hopefully I get some fabric I ordered soon so I can work on my SUPER SECRET AWESOME PROJECT and share it with you and the world. Tata!!

Waiting...

So there's my little sewing machine, sitting there and being all full of awesome and potential, grumping around on the desk with nary a scrap to sew. I feel so bad for it. We went through so much yesterday; me freeing it from it's demonic cardboard and Styrofoam prison, saving it from the brink of insanity brought on by extended isolation, it biting the hand that fed it by making me take EIGHTEEN MINUTES to properly thread it. But later on we worked out our problems, I got to sew a few random lines of stitches, letting it stretch it's figurative legs and I think we've come to an understanding, and possibly the beginnings of friendship. But now it sits there, waiting for me to play with it like a neglected puppy.

Earlier this week I ordered 3 yards of fleece. I am on a mission, and it is top-secret. You will all have to wait for the results, because if I told you now, I'd have to kill you. But just know that it is awesome, and will be worth the wait (for me anyway).

I also ordered a pack of fat quarters full of neat fabrics to play with. I have little to no idea what I am going to do wi th them, but they seemed like a good size to play with and maybe I can mangle them pretty. Who knows?

Drop Dead Thread

So what do you know? If you are new to sewing and are terrible at it, it takes you 18 minutes to thread a sewing machine for the first time. That's how long it took me anyway. I think I've worked it all out now, but you can watch me take ONE MILLION YEARS (18 minutes) to do it squished down to a mere three-minutes-and-some here in this video:

ZOMAIGODIT'SHERE!!1!1!!Shift+Eleventy!!1!

My machine arrived a lot earlier than I thought it was going to, usually whenever I order something and it's sent through UPS or FedEx it doesn't get here 'till 10 minutes before closing time, but today it arrived bright and early at 10:00 AM. I popped on the webcam and recorded my opening it, threading it and playing around. Unfortunately I had to use some new webcam software as my old (good) one doesn't support 64 bit systems and I was recording on my laptop. Ugh. And the new software leaves much to be desired. As we speak I am working on converting the files to something usable, don't really want to have to hunt down a codec. Later I'll find some better software, because there's no way I'm doing this every time. In a bit I'll edit the video and post it below:



In summary, everything seems so far so good! I only struggled a bit with the needle threader but I worked it out after only a few minutes, and everything seems fairly straightforward! There are lots of bits and bobs that came with the machine that I'm not sure what they are for, but I'll figure it out. Hopefully. Thanks!

Sew what? Sew Buttons!!

Hey there! Welcome to Sew Buttons, your one-stop shop for watching me fail at a new hobby. At least for a little while. I hope to get good at it. A few weeks ago I was drooling over some AWESOME hand made clothes on Etsy.com, clothes I wanted SO bad I would kill for them, and really that's the only way I'd ever be able to afford them since they are all so expensive. "I deserve awesome clothes like that!" I said to myself, cat in lap; "But how, HOW will I ever be able to to attain such greatness!?"

Then it hit me. Someone made those things. Like, with their hands and skills and stuff. I have hands, I can attain skills. Why can't I make something like that?! The answer: NO reason! Well, except for maybe that I naturally suck at sewing and am too poor to afford the materials to do so even if I could sew well, but those things are besides the point and irrelevant to this situation. I was going to try, damnit!

So I saved the meager pennies I earned from my art business until I had enough to buy a low-end, refurbished sewing machine! YAY! I could have saved more and bought a new, mid ranged one, but I have the patience of the last guy in line at the DMV, and the attention span of a caffeinated 2 year old with ADHD and there's a 50% chance I will HATE this and quit after a few months. Just being honest.

So yes, my Brother XL 2600i is on it's way to my apartment *AS WE SPEAK* via FedEx Ground and I cannot friggin' WAIT! I believe I will do an unpacking video tomorrow and maybe film myself trying to set it up. The hilarious irony is that I have been wanting this for weeks and am dying to get started, yet I have not a square inch of fabric to sew. I'm ordering some fleece tonight though and my first project is going to be a new Snuggie rip-off for myself after my last one mysteriously vanished after my trip to that haunted ancient Indian burial ground they built that strip club on, or whatever. Laugh if you must, but those things are WARM.

Anyway, that's all from me. Maybe forever. I am SO bad at writing in these things. TTYL!