Crafting Resolutions

I have been thinking a lot about New Years resolutions. I think it is time I make some crafting resolutions for the next year. I am going to vow to try my very best to finish up some of these projects that I have squirreled away half finished. My friend Mary recently made an excel spread sheet of all unfinished crafts which might be a bit extreme for me, instead I offer up my half finished project to the world wide web and expect you all to keep me on track. No matter how excited I get don’t let me start to knit another hammock before I conquer some of these. Oh I haven’t told you about the hammock yet, well that is a story for another day.

1) Baby quilt for friends in London. Fabric is purchased, washed and cut. The baby was born in October- sigh- they always come faster than I sew.

2) Fingerless gloves for my friend in Canada. One is done the second is started and hiding under our couch out of sight.

3) Lovely green mittens for me. These are actually all done but the thumbs which I was thinking of making a hidden opening in so that I can spin my ipod wheel in the cold. The sad part is there really are only 40 sts left to knit here.

4) Modular crochet sweater. As you know I was cruising along on this until it got hot out. I have one and a half sleeves to go and then there is a yummy winter sweater awaiting me.

5) Various custom fused plastic bag pouches promised to various loved ones.

6) Brown quilt for us! That’s right I actually started making a quilt for our bed but I tend to loose steam on that one pretty fast or maybe it is that there is always another shinier quilting project comes along.

I am sure there are many, many, many more projects hidden under my couch but as I am in North Carolina and can’t look under it so for now they are out of sight and out of mind. I promise to add on as I remember them. Happy holidays.

Holiday Sneak Peek

As you know I have been working over time to get all my holiday goodies made. Yesterday I hunkered down and made things after a very annoying sidestep to the post office. I made 15 new zippy pouches and 9 fused pins, including these new cute flower pins.

I am obsessed with the orange fairway zippy pouches I made. They may be my new favorite.

Here is also a sneak peek at what I made for Avice (AKA my surrogate grandmother). She loves all things black and white so I stenciled her these pillowcases. They took a little more work then I expected because my paint was old. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard to do and why the paint kept running. Finally a little light went off in my brain and I realized my paint was at least three years old and that might not be such a good thing. New paint helped immensely and I finished these up yesterday. One case has a pattern repeat three times and one has it twice, which felt right at the time but now I am not so sure. In truth it doesn’t matter I am leaving tomorrow and I am not allowed to add things back to the list!

I will be away for 10 days visiting the lovely Avice and other good family. I will bring my camera and try to give you updates while away. I hope everyone has a lovely holiday season.

A Merry Christmas to me

A friend decided to do a little shopping at Mahka Crafts on etsy and I decided to take the paypal payment and pay it forward through etsy. The thing about being unemployed is you rarely buy yourself anything. It has been awhile since I slurged on myself but given the holiday season it seemed fitting.
So I got my these lovely earing from metalicious on etsy. Aren't they just lovely! You can visit her shop by clicking here.

Altered Clothing

In between doing what can only be described as an obscene amount of laundry I have been crafting. While doing all this laundry I noticed one of my favorite shirts had a stain in that just wouldn’t come out. I had been stenciling some baby cloths for some new arrives and had quite a bit of paint left over so it seemed only right to cover the stain with an old faithful stencil. No one will ever know, oh except all of you, but you won’t tell will you?


My other bit of altering is on a shirt I got on mega clearance from a yoga catalogue. Of course once it arrived I realized why it was on mega clearance.


See that? They used black thread to serge the entire side of the shirt resulting in an ugly Frankenstein effect. After a bit of consultation with my sister I decided a bit of flare was the only option. I am not sure why I have leopard print fabric in my stash but hey it works!

Brooklyn State of Mind

Almost everyday I take the train into Manhattan. Right before the train goes over the bridge there is this lovely bit of animation. After some searching I found that it is in a station no longer in use and has recently been restored. It took a bit of hunting to discover the story but here it is.

In the mean time I thought you might like to see it. It makes me smile every time.

Ding Dong the Couch is Dead

I am up and running in full holiday mood, otherwise known as Mahka’s little sweatshop. Our living room has experienced a bit of a craft explosion, fortunately my guy is tolerating it so far. I still can’t show off my latest work but I thought I would share our big news, no I am not pregnant. I have however, managed to shed a large blob in my life. For those of you who haven’t been following the couch saga let me fill you in: two years ago my guy and I moved into this apartment and we needed a couch. At the time I had the world most annoying coworker (no really she is worse then anyone you worked with!) she liked to stand for hours (really hours) on end rambling on and on. Usually I kept one earpod in and listened to music while she went on about whatever thing it was that had got her panties in a bunch, mostly how overworked she was even though as far as I could tell her main job was to stand at my desk and complain. Anyway, it turns out if you stand and talk at me non stop for days I will agree to take large pieces of furniture to get you to go away.
Enter the world’s ugliest couches. Yes there were two; a couch and a loveseat. They were originally yellow and then covered in a green flower print. The couch was in bad shape and it smelled. Yes, that’s what I said it smelled. I spent a lot of time and energy trying to turn these couches into something we could live with. I bought many slipcovers, batting, filling and countless rolls of duct tape. I spent hours contemplating the odd shape of the couch that defied slip covers. Finally a friend convinced me that our lives would be far better without the bad ju ju and so we got a new lovely couch and sent the old ugly bad ju ju smelly couch to the dump.
What I haven’t told you all is the story of the ugly stepchild loveseat which we had shoved into a corner of our bedroom. In all fairness it was in far better shape then the couch and it didn’t smell too bad. We felt wrong about tossing it so we tried to give it away. It turns out it is harder to give away furniture then you might think. We posted it on craigslist and had several people say they were coming to get it only to not show up. But last weekend we did it! We reclaimed our bedroom and got rid of the loveseat. Now we are trying to figure out what to do with the big space left behind. Bad ju ju be gone!

More Bag Fun

There are so many little holiday projects in the works it is hard to keep track! Of course I can’t tell you about many of them at this point for fear that the recipients will see all. My guy and I made a deal to only exchange gifts that we have made. This sent me into a craft overload as I tried to come up with the perfect gift. I think I have it figured out but any suggestions will be gladly accepted.

In the mean time I thought I would show off a belated birthday gift for my sister. She has a tendency to carry way too much so I made this tote a little small to help keep things under control. I had a bit of over eager fabric paint so it is far from perfect but I like the color combination.