Learning to sew. Slowly but surely.

So I am learning to sew. Fun Mollie Fact: Machines make me nervous. Anything with buttons and plugs into a wall. I'm afraid I will break it. I never have but I'm afraid I will. I bought a sewing machine for my 20th birthday (Yikes, I just realized how old I am and how old that machine is). I took it out of the box, fiddled with it, gave up and didn't touch it again. I'm ADD so if I can't figure it out in under 10 minuets, I get bored and wonder off. I've recently decided to tackle sewing again and I think this time I'm making progress. I started with a very easy tutorial for headbands. The first one did not fly but the second, third and fourth are AWESOME! I think I'm going to like sewing. I also made an eye pillow and used a teddy bear to model it.

Spring has Sprung!

Well, kinda of. Last week was beautiful in NYC, warm and sunny. We hit the 80's! Which would have been awesome except my job didn't have working AC. Other then that, I was excited. I had such a crummy winter so I'm hoping for a great Spring. This week though it's been freezing with temps in the 30's and 49's and yesterday I woke up with a cold. So I'm in a bit of a miserable slump this week. I'm in the process of being moved back to my original location at work and there was a miscommunication in scheduling so I'm not working this week. I guess my immune system figured now was the time to melt down. I spent most of yesterday afternoon catching up on The Walking Dead since I saw the season two finale but missed everything before that.
   This segways (how do you spell this word?) into pictures of my new Zombie Hippo. As you all know, last month I made my much beloved Zombie Penguin. I decided to follow it up with one of my favorite animals, a Hippo! I did him pretty much the same way I did the penguin. I did the basic skin color, added some green to give the illusion of decay. I added a tiny bit of yellow this time too. This time around I went overboard with the ceramic puffy paint and it backfired. Some of it chipped off or cracked so I will have to go back and repaint it. Over all though I am pretty please and a little less scared of zombies now. I mean, how cute is he?




   This week while laid up with my cold I made a little fabric flower.
It was my first attempt and I followed a tutorial off my favorite Pinterest.com.







So for now, that's what's up in my world. In another week or so I will start my seedlings for my garden this year. Super excited for that!!!

I don't wanna let you go!!!!

I love craft swaps. I swap via Craftster.org and I really enjoying crafting for someone. I put a lot of time and effort into the items I make that person and I hope it brightens up their day when they get what I've made them. But every one in a while I'll make something so awesome that I kinda wanna keep it for myself.
Such was the dilemma with the Halloween Yo-Yo necklace...

The Yo-yo necklace is a favorite of mine. Originally posted on craftster by waitf4fiji I instantly fell in love with it. I'm not a sewer but I do have a bunch of fat quarters of fabric so for me these necklaces are perfect. They are fast and fun and look great. I decided for this swap I would use some of my Halloween fabric to make my swap partner a Halloween Yoyo necklace. Yoyo necklaces are super quick, you can make one in an hour though mine took longer since I was also crafting other things for the swap. But when I finished I was so proud of it and so in love with it that I didn't wanna let it go. I did and my partner loved it but a small selfish part if me wishes I had kept it. I'm currently participating in the Craftster stocking swap and I'm planning a Yoyo necklace for this swap as well. Someday I'll get around to making one for myself, someday...
































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When crafting is hard...

I have always been taught that there is no wrong in art. It's art and how ever it turns out is how it was meant to be. Very Zen thinking but it's nice to look at something that frankly, doesn't look very good and be able to say, "Well then, that is what it is meant to look like!" But it's hard to say that about everything. In world where the phrase, "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" is severely out dated, messing up on a simple thing like a fabric flower can really get ones spirits down.
 
  I have been seeing these fabric flowers everywhere and thought to myself, this really cannot be that hard to make. So I found a pretty easy tutorial here by a women named Susie Harris and went at it. I used three 2 foot strips from a fabric square and spent an hour winding and stitching and when all is said and done I have a tiny little thing that I don't think looks anything like Susies tutorial. It's only my first attempt so but it's still disheartening. Maybe I'll look at it tomorrow and see a flower but tonight it just looks like a yellow swirl.