Craft Day Projects

My friend Katherine had a craft day for her birthday last weekend. I finished two UFOs and started and finished another project. When I got home that night, I also made one more quick project. I felt like a very productive crafter.

Project 1: I finished the pouch for this tote I made for a friend. It's the same tote/pouch pattern as this one I made for Carolyn.

Project 2: A small repair job on my choir director's choir robe. I didn't take a picture.

Project 3: A replacement tie for Jon. Last year I made him a tie in the same fabric as my wedding dress so we would match on our wedding day. He looked so handsome in it, and we really enjoyed matching. ("We" may only refer to me.)

But the dirty little secret was that the tie had imperfections that we hid under the collar. In mathematical language, I was unable to make a continuous choice of local orientation for the tie. In non-mathematical language, the seam that should have been the back seam drifted and twisted around to the front, despite all my efforts to press it to the back. Since I still had material leftover from the dress and tie, I decided to try again. The new one is not perfect, but it is orientable. I might post more about my tie-making experiences later. The short version is that working with silk cut on the bias is hard, and I'm clearly doing something wrong. But for now, here's a picture of me with both ties. The longer one is the new one.

Our anniversary is today, and we are dressing up in our wedding clothes and going out for a fancy dinner. We aren't wearing the exact same outfits because it's cold in Chicago. I'm layering my dress over black leggings, a black shirt, and a black knit skirt, and I'm using the non-orientable tie as a belt. I think it will be really cute.

Project 4: A replacement for the pin I accidentally washed.

I used a square cream-colored button instead of the gold one for the center. This was because I had two square cream buttons, and I thought one of my friends would like a matching pin. She got it last week and claims to love it.

I've made one modification to how I make this type of pin when I have a button with a post-type hole on the back rather than multiple holes on the flat part of the button. (I'm unfamiliar with button nomenclature, so I don't know if there's a term for that. What I mean is like the button below.) The instructions call for hand-sewing a circle in the middle of the flower and gathering that (shown in the last two pictures below), then sewing the button on. I have started sewing the button on before gathering. The post makes it long enough that it is still on top when gathering, but I don't have to try to figure out how to sew it onto gathered fabric. Unfortunately, I forgot partway through that I was going to write about it, so I have no more pictures. Oops.