A Lazy Craft Update

Hello! This post is going to show you a few things that I'm working on right now, recently finished, plan to make soon, etc. Just one thing: I hope you aren't looking for super classy pictures, because I took these on my iPod in bad lighting. (It's easier to get them on the computer that way, and I was feeling lazy. Hence the title.) You're welcome.

First, just a quick look at something I'm so proud of, I might end up writing a whole post just on this at some point.

This skirt was super easy, super fun, and dare I say super cute? Here's a closer view of the print:

The band geek in my gets excited whenever I look at it!

Next, I have a much bigger project, which is nowhere near being done.

This is just the first square of this blanket, which, according to the original creator, will eventually be the size of a queen bed. Anyone recognize it? Yeah, I'm really living up to my blog name with this one. It's the Earth Kingdom symbol from Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is completely nerdy but also fantastic. (Side note: Book 3 of Legend of Korra airs this Friday and I'm so excited I can barely contain myself.) I've already started the next square, which for me is the symbol of the Air Nomads. I don't actually have all the yarn I need to do Water and Fire. Ooops. I guess I'll just have to go to the store soon..... (yay!)

I'll keep you up-to-date(ish) on how this goes. I'd really like to finish it this summer, or at least the bulk of it.

I also have another blanket I'm working on, a t-shirt quilt. At this point, the top is basically done, but I'm not totally sure how I want to proceed from here. I'm going to do a little reading to figure out what the standards are for finishing these things, and I'll let you know what I decide

In addition to all this, I also have some other projects I'm planning on doing soon, including this Kimono Cardigan from Peabrain DIY, this Gathered Skirt from By Hand London (because I desperately need zipper practice), and something like this Red Skater Dress from Melissa Ting: Life & I. I'm really excited for all these projects, and for the trip to the fabric store they will inevitably require!

Next time, I'll probably talk a little about my life, and what my summer looks like. I swear, it won't be as boring as it sounds!

And your question of the day: What projects are you working on? What are you excited to start? Let me know in the comments!

Dragon Army Scarf

Due to my amazing intelligence and crazy amount of planning, I wrote this on Wednesday, I think, but I never took the picture, so I'm not posting until now. So, yet, again, I'm posting late on a Saturday night.

Hello everyone! Due to the bad weather, I somehow got this entire week off from school. Yeah, it's kind of blowing my mind. This half of our county got about five inches of snow, but the western half has less developed roads and worse weather, so we often get off for minor weather problems. We just got the mass phone call which told us about tomorrow and Friday, and most interestingly, midterms. They're cancelled. I don't even have the proper words to express how I feel about this. The super nerdy half of me is actually kind of disappointed, but I'm also a bit relieved (mostly about science).

But you probably don't really care about that. The important part is that I know have a ton of unexpected free time, and I plan to use it well. First, I'm going to have at least one other post this week that won't really be of interest to you if you aren't a Sherlockian. During the airing of The Empty Hearse (which I LOVED) I took a few notes of my reactions and thoughts and things. I'll be posting those at some point, along with some additional commentary. Because there isn't enough of that on the internet, right?

Right now, however, I'm going to show you a project I did a couple weeks ago.

I did it in small stages, which is really the only way I could have had time. I used this tutorial from Rae Gun Ramblings, and this tutorial to make the freezer paper. I also had to look up how to do a French seam, but I don't have any idea what video I used. I'm definitely planning on doing some more projects with freezer paper, since I'm really happy with how this turned out. I think I'm going to make it a little shorter at some point, though. Since I'm already small for my age, and this is sized for an adult, it kind of adds up into one really big scarf!

A Very Stripy Wreath

*Note: This post was written AGES ago, sometime in November I think, and I never got around to finishing and posting it. I'm trying to get back on track after a crazy month, so I thought I should start by finally showing you guys this.*

First, I would like to express my amazement that "stripy" is a word. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.

Hello, everyone! I hope you enjoyed your week! Today I'm going to be telling you about a project I did most of a couple weekends ago (I actually have no idea, it might have been last week). It's sort of a Christmas present for my mom, but I'll probably give it to her early, so she can use it this year. Here's what the finished product looks like:

I basically used this tutorial from Occasionally Crafty, but as you can see, the original looks a lot better. Oh well. Mine has..... character? My strips were smaller, which may have had something to do with it.....

Basically, I just spent an hour or two back-watching all of Nerdy and Quirky's videos (she's really good, go check her out) and cutting all these strips.

In the end, I had a huge pile of white, red, green, and forest green strips to use. As you can see, I tried to keep the wreath base on the bag at all times, because I didn't feel like having to vacuum up styrofoam bits when I was done.

Then, I started laying out all the strips like this:

And then I finished.

Now let me tell you, this was a bad way to do it. Although the strips did stay on pretty well when I flipped it over, it was a pain to try to fold them all over, then trim them, then pin them.... Let's just say that if you do this, you should not follow my example. Find someone else to follow, preferably someone who knows what they're doing.

So that's it, all I did after that was add some ribbon to hang it, then give it to my mom. She liked it a lot more than I was expecting, which was nice, and it's still hanging on our front door (on the inside, she didn't want to risk the weather).

I hope you had a great holiday season, and that your new year is awesome, too! I'm not sure if I'll post before then, but if not, happy 2014!