chimesblog

So if you didn’t get that … it’s the guitar line from Beat It.  (duh)

Anywho, I’m participating in craftster.org‘s Michael Jackson “We Love the Gloved One” swap. Yes.  Go ahead. Groan.

*insert groans here*

Good. Now that you’ve got that out of your system, prepare to be put in a State of Shock (yes, I am going to heavily sprinkle this post with song titles, now shush).

Okay, quickie info on this swap: it’s 5 points (I’m not going to explain points, but it’s basically 1 small item=1 point, medium=2, large=3, etc).  You have to craft enough stuff to add up to 5 points.  Also, I’m paired with a cool girl from Australia.  Great. Except I’m poor, so that limits what I can send because shipping is hella expensive.

Enter: crafts I would never dream of doing in a million years.  But they’re my For All Time favorites (okay, that was a stretch).

Note: none of these are actually FOR the swap. These are simply testing the medium to see what I can do.

MJ in the infamous Beat It jacket. Silhouette on shrink plastic made into a pendant for a necklace. Chain is vintage.

Okay. I admit. I actually saw the next thing on craftastrophe.net and HAD to make it myself. I thought to myself, man, what a great idea!  And yes. Craftastrophe.net is a blog about exactly what it sounds like it would be about. Crafty catastrophes — ie BAD crafts.  However, somebody on etsy sells these for $40 a pop! Crazy. I’ll make my own, thanks. The fabric for this costs about $3 a yard.  Cut, pin, stitch, stuff. Nothing Dangerous about it.  Done in 30 minutes. (next time I’ll measure a bit better though and possibly use a light interfacing to make the stitching better)

ET … moonwalk … home? Yeah. I’m going to revisit this pattern to make it less alien-like and more human (nature). It’s a 1.5 x 1 foot stuffie of — you guessed it (I hope anyway) — the one and only sequined glove.  I have no clue what I’m going to do with this thing, except for right now I’m gonna Keep it In the Closet.

… and of course, his favorite gesture.

That’s all for now. YES.  There will be more.  MUCH more.  I purchased a Thriller music box movement for the craft swap and realized I wouldn’t be able to send something big enough to hold it, so I’m going to be making my OWN shrine box (only not really a shrine, more or less a pretty music box) complete with a fimo MJ that will be mounted on one of those twirly ballerina things. Now I just gotta figure out how to get the twirly ballerina thing to do a triple twist and land on its toes …

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I can’t ever wait until a project is completely finished OR until I have good pictures of it…I guess I’m super impatient (how I do quilting…don’t ask!)…

I’ve been hoarding this jelly roll of Hello Betty fabric for over a month. I’ve been looking for an easy pattern for a jelly roll (since it’s pre-cut into 3ish” strips).  I decided on a rail fence pattern…super easy! (also, did I mention that pretty much all quilting websites and fabric websites look and navigate like they were made in the mid–late nineties??)

Anywho, I got to work and finished the top. There’s a couple of crooked areas, but I zipped through it because I knew if I had to put it down then I wouldn’t finish it!  I had a few block parts leftover and one entire strip of the checkerboard in brown (I hate the checkerboard fabric!)…so I made a pillow for my friend Adria out of those.  I had 2 full blocks leftover, so I’m going to make 1–2 pillows out of that.

This quilt is for my mom who likes these retro fabrics (heck, granny used the original version of some of these in a quilt we have at home!) and she loves browns with blues and oranges and pretty much browns with anything.

Anyway, here are a few really crappy photos of what I’ve got. I will post better ones later… when the thing is finished. I need to get batteries for my camera (aka find my rechargables!).  

the colors are really off because my flash wasn't working...but this is a better picture.

again, colors are off. It's more of a red orange and the green is more turquoise...it's brown, not black too!

I’m planning to use the above fabric as the backing piece…not cheap, but I have to buy 4 or so yards of it, and fast! I can only find this in one store, and I LOVE this one! I’m also going to do a 4-inch cream border on the front of this quilt and I haven’t decided what the binding will be… most likely it’s going to be that solid red/orange, which I will also have to buy up rather quickly!

Also, here’s the pillow I made…. I need to finish the seam on the side where I stuffed it, but like I said…I can never wait to post projects!

I also cut most of the fabric and pinned most of my mermaid bags tonight… yay!  

andddd…. SLEEP!

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Today was a very exciting day for a few reasons.

1) I finally got internet/cable. I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to hook up the cable with all my gadgets (Wii and DVD player).  I’m sure I could figure it out…except I’d have to be able to see what was going on behind the TV but I can’t move the entertainment center/TV (TV weighs about as much as I do).

2) I’m finishing my very first PAID freelance job. Working on the final touches right now and putting together an invoice. This is pretty exciting considering it might lead to more paid freelance work AND this client was pretty easy to work with.

3) My coworker bought us some gifts over lunch today…

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