Project Beard

So what do you do when you can't sleep at night because your brain is on hyperactive mode, and can't be switched back to sleepy mode?  Well late last night after four hours of trying (and failing) to sleep I decided to pool my energy into . . . becoming a Dwarf.  (Yes, I'm in my jammies.  It was supposed to be sleepy time.)

Now this has been a few months in the making, so there is a progressive storyline leading up to me as a Dwarf.  It all started with this hat here.

I had originally made this hat as a Christmas gift for Dustin.  If you are interested in making one yourself here is the pattern I used.  I found it on another woman's blog called Knit for Your Life.  As it turns out this hat was too small for Dustin's head, so I had to make a new one.  I used the same pattern, but I increased the needle size by one size.

So, now we both have Viking hats.  I need to line mine with something.  Since I was making this as a gift for Dustin I made it out of wool.  I'm allergic to wool, he isn't.  So, that would explain some of why you haven't seen us walking around in our matching Viking hats.

We ran into someone at Naka Kon that had this epic Dwarven beard.  It was all mutually agreed on that the Viking hat and the Dwarven beard would look incredibly awesome together.  So, I set about finding a beard pattern to make for Dustin.  I came across this pattern that I used to make a base.  I don't crochet.  I can do it, but I have this strange phenomenon that if you put a crochet hook in my hand my ability to count is drastically impaired.  It took me 8 tries to get the base started correctly for this beard.  So, have some heart.  If I can do it, so can you.  (Oddly I don't have issues counting in any other situation.  I have no issues counting while double knitting, watching a movie, and talking to Dustin all at the same time.)  I opted to stylize the beard a little bit more like this one.  Yet, either way once you have a base you can style the beard any way you want.  :D  The yarn I used was a mix of Lion Brand Vanna's Choice, and Yarn Bee Soft Secret.  I made the base out of the Lion Brand yarn, and then I used a mix of both yarns to make the rest of the beard.  I used a total of four different colors to give the beard a more natural look.

Dustin wants the beard.  He just doesn't want to go to the store and pick out yarn to make it.  I opted to get the yarn for me, and make a beard.  The hope was that if Dustin saw the beard in real life that he would want it more.  This didn't work out too well for me.  Once he saw me with the beard his reaction was, "Hmmm.  I don't like having a girlfriend with a beard."  Well, at least I have a totally epic accessory to wear to the theater for the next Hobbit movie when it comes out.

Tips and Tricks for Working with Fur

I had originally posted this as an album on my facebook profile.  Those of you that have seen it before my profoundest apologies.  I put this together while working on my velvet coat.  I do know there are people out there that prefer to hand sew all fur.  I applaud you for your great patience in doing so.  For those of us that prefer to use a sewing machine to speed up the process feel free to try out some of these things that I found helpful.

Most good quality fur has to come from a specialty store, and for most of us that means ordering online. This is just a helpful bit of advise on never trusting the colors of a picture you saw online. Always see if you can get a swatch before making a purchase. Fur is a pricy investment, so you should be happy with what you order. Swatches also allow you to feel how smooth or coarse the fur will be.

When cutting the fur you always want to cut one layer at a time. You need to be careful not to cut the fur, but the fabric backing. This will take longer then cutting other fabrics.

Shear away the fur in the seam allowance. (Sorry the picture isn't that great. It is really difficult to see.)

Adjust the level on the pressure foot for your sewing machine. Not all machines have it listed like mine does in the manual. Newer ones will have different fabric settings, and the machine will automatically adjust the tension for you. I have yet to see a "fur" setting on a machine, but find a setting that works for you.
  

Pull the fur away from the seams while sewing them. This will make sewing the seams take a lot more time, but it will be worth it in the end. I have also heard that hand stitching seams together will prevent the fur from slipping and stretching. I haven't tried this out, but thought I would throw it in here. All of these seams were short enough that the fur didn't slip or stretch, but I can see a useful application to doing this on longer seams when sewing two pieces of fur together.

 After you have completed the seam us a wire brush to pull any fur out of the seams. I picked mine up at a hardware store during grilling season. Wire brushes are used to clean grills as well, so they can be found with the barbeques and other grilling accessories.

Back to My Childhood

Every once in a while I will do something that reminds me of my childhood.  Often times I find it helps calm my nerves and lowers my stress level.  At times it has helped me to think through difficult tasks.  For some reason it helps me organize my thoughts so I can get to the fundamental issues at hand.

This is a project I put together as something I could work on during breaks at work.  I wanted to do a craft project that was simple, quick, and didn't require large amounts of supplies to be carried around.  As I was walking through the store I ran across this, and it fit my requirements perfectly.  If I had a key ring this would be on it, but I don't have one at the moment.  I will pick one up later.  :)

My parents were Boy Scout troupe leaders while my brother was a Boy Scout, so I grew up calling this boondoggle.  I've found that in craft stores they actually refer to this as plastic lace, and it is often used for beading projects.  This may have something to do with the definition of boondoggle.  I picked it up from Merriam-Webster.  I like to think of it as more the former rather than the latter, but what can I say?

Definition of BOONDOGGLE

1: a braided cord worn by Boy Scouts as a neckerchief slide, hatband, or ornament

2: a wasteful or impractical project or activity often involving graft

I've also found that not many people know how to do this any more.  At least not in my generation or those after it.  I thought it was a great little project for kids to do.  It makes me sad to think there are people out there that don't have memories of sitting down with there families and taking a few hours to work on these, but they will have other memories to take their place.  My dad would get them started for us, and we would do the rest of the weaving.  I was really young at the time.  I don't think I was much more than 5 or 6 years old.  I like to think that everyone has happy childhood memories like these.  I cherish the ones that I have.

One Ring Scarf

I take no responsibility for any electronic equipment that was damaged from drool caused by looking at these pictures.  I may take responsibility for nerdgasms, depending on the reaction caused by the nerdgasm.  I am quite pleased with how this turned out.  >^.^<

 Around Christmas time my mother sent me an email alerting me of this pattern.  The whole family had fallen in love with it, and I was no exception.  (Yeah, I was raised a nerd/geek.)  Besides J.R.R. Tolkien is my dad's favorite author.  There was no way we could have lived in that house for that long and not known about The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.  It was not possible.  This is a scarf patterned after The One Ring.

This scarf is double knit.  I learned how to double knit just to make this scarf.  I found that I absolutely love double knitting.  There are two different tutorials on youtube that helped.  They are both multiple videos long, but I will post the first one of each here.  Double knit tutorial and Spider-Man/Venom scarf tutorial.  It has opened up a whole new set of ideas for me.  (More projects to come later. >^.~<)  These are pictures of the "front" and "back" of the scarf.  The yellow side is "front."

My first big challenge was finding fingering weight yarn that was cheep and not wool.  I'm allergic to wool, and about 95% of all fingering weight yarns I found seemed to be wool.  This is also the same yarn weight that people use to make socks, and I was looking in winter.  I found a few none wool yarns, but they wanted $30 a skein, and I would need about 16 skeins of some of them.  Enough to total 800 yards of yarn per color like the pattern says.  After an hour or two of looking I finally found this yarn.  It was cotton, cheap, and I would only need 8 skeins total.  :D!  After the yarn came in I couldn't have been more pleased with it.  It is soft, warm, and makes an excellent scarf.  :D!!!!

My second challenge was limiting how much I worked on it.  I had tendonitis in both hands during high school and a number of years afterwards.  It has gotten to the point that I can do anything I want to pain free, but I have to not over do it when it comes to knitting.  In all honesty I think picking up knitting was what helped me over come the tendonitis.  It helped build up my hand strength and dexterity again.  Where Aikido helped me with hand flexibility.  I love both activities, and do them as often as I can.  Yet, while making this I over did the knitting quite a few times, and I had to rest my hands for a day or so afterwards.

This is also the very first scarf that I opted to add fringe too.  I think it adds a nice touch to the overall look of the scarf.  >^.~<

Velvet Coat

I finally finished my velvet coat.  I know some people have been wanting to see pictures of this.  Sorry it took so long to finish.  After the weather warmed up it was difficult to convince myself to sit under all of that fabric to sew up the hems.  The cooler weather we had yesterday was enough to get me to finish this.

I used Simplicity pattern 1732, and added a few alterations of my own.  I was super happy to finally use this velvet fabric I have had in storage for 7-8 years.  O.O!  I had originally bought it to make a winter skirt, but I never did.  I'm glad I didn't.  I think I like the coat more.  :3  All the fabric was stuff I had on hand (including the fur).  I just needed to pick up the buttons, the bread trim, and the ribbon.  The beads I used were also left overs from a different project.

I added the beads onto the trim to add detail, draw the eye more, and to lighten the overall color.  I also added a ribbon onto the back to help shape the waistline.  I make coats a size or two larger than they need to be.  This allows the wearer to wear whatever they want underneath them.  If you buy a coat the same size as your clothing you find that the coat tends to be tight, and a little uncomfortable.

The picture for the buttons is a little dark.  I couldn't use the flash on the picture and still show the button detail.  They are 100% pewter buttons.  They have a Viking dragon design on them.

I am thinking of making this coat into a costume, but nothing in the near future.  I don't really have the finances to back a large costuming project at this point in time.  Yet, I am think of possibly doing a "Forest Queen in Winter" costume with this.  >^.~<

Hello, and welcome!

At the request of many friends I have opted to create a blog to showcase my crafts.  I hope to include tutorials for those that are starting out on there own.  So, please feel free to request help.  I am new to blogging, so please be patient as I learn.  >^.^<

So, why "Chains, Lace, and Grommets!  Oh My!"?  I grew up in a very conservative environment.  Women were expected to learn to cook, clean, and sew.  I hated all of the above.  What I have found to love and have a passion for is making things, and the thing I love the most is making people smile.  I make things that I can't find in stores.  I make costumes, I make scarves, I make hats, and I make dreams come true.  I am a nerd.  I play video games, watch anime, cosplay, and go to conventions.  Because of my background there are quite a few people that look down on what I do.  These are people near and dear to me, and some have even called my costumes "inappropriate" and "racy".  Keep in mind that I was told that "women who wear black are asking men to take advantage of them," so it wasn't that difficult to get their stamp of disapproval.  The chains, lace, and grommets come into play quite frequently in the things that I make.  The things that I make the most often are steampunk, fantasy, historical, gothic, or cyberpunk.  I find that I am working with corsets, lace trims, and chain accents more often then anything else I do.

So, let's all of fun, and enjoy the adventures that lie ahead.  >^.^<