Lack of Motivation

I'm sure it happens to all of us. Just getting out of bed is a an effort. I have Fibromyalgia. For the past two days I had done a bunch of work in the garden and was worn out. So every night before I go to sleep, I ask myself.."what are you going to do tomorrow" to set an intention for the next day.  That night I said I would finish this little reversible jacket I started. I saw the video off of Pinterest and loved the style. I had almost everything done except for some trim along the seam line on one side of the jacket. Yep, procrastinated that day and vegged out instead. The next day I turned on Spotify music and got so much done! 

I draped the trim around the manikin so I would keep seeing it and not get distracted. Did I mention I have ADD too? 

First time I sewed it on, my tread tension was off and the top white thread was showing on the inside red fabric. Sooo, had to rip it off. Sewed again, backwards... ripped it off again. Finally I turned on some music and got my head on straight. I also had to sew the trim on the sleeve seams as well. But of course ran out of the trim. So had to search for something for those seams. Thankfully I found a matching trim although it was a bit wider. But it works. 

So the jacket is done. I love it so much. Of course, it doesn't fit me. I used size Large flannel shirts and should have used xlarge. So it will be added to my Curiousorangecat.etsy.com store soon. I want to make at least two more.

So what do you think?

Want to try it for yourself? Here is the video. No patterns are needed. 

Reversible Jacket Tutorial They are a bit addictive. Have fun!

Custom Jeans Of Your Own

 In my last post, I showed three jeans I decorated for a customer. She said I need to do a better job of marketing myself. Seriously, I suck at marketing. I just want to make stuff!. Still thought I would put the process down just in case you want a pair of your own.

The process starts with a pair of jeans you already have that fit nice. 

I find out what your ideas are and make up some ideas. 

I send as many pictures as it takes until you like what you see. 

Once the design is approved, I sew it all down. 

That's it! Easy peasy. depending on my timeline and what the design is, it usually takes a few days to get them done and in the mail back to you. 

What is the cost? That is an important question. Typically I work at $20 and hour with extra costs for things like the hand made flowers and dots. Usually the cost is anywhere from  $65.00 to $125 plus shipping. 

I hope I can inspire you and I would love to design a pair for you! You can contact me via my email: Curiousorangecat@gmail.com. 

You can also check out my Etsy store for patches, purses and funky hats. Curious Orange Cat Etsy Store

Custom Jeans

Ok, so it's been a while. I told you I'm terrible at this. I still will try to do better at posting more often. 

I have had so much fun designing these jeans for Ms. Jodi again. 

We did three pairs this time. So I thought I would share the process a bit. 

I start out with my Accucut Die Cutter. I have had it since 2002 and it works great! I have a ton of different dies from geometric shapes to lamas. I'll provide a link to the company at the bottom of my post. 

Here is my closet of dies..

Anyway, on to the designs. The first pair she wanted just squares of light colorful fabrics going down the sides. I split the seam on the outside of the pants so I can sew the squares on. (note: I would open the inside seam but on many jeans it's sewn differently and is really hard to sew back the same way.   There have been tears and swear words.)

However, the next two jeans have an inside seam that is easy to sew back up. So those are done differently. 

Here is the white jeans all sewed up. 

 

She likes it to be a little frayed on the ends. I think they look pretty nice. Just a note, my pictures of the fabrics are brighter than real life. 

So on to the next pair. 

These were fun to do. I cut out three birds. Each fabric had Seam a Seam on the backside to hold everything down.  One grey, one red and one black. I cut each part off to make one robin. So I cut off the red belly, the black head and left the grey in one piece. Added a grey wing and sewed everything down. 
I then my favorite die is the vine. It's one of my go to dies. I added the birds and some purple berries. What do you think? These I split the inside seam so I could do the design on the side better. 

Last but not least is this pair. 

I make large patches for jeans and whatever. Like this...

My customer loved them but thought they were too big for her. (she is tiny!!). So asked me to make some really small ones in the same way. So this is what she got. They are 2 inches across.

While I love making these. I don't have a die for a smaller flower like this. So each is hand cut out. She also loves dots. So I made up a few little 1 inch circles on denim. 

I had a really cool die of a branch so appliqued that along the outside first. 

Next was the leaves.

And lastly the flowers and dots. 

These are just laid out to make sure I like the design. Here is a closeup of the design. 

All finished! 

What do you think! I have fun designing these for Jodi. 

A little shout out to her artwork. She will be in a gallery showing. Here are a few of her pieces. (Do you think she likes dots?)

If you live in the New York area, this is in Brooklyn. www.theotherartfair.com/brooklyn/

Hope enjoyed my jeans creations. Want a pair of your own? Check out my next post.

Here is a link to Accucut if you would like to check it out. Wonderful company with quality products. 

Accucut Die Cutter and Dies

Until next time! 

Bunny

Scrappy Sewing Projects

I'm a bit ADHD. That means I have soooo many projects going at the same time, I get a little overwhelmed. So blogging has been put on the back burner. I'm trying.. really I am. 

I have been having so much fun making patches for jeans and whatever. I have the biggest scrap basket I have ever had! I keep telling myself I really don't need to purchase any more fabric. But it's all soooo pretty!

I had to purchase a large laundry basket with wheels to contain it all. 

What to do, what to do with all these glorious scraps! Every night before I go to bed, I ask myself.. "self, what are you going to do tomorrow?" 

Here are some of my favorite projects so far.

I had a customer ask for little 2" hearts to sew on some jeans. At first I balked a bit. Lazy me usually cuts out my flowers with an Accquilt die cutter. But I didn't have this size, so had to cut them all out by hand. I know boohoo. But the customer loved them and I plan on making more. 

Here is how they turned out. (shown with permission thank you Miss Jodi) 

Next...scrappy cat patches. I really had fun making these and plan on making more. 

Next I made some scrappy heart patches for my Etsy store. 

Oh, what else can I do with all these scraps? How about a scrappy hat?

These were so fun to make! I got the pattern from a wonderful lady. Here name is Opal Annie and the pattern is called "The Crazy Hat Lady" on Etsy. They take a while to make and bonus, they are reversable. Here is the reversed side.

So you get a tidy (kinda) side and a scrappy side. The hat also has wire sewn around the outer rim so you can mold it anyway you want. 

Here is another one.. Scrappy side.

And tidy side: 

This all got started with my denim flower patches. I have sold lots of them and they are fun to make. I do some hand stitching on them. Great way to wind down at night watching my British murder mysteries. ( hello Mr. Poirot, Midsomer Mysteries and Vera). 

Well, that's it for today. Hope you enjoyed my creations. I have 4 Etsy stores going right now. Yes, a little overwhelmed. One is a fabric store, two are t-shirt POD stores, I just started a hat only store and lastly my Curious Orange Cat store is all about patches, purses and upcycled clothing. Still need to list a bunch of stuff! So stay tuned. Here is a list of all my Etsy store links.

Curiousorangecat.etsy.com

Awayinthewoods.etsy.com -fabrics

SnarkyRemarks.etsy.com - t-shirts with snarky sayings 

Missbunnysays.etsy.com - t-shirts for cat and dog lovers, hobbies, mom, grandma etc. 

Thanks for visiting!

Call Me Blog Slacker

I'm terrible at blogging. I just wanna sew! (whining voice here.)

But I thought I would at least let you know what I have been up to.

But first a quest for help!

I bought these batiks many years ago at a quilt show in California. They were sold by yardage and yes... very expensive. But I would love to find this company and purchase from them again if I can find them.
So... If anyone recognizes the companies designs.. can you let me know?

So Altered Couture contacted me again for submissions. That was very cool. Of course I sent a few things along. We well see if any of them are chosen. The issue they were asking for was the Summer issue. Fingers Crossed! I'll let you know how it goes.


So here are some of my recent projects to let you know... I'm still at it.

My son's roommate in the Marines is a major hippy type and asked me to make these for him.

They are made from numerous corduroy pants I purchased at local thrift stores and ebay. I had enough to make one more pair. You can find it on my Etsy store here at Curious Orange Cat.

I have also started an Etsy store for children's clothing too. Check out www.sweetredbird.etsy.com.

I have been making crossback aprons for little girls from upcycled fabrics mainly. But I am going to start adding aprons from new fabrics as well. As for the batiks I am searching for... this is the latest addition to my SweetRedBird shop.

You can see it in my new shop here...Batik Crossback Apron

So I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Hope to post again soon.

In the beginning there was.....

I graduated high school in 1975. Yep, that ages me a bit. But I was very aware of the fabulous 60's and the cool fashions that came out of that era. I can remember sewing crochet flowers to my very cool denim navy surplus jeans. Big bells and all. The military surplus store the next town over was the only place to purchase the utmost cool fashions. Pea-coats, sailor pants, army jackets... you name it. Unfortunately it went the wayside to the hipsters and their stock-brokerage firms and high end shopping centers.


So I have this very wonderful and interesting friend in Australia. (They call it OZ. I think that is so cool.) My friend Karen Ellis has a brilliant  blog called RudeRecord. Her and her husband are all about being frugal, recycling and reusing as much as possible to reduce waste. That is the utmost cool thing!

Karen told me about a book she wanted a look see at but it was out of print and not available in OZ. Also shipping from the US was more than she could deal with. Sooo, I checked it out.

With a measly purchase price of $5.98 including shipping, I was up to the task to help her out.

And then I procrastinated..... for a long time. Cuz that's how I roll some days. But she gave me a gentle reminder the other day and I knew I needed to get this done!

So to start... here is the cover.

It was written in 1976 by Diana Funaro.


Multitudes of great information is covered. So much that there is no way I can cover it all. But knowing my friend, I figured anything that dealt with up-cycling or re-purposing something might help.

So back to the 60's. First came the jean skirt. Then of course the inserts into those wonderful big bell bottom pants. The book covers how to do both. I scanned a picture of the jean skirt for you.

Most of the book looks like this as far as illistrations. Not many actual photos. I didn't think they did a good job of representing the garments. So I passed on those. (Sorry Karen.)

The classic jean skirt with the insert. A staple for the 60's gal.

 Of course there was another style of jean skirt too.
The cut off skirt with a different fabric at the bottom.

Shameless plug for two of my jean skirt creations. This is my modern take on the last picture.

Yep, I'm kind of a messy scrappy kind of girl. By the way, I used all kinds of jean scraps to make these.

Any whoooo, back to the book.
(I just realized I got stuck on skirts here.)

So here a couple more pages from the book.

They are about making wrap skirts from tablecloths and such. I love wrap skirts. They are great for dealing with size issues. One size can fit quite a few different sizes.

Here is one more popular skirt. The handkerchief skirt.

This is a very simple one! Just sew four square hankies together, fold and cut a circle for the waistband. Attach a waistband and you are set!

Here is one that would have helped me the other day with a sweater upcycle. (I really need to read more of this book!)

This is taking out a turtleneck collar and changing it to a crew neck collar. Needless to say, I botched mine terribly and it is very "free form" right now. Sigh... now I know what to do for next time.

So these were some of the easy projects I found. There is so much more! It goes into all kinds of alterations and instructions on different embellishments as well. Beading, applique, embroidery and more.
Again, every thing is pretty much line drawings but if you are good at following written instructions (I am not! Surprised?) you should do great.

So hopefully I was able to give Karen in OZ (soooo coool!!!) a good idea about this book.
Now, I need to go and fix that damn sweater collar!

If you just have to have this wonderful vintage book. You can get it on Amazon here...
It is offered at many different prices. Don't let the $0.04 fool you. I think it will cost a bit more. ...


Until next time!
Oh, and my skirts are on my Etsy website along with some pretty cool patched jeans. Curiousorangecat.etsy.com


Thanks for visiting!

A Work In Progress...

Trying to get my MoJo back after a bout of just not feeling it. It comes and goes of course. But I'm back to it with gusto!

The weather (hopfully!!!) will be cooling down soon. So time to get those sweaters out that need an overhaul.

I forgot to take a picture of the before on this... sorry about that.

It was just a plain grey turtle neck sweater with long sleeves.

Out came the scissors and I hacked up the front sideways and through the collar.

I had this pair of button panels buttoned together waiting patiently for me to figure out where they belong.  They begged and pleaded to play with this sweater.
I added a triangle of a very heavy green flannel from a shirt I have been cutting off of for a while now. The little black dot on the right is a horse. I might applique something over it because I think it looks funny.

So this is what I have so far. Oh, and I cut off the sleeves.

I know, it is a nice picture with my pretty background. Usually I do it in my messy sewing room. But I was in there anyway....

Here is a closeup of the inserts down the middle.

I sewed one side (the button panel side) with a serger and did a small zig zag stitch on the side with the dark green.

I"m in a pickle as to what to do about sleeves. I cut them off and tried these wonderful heavy black and white checked sleeves but they were too small for the armhole. This may end up as a vest.

Any whoo, back to work! So many ideas!!!