Tuesday, January 14, 2014

As promised, UFOs!

(Don't make cheesy X-files joke, don't make cheesy X-files joke) That's right, today we're talking about Unfinished Objects! Almost every crafter I know has at least one of these lying around, and most of us have multiples (I think the only two exceptions I've heard of are my friend Allie, who has a one-track crafting mind, and the lovely LLadybird (she has a great post about her method here)). 

I, on the other hand, am a master at getting really into a project, and when things get hard or busy or boring, walking away for weeks or months (or years? oops). I took these photos when I started the projects below, but have yet to finish any of them. I'm sure there are more UFOs lying around my apartment, and as I make a serious effort to dig through/use up/organize my stash this year, I'm sure I'll be finding more of them. 

Polo shirt refashion 
Inspiration:

[Image from: Merrick's Art]
 
Merrick has a great tutorial on a men's polo shirt to women's comfy casual top refashion. (At one point I had another similar pin in my queue (that's how much I liked it!), but I liked Merrick's tutorial better.) She made it look so easy, and, when I found this slightly less than perfect shirt of my dad's in the Goodwill pile, I knew I had to try it for myself. 


This picture is super unflattering (I swear there's a shape hiding under there, and I cannot for the life of me get it less yellow), but, knowing that I didn't have much to lose, I dove right in and started cutting!   


I actually managed to get a pretty decent fit on this one before it wandered into UFO-land, too. Alas

Why did I stop?

I cut the neck line a little too wide, unfortunately, and when, after a lot of fighting with the serger, I still couldn't get it sewn down properly, I had to walk away. I think I moved shortly thereafter, and haven't managed to dig this out again.

Time in purgatory

I started this in...May 2013? Dang, that's embarrassing, especially considering I was so close to being finished!

Plans to finish

Eh, I'm not even sure where this is right now, and it's too cold to wear it, anyway. I would like to finish it sooner rather than later, though! What's stopping me now is that both my serger and my sewing machine are in need of some TLC, and that's just NO FUN, so instead of sucking it up and taking the time, I just keep working on bits and pieces of easier projects.

Zigzag rainbow...something
Inspiration:

http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2012/11/30/two-purl-bee-classics-now-in-super-soft-merino.html
[Image from: Purl Bee Soho]

I saw this super-cute Chevron Knit Baby blanket and knew I wanted a larger version. I still had quite a bit of yarn left over from my granny square blanket, so I figured I'd put it to good use!

 [Sorry about the funky draping, it's still on the needles, which aren't long enough to spread it out all the way.]

Since I had varying amounts of yarn left, I decided to do the rows in a 12-10-8-10-12 pattern, which worked until the second-to-last row, where the amount of yarn I had left me one row short.

Why did I stop?

The aforementioned shortage of yarn (I'm not sure what kind of a solution I was hoping to come up with, but no, yarn did not magically grow while I let the project sit). It's also not really big enough to be much of anything right now. There are no babies in the family, and I'm out of my rainbow stash of yarn. In fact, I'm out of most of my entire stash of yarn. I was thinking about getting some new black and white yarn (*gasp* I know, but it's not considered breaking the rules if it's bought to finish a project) and doing a solid colorblock, rather than so many rows of alternating colors, right next to this piece, but I think the blanket would still be too short. My original plan was to have 4 similarly sized pieces in various colors, but...that might be overly ambitious. 

Time in purgatory

I started this in October, and worked on it pretty steadily until just before Christmas. As with my cowl, I have to rip out almost every row of this. I invariably K2FB instead of K2T, or vice versa, and sometimes my counting is way off. Ugh.

Plans to finish

I actually just recently picked this up again and used up the last 2 colors! Now to figure out what comes next...

(Mom, if you're reading this right now, STOP!) :)

Stencil text on pillows

Inspiration:

DIY pillow cases
[Image from: Wit and Whistle]

If you guys are on Pinterest as much as I am, I'm sure you've seen this (or a similar) picture floating around.

I knew I wanted to make one of these, but I couldn't quite decide what I wanted it to say. I was shopping at Hancock Fabrics one day and found a couple of these in the remnant bin:


This one alone is almost a full yard, and I'm pretty sure this was during a half off remnant sale, so it only cost me $1! 

I was fairly certain that I had the rest of the supplies I needed lying around, too, but a day of digging through the basement didn't yield the stencils I knew I had, so I picked some up at JoAnn with a half off coupon.


I used to love this pillow set, but it's kind of stained and not really suitable for company anymore, so...into the new pillow cover it goes!

Eventually, it dawned on me what I wanted to write on here - the lyrics to "You Are My Sunshine." My mom always used to sing it to me as a kid, and I knew she'd love this sentimental, hand-made gift. (Although, when you look up the lyrics to the entire song, they're a bit...disturbing. Not quite as sunshine-y as you'd think.)

I got to work with my stencils, a pencil, and a ruler and tried to cram all of the text on to the pillowcase. I accidentally traced the same chunk of text twice, which was frustrating, but eventually fixed it. I realized I'd have to leave out the "please," but otherwise I'm happy with the way this turned out!


Why did I stop?

I think that I was afraid that, in washing out the pencil lines, the marker would bleed through (even though I'm pretty sure I used a special fabric marker - go figure). Then, aforementioned move meant that this got buried in the bottom of a bin.

Time in purgatory

This was also started in May 2013. :( I was on a roll back then...too bad I couldn't finish what I started!

Plans to finish

I finally dug this thing out of the bin I'd stuffed it into to photograph it, and it is now lying on my floor, where it will stay until I can finally get the darn thing washed! After that I just need to iron on some interfacing and pick out a back piece. I initially thought I should use the same fabric for the back, but now I think it might be nice to give it a pop of color and interest. Time to dig through the stash!

2 comments:

  1. I have an unfinished pillow project from that same pin myself. I started it at a craft day at a friend's house, and then set it aside to work on stuff for my wedding. Unfortunately, despite having reorganized my new craft room over the holidays, I'm not sure where that pillow is now!

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    1. I hate it when that happens! You'll find it eventually...What's yours say?

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