Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Launch: Doodling Tuesdays!


With this new blog starting, a new year upon us, and a new president being inaugurated, I thought I would start the first "Doodling Tuesdays" entry with an old drawing I did during W's first term. This doodle is a caricature done while watching one of his unbelievable speeches on television.
"Doodling Tuesdays" is exactly what it sounds like. Please check in every Tuesday for another doodle of mine or perhaps from a guest doodler! Keep doodling, everyone!

Friday, December 26, 2008

Bleach for the Stars




There was some enthusiastic winter cleaning going on this holiday season.When I thought I had successfully tackled the pantry with some trusty bleach cleaner, I glanced down and saw the magical chemistry of bleach and my formerly good pair of brown slacks. (Yes, I like to insert the word slacks wherever possible.) If I had spilled wine or tomato sauce on my, ahem, slacks, I would have stuffed them under the sink and gone into emergency operation. But with bleach, your slacks are dead on arrival. And in this case, the bleach made the brown color turn a pinky red. There's an interesting color and science explanation somewhere in there. So I decided to do a little renegade applique. I cut out a wonky star from scrap corduroy using pinking shears (zigzag fabric scissors.) The zigzag edge keeps the fabric from fraying. Then I used a zig zag stitch on my sewing machine to go around the edges. I stitched maybe three times around the perimeter to get it solidly in place and covering the whole bleach stain. If you're wondering, I used red thread because that was what was already in the bobbin. Mysterious red, blue, brown color combo explained!




Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Stocking Detective




For the past few Christmas seasons, I've been re-creating a Fitzgerald classic: The Giant Red Stocking. In honor of Aunt Bobbie, I am carrying on the tradition of the Giant Red Stocking for the next generation of Fitzgeralds. (Our population seems to be growing each year.) The only problem is that I've had to track down the same materials that Aunt Bobbie started using over 30 years ago. Luckily, red and white felt is readily available. She used a particular type of white thread though to sew the blanket stitch around the edges. The hand-sewn sequins were hiding in the back of a hidden rack at Jo-Ann's this weekend. I almost gave up on those mini-sequins...all necessary to "seamlessly" recreate these classic stockings.