June 30, 2010

So, apparently the Queen is coming to Ottawa tomorrow. I hope she's good. My brother gets to go with his reserves and march around in a pretty red outfit. It makes him look Canadian.

Also, just so you all know, I did NOT take this piccy. I stole it from his facebook. That is correct.
Anyway, so my mum's going to see him. It's like an eight hour drive from her house, and three and a half to four from mine. Maybe a bit less than that, but probably not on a day where the Queen shows.
And then my grama and grampa said they might come up to my house.
So now I'm not going to Ottawa. Not that I really mind, the Queen is the Queen and it's not like I get to meet her or anything. I'd just be standing outside with the rest of the world, watching her from miles away as she walks into parliament.
Yes, I would so not like to be there. But I'd have gotten to see my sisters and brothers and mum and dad if I had gone. But now I won't, unless grama and grampa choose a different day to come up.
Unfortunately, I worked Monday-today, then tomorrow's a holiday, and then I work Fri-Sat.
That's correct. I am working five out of seven days. A full. work. week.
It's not the only one this summer, but it makes up for last week, when I only got 28 hours.
And in case anyone is wondering, I ONLY WORK PART TIME.
As a result of working my butt off,

this is the only cleaning I've done all week (Plus the rattie's cage, but they need to have a few hammocks made for they chewed through the other one, in less than a month, and it collapsed while I was at work. The BF said no one was hurt, though.), and since the BF's brother is up, he's not exactly in the cleaning mood

but he has promised to clean the living room and take the garbage out.
(which is also good, because before I left for work on Monday, the living room was clean and then I got back to find three friends of his + a brother playing videaa gamez and eating. And leaving garbage and dirty plates and stuff ALL OVER THE PLACE.
So that's what I'll be doing on my day off tomorrow, on my holiday. I might also get out to take some pictures this week before and/or after I work, I'm not sure.
However, I need to go shower before work.
Yay.

June 21, 2010

I finally made that second bonnet, in three hours, the night before I went to my grama's house for my grampa's bday, so that I could give it to my cousin. ( I have this thing with bringing gifts; it never seems to get to the one whose bday it is... but grampa never wants anything anyway. Well, I'm sure he wants stuff, but he would never tell us what he wanted.)
Anyway, it worked beautifully. I had no idea what gathering stitches were, but my grama showed me later, when I got there. Now I know for next time.
Still, I learned that it's all about sizing. Alllllll about sizzzziiiiinnnnngggg....
Gotcha. If the sizes are uber wrong to start, they'll be uber wrong at the end. So my mum and I had a good laugh about that while the family was sitting down for dinner.
And one day I'll get the cousin to send me a piccy of her wearing it. I also said I'm gonna make a million more so that I become perfect at it. Then I told my grama I'd send them to her house because I wouldn't need them. She didn't know what she could do with hundreds of little bonnets. Hahaha.
So, anyway, my Friday was awesome, and then I worked full shifts all weekend. Which will look okay on a paycheque, but I mean, it sucks while you're doing it.
Today I have off, and I might be having a friend over. I haven't done that in ages.

June 15, 2010

I finally finished my bedroom curtains. And I had SOOOO much trouble with them. I'm never sewing with sheer fabric again.
Although my grama said to do it with tissue paper behind, after I finished (because eventually I just folded the fabric up like five times and then the thread stopped doing this repeatedly:

That's right. There are FOUR threads there, three of which erupted mysteriously from the bobbin thread spot on the plate and jam the machine. They have to be cut, pulled out and broken , and when that happens there end up being three threads: one attached to the needle, one from the bobbin case, and one extra that's just randomly there.
Turns out it's a tension error when the tension on the upper thread is too loose. Just in case no one knew.

So now, I have curtains finished in my room and I can move on to my second bonnet tonight (and maybe start a third if I can get the second to work quickly and some nicer fabric before I work tonight. I bought LOTS of fusible interfacing just for this little bonnet thing.

My newly finished curtains (finished being hemmed at the bottom. That's it. That's all that I had to do. Sad, eh?):

June 11, 2010

.


So, I got right down for it and made a post-it board for notes and pictures, with fabric and elastic and everything... I'm quite interested in seeing how the intended recipient takes it. Her birthday was a few months ago (like, March), and I've been meaning to get around to finishing my little gift, but I finally sucked it up and did it. Surprisingly, the bf was very helpful in this endeavor, finding the awesome-est fabric ever.
It wasn't as cheap as I'd have liked it to be as I'm... cheap. And broke. And a student.
But it was cute, so I did it anyway.

Then I realized just how much "two metres" actually is.
For someone who lived in Canada their entire life, you'd think I'd have a better estimation of a metre. NOOOOOOooooooo, I think in different terms when it comes to measurements. I know a centimetre. I know an inch. One inch is more or less 2.5 cm. But two metres... is a lot of fabric.


I also have to admit that yes, I cheated. I cheated big time. I think. Or maybe I just endeavored to make it a little easier than it would have been with staples. And after my stint as a framer of artwork, I just don't fancy desk staples an impressive finishing substance any longer.
But I could get away with a hot glue gun.

It made a few things look messy, so much so that I would advise doing the elastics at the same time as the ribbon on the outside so as not to get the little bumps at the midpoints of the ribbon, or I don't know, come up with something else.


So, I started by making lines of hot glue inward toward the board's frame. Then I stuck the fabric down. I started at the bottom and worked my way up evenly on both sides of the frame, in sections.

It was quite easy, just make sure that the fabric is flat or you'll have to pull it up.


Then I folded the corners at the back first with a fabric corner pulled in to the board,


then the two flappies on either side of it being pulled in towards and gluing each down in order.

Then came the elastic. I glued the elastic down first, then added the ribbon to hide the bumpy globules of hot glue. Again, you might want to have pinned down the elastic in advance to this, leaving the edges of the elastic slack so that when you glue the ribbon down around the edges, because as I said, it does look sort of messy around the edges where there are TWO globs of glue-one for the elastic and one for the ribbon.

Then I pinned clear pins over the criscrosses because the elastic sort of pops up and pictures don't fit as well under when they aren't pinned at the cross points.
And then voila!


So, hopefully she'll like it, and then I photoshopped some interesting "vacations" that we took "together". :P

Oh, also, did I mention that I foolishly made a bonnet? Hahahaha, baaaaaad mistake. I thought it might turn out. I must have misread or mis interpreted a few things wrong (and I substituted a piece of cotton fabric folded double and cut because I didn't have interfacing as a noob and it was very, very late and I'd wasted so much time that I was going to finish...), and so now I have massive ties and it kind of looks wrong at the top. Also my sizing was probably three inches off, but I was guessing big time because the recipe from the buns and baskets blog was assuming adult sizes and I picked the absolute biggest ( I have a big head I guess?) (and I'm not blaming the recipe, by the way, so try it for yourself. I just can't sew)!
Maybe I'll try it again, now that it's been updated to a real picture and not just hand drawings, so I can be led by hand slowly and gently and easily like a picture book to a new reader. And if it turns out, this bonnet's going to my cousin. If not I'll start doing something else that I haven't figured yet. But I do work at a donation-taking thrift store...

June 03, 2010

You know, sometimes I just feel like regardless how many days I have off, I just will never finish all that I have to do.
I think that in part is a reason that I've grown fond of being pessimistic (probably since most decisions I make lately are all the wrong one), and a procrastinator (no doubt encouraged by elementary and secondary school homework being so easy that even an ape could do it. That's right. Pre-caveman.)
Furthermore, I feel like I'm extremely stressed regardless of what I do, which is why I've taken to doing what I like more.

I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it probably has something to do with a lack of goal for the future. Here's my only need: Money in order to raise a family. I don't really care how I get it, but to be honest, it has to leave me with time to have kids because if I don't at least teach someone to sit the hell down in a dangerous, unstable buggy while I'm shopping, then our children have little to no chance of survival. Last time I looked, the human race was all about continuity.
Unfortunately, not caring has led me to...well... not knowing which path to take next.
The answer: Whichever is easiest and least likely to require effort, since expending unnecessary effort seems like a HUGE waste of time.

Just my thoughts on that.