Kitchen Bureau Curtains

Ah. It's been a while. That's all I'll say about that. Maybe more later. Currently I am living in a pretty spacious one bedroom in Watertown with my Boyfriend and my two cats, working at a wholesale produce distributor and getting obsessed with interior decorating. The intellectual inside me (shut up shut up, I do to have a small tiny intellectual side!) will connect my need to decorate my surroundings to my family always moving around when I was a kid... but now that I'm no longer living in dorms or with roommates... I'm obsessed. Our apartment is kind of oddly designed, with one tiny window in a nook in our living room, a triangular shower and 2004 Special Edition Hustlers hidden on top of our ugly wooden kitchen cabinets. One of the main "Oh what the f*ck?" things about our apartment was definitely the bureau in the kitchen closet. This is it:

 

Ned the Naughty Narwhal

When I first started crocheting my guy friend D asked me to crochet him a bag for his bong. Since that was not what I wanted to be crocheting, I wanted to be crocheting beautiful wraps and scarves and blankets, not a bag that would probably take a while to make and then get lost in someones house. That also couldn't be whipped out to show off, like a scarf could be. "Here mom, look at this great bag Masha made for my bong!" was not a cry I think I would hear. Ever. So basically I never did it, but this vacation I hung out with him again and was telling him about all my crafty activities when he brought up that bag. Oh the guilt. I had been telling him about how I made a hat for my boyfriends sister, and meanwhile I had neglected to make anything for D, and I had known him for about 5 years! That was basically the guilt trip he used on me. Or something like that.


Instead of asking for a bag for his bong, instead he requested one for a newly acquired bowl of his. He even sent me the measurements and everything, and asked to make it super padded because his stuff goes through a lot. I had been surfing Craftster and was specifically looking at a shirt embroidered with Narwhals when his data came through. It was like a light bulb went off in my head. AHA! I would crochet him a hollow Narwhal I could put a bag in. Discreet, fun AND handy! Thus Ned the Naughty Narwhal was born. He only took about a day to whip up, and actually making the bag to put inside him was much harder. I sewed two tubes with an open and closed end on each, and basically put one inside the other. Then I stuffed scraps of fleece in between them to make the bag super padded. After that I sewed an elastic onto the open end.


Let me tell you about sewing the elastic. First of all, it didn't really work out since I totally didn't think about how the fleece would be way too thick to fold too much, so as of now the elastic is stuck in this half way expanded position. Second of all, to sew the elastic in, I fitted the fleece tube over a water bottle, then fitted the elastic over the open end, then folded the fleece over on top of it and sewed it shut. Let me tell you, hand sewing through four layers of fleece is very very hard. Especially on your hands. I have actual calluses! I look like a lady pirate. Well my hands look like the hands of a lady pirate. Especially since I painted those dragons wings and the red watercolor paint is still sort of all over my hands. Red like blood! Arrghhh Matey! Ok back to the point. It took an ass long time to sew the elastic band in, to no real satisfaction since it didn't end up working really at all. Then I sewed on the eyes and mouth, and it was done! I also made the bag removable so that he could just through it in the washing machine when it gets too smelly. Genius huh.


Except for the super rad photo session with my little brother. Like my waves? He did the sun. I'm very sorry if I offended anyone with all my references to drug paraphernalia. I hope you like Ned though, no matter what your stance on certain issues is. I also hope you will all agree that my little brother is perhaps the most adorable kid in the whole wide world.

Crochet Hook Case

I made one. It is far from perfect. I wrote more about it on my craft blog since technically it isn't crochet. :) Be nice. Sewing Machines are scary.

Crochet Hook Case

The Finished Product:
The havoc of creating the finished product:


So I decided to sew myself a crochet hook case as a starter project on the sewing machine. I figured it would be easy, and was not even dismayed when I realized that I did not have a ruler and would have to measure and cut everything evenly by laying down a piece of white paper on top of the fabric. Then I realized that threading a sewing machine is really really difficult when you have no idea what you are doing. So is threading the bobbin because first you have to be aware of the existence of a bobbin before you can actually realize to thread it. I'm not even sure its called threading it, I think it might be winding. Knowing what a bobbin is and what it does helps as well, as you are far less likely to think "oh I don't think I REALLY need that". How foolish, how very very foolish.

(I sort of conquered the sewing machine in terms of the hook pockets, but thats mainly because they had lines I could try to stick to)

After I had the sewing machine ready and waiting I was optimistic again. Sure that took around three hours and a few bitter tears, but its going to be so much fun now, I thought. I was already imagining the pretty dress I would sew out of some scraps of fleece and a napkin, for OF COURSE I was going to master the sewing machine in like three seconds. HA. HA HA HA. Right. OK. First of all the pedal is possessed by the devil. I gently, every so cautiously put my foot down on it and the needle nearly eats my hand. Good god. How ever do you control the edges, so that the machine sews in a straight line? Never mind that, but how the hell are you supposed to back stitch over that same line, except now with only one hand holding the fabric and the other pressing in a button on the machine. Jesus. So basically it was really hard. Thus my Crochet Hook is not as pretty as I would have wished for it to be. Not at all.

In fact this might be the messiest and imperfect project of mine that I have ever posted. Please don't be too harsh.


I mean its pretty easy to see where I messed up. I didn't have enough of the checkered fabric left to finish the front of the needle book cover, the seams are all messed up because previously there were two layers of flannel in between the pink but that made it WAY too thick.

There are no hooks in it because I forgot them all at my bfs house in "twohoursawayfrommenowheretownMA" with my awesome scissors so I have been using my moms manicure scissor and now have the threat of death hanging over my head. Also I planned on it closing with a snap of some sort but then in a fit of rage (over yet another necessary ripping out of stitches) I ripped some of the pink material and had to just wing it. Ugh. God. Now that its done with I'm pretty proud though. I used a couple of links but since I don't really know any sewing lingo and cannot visualize half the things they were talking about in some of the crochet hook tutorials I basically winged it A LOT. Which clearly was not the best idea. Oh well. What do you think?

These are the links I used:

This is where I got the original idea to make a crochet case from!

This is what made me think it was going to be easy

This is the super complicated/detailed tutorial that made me despair

This is the blog that helped me understand how to stitch the hook pocket without the stitches showing through on the other side. A simple idea I could not understand.

And last but not least. This is the blog that helped me figure out how to make the needlebook

Maybe once I regain some of my confidence, I will try the satan machine again, and will make myself ANOTHER crochet hook case :)