Display boards

I've recently started going to craft fairs and cons i nthe local area. I'll be at Geek the Halls in Portland on the 14th if anyone is interested.

I discovered last event that my set up is not great. When you're sharing space with someone you need to be able to make a cohesive display. Something my partner and i are working on. The problem is she does a lot of big things or space munchers and I make a lot of little things thattend to fade out under the shade of things like her plushies and my scarves. I've been trying to make new displays but it just isn't working. My last one was too high up and before that my stuff just tended to blend together untill it looked like a rainbow had pooped on my table. It just wasn't working. Plus I needed a way to make pricing very obvious.

Into the back stock *clutter room* I went hunting for something. For the record I have a few display shelves I've picked up here and there. I have an earring rack that spins, a tall glasses spinner I just can't use yet, and other misc shelves. We use our black and qhite cubeing shelves to give us table height, but I still needed something that was low enough to not block the bottom cubes.

I found these:

 This is old cut pieces to an old light box that my cats killed, but I'm such a cheapskate that I couldn't toss good pieces. They're foam board. They're faily sturdy, They fit the size of the table space in front of my shelving, and I can build them up just high enough to give lift without blockign the cubes behind them. There was four but one was marked by the cat so I tossed it.

This was part of a roll of foam I tend to cut pieces from for boffer weapons...when I actually make boffers. I have a pretty big roll so I cut down three pieces for the boards. 

My plan is to glue the foam to the boards, cover them with a fabric that matches my sign. (purple cuz I'm not doing more pink and the black in my stall is already overwhelming.)

To give it color I tacked some old fabric over the foam and board after glueing the foam to the board so nothing would slip. The fabric is microsuade which tends to be fairly dirt proof and water proof. Over time I'll have to change it but for now it works with my colors. I chose to pin it in case something does happen to the fabric. This way i can change it easier. 

This is just an image of how i have the necklaces held onto the board. 

Once I cover them I'll add a prop stand in the back. Not sure how yet though. My plan is to make these easy to collapse, pack and set up. So the prop stand needs to fold up or be somthing easily packed.

What I learned after building the boards was they were almost fine flat. They only needed minimal lift. Ineded up just making little blocks to put under them and now i have this. 

The little pink flowers on the corners are the prices for the stuff on the board.

Update: I used the boards this last weekend. they were ok, ut really I think I need to make a spinning rack of some sort. These take up way too much table space.

As always, with a little playing around I managed to fill in a need in my crafts. NEVER THROW USEFUL STUFF AWAY!

Edit: As much as these boards helped with transport, they eat up a ton of space. If you're working by yourself they're great because you can spread them out. However, if you are like me and sharing a table with friends then it doesn't work out so well. I've since added the necklaces and such to a hanging rack and reused these racks as a stepping shelf for my dragons.

For the record this worked out very well, but it needs reinforcing. It wobbles a bit. Also don't have anything above it. Someone will knock stuff down and you will lose product that way.

If you have any questions, comments, critiques feel free to drop me a line. I'm always up for chatting.

Anyone need plushies for christmas

A friend of mine over at http://octokittycrafts.blogspot.com/ is having a huge sale for her crochet plushies on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/octokittycreations

She's done some amazing stuff and I don't generally like crochet stuff, but I want all her mini plushies. it's insane!

Go take a look if you have a moment nad might be on the hunt for something fun.

THis Saturday only

This Saturday from 10 am to 7 pm there will be a big crafters/vendors bazaar at the Red Lion. If you're searching for anything for the holidays come take a look. There's over 30 vendors of all kinds. If this has a good turn out we plan to do it every year.
There will be door prizes that the vendors have donated and there will be individual vendors giving out prizes too.

I will have a table with my local crafting group, the crafters caravan. Come take a look if you have the time.

http://kaleidoscopebazaar.webs.com/

Sewing machine review

Recently I picked up a new machine.

Why?

Well mostly because my old one just wasn't enough for me anymore. It was a good little learning machine and still runs fine, but I wanted to do more. Also, because I really wanted an embroidery machine. As you've seen the new machine is amazing.

However I have quite a few machines and thought it'd be good to do a review.

I have, currently, a Brothers SE425 Embroidery Machine that is the new love of my life! I'm not kidding. See this post here: http://kristelskreations.blogspot.com/2014/10/new-toys.html I only stopped doing stuff with it today because I ran out of projects. It makes things that use to drive me crazy before so very easy and fun now. I keep waiting for the shoe to drop. However, besides being a needle muncher it's amazing.

What I was using before was a White's machine. I've had that machine for 12 years now. It still works just fine, but it's slow, eats thread, and has a tendancy to not want to sew one minute then sew just fine the next. This is most likely user error or it needs a cleaning. I'm far from a professional with a sewing machine, but it was just time. I'm probably going to clean it up and get rid of it soon. It was a very good beginner machine. I beleive it cost me 125 for it originally? That was back in 2004 though.

The other machines I have are a tiny Janome that unfortunately died a while back. For some reason it won't pick up threads, but getting into the bobbin area is a bit of a pain without a hex wrench so I put it away. I'll probably sit down and fix it up after my move. It's a nice little machine. it would sew through thicker fabrics and layers thatn my white did.

My last "machine" was a garage sale find that I wish I had never bough. Granted it was 5 bucks but still...This poor thing sounds like a clogged up engine and chugs along like a grandpa with a stuck walker. The two times I tried to use it, it chewed up the fabric and then wouldn't pick up threads. All attempts to fix it have failed. I think the problem is a design flaw. It's just...well terrible. I've picked up cheap hand sewers that were better.

Overall, modern machines are fun ,but I'll laways have a soft spot for the Singer and Bernina brands. They're great machines. My grandmother used a Singer to teach me when I was little. The only reason I don't have one now is because i couldn't afford them at the time. And I really wanted an affordable embroidery machine.

Moogles Complete

Today is adding the face to the moggles. There are a variety of ways to add their faces. Acrylic pain is one way. Sewing is another. Really its up to you.

Each way has diffeents ups and downs.

Acrylic:
more details, different faces available. quick
down side is that acrylis won't hold or look too good on fur cuz the fur causes it to pop up a bit.

Sewing:
Lasts longer, tigher seal agains the fabric
time consumig and less choice for details.

Again it's all up to you.  I did one of each here for show.

AS for faces, you can really do anything. Know that if you sew you'll need a thick thread. The little mebroidery thread I sued wasn't quite enough. it keep sinking into the fabric and disappearing. I ended up choosing to paint all of them.

Lastly I added the wings. I had to first sketch out a wing pattern I liked.

Once i had a pattern I needed to trace, cut and sew the pieces. When cutting these remember to leave a gap between the line and where you cut. otherwise these might not be sewable in the end.

As I guessed they were not sewable. So I ended up just glueing them on. They still look rather cute. 

All that is left is the little dongle above their heads. I"m going to take some thin wire and see if  I can wrap some of the red dots I have and then stick the wire into their heads. I hope it works.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

New toys

Everything on my backlog has been put on hold for this!

I cracked recently while remembering my granfather, who was more of a father to me than anything else. I lost him recently, very recently. It was a whirlwind of events, but i was thinking about him and his rules on tools. See he use to tell me that if you have a job you're trying to do and you don't have the right tool then you better get it right quick. Otherwise, you're going to screw up the job. I'd been considering getting a new machine and figured if I'm going to do that it might as well do embroidery too. I've been wantign to do detail work on my sewing stuff for a while now but my hand sewing stinks. (I'm not kidding) After thinking about it for about 2 days and talking with my husband I caved and we picked up this machine. I haven't stopped sewing for a week.

I'll type that again.

I haven't stopped sewing for a week!!

Sewing before took the right mood, cuz my other little machine took so much work(read as fighting) but this thing is amazing.

Normally, I'd be against Brothers brand machines. I've just had way too many problems with their stuff in the past, but I just...

All week?! Only stopping for bathroom and sleep.

I'm not kidding.

I'll do a better review of the machine later.

For now. Here is a slew of things this machine has done.

Must have more colors. Found a good site for decent colors at a nice price. 

Don't destroy my blog Mr. Creeper

Just a quick post while I finish up the muggles wings. I got a commission for a creeper.For the record I know nothing about Minecraft besides I hate the graphics. That being said I figured it'd be fun to give the creeper a try.

He was fairly simple to make. It's all squares. My first goal and the best part was to make the face. I put the face image into paint, cleared out all the background color till I had just the black, saved it, converted it to a pes document and plugged it into my embroidery machine.

yes, I craked and got a little embroidery machine. Its amazing. Heres the face below.

After the face was done I cut the cloth squares and sewed them all together. 

Its a fairly simple things to make. 4 feet, one long body, one big head.. Also a fairly phallic thing to make no matter how you try to make it not look that way.

I added some peelets to the feet to help him stand better too since his head is so heavy. 

Here he is all sewn together and standing. he's a little wonky right now since fleece warps if you over stuff it, but I like how he turned out.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Moogles part 2

So in this post I'll show how I put the moogle together after all parts are sewn. it's rather simple, but does depend on how you want your little stuffie to be. Do you want movable parts, or stationary. I chose movable.

This is the moogle before sewing. it helps to line everything up so you can see where all the pieces go.

After I've decided on the pieces I then string a curved needle with a folded piece of thread. By folding the tread and then stringing the needle the thread that holds on the body parts will be a bit stronger. This can be bypassed by using kevlar thread or fishing line, but tying knots in those take a little work and aren't as true. 

Once I'm sure my threads good I begin attaching pieces.

I go through the outside of either the left or the right paw then through the inner part and all the way trough the body, then through the inner side of the other arm and out the outside. I then go all the way back through leaving little gaps on the outside of the arms, but trying to go through the same holes on the insides or the arms and the bodies. this makes it so the arms can be moved up and down. 

Then I do the same thing for the legs. 

At some point I added the noses. They're just glued on with hot glue.

A pile of little moogles with noses. 

Next post will be the faces.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Moogles

I started making moogles again. Mostly because the pony's are a pain to make and i haven't perfected the pattern.

This is the pattern I use, with modifications. Basically I don't have the split in the body piece and you need two pieces of the body piece. I also vary on if I want to use the thumb piece (Arm3 piece). I find I like the arms without that thumb like piece better. This pattern is originally from babylondonstar. Seriously go check her out if she's still active. I've only modded it for my own purposes.

Once I have all my pieces cut out (something I forgot to get pics off, but tracing and cutting is simple) I need to pin certain parts and get them sewn first. IN one case the little triangles on the head so it gets it's shape. And pinning the head2 pieces together along the straighter line. 

 Face folds tacked together for sewing. It gives the face it's shape.

 Back of head pinned together.l

 Hands sewn and turned out.

Head back pinned to face. Ears are also tucked inside and pinned down. 

This is a picture of all the moogles sewn, flipped right side out, and stuffed with cotton. I am now sewing them shut. I'll have one more post with a picture of a completed moogle and how to do the little cosmetic designs on them.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Dystopian Kimono

This week I've been working on a new piece for my Dystopia Rising Gear. My character, Kurai, has been pretty stable for a while and I figured she had enough extra cash to invest in proper Genjian clothing again. That was she could stop looking like a barbarian. :)

That being said I had to now make the Kimono. Kimono's are...either very easy to make, or a pain. Personally, after learning some square cutting methods from a friend, I've been using those techniques a lot to make things. I did it with my friend Haori, and now this kimono. The whole piece is one huge square.

Originally, in Japan bolts are specifically sized for kimonos. It takes a whole bolt for one kimono. It's really fascinating and kind of scary to think about. In this ones case I took my measurements and made some cuts. I cut the neck hole first, then opened the front up. After that I figured out the sides and cut into the main piece for the sleeves. This is all one piece of fabric if you take out my cuts. This is much easier than cutting a ton of pieces out and wasting fabric. Saving fabric would be something someone would try to do in a dystopian era too.

 After the main body was hemmed I focused on designing it. Kimono's actually have meaning when you wear them. Certain seasons require certain colors and images. However, Kurai's colors are also green ad gold so I wanted to stick with that. I decided to go with a sort of winter motif.

I started out wanting to do a bleacing effect. It failed badly and for a bit I was bummed I'd ruined this, but I'm not one to give up easily. So after staring a bit I pulled out my paints and added the branch. What I got was that ghostly green effect. I liked it so I left it.

 The little yellow leaves are my characters family symbol. In Japan families, at least in the past, I don't know about now? had symbols called kamon, or mons in the game. Each clan has one and there's a whole lore based around them, so we've slowly been growing them over time. Mines the old Nakamura mon. The leaf in an octogram. Here I just used the leaf to look like dying leaves falling.

 In this image I decided I wanted a simple design on the front so I extended the branches from the back over the right shoulder. I like it, but it might need more flowers.

Here is the front side. So far I'm happy with it, but I need to carry the image over to the front bottom right a tiny bit. Might do a pile of leaves or something.

I also need to fix the neckline, and possibly sew this shut. It's not fun running around a game and popping out of your clothing. others might like it, I do not.

ALso, if I can there will be a full picture of me in gear someday.

As always, fi you have questions, comments, critiques, etc please leave me a comment.