The Sweatshop of Love Blog

I hate to admit this, but by yesterday I was over Hobby Week. I finished that scrap map and I was done with my sewing machine. I didn’t want to look at fabric anymore. The thought of poking myself with another pin just was not appealing in the least.

Belt! And a Tap Pants Cameo!

But, when you say you are going to do something, you do it. And you half ass the shit out of it.

The 4 Minute Belt

Originally I got this fabric belt idea from Elegant Musing’s beltmaking tutorial, but when I looked it over again yesterday it was not making sense to me at all. And then I discovered I bought the wrong belting! They had no stiff belting at JoAnn, so I got some belting that looked more like a handle for a tote bag, so I knew it was not going to work with this tutorial.

Does the Fabric Look Familiar?!

So I cut out a 3″ wide strip of the same fabric I had out from framing my scrap map the day before, and 38″ long, about 8″ longer than my waist measurement. Because my belting was like a thick tapestry, I could sew right threw it, so I sewed down one side of my fabric, then folded the fabric around the rest of the belting and, giving it a hem while I sewed, sewed the other side of the fabric down right in the middle of the belt, as you can see.

The 4 Minute Belt!

I then sewed one end of the belt into a point. I bought some metal D rings for the closure because that sounded like the easiest way to do it, and it totally was! I just looped through the two rings and sewed the end down to the inside of the belt. I made a little fabric ring and slid it onto the belt to hold the free end of the belt down.

And voila! I made this super cute belt in like 4 minutes. Two sets of D rings came in the package so I’ll be making another belt in a different fabric soon! Just not for a couple weeks.

I’ve been working like crazy on this scrap map, so it’s a good thing I love how it turned out!

DONE!

The tutorial says that the top stitching takes the longest, but the cutting took 10x longer than the top stitching! I was prepared for sewing this thing to take forever, but I whipped through it, whereas it took probably 6-8 hours to cut out all those states, iron them to the interfacing, cut them out again, and attach them to my muslin.

With a Border!

As you can see, I added a border around the map, which I love. It really looks like a finished piece of silly art with the border!

I bought a foam poster board at Michaels, pulled out my hot glue gun and attached the map to the board that way. Then I cut out a 3″ strip of fabric and hot glued it to each side of the map. A little more hot glue attached the back of each strip to the back of the board! I had a little left over for a hanger that I, again, attached with hot glue.

The Heartland

I talked about it on Monday, but mistakes were made here. It’s hard to cut and fit all those states, so there is some overlapping, scrunching, and even a state that is just plain missing (sorry, Delaware). Somehow I managed to make Illinois and Kansas out of the same fabric without noticing until I had top stitched both to the map.

Hanging, Looking Awesome!

But, if it were perfect it would be boring, and I really can’t love it more. It’s done! I made that, I love it, and I can’t wait to see yours.

I’m chipping away at my scrap map, but took a break yesterday to crank out some adorable tap pants!

Tap Pants!

When I saw this project on Craft I knew I had to make some. They are perfect for lounging, perfect to throw on under a short skirt, and great biking shorts. I put them on my to do list immediately and ran out to get materials.

Hot Butt

I had a hell of a time with this tutorial, though. It starts off with taking your measurements and cutting out a pattern, which I’ve never done before. I really liked seeing how my measurements effected the front and back patterns, and I learned a ton about construction by just figuring this out.

But then everything went downhill.

From the Side

I don’t have a serger and don’t even really know how one works, so whenever the instructions said to serge I was confused. The fabric she uses has the same right side and wrong side, so I could never tell what was pinned where in the pictures. I have no idea what fold over elastic is (it wasn’t at JoAnn so I just got regular elastic), so that entire concept was confusing, too.

Polka Dots and Lace?! Awesome!

So I improvised. I’ve made pajama pants before, so I just used the tiny garment construction knowledge I do have and just put them together. I seamed the bottom and then sewed on the lace. I seamed the top and then sewed the elastic to the inside of the shorts.

CUTE!

I love the way they turned out and haven’t taken them off since I finished them. I wore my shortest skirt out last night and kept jumping around just so people would sneak a peek of them. I might need 6 more pairs! But once I get to step four of the tutorial I’m following my own instructions so I actually get shorts when all is said and done.

Needlepoint isn’t too foreign around here – I tackled a DIY Charley Harper needlepoint as a present and made cute fruit to hang in my kitchen. These projects were needlepoint on cross stitch fabric which I use to do a lot of when I was a kid. New to me? Following an embroidery pattern!

The Princess and the Pea!

I found this embroidery pattern by Follow the White Bunny and just had to have it. I love The Princess and the Pea and I’ve been wanting to try an embroidery project like this, so it was a match made in heaven.

Lots of Stitches!

I started this pattern when I was in Michigan last month. It was a great project to have around all the babies and dogs because it was small and there was no yarn anyone could grab and rip apart when I wasn’t looking. It’s also super light and was great for working on in the hot weather.

LOTS of Mattresses!

It also really helped that my mom has a bunch of crafty books with embroidery stitches in them, with pictures and instructions, so when I ran across something I didn’t know, I looked it up in the book and figured it out. I love how every mattress is a different stitch. It was a great way to practice my needlepoint and work on stitches without getting bored.

A LITTLE Messy

One thing I need to work on when I pick another pattern is the back. I was just knotting and pulling and wrapping things around like crazy. By the end I was having a hard time keeping my floss free and not pulling up ends of other colors to the front of my work.

Framed and Looking Awesome!

I put it in a frame and it’s looking adorable, hanging on the wall. I can’t wait to find more patterns to add to my budding collection! Follow the White Bunny has lots of adorable patterns in her etsy shop – I’ve just got to wait patiently for her to get back from vacation so I can pick out my next project!

It’s Hobby Week! Which means you’ll be seeing a lot of crafts around here this week and absolutely no knitting. Kinda hard to believe, right? Everyone needs a break once in a while, and apparently instead of going on vacation I take out my sewing machine.

Scrap Map!

My biggest project this week is my scrap map from See Kate Sew, which I got a start on this weekend. A LOT of prep goes into this sucker; a lot of cutting, a lot of ironing, a lot of pinning. I had quite a production line set up – cut out the paper state from the map I printed out, find a scrap piece big enough for the state, cut out interfacing, over to the iron to press them together, back to the couch to cut out the state from the fabric, and over to my desk to pin the state to the muslin.

I was sore all weekend from all the squatting. Yes, this is embarrassing.

It's Not Perfect

Mistakes have been made. When I excitedly ushered the ever-charming PT, who doubles as a geography expert apparently, over to my progress he instantly rattled off all the states I fucked up. ‘Nevada is wider. Missouri doesn’t have a panhandle. You call that Wisconsin?’

I ironed Ohio to his face and we’ve moved on.

Progress!

All I’ve got left are those hard states, and then all that top stitching. In her tutorial, Kate says you won’t like your map until you top stitch it, but I’m really digging it now! I can’t wait to love it even more after I spend 1985562587356 hours top stitching around every state.