Finally Finished

I finally finished the sleep masks that my Mom embroidered the other day! A few kinks along the way, but that's just par for the course for me lol. Ok lets get to it!!

First things first. This is why I call the blog 6 Crafty Cats. I can't do anything without a few of them wanting to know what I'm doing. See the following pics:

This is Scat. He's 15 and probably the friendliest little guy you'll ever meet. Here he is laying on my sewing machine cover. The second I pulled out my chair, he jumped on it and ran his fat butt over and plopped himself down lol. Here is another shot from my vantage point:

As I'm getting ready to work, another cat Poo came up to me. He likes to sit there and meow at me. If he doesn't get to see what I'm doing, he will pester me until he does. Here he is sniffing my scissors:

It's never boring here lol.

I started out by making marks on my pattern to line up the elastic and to keep future projects consistent.

I then sewed my first mask, the zebra print. Everything went surprisingly well, at first... When I was finished and was turning the mask inside out, I discovered I made the opening a little too small, making turning right side out difficult. No biggie, I managed to get it turned.

Sorry for the blurry pic. I hope you can see it ok. My camera sucks at closeups.

I was smoothing the seams and feeling quite proud of myself. And that's when I noticed... a slight puckering (for lack of a better word) in the nose area. The fabric wasn't laying flat and was folded over. Like this:

Kind of hard to see it but if you look really close into the curve I think you can make it out. As I got up, voicing my opinion with a lot of 4 letter words, another cat showed up in my chair:

This is Mojo. He's about 3 now. He came in from outside as a little stray that showed up with another stray that I had been feeding. He's a shy little guy and does not like kisses lol.

I took a break, went out, had dinner with the hubby and thought about the puckered mask. I remembered seeing somewhere a diagram about cutting seams on a curve. You cut little triangle points up to the seams. So I thought I would try it. Couldn't hurt right? Well..... IT WORKED!!! *Happy Dance*

I got up, ran to my husband and showed him. (and did the happy dance again) Upon returning to my work area I saw this:

Here are the 2 masks completed. The zebra print is for a friend's 9 year old daughter. Her room is hot pink and zebra print. The pink leopard print is fro my 6 year old niece. It says "Big Sister". She was so excited to become a big sister in April of 2009. It's hard to read, but since she can't read cursive yet, I wanted a nice pretty font.

Well that was my adventure for the day!!

From Scat and the gang, take care!!

6 Crafty Cats

*sigh*

Didn't get to the masks last night. I got home, sat down to watch a little tv... and fell asleep lol. Probably won't do much tonight either since I work until 8.

Take care!
6 Crafty Cats

MOAR sleep masks!!

Just came home from M&Ps. Mom embroidered 2 more sleep masks that I will be finishing tonight. Can't wait!!

So Its Been Awhile...

Its been a few months since I posted.Typical. So yeah, I'm sorry and blah blah blah. I never claimed to be perfect :P

Last night I made a sleep mask. It turned out really cute. Had a few issues...

It all started when I decided I wanted a sleep mask. There is a street light about 2 houses down and across the street and on some nights when I am having my issues sleeping, it's one of the many things that get on my nerves. So I thought a sleep mask would be perfect. I went onto my fave site, Etsy, and did a search on sleep masks. There were some totally beautiful masks on there (and some not so great ones.)  Of course the ones I like were $16.00. Um yeah.... I figured I could make one cheaper. So I decided to do a google search on sleep mask patterns. I found one I liked, printed it out, quickly skimmed over the instructions and with the hubby in tow, went out to get the supplies I needed, plus some lol

I gotta give it to the husband. He was willing to trek out in the rain and cold so that I could satisfy my whims.  Anyway... tried to go to Joann Fabrics in a neighboring area, only to find out it was closed. Like, closed down, no more, thats it, bye-bye gone.So decided to go to the local Walmart. Yeah.... sorry but I hate Walmart (atleast our local one) But I'm not going to get into that here lol.

I found some fabric that I liked in fleece and flannel, a new measuring tape, new pins and white elastic. Great!! I was ready to go! Sunday night is dinner @ Mom and Dad's, so with everything in tow, we went there. Turns out this was perfect because I needed Mom to embroider "sleep" on the fabric I was going to use. When I got there, Mom and my niece were modifying a "snuggie" to fit my 6 year old niece. Apparently, my Pops had won one while he was at the gambling boats. It was a pretty seafoam green and was really soft. There were scraps of the sleeves laying around and I asked if I could have them. So I took the snuggie remains and looked thru Mom's fabrics to see if she had anything to match. (Of course nothing I bought matched) So I found fabric I liked, and found thread for the embroidery.

LOOOOOOONG story short, I cut out the pieces and got ready to sew after we got back home (dinner btw was de-lish of course, lasagna yummy!!) I had to hunt a little for my sewing machine. Its probably been 8+ years since I've used it, wasn't even sure if it would work. Took the cheap little cover off, wiped the dust off, and powered it up. Everything looked fine, so I sewed a test facric. So far so good!!

Now here is where the trouble started...

I put the mask under the foot, batting side down, and started sewing, slowly at first, because its been awhile. I did a few forward, a few back, and then started forward again. I noticed that it wasn't moving!! Cripes!! I quickly stopped, lifted the foot, and discovered a birds nest underneath!! (wish I had taken a pic) I carefully tried to cut my project out of the mess. I don't know if it was my cutting or the birds nest but my fabric got a little ripped (again wish I had a pic)

So I took the few stitches out of my project and started again. This time I thought I would sew with the batting up. Great idea huh? Nope! When I had cut out my pieces of fabric, I must have flipped the pattern on the batting so the pieces didnt quite match up. No problem when I was sewing with the batting down... BIG problem when I was sewing with the batting up. Sewed the whole darn thing. I was feeling really excited!! Turned it over to see the pretty fabric side... and parts of the stitches weren't even on the fabric!! UGH!! (again I wish I had a pic) Do I even need to tell you all the 4 letter words that were coming out of my mouth? I think I made the cats blush. So I found what I thought was my trusty seam-ripped and started taking the stitches out. Unfortunately, it was a cheap ripper that wasnt actually sharp, so no ripping went down. I had to pull each stitch out by hand. Can you say headache?lol

So I got all the stitches out and started again. "Third time's a charm" I said to my husband (even tho I was about to throw the mask out the window) I decided to sew it batting down again. I very slowly started. A few stitches forward, a few back, and then forward again. I did a few stitches and stopped. Did a few more, stopped. Did this all the way around the mask, feeling my confidence grow. The stps got fewer and fewer as I got more confident. Finally I was done!! I took my work off the machine, and trimmed my threads. Inspected it and even tho the sewing wasnt perfect, I finally made it!! I turned it inside and and it looked perfect (atleast to me after all I went thru lol)

There's the final result! Is it perfect? No... but I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Here is a close up of my hand stitching to close it up. Sorry its blurry but I guess I need a new camera. The weird little bit is where the hole was and I tried to sew it up the best I could.  All in all, I'm happy with it and it feels good to be sewing again :)

Love to all,
6 Crafty Cats

P.S. I used the mask last night and had a really good night's sleep, my first in about a week :)

Here is one of my crafty cats sleeping on a quilt that my great aunt made many years ago. I know its older then me, and I'm in my mid 30s.

Hopefully one day I can do something that my grandkids would like to have.

Ok, so I'm not a great writer. I don't have anything profound to say. I'm not overly talented. If your looking for something like that, look somewhere else.

This blog is for those of us that are starting out. Our pieces of work in whatever media we choose is still a little rough, not quite perfect. But everyone has to start somewhere. I will post my trials here in these pages. Everything from cooking to crocheting to beading to painting. I'm not exactly sure what I will post. But I know the things I post will not be perfect. Especially my crocheting...

I hope this encourages people to try new things, to improve the things that they know.

Up and Running

Yay!! 6 Crafty Cats is now up and running!