Embroidery Hoop Clock

I love making things that are practical, things I will definitely use. And I love clocks, both for their aesthetic and practical offerings. I especially love making clocks because it's as easy at slapping a movement and some hands on anything you can sandwich in between them.

Your clock face must be:

Flat enough for the hands to move freely, 360 degrees.
Thin enough to receive the shaft of your movement (which come in a variety of lengths).
Penetrable enough for you to make a hole through.

Movements and hands can be purchased online or at your local clock shop. Now start sandwiching your way to a home full of beautiful and intriguing clocks!

My most recent clock creation, and my favorite to date I made on a embroidery hoop.

What You'll Need

Embroidery hoop

Fabric

Fusible interfacing

Embroidery floss

Sewing needle

Graph paper

Pencil

Ruler

Batting

Clock movement & hands

1. Begin by fusing your interfacing to the back of your fabric with a hot iron. Place your interfaced fabric in the embroidery hoop and fasten until taught.

2. For cross-stitched numbers on a fabric that isn't clearly gridded, you can use graph paper to block out your numbers.

• Pin these blocked out numbers to the appropriate place on your clock face (take note of the grain of the fabric and align the numbers with it). 
• Embroider through the paper.
• Tear away the paper from finished numbers.
• Tighten up any stitches that were loosened by tugging at them from the underside.

I wouldn't recommend this method for any design denser than mine, as it may be difficult to remove all the paper. For more intricate designs, it's best to use cross-stitch fabric.

3. Measure out and embroider the ticks between the cardinal numbers.

4. To finish the back, trim the edges of your fabric to be a circle big enough to enclose the back without overlapping at the center (which would create too much bulk and prevent your clock from hanging straight on the wall). Add the batting. Make a long running stitch around the outer edge of the fabric.

5. Pull your thread tight so that the fabric gathers up towards the middle of the back. Wait to tie this thread off until your movement is in place.

6. To make the hole in the center, be very careful not to make too big a hole. I started my hole with a awl, pushing the fibers apart, instead of cutting them. I then eased the shaft up through the hole, making four tiny snips around the edges so that I could get it all the way through.

7. Finesse the movement, batting, and backing until everything sits nicely. Add hands and you're finished!

With love,

Melody

Best of 2012

As a final word on 2012, in order to send the year off properly, I present you with a round-up of y'alls favorite posts of 2012. Thanks for joining me! I hope you'll spend 2013 with me, too, because I've only just gotten started.

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Wrapping it Up!

I refuse to buy wrapping paper. It has such a short lifespan and I already have so much paper around, so I always dig something out of the recycling or my paper stash.


Idea #1: Make the gift wrap part of the gift!
Is there some type of fabric item your gift recipient would use? My dad usually carries around a bandana as a hanky, and we happen to make these great bandanas at the shop I work at. Depending on the size of your gift it could be a handkerchief or a scarf. Or maybe your giftee likes to sew, quilt or craft with fabric in some other way. Pick up some lovely fabric for their stash!

Fabric could also be a great wrapping solution for those you live with. If you save it, you can have a dedicated stash of gift wrapping fabric for years to come.

Idea #2: Recycled Pages
Just because most of the paper we recycle isn't big enough to cover large gifts doesn't mean hope is lost. Choose multiple pages to tape, sew, or glue together into a large piece of gift wrap.

This gift is wrapped with a recycled festival program. I taped the pages together with gaffer's tape (I'm obsessed with the stuff. It's classy, it looks like fabric.) I made the bow from cut strips of a brown paper bag and a single staple, taped over the point where my four pages intersect.

This one is made from magazine pages. I taped the pages together from the inside, so there would be no showing tape.

This one is made of book pages. I've done a number of projects with the covers of old books (like this hand-bound notebook), which leaves me with a a ton of old book pages I don't know what to do with. I sewed them all together with my sewing machine (it's really fun sewing things that aren't fabric!) These pages are from a 1969 edition of Reader' Digest Condensed Books. Flipping through, I was drawn to the illustrations for this one, The Day the World Ended, and today seemed like the most appropriate day imaginable for apocalyptic wrapping paper, being the last day of the Mayan calendar and all.

Idea #3: A Map
Looking for big paper? Maps are big pieces of paper! And they look super hip. This map was an outdated NYC bike map I found in my drawer. Score. You can get a bike map for free at any NYC bike shop. If you don't have any maps around that you're ready to chuck, public transportation authorities usually give out bus and train maps for free, or perhaps there is a map you could buy that your giftee would use.

Idea #6 Artist Paper
If you're looking for something a little cleaner and simpler, this is a lovely way to go. As an artist, and especially as a former art student, I have all sorts of art papers. I've got so many they're coming out my ears! In all different sizes, some quite large. In a range of neutral colors: white, black, shades of grey and brown. Many with subtly luxurious textures. This is a lovely black paper given to me by a German student, emptying his stash before moving back to Germany. I'm not even sure what it's for, but it's a smooth, rich black with a linen-like weave. Perfect for manly wrapping.

Idea #5 Grocery Bag
Remember covering your textbooks in recycled brown paper bags? Simply slice a seam, cut off the bottom and you've got a nice big piece of wrapping paper! Tie it up with string and you've got one of Maria's Favorite Things! For my tag here, I glued a pressed leaf to the paper and wrote on it with a gold pen.

For more on pressing, my pressed leaf was leftover from this project:

Happy Wrapping! 

Medicine Bag: For the Hippy in Your Life

When I was 10 years old or so, my summer camp secret buddy made me a suede medicine bag. It was pretty cool. Then when I was a college freshman in fashion school, I rediscovered that medicine bag. I still thought it was awesome and started wearing it regularly. But in a room full of fashion majors, not without light-hearted ridicule. Someone even bought me crystals as a gag gift! I put them in my medicine bag and kept on wearing it.

This year, I came into lots of suede. And suddenly Native American paraphernalia is super hip. I thought about making medicine bags, and then mine broke! So it seems I was destined to share my medicine bag with you.

If you want to embroider or bead a design on your medicine bag, this is best done before cutting. I simply drew my design on with black and red sharpie, which can be done at any point!

1. Mark holes around the edge, about a quarter inch apart, on the inside. Puncture these markings through both pieces of suede with the awl.

2. Thread needle, knot a double strand. Start with your knot on the inside and sew back through the top holes again, creating a straight tack.

3. With the two pieces of suede on top of each other, right sides facing out, sew around the edge, passing the needle straight through your awl holes, front to back. This should create diagonal stitches.

4. Snip two vertical holes in the back, and six in the front.

5. Lace the long, skinny neck piece through these holes.

6. Tie, fill with crystals, and wear for good energy and hippy/Native American chic style!

DIY Gift Guide

For those of you looking for holiday gift inspiration, I thought I'd post a collection of my past DIYs that could make great gifts for your loved ones.

For the beauty in your life.

For the snuggle bunny in your life.

For the writer and doodler in your life.

For the elegant woman in your life.

For the stylishly farsighted in your life.

For the one who deserves pampering in your life.

For the stylishly funky in your life.

For the snow bunny in your life.

For the cook in your life.

For the technophile in your life.

For the gardener in your life.

For the animal lover in your life.

For the coffee or tea lover in your life.

Go forth and good luck!

Guest Post at Blume and Grow: Paper Garland

Guess what? I just wrote my very first guest post! Carrie from Blume and Grow offered me the opportunity to play with the beautiful transparencies from her shop, and I made this really fun paper garland! 

Use it to trim a tree, wrap a gift, or deck a hall!

 Find the full tutorial here:

Blume and Grow is a lovely blog: crafts, photography, scrapbooking, food, life. Here are some of my favorite posts: {diy} card using fall photos, {how to} stamping | printing on vellum, {wedding} poster art, and {diy} sharpie mugs. 

You can find Carrie's guest post for From Scratch, a scrapbooking DIY for beautiful handmade page protectors here:

Enjoy!

Dream Tote!

I have a lot of stuff. Too much stuff. Especially in my closet. A year or so I had a revelation concerning all this stuff. A lot of it I rarely wear or use, but when I try to get rid of these things I can't. Why? Because they still serve a purpose or fill a hole. You need to fill that hole with one beautiful, well-made item so that you can get rid of a host of sub-par items that have been serving that purpose together.

For example, my tote bag situation. Sometimes you need a tote bag. For me, most often it's the days I don't work from home. In addition to the small items I usually stuff in a little handbag, I usually want to bring a lunch, a bottle of water, perhaps my knitting or reading, perhaps supplies for a class I'm teaching. So for this I have been relying on 3 dirty, ugly, ancient, a-little-too-small tote bags. None good enough to stand on its own.

So I made myself a damn beautiful tote bag. With all the bells and whistles.

You may recognize the fabric from last weeks apron DIY...

I just like it so much! And there's still plenty left. Who knows what else I'll use it for!?

A note about the Cut List: If your self fabric is directional, like mine, you'll want to cut two 16" x 19" pieces instead of one 16" x 38".

Left: Lining with Pocket; Right: Self with Pocket and Strap

The first step is to assemble all the bells and whistles. Sew on all your pockets and straps before we complicate things by sewing them together and making them not flat anymore.

You may also note that I matched my fabric for that front pocket. Because I love that kind of stuff. It's all in the details, my friends!

1. This is where you should be: front and back assembled with straps and pocket.
2. Topstitch bottom reinforcement pieces to the precise center of the body, and the bottom of the side pieces. The easiest way to do this is to press your raw edges in before sewing.
3. Sew your sides in. Be careful around those tricky corners! Repeat this step with your lining, but leaving a hole somewhere to flip your bag right-side-out through.
4. To attach lining: Place your right-side-out, fully assembled bag inside your inside-out lining and sew the top edges together.
5. Pull your bag through the hole you left in the lining and close up the hole with a topstitch. Push your lining its proper place inside your bag. Press and topstitch the top edge of your bag.

Beautiful, isn't it?