Bleach stenciling: it actually works!

Sorry I have not posted for a few weeks. But today/tonight I have a special post!

Recently I discovered the joy of bleach stenciling and have finally figured out my own technique!

My brother is, as all unique individuals, extremely difficult when it comes to making him a present for Christmas. However! He has an obsession with Kurt Vonnegut. So I bring your attention toooooo:
And that's just the close up of the image! When I took the stencil off of the shirt and checked out the bleach, I was amazed. Simply amazed. The mustache, the glasses frames...it came out perfect!

My brother had mentioned yesterday during dinner that he really wanted a Kurt Vonnegut shirt. My fiance nudged me repeatedly under the table. He wore the shirt today. I am pleased. And want to make more stencils now.

Han Solo Belt: research & materials

I finally borrowed someone's camera, and so it's here! The first Han Solo Belt entry, as promised!

As I think I mentioned before, Alex is helping me with this project. More than just a little, it's pretty much a joint project at this point.

The first step in the process was research. I stared at photos of Han Solo Belts for hours before I even called Alex up. He sat with me while I fast-forwarded through A New Hope, trying to get screenshots of Han facing away, so we could see the back of the belt. Yeah, it was pretty intense.

I finally found a few informative source photos that I decided to go with.

This is one of my favorites.

The strength of this photo is that you get to see the whole layout of the main belt section, and it's continuous. It's a replica, but I'm finding more and more that the replicas out there are very trustworthy. As it turns out, most crafters are as obsessed with accuracy as I am!

I also have some photos of the actual prop from the films:



I found these at the amazing Original Prop Blog, which is a phenomenal resource that I've barely begun to use yet. There's so much material to read, and I have so little time!

Okay so down to the materials. Alex had me drive way out to the leather-working shop where he gets all his supplies. It's called Russell Farms (it would appear they don't have a website). The hilarious thing about this place is that they're a farm. They process people's deer meat. They sell leather and leather-working supplies, but their usual clientele is hunters. Alex loves this place. But he is not their usual clientele. Observe:

You would be forgiven for thinking he only dresses this way SOME of the time. But you would also be wrong.

So, with the help of the very friendly lady who works there, we were able to buy the leather we need for the belt.

A strap for the main belt, a large piece of scrap leather for the holster, and some medium-brown leather dye.

Here is the scrap leather, with my foot for size reference.

There was some controversy as to whether the holster is one piece or two. If it's one continuous piece, this scrap leather - despite being the largest piece they had - wouldn't be big enough. But, Val brought a few photos of various replicas to my attention. Here's a good one:

(projecthro.com)

See the rivets across the top of the part where the blaster sits? It's a separate piece of leather. It's still large, though, so it's going to be a squeeze. I think we need to go back and get another piece of scrap for the pockets on the main belt, so that this large piece can be used entirely for the holster.

So, there you have it! Of course, all of my crafting is on hold over the holiday. I don't anticipate having anything new for you next week. I'll be far too busy this weekend catching up with family, and spending every spare moment getting my January applications together and ready to submit.

Everyone have a lovely holiday, and we'll be back late next week!

British Scarves

Ok, so my thinly veiled hint earlier turned out to be a boldfaced lie. I need to find a decent camera and/or a person to take photos before I can do my Shman Shmolo Shmelt entry. Luckily, I have some other crafting news to hold you over until then!

I have two projects coming up that have 2 things in common: they're both scarves, and they're both about series' that were started in England. I guess the British just know what they're doing when it comes to sci fi/fantasy knitting projects.

I'm speaking, of course, about Harry Potter and Doctor Who.

Really my Harry Potter announcement is more of a quick note. I'm going to get the ol' crimson-and-yellow yarn out again and try to fill the shop with the ever popular Harry Potter scarves. What I would like to know from you is, what do you want to see? Which house colors do you prefer? Are there other knitted items you'd like to have in the house colors? Perhaps some Slytherin Socks?

I have to say, I absolutely love Gini's hats. I love that the colors are quieter than my scarves. It's like her hats are for the more reserved HP fan, whereas my scarves are more the shout-it-from-rooftops variety.


So, leave a comment on this entry and tell us what HP gear you'd like us to make for you!

In other iconic-scarves-inspired-by-British-fiction news, I recently happened upon a couple of wonderful websites dedicated to the accurate recreation of the Doctor Who scarf, worn by Tom Baker.

As it turns out, there are a few different versions of the scarf (essentially one for each season of the show when Tom Baker was on), and various patterns floating around the internet for each one. The lovely ladies at the websites I found have done some phenomenal research and provide resources for making your own Doctor Who scarf, including color matching for selecting good yarns, several patterns, and tutorials to help with the knitting techniques used in the patterns.

I'm going to keep digging, familiarize myself with the patterns, and then go on the epic search for yarn. I hope to make myself a Doctor Who scarf, so I can wear it to conventions and post it as a commissionable item in the Etsy shop. This is no small project, it should take some time. But It's exciting because knitting is a craft I'm already familiar with, so I feel I can tackle something of this scale with confidence.

Guys, this scarf is enormous. This is going to be awesome. I'll definitely keep you updated on the progress of this project.

In the meantime, check out those websites, and as long as I've got you commenting on this entry, vote on your favorite scarf. Which season do you like best? I haven't picked which one I'm going to knit yet.

In The Meantime

Hi guys! I've got a few great entries lined up for you, but first I just wanted to call your attention to an amazing giveaway on one of my favorite blogs, Daddy Likey.

I mentioned Winona in an entry a while back, and I just want to re-iterate how awesome this woman is. She's hilarious, her blog is fantastically fun, informative and down-to-earth, and of course she's putting on this ridiculously awesome giveaway to promote her new book.

If you're a sneaky, clever reader, you'll realize that one of the ways to get an extra entry into the drawing is to blog about it. So yes, I am totally pimping out NT for a hot minute here. But I promise you, I have wonderful news later today pertaining to an exciting craft that may rhyme with Shman Shmolo Shmelt...

Stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, head over to Daddy Likey to check out the giveaway!

Bento Boxes

I haven't had much time lately for official crafting, but I did take a minute this weekend to treat myself to a hobby I haven't indulged in in a while: making bento boxes.

Brandon was in town for the weekend, and I like to pack him a lunch for Monday at work when he's in town. I decided to throw together some traditional bento recipes, with a bit of a twist.

You may remember my spicy carrot salad recipe from back at my old craft blog (the imported entry is here.) It's one of my favorite bento staples. It's very salty and spicy, so it adds a bit of zing to a mostly-white-rice bento.

I was out of sesame seeds this time, so I didn't add any. But it was still yummy.

Then I tried a couple new things. Firstly, I have some homemade cole slaw in the house, which is new. Brandon showed me how to make it, it's way easier than I thought. In any case, I usually use yogurt as a creamy balance to all the salty soy sauce-based dressings I make. But I found this time that cole slaw works wonderfully!

Lastly, I wanted something with a bit of tang. Brandon doesn't like plain hard boiled eggs, so I knew I had to marinate them in something, so I used red wine vinegar. It gave the egg a lovely pink color, which contrasted beautifully with the yolk once the egg was cracked open. However, I don't think I marinated them long enough. Lessons for next time.

Here is the completed bento!

So, there's green peas for nutrition and color. And that's rice seasoning on the rice for flavor and color. And some chocolate gold coins for Channukah in the corner.

It turned out really well. I loved the balance of colors and flavors. I just need to do it again, fix my mistakes from this time, and make it PRETTY! I'll post a photo when I have a more professional version of this bento.

Back to crafting soon, I promise!

Jayne Cobb Hat

I made this hat that looks like the one Jayne Cobb received from his mother in the show Firefly. It was for Kittie for her birthday last January, but I only just finished it today.

It is knit with Lion Brand Vanna's Choice yarn and size 10.5 needles.

Apologies

Hey guys! I know it's been a while. It's been busy around here with the holidays and preparing for Gini to move in, and honestly I haven't gotten ANY crafting done for a while.

I just wanted to pop in and let you know that we're not dead, we will have new projects for you soon, and also, Happy Channukah!

Bundle up, it's cold out there! We'll be back in a bit with more geeky crafts. ^_^

Harry Potter hats

Hello! I haven't been blogging or crafting for awhile, due to school. But I just made these cool beanies in Harry Potter house colours, and I'm itching to show them off.


Here is William modeling the Slytherin Hat:


And me looking smart in the Ravenclaw hat:


Here are the hats themselves:


Gryffindor and Hufflepuff coming soon!

Second scale skirt!

So after seeing the first skirt I made another friend decided to commission one for herself.
I finished it a while ago, and finally gave it to her last night.

Back view:


A closeup:


A closeup of the choker:



The skirt is made from large aluminum-clad steel scales, with black steel for the trim. There were a few stylist changes, in order to differentiate it from the other skirt; smaller and more frequent petals, no belt, different metals, etc.
There are about 1500 scales total in the skirt. It's all held together with butted rings.
The choker was made from scales I had leftover when I finished the skirt, and was sort of a surprise gift. She had mentioned that she liked the idea of a scale choker, and it seemed appropriate.

Valerie: Zelda Quilt!

Alright, big news (for me) today!

I've been working on this project since our NimbleToad business meeting a few weeks ago, and I learned a ton along the way. One of the things that we focused on was finding something geeky that we're passionate about and creating related merchandise.

So, this is my first geek-inspired project.

The Legend of Zelda was my first video game love, and nothing has ever quite come close. I watched my (much older) brothers play the original game when I was young, and Ocarina of Time was the first game that I ever beat on my own, and one of the only games that I've played through more than once. Since then I've played almost the entire series and it still never gets old.

The wheels started turning, and I looked over my huge bookmarked list of 'I'll try these eventually' projects and came across this one: Modern Organic Fabrics: 3-2-1 Throw. The design was simple enough that I thought it wouldn't be too hard to spice it up with applique.

I'm going to be brave and show you my rough Paint brainstorm:



















I made the basic design and then spent a long time browsing Google and zeldawiki.org for items from the games to use, copying and pasting and changing the background colors. I originally thought that I would use items from Ocarina of Time, but I wanted to open up and use items that appeared in more games. Then I dug through my fabric stash to find out what colors and fabrics I actually had, and things changed just a little bit. I settled on three Triforce pieces, a heart container, a bottle, and the magic sword (from the original game, but it's a good representation of the Master Sword).

I drew the shapes by hand and then taught myself hand-applique to attach them to the blocks. I found hand-applique (using the needleturn method, good tutorial here and here) to be really relaxing, and I loved the near-invisible results.

So ... without further ado the finished result:



The back is a cheery yellow.



And the quilt is perfectly lap sized!



(Excuse the poor picture quality, it was dreary today!)

It took me probably 20 - 30 hours of work, but it should go much faster next time because I thought ahead and made stencils of the appliqued pieces, so I don't have to start from scratch n_n I'm so pleased with how it came out, and there are definitely many more in the future!

Edit: Now up for sale in the Etsy shop!

Personal News and a bit of Crafting

Hello again! I'm sorry I didn't do the Wednesday update last week. I'm glad to see Alex had plenty of crafting news to make up for it. The explanation for my hectic week is pretty simple, Brandon got a job in Ann Arbor and we moved him into an apartment out there. Also, my brother Max passed the bar and I drove home to attend his court ceremony! Everyone is moving forward, it's an exciting time all around.

After Brandon moved out, I wasn't quite sure if he brought his camera with him or left it behind, and now I can't find it. So, this week's photos were taken with my cell phone. I apologize for the poor quality.

My next big project is Gini's graduation announcement cards. She asked for a big "W" for Western Michigan, and something to show that she's a biology major. She's into plants, botany is kind of her thing. So I chose vines.

This is the sketch I did on trace paper

Wow. These photos are worse than I thought. I need to find that camera. Sorry guys.

Here is the linoleum all inked up, ready to be carved.

I may change the placement and size of the leaves as I go, some of them are a bit off. But other than that, I just gotta chug away and get it done. I'm really happy with how it has turned out so far.

Another big project I've got going right now is cleaning out the spare bedroom in my apartment, because there is a possibility that after graduation next month, Gini might be moving in with me! It will be nice to have someone else around, now that Brandon is gone. It's pretty quiet around here.

The first step in cleaning the house was getting my vintage hats up on the wall, and out of the way. Every time I moved stuff, they were getting crushed. Plus I just love how they look on the wall all together.

Again, sorry for the photo quality.

After I get Gini's graduation announcements printed and my apartment cleaned, I can focus on the next big step for Nimble Toad, which is Marmalade Dog 15 here at WMU. We had a company meeting a while back, and we all agreed that this is a big milestone for us, so we're each trying to move our crafts and inventories more in the direction of cosplay and gaming genres.

My big decision on this front is how much I'm going to continue with block prints and knitting, and how much time I want to dedicate to learning other, more useful crafts. By more useful, I mean more relevant to - what else? - my favorite geeky genre, Star Wars. After giving a small pep talk to the group about finding a genre, a product, or a craft that they can do constantly and never tire of, I had an epiphany. That genre for me is Star Wars.

So I've decided to take a crack at prop replicas. My first project is Han Solo's belt. Alex is just lately getting into leather working, so he said he would help me with this project. We met for a while yesterday to look at source photos and come up with a game plan.

It's a surprisingly complex item, but essential to any Han Solo costume.

I think this is a great item to offer, because the rest of the costume (excluding the blaster, of course) is relatively easy to make yourself, but not everyone can just whip up a leather belt, and serious cosplayers will want to avoid pleather or other less realistic alternatives.

I really hope this project works out. It's opened up a whole new world for me in crafting. I'm very excited to dive into star wars props, and I'm definitely glad to have Alex by my side while I'm doing this. He is just as obsessed with accuracy and durability as I am, which I think are qualities any cosplayer can appreciate.

I'll be sure to take 'in-progress' photos once we have materials. This is a big project for me, and I definitely want to document the process.

That's all for this week! I'll take photos once I start printing Gini's graduation announcements.

Gloves, gloves, gloves!

I've been on a glove-crafting spree lately.
To start with, I made two pairs of fingerless gloves, on slightly different designs:

Sorry about the weird image alignment.
Spiked fingerless gloves has a sort of timeless elegance, if you ask me. I got a bulk order of these gloves, so I've been playing around with different spike configurations (on the knuckles versus in between the knuckles). The gloves are available on etsy here and here.

I also made these, which were substantially more work:














I came into a set of cold weather motorcycle gloves, and I decided to modify each one on a slightly different design. I've nicknamed these "the Morningstars," due to the their resemblance to the sort of thing that would be bashing in the skulls of knights on a tenth century battlefield.
Pretty cool, right? Well, I felt that my own winter gloves were somewhat lacking in comparison by this point, so I made these:




























I've had the idea of doing scales on the outside, chain on the inside for a while, and I think it came together quite nicely.
At some point, I plan on adding no small amount of spikes to the backs of the hands, and maybe trying to forge some steel talons to go over the fingertips. It'll be no small amount of ridiculous, I assure you.

Quick Note

Hi! Yes, I know. Yesterday was Wednesday, and still no update. I'm sorry. This week is particularly hectic. I won't bore you with the details, but rest assured that I literally haven't been near my computer in over 48 hours.

I need to start working on sketches for Gini's graduation announcements, so I will post about that as soon as I have photos.

That is all! Bedtime!

cranking out the fun

Life as a fifth year college student is no joke. I just found out that I will be able to graduate in the spring (and then start the wonderful search for grad schools catering to German linguistics in between working on my wedding and saving money for the future so I can eat). Therefore most of the stuff I have been working on craft-wise has been for people I know.

First off are these lovely hats. The one on the left and the one in the middle are patterns from Rheatheylia.com. I absolutely love this website. The creator's patterns are so creative! The hat on the right is my own pattern. I made these for my cousins just for the simple reason that I love them and they're pretty cool.

I pumped out this hat in the car on the way to Youmacon a ocuple weekends ago. I was going to be cosplaying as Noodle from the Gorillaz (I'm a big fan of the artist who created them). I was trying to make Noodle's outfit from their Dirty Harry video.


Gini and I had a crochet/knit exchange back in September with a few friends. I ended up with her name and made her a Shroomish hat. Shroomish is one of those adorable, unpopular pokemon. I have plans to someday crochet an amigurumi Shroomish, but that will probably take place after exams.

Recently I decided to give sushi scarves a try. Sushi scarves are scarves that, when rolled up, look like sushi rolls. I searched high and low on Etsy for a california roll sushi scarf, but couldn't find one. This scarf is the first of hopefully many to come. It's going to be a Christmas present for a friend of mine, so shhhhhhh ~_^

Expect more interesting tidbits in a couple weeks as I work more on Christmas presents/birthday presents for people!

Company Meeting

Hello! I hope everyone is having a lovely Wednesday.

Today I have a few announcements. Unfortunately, this will be a text-heavy post, but I've asked the other members to do some photo-dump entries soon to make up for it. Alex and Kittie kindly volunteered.

Last week we had a meeting to discuss the company's future and to set some goals for the shop, and for our individual crafts. It was very successful, I think we set some exciting goals for Nimble Toad.

Firstly, I have a small announcement. Kelli is now a part-time member. She has a very hectic schedule at the moment, so this arrangement should be a much better fit. All this really means for you is that Kelli may not be as available for commission items, so be sure to leave lots of time and always message us ahead of time to find out when we are available to take commissions. This way there will be less pressure on Kelli, and she can craft on her own schedule.

So, the main purpose of our meeting - as I said - was to set goals. As we chatted about conventions, advertising, and merchandise, I put together a quick list.

I know, not a wonderful photo. Sorry.

First of all, know that this is by no means an exhaustive list. Secondly, notice how much blank space there is! That's room for more goals. ^_^

So, the first big company-wide goal is to have a booth at Marmalade Dog 2010, which is a small gaming convention here in Kalamazoo, at WMU. It's in late March.
Then, we hope to attend JFax and Youmacon, possibly the following year. We also discussed business cards, fliers, and advertising on other blogs.

These goals certainly set up a busy timetable for us, since we need to have a good inventory of geeky merchandise in order to attend these conventions. And of course, merchandise goals took up the rest of the conversation, as we each have goals for our individual portions of the shop. I won't bore you with the details right now, but you will definitely see more of this later.

The overall goal here is to change the shop's direction. At first we were just gaining our bearings, so we posted whatever crafts we had. But now we want to start focusing more heavily on cosplay and gaming-related items. Hopefully you'll notice the difference over the coming months!

Well, that's all for now. You've got some photo-dump entries to look forward to over the next few days!

Valerie: Facebook Halloween

Hey everyone,

I'm going to interrupt our normal posts with a handmade Halloween costume, because I'm just that proud of it.

About two weeks before Halloween, Mike and I decided to head up to a Halloween party in Michigan. Frantic brainstorming for costumes began, and Mike popped out the idea, "Let's go as Facebook and Twitter!" Awesome. Unfortunately, I ended up having to work, so I could go to the party, but I still managed to whip together a Facebook costume for Mike in one night. I don't have "in process" pictures, but it should be pretty simple to follow along anyway.





For the front, I chose to use the Facebook icon logo. I used a 12"x12" square of blue felt for the back, and white felt for the front. I drew the "f" by hand on a piece of card stock, using a ruler to get my lines straight and referring constantly to the computer to make sure I got the dimensions right. Then I cut out my cardstock "f" and traced around it on the felt using my disappearing ink marker (seriously, the best tool ever). Cut out the "f", pinned it, and then veerrryyy carefully sewed the two pieces together. I have a big problem with sewing curves, so I went very slowly. Then I pinned the whole icon down and carefully sewed it to the shirt.




For the arms I just used a ever-useful Sharpie and carefully copied down the "Information" column from Mike's profile (sorry for the covered information), and the side column from the main page. I tried to pay close attention to the details to make it more realistic.



The blue band at the top of the front and back is spray paint. I just taped off the lines I wanted and covered the rest of the shirt with newspaper. I should have been a little more careful taping down the newspaper in the front, because some of the paint got through, but it's not too noticeable.

The white text and "News Feed" were done with puffy paint straight from the bottle. I tried to use only a small amount so it would be more 'flat paint' than puffy paint. The rest is more sharpie. I sent Mike off with keychain sharpies so people at the party could write their own status updates. Mike says everyone loved it, and the shirt came back covered, so I must have done something right!

Have a great week,

Valerie