Hairy Otter?

Meet Hairy Otter.

“Hello Hairy Otter,” says Cordelia.

“Hello Cordelia,” says Hairy Otter

“Hairy Otter?” you ask?

“Don’t you mean Harry Potter?”

Nope, Hairy Otter is proof that the Atlanta Aquarium might actually have a sense of humor.

 I picked up this shirt this summer when I went to Atlanta to attend the American Sewing Guild conference.

 

Also, if you didn’t know--and if you didn’t know this I may have to disown you-- the new Harry Potter movie came out today which is why Cordelia is wearing the shirt.  She put it on in hopes that I would take her to the midnight showing with me.

Poor girl got all dressed up and everything.  She even put on my new tie died silk scarf.

Wait! 

That's my scarf! 

Give it back! 

I didn’t know how to break it to her I wasn’t going to take her. I mean movie tickets are like $10.50! I don’t like the girl THAT much. Plus she has an annoying tendency to talk all the way through movies.

Well even though Cordelia didn’t get to go to the movie Miko and I went and it was a blast. I mean, I ate my weight in salt water taffy, and how can that not be a good time.  Ignoring the fact my tummy still hurts.

The best part of the evening may very well be when a large group showed up dressed as Star Wars characters.

That's right they went to Harry Potter dressed as Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, the guy with the red and black face and many many more.

Um what movie is this? Someone was confused and for once it wasn’t me!

Happy Hairy Ottering

Er, Um I mean Harry Pottering

~Melisa & Cordelia



Kids Story time PJ Class

The other day I taught a class on how to make kids PJ’s using this Oliver + S pattern.

The pajamas look something like this when they are all made up.

Some incredible talented students showed up for the class and they made pajamas that look like this!

Look at her clever idea to use a button instead of ties to keep the kimono style top closed. 

Brilliant!

I Love love love the contrast she used for the waistband and collar!

Cute! 

One lucky little guy gets to wear these!

 

Happy PJ wearing

~Melisa & Cordelia

Pleatanator Clutch

First I would like to start by saying I had dinner at Sadie’s aka Albuquerque’s best Mexican food establishment.

Which means I drank a margarita—a very good margarita cause the Papa Hart was buying and he has good taste in tequila. I’m just letting you know this so that if you find any typos or misspellings you will understand it is the margarita, not my own lack of spelling or grammar skills. And also so you will understand how dedicated I am to you, my fabulous readers. I could have come home and snuggled right down into my comfy bed, but instead I’m writing this so you will have something new to read tomorrow when you get board at work. You should not have to suffer cause I’m a light weight and can barely handle a single margarita.

And I just know that a whole day without Cordeila is pure agony.

Er um, I think this post serves a purpose other than a margarita infused rant.

Oh, right, I was going to show you Twila’s clutch I made to match her new dress.

But first I added a surface design to the clutch. Can you guess what it is?

That’s right, I pleated it!

 How’d you know?!?!

Was it cause I pleat EVERYTHING?

Is it time for me to move on?

Time to find a new surface technique to have a love affair with?

 But what could take the place of pleats?

Pin-tucks?

Embroidery?

Beading?

 Smocking?

 Origami?

 Claymation?

OK OK. Here’s the clutch.

 

Look at all those pleats.

That’s why they seriously do call me the Pleatanator.

 

I wanted to pleat the entire back too but I didn’t have enough fabric. Stupid pleats and their fabric consuming quality. So instead I just added a few in the center and pretended I intended to do that all along.

Shhh don’t tell Twila. She’ll never know if you keep my secret.

Unless of course she reads about it here.  Which is entirely possible as she  she happens to be one of my three readers.

Oops.

 Dear Twila,

If you happen to be reading this, kindly ignore anything I may or may not say about your bag being flawed. It is completely, totally, 100% as I planned it to be.

That is all,

Xoxo,

~Melisa & Cordelia

T-Time

In case you have been living under a rock and haven’t noticed, embellished t-shirts are ridiculously popular this season, and for good reason---cause they’re cute!

I, however, refuse to spend $1.94628 million for a designer J Crew or Ann Taylor t-shirt so I decided to make some of my own.

I started by going to Target and purchasing a cheep solid color shirt and    pre-washed it.

Next I used a variety of fabric scraps to cut rough floral shapes in 3 sizes.

 

I layered the shapes to build flowers.

After arranging the flowers on the t-shirt in a pleasing pattern, I used a hand needle and beads to sew the flowers to the shirt.

And then Dun dun dun.

I had an embellished t that looked something like this:

 

Don't worry.  Oadie has been taking his role at Hart Designs very seriously and helped.

By using my pin cushion as a pillow.

 You comfy?

He was.

Weirdo.

We had so much fun making the first t that I decided to make a second which ended up like this:

Cordelia doesn't get to try it on until she gives the first one back.  Greedy little shirt stealer.

Happy Embellishing

~Melisa & Cordelia

Hippy Chick the Second

So yesterday I connected with my inner hippy as I took a tie dye class from Mama at Mama’s Tie Dye. Check her out, she is a lot of fun and she does tie die parties. I know what I’m doing for my next birthday party!

Mama's Tie Dyes

Sadly I had to wait 24 hours for the dye to simmer and set before I could wash my creations and see the wonderful designs. After they were properly seasoned, I threw my garments in the washing machine, saran wrap, rubber bands and all and ran a normal wash.

After waiting a tedious 50 minutes for the wash to run it’s cycle I was able to pull the pieces out and finally see the results.

They were:

...Wait...

... for...

... it...

Fabulouoso!!!

Are you ready to see?

 

The scarf has a wonderful diagonal design. I didn’t expect it to be quite so pink, but I love it anyways!

And here is the shirt.

 

Bonita!!

I didn't expect to see any white caue I thaught I over did it on the die, but there you go.

Cordelia loves it and threatens to never take it off. 

 I don’t know if that works for me cause I’m going to have to rock my new shirt!

Happy Hippyfiying

~Melisa & Cordelia

HippyLishious

Today I communed with my inner Dead Head and took a tie die class.

It was a lot of fun because we had fabulous instructors and a great group of ladies.

 I left Cordelia at home cause I figured she would insist we try to die her, and somehow I suspect it will be counter productive to have a tie died dressform.

I brought Miko with me because it’s more fun to take classes when you have a buddy and this way I have someone to have a Tie Die Smack Down competition with. I’m sooooooo going to beat her out.

We both started with a plain white baby doll t.

 

Then we folded our shirts up.  We both chose to do a traditional spiral design which means we twisted the shirts up in a spiral.  Apparently I am a natural tie die folder and I was even offered a job due to my talent. 

See Miko, I totally have this competition in the bag!

My spiraled shirt.

Miko's spiraled shirt.

After Folding and rubber banding the shirts, you pour the die on top.

The instructor filled bottles with die so we could easily pour it on the shirts.

This is how the work station looked at the begging of class,

 

And this is how it looked after Miko went through. Baaaad Miko.

To die a spiral, you divide the rolled shirt into pizza slices and fill each slice with a different color of die. Miko went for a subtler effect and alternated each slice between purple and green on one side and a solid teal on the flip side.  I went for something a little busier and used pink, purple, green and teal.  I admit, Miko may actually beat me in the color choosing category.  Plus she was way more meticulous when applying the die than I was. I ended up with a bunch of purple in my pink sections, so we shall see how that comes out.

After dying the shirts, we wrapped them in saran wrap, threw them in a plastic zip lock bag and took them home.

 

Except Miko and I were having so much fun we both chose to die a silk scarf too.

For my scarf, I attempted diagonal lines and Miko went for straight lines.

So how did the shirts turn out?

Who won the design contest?

I don’t know yet.

 We have to let them sit for 24 hours before we get to see the results.

 Ahh the agony!

I want to see it now!

Happy Hippy Communing

~Melisa & Cordelia

How'd that Happen?

See this shoe?

My left, brown, polka dot flat shoe.

Aka half of one of my top 7 favorite pairs of shoes.

Well he’s been missing.

Since Sunday.

It’s been tragic. I’ve wanted to wear this shoe just about every day since his disappearance.

I looked everywhere for this shoe. I mean everywhere. I even dumped everything out of my dirty laundry basket thinking it had somehow gotten mixed up there. I tore up my entire house looking for it. And then I cleaned it all up hoping that would help. It didn’t. This shoe was still missing. I had given it up as lost forever. I figured I had a little house elf who took it and I was all ready to have a funeral to mourn his loss.

 

And then last night I was snuggling down in bed.

And I adjusted my pillow. 

 And I felt something a little hard under it. 

 And I thought to myself, “what could that be?”

So I pulled it out.

It was my left, brown polka dot flat shoe.

Apparently I’d been sleeping on it for 3 nights.

$10 to the first person who can explain how that happened.

I’m at a complete and total loss. Perhaps I have taken up sleep walking? Cordelia wanted to play a trick on me? Tilly has started stealing shoes as well as tape measures only it was too heavy to drag to her mysterious hiding place? I have a mischievous ghost?

 I think I shall call the nice people at Unsolved Mysteries.

Except they quit making that show about 18 years ago. Which is a serious shame cause it’s one of my favorite shows. Seriously, I watch it everyday as I sew. It’s extremely reassuring to know they helped catch some of the bad guys. It’s also extremely nerving to know that all the bad guys have already finished up their sentences and have returned to the real world cause the show is so outdated. I guess you can't win all the time. But I won this time cause my beloved shoe has found his way back to me!

Happy Mystery solving

~Melisa & Cordelia