Things I Made in 2014

We're only halfway through January, so it's not too late to do a 2014 review post right?

Right.

Crafts are split up into the following categories (click to jump to that section):

Personal Projects
Costumes
Gifts

I craft a variety of different things for different purposes, but let's start with the one that took me the longest.

Personal Projects:

Tardis Blanket:

Pattern: Blue Police Box Pattern from Ravelry by Sandra Petit

Materials: So many skeins of blue yarn. So. Many. If I had to guess, I'd say 8, maybe more.
1 skein of white yarn (for box and lantern)
1 skein of gray yarn (for windows)
2 skeins of black yarn (for outlines)

Time: 2 years, off and on. (Started November 4, 2012, finished May 18, 2014)

Measuring over six feet tall, I started this way back in November of 2012 and crocheted it off and on ever since. It was my fist big crochet project and established my habit of needing something to work on while watching tv. I might still embroider 'Police Box' and the 'Pull to Open' sign, but I consider it pretty much done.

The finished product!

Book Tree:

Pattern: How to Make a Christmas Tree Out of Your Favorite Books by SamanthaHaeli

Materials: I used a lot of books, so it really depends on how tall you want it. I think I used about 100-150 books and mine was about five feet tall.

Time: 2.5 hours.

We wanted a tree for the Christmas season, but since we were going to be gone, and our cat was going to be by herself, we needed a tree that didn't require watering and that Pepper couldn't knock over.

Voila! The most geeky solution!

Bonus points for adding geeky ornaments!

Costumes:

Steampunk Fem!Indiana Jones:

Pattern: Duct tape whip tutorial from Skip to My Lou

Materials: All thrifted items; Hat, jacket, two brown skirts, my Frankenshirt, whip made of brown duct tape braided over a jump rope, leather bag, plus goggles!

Time: As long as it took to find all the items at thrift stores and con my friend Carissa into braiding the whip for me

Made for the first day of AnomalyCon 2014, I had a lot of fun putting this outfit together.

Steampunk Tinkerbell:

Pattern: Simplicity 1819 for the skirt

Materials: Corset from Corset-Story, 5 yards of green satin for the skirt, 2 yards of bronze contrast fabric, thrifted shirt, belt, boots, and homemade flight pack!

Time: 2 months

My main costume for AnomalyCon 2014 (hosted at the end of March), I started this costume in the beginning of February, although I had been keeping my eye out for steampunk items at thrift stores for quite a while. I made my own wings and flight pack, and collected things to hang on my belt (tinker's tools, a genie's lamp, a spyglass, etc). One of my favorite steampunk outfits. Read the full tutorial here.

 

 Photo Credit for the good pictures goes to tofuSnow Photography

Steampunk Riker:

Pattern: Simplicity 2333 (Mad Hatter, Captian Hook jacket), inspired by citizenkanev on Deviantart

Materials: 4 yards of red wool, 1 yard of black wool

Time: 1 month

Made for Jim to wear for AnomalyCon 2014, I saw citizenkanev's amazing costume on Deviantart and convinced Jim to come with me if I made it for him. I learned a lot about construction and using a muslin, and how evil sleeves are during this project, but enjoyed creating this all the same. You can read the full tutorial here.

   

Pictures from JimtheCactus on Flickr

Eowyn (Lord of the Rings):

Pattern: Simplicity 4940

Material: 7 3/4 yrds of white crepe suiting, 7/8 yrd of brown suede

Time: 4 weeks, more or less

One of my favorite characters from Lord of the Rings, I decided to make Eowyn's iconic dress for the 2014 Denver Comic Con in June. You can read the full tutorial here. I also got to wear it again for a post-Christmas photo shoot with my two nerdiest friends!

Beautiful pictures by Bruce Jenkins Photography

Rose Tyler (Doctor Who):

Pattern: None

Materials: Thrifted blue jacket, shirt, pants, and boots. Nerf Longshot borrowed from my brother Luke and painted by my friend Ian.

Time: However long it took me to find the blue bomber jacket at a thrift store. All the other pieces came together pretty quickly.

Rose Tyler is my favorite companion from Doctor Who, and I knew that I had to dress up as her for the 2014 Denver Comic Con. I must say, I felt pretty awesome! Full costume write up here.

Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish (Game of Thrones):

Pattern: Simplicity 5386 (Matrix Coat pattern, can also use Butterick 6844)

Materials: 5 yards of a jaquard-like fabric, 1 yard of a heavy woven fabric

Time: 3 weeks

A friend of mine commissioned me to make him a Littlefinger costume for a Game of Thrones party we were going to on Halloween. You can read the full costume tutorial here.

Jon Snow (Game of Thrones):

Pattern: None

Materials: Thrifted faux fur sewn on to a robe that was remade into a cape, with a cut up belt going across the chest.

Time: 1 day

Made for the same Game of Thrones party as the Petyr Baelish costume, this was much more haphazard simply done. Jim wore his dwarven shirt (minus the chainmail), and I wore a borrowed Daenerys dress. Overall, I think we look pretty good!

Galadriel (Lord of the Rings):

Pattern: Simplicity 1551

Materials: 3 3/4 yards of white satin, and lots of thrifted sheer fabric (5 yards-ish?)

Time: 2 weeks

Made for our Christmas Lord of the Rings photoshoot for my friend Melaine, I bought a lot of the sheer fabric that hangs behind curtains from thrift stores for $2 a pair, then bought 3.5 yards of white satin and realized it was just short of how much I needed. Nevertheless, I made it work, and I must say it turned out amazing for the amount of time I had! (Mostly due to the fact that Melaine is basically an elf already)

Beautiful pictures by Bruce Jenkins Photography

Gifts:

Fleece Football Pillow:

Pattern: Sporty Pillows from Parents.com

Materials: 1/2 yd of brown fleece, white shoelace

Time: 3 hours

Made for my friend's son's first birthday, I go to experiment with my embroidery machine for the first time! On a related note; always use stabilizer when trying to embroider fleece, or else it will chew right through it. Also, don't bother downloading the template from the website. Just cut out approximate football shapes, measure how long you'd like the laces to be, then make holes where it starts and ends.

Crochet Mr. and Mrs. Octopi:

Pattern: Octopode Pandemonium! from PepperKitty on Craftster

Materials: Less than 1 skein for each color

Time: 3 hours each

Made for a friend's baby shower, I knew they were decorating their baby girl's room in pink and brown, so I decided to make a pair of octopi! Mr. Octopus has a blue bowtie hot-glued to the front, and Mrs. Octopus has a matching hairbow.

Hobbit Meal Clock:

Pattern: Hobbit Clock on Imgur

Materials: $5 Clock from Target, gold leaf pen, Map of the Shire, Aniron Font

Time: 4 hours (it took me a while to realize the face of the clock was attached with two prongs on the top and bottom and to pop it off)

A Christmas gift for my friend Amanda who loves making delicious food. Now, it's always mealtime! (Click here if you'd like to see Pippin recounting the different meals Hobbits observe.)

Baby Groot:

Pattern: A modified version of this stencil from MyRecipes.com

Materials: 1/3 yrd tan fleece, scraps of white fleece for the flowerpot, brown fleece for the 'dirt', green felt for the leaves, plus wire and safety eyes.

Time: 2 days

This was one of my favorite projects, mostly because it's first posable plushie I have ever created, plus when Groot posed next to the Hobbit Meal Clock, my heart nearly exploded with geeky happiness. If you'd like to create your own baby Groot, see the full tutorial here.

TARDIS Baby Blanket:

Pattern: A modified version of Blue Police Box Pattern from Ravelry by Sandra Petit

Materials: 2 skeins of blue, 1 skein of black, less than one skein of white yarn

Time: Around 6 months, off and on

Once I heard that some good friends of mine were having a baby girl named Clara, I knew that the baby needed her own Tardis blanket, until the Doctor could come sweep her away. I was so familiar with Sandra's pattern that I really did this one from memory. I added a black background to make it wider, then embroidered Clara's name on the top left corner.

Ellie-Saurus:

Pattern: T-Rex Softie Tutorial and Pattern by Made by Enginerds

Materials: 1/4 yd argyle fabric, scrap of minky fabric, ric rac, and safety eyes

Time: 5-6 hours

Made for a good friend's daughter's first birthday, I was inspired when Ellie kept roaring at things, and quickly realized she needed her own Ellie-saurus to play with. I modified the pattern slightly to move the arms on the sides of the belly, instead of up by the neck, and used safety eyes for a more complete look.

 

Commander Riker of the Steamship Enterprise

Welcome to my costume walkthrough for steampunk Commander Riker, of the Steamship Enterprise! I wanted to create a Victorian-era naval jacket version of Commander Riker's uniform from Star Trek for a convention we were going to. This was my first attempt at a jacket, and I learned that the only thing you need to say to bond with other crafters is "SLEEVES ARE EVIL!". I put around 30 hours of work into this, so I was pleased as punch when it looked as good as it did.

So, this jacket was inspired by the amazing work of citizenkaneV on Deviantart, also known as Steven J. Connell, pictured below. 

Look how inspiring he is!

Jim was hesitant to come to AnomalyCon with me, but when I told him he could go as a steampunk version of Commander William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation, in this jacket, he suddenly became very agreeable.

C'mon, how you not want to be this guy? He exudes cool.

So I contacted Steven and asked him how he made such an awesome jacket. He kindly told me that he used a combination of Simplicity 2333 and Butterick 3648 (which is currently out of print) to make his jacket. I only used Simplicity 2333, but it still turned out just fine.

This was a big learning experience for me, and since I wanted it to look right, I decided to make a muslin. A muslin is the fancy term for a practice project, traditionally made out of muslin, but I made mine out of a large bedsheet from my local thrift store. This way I knew how to sew everything together, and what the end result would look like.

I labeled each piece, so I would know which pattern pieces I would need to change, and made notes where needed. For instance, I ended up not using pattern piece #9, which is the two front bottom panels. I also wanted a muslin so I could figure out how to cut pieces for the yoke.

The 'yoke' refers to a garment piece that sits on the shoulders and around the neck. For the Star Trek TNG uniform, it's the black top part. For the amount of die-hard Trekkies out there, it is incredibly hard to find what the exact measurements of the yoke are. After much searching, I came up with 5" from the back of the neck down, and then 4.5" from the shoulder seam onto the sleeve. 

After trying it on Jim, I decided to go with 5.5" on the front. I took all the pieces apart and cut along the line I drew. Since I knew the likelihood of me forgetting that there was no seam allowance on the parts I cut, I taped a 5/8" piece to the yoke patterns.

For fabric, I bought between 3.5 and 4 yards of red wool, and 1 yard of black wool. I had plenty of red and barely enough black, so take that as you will.

It's like fabric tetris!

In order to keep the fabric from wrinkling, I sewed using a 3/8ths seam allowance in one way, and then 5/8ths the other.

After sewing the pieces together, I ironed it out and attached the facing, which helped smooth out the remaining wrinkles.

The interesting part was trying to get the lines to match up just right. I knew I'd be covering it with a braided trim later, but it was the principle of thing, darn it!

After sewing the front and back together, I made the collar, and added the black braid about a 1/8th from the edge, and then attached it to the neck piece.

Then came the interesting part. Sleeves. *DUN DUN DUNNNNN*

I decided to topstitch the sleeve yoke on, that way I could adjust it if it didn't fit perfectly. And what do you know, it didn't.

After trying several methods, the most effective one seemed to be basting (sewing with the longest stitch) the sleeve first, then pin on the triangle. Once the edges are lined up to satisfaction, I seam ripped the top of the sleeve, topstitched the yoke, then reattached the sleeve.

It turned out alright, if I do say so myself! Only semi-noticeable, which given the insidious nature of sleeves in general, I took as a win.

 I then pinned the braid along where the two colors met, pinched and folded the point so it would be a continuous line, and was fairly pleased at how professional it looked!

Now that the sleeves had been conquered, I added the front facing of black wool to the lining, and took it one step closer to completion!

Once the lining was in, I added black braid to the folded back edges in the front, then started working on the cuffs. I had done quite a bit of research into what jackets commanders in the Royal Navy wore around the 1850's, mostly by visiting the Royal Maritime Museum website.

    

Uniform of a Sub-Lieutenant from 1861 on Left, 1867 Commander's Uniform on Right.

If you notice from above, the double row of buttons was standard, and the type of button, along with the number of stripes on the cuff, denoted rank. I unfortunately didn't have time to add the strips on Jim's cuffs, but that's a project for the future.

Just you wait... I will add your stripes, see if I don't!

One thing I did make sure to do was use period-accurate buttons. Different officers used different buttons depending on rank and what military they belonged to. The Royal Navy Captain and Commander's button was a fouled anchor (anchor with a rope going through it) with a crown above it. 

After some thorough searches, I found some on eBay for a fair price. There were 24 of them, which worked out well, since I wasn't sure how many I was going to use in the double row in front (I guessed between 5 and 8), plus I needed two buttons for above the coat tails, and two more for the collar. I was also thinking of adding three to each cuff, but they looked better without. I might add them on later as well.

If I had to do it over again, I would have added several more inches to the front bodice. I only had about a five inch overlap, and thus could only space my buttons about 3 inches apart.

 

Jim looked pretty pleased, though.

After sewing on the buttons to the collar and the tails, we placed the Star Trek command pips and communicator. and we were all finished!

Don't we make such an adorkable couple?

   

Pictures from JimtheCactus on Flickr

We had a great time at AnomalyCon, and Jim won second place in the Division 2 of the Costume Contest! Yay!

Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments or questions, feel free to comment below!