And the sewing continues

So I finished up my girlfriend's baby blanket.  Super satisfied with how it came out.  I used the fabric I designed on Spoonflower with the baby's name and an awesome striped minky fabric.  On my custom fabric I used an "Alice in Wonderland" font.  The bunny represents the chinese year of the rabbit.  I named the blanket Xavier's White Rabbit.  I also put quilting batting in the middle and darned about 8 places on the blanket so that the fabrics would stay together.

 Aside from my baby blanket, I finished up a tote bag that I was making in my sewing class.  I used a blue houndstooth canvas fabric and paired it with a brown duck cloth.  Came out nice and now I know how to line a bag...whoo hoo!

Who is Kei Vahns?




Kei Vahns is my alter ego.  (Check out Derek Blanks' Alter Ego Portfolio...love him)  I think every woman should have one for when she gets stuck in a rut, you know the times when you need that extra push to wash your hair after a long stressful day, the times when you've realized that your eyebrows has turned into caterpillars that are eating your face and you're in dire need of a recolor for your hair.  Kei Vahns is there to save me.  She sweeps in when I have no more energy to do anything.  She whispers in my ear, "you look like sh*t, do something about it."  She gives me the extra comfort to wear 5 inch heels all day long and the strength to not topple over in them.  She is the fashion in me.  She throws my reasoning against buying an overpriced bag or shoes out the door and says "just get them, you deserve it and you'll look fabulous with it".  Kei Vahns is my brand, a brand with no products, lol...yet.

In my heart, I've always loved fashion, designing, and creating.  I rocked in jewelry class in highschool and was featured in a gallery and people actually bought my stuff.  But the reasoning in my head told me that this was just a hobby, something to enjoy, not something to rely on to pay my bills.  I have to go to college, I have to be in business because working with money makes you money.  So I've done all that because that's what I was suppose to do.  I feel that along the way, I've lost touch of my creativity and the need to show the world what I can make with my own hands.  I've lived vicariously thru America's Next Top Model, Project Runway, Life in the Fab Lane, The Rachel Zoe Project, and Kell on Earth (People's Revolution) to just name a few, thinking how great these people were because they were in fashion and loving it.  I wasn't dreaming of being a model, I was dreaming of creation.

So I put my foot down and grabbed the reigns to my future and decided to learn how to sew (step 1, lol).  Thanks to Mikala Cash, I've been able to actually use a sewing machine and sew some things together.  I'm still a newbie but I'm a big dreamer so I'm going to run with that.

I Dream of Shoes

Is it weird that I have dreams of shoes?  My obsessive personality enhances my cravings for such things.  I saw a pair of Alexander McQueen's Faithful booties for Spring/Summer 2011 and I can't stop thinking about them now!  I love that little skull on the zipper!  Evelyn Lozada (Basketball Wives, Future Mrs. OchoCinco) is selling them in her store Dulce in Miami and online for $1,155.  Now all I need is about 1,925 ad clicks, lol.  C'mon people, my feet need fashion! I'm just kidding....slightly (I have to say I'm kidding because Google makes me, lol)

My Mary Poppins Bag...kawaii style

I have to give a shout out to Toni from TT Totes.  Before I entered my adventure into sewing, I was totally in need of a new bag.  My Dooney is like 5 years old and has seen better days.  I love bags but I have a tendency to never change my daily bag for fear of loosing stuff.  I use to change bags to coordinate with my outfits but then I would leave some of the things in another bag and blah blah.  So I just have one bag I use on the daily, all my stuff all in one place..done.

So I contacted Toni about a month ago when I finally decided on the "type" of bag I wanted.  I inquired about using different fabrics and she was super excited.  She literally recieved the last piece of fabric YESTERDAY (I had chosen the outside fabric for the bag from an Etsy shop in Taiwan so it took a while to get to the states).  She just informed me that my bag was complete. 

I friggin love this bag!  I can't wait to touch it!

Thanks Toni!!! 

VTQQM3KPU9SB

Maia's Doggie Collar

Maia is my Mini Bulldog. And yes, her nails are painted pink and purple in the pictures above.  I've been getting her a new collar every month to match the changing holiday decorations. When I change the kitchen towels and the window stickies, I change her collar too.  I consider her part of our seasonal decorations. So anyways I've been looking for an Easter/Spring collar for her and I can't find one that I like. The store bought ones are boring and as much as I love Etsy, I couldn't pull myself into buying one because I figured I could just make one.

I had gone to the fabric store yesterday afternoon to get some fabric, the buckle, and the D-ring for the collar. So when I got home, I made her a collar. An hour and a bunch of "time-outs" for my son later, the collar was complete. I didn't bother putting on the hardware to adjust the collar because I obviously know my dog's neck measurement, honestly though, I couldn't figure it out, lol. I was trying to hurry up and get it done before my husband got home. So unless Maia gains her weight around her neck, I think she will be alright.

Kei Vahns is now on Twitter

Last night, I was thinking of how pissed I am that Vampire Diaries had repeats for 3 weeks in a row. I feel like I should have been told so that I'm not let down at 8pm to find that I've already seen this episode, like a personal email or something of that sort. I've just seen a commercial that it will resume regular play on April 7th. I probably would have known this if I didn't cruise through the commercials on my DVR.

Regardless, since the show has been on, I've grown a fascination towards Damon otherwise known as Ian Somerhalder. I came across his tweets and instantly thought I have to follow him and read all his live feed like he's my best friend. So there you have it...Kei Vahns is now on Twitter because of my stalker tendencies. Now all I have to do is figure out how to actually use Twitter and how to get it on my phone. Help anyone?

On another note in regards to my tendencies, I've found that I have been IMDb'ing more often over the past year. I feel as if I am getting older than the actors that I am watching and I'm afraid I could be crossing over into Cougar Town. Watching the CW can be questionable at times. It's sad that I know this but the girls on the shows are usually the ones that are 18 to 25 years old. The guys are alright, usually starting at 28 years old and up. My little obsessions have remained with guys that are or have passed 30 years old but just play teenagers. SCORE! I'm not a creeper although even having to mention that is weird in itself. Whatever.

Piggy Bedspreads...what?

So my mom wants to get a guinea pig for my son so that he can have a pet because I guess the puppy we got him for christmas doesn't count. :-/ I'm not sure if it's a brib tactic for me to visit her more often or she's just a crazy lady, maybe a little of both.

Amongst the random Google searches my mother does online, she came across this thing called a Piggy Bedspread. (huh?) Yeah my thoughts exactly. Google it, I almost feel bad that I'm knocking this woman's creation so I won't link to it, but there's nothing against doing your own search for Piggy Bedspreads (type that exactly, it will be the first link in the search). So my mom called me to get my opinion on fabrics for this thing.

I was like wow mom, this is weird and these fabrics suck, not to mention that they were crazy expensive for a guinea pig to just pee and poop all over it. Oh but its cost effective because you don't have to buy litter, blah blah blah. You just have to wash it by itself in the washer in vinegar. Awesome, vinegar or not I don't want my clothes to be floating around in the same machine that remnants of animal waste were just in. I mean maybe some people like that or are just frugal enough to do that. It's really just like cloth diapers, to each her own, but again I am all set with messing with pee and poop, human or animal. I'm hardcore disposable, get this sh*t out of here as fast as possible, literally.

So back to this awesome cost saving guinea pig invention. It's 3 layers of fabric sewn together, 1) anti pill fleece, 2) super absorbent fabric, 3) rubber sheeting or vinyl to keep liquid that wasn't absorbed contained (gross).

My mom was like yeah I'm going to buy two of them. What? I can think of a bunch of different things that you could do with $130. I told her immediately do not buy these, I will make them for her (ya know cause I'm like super sewer now). Materials ran about $32 for one of these things and I got enough materials to make two. The lady is marking her product up 100%, charging $65 a pad not including shipping. Good for her, I'm sure the money is rolling in because guinea pig poopie pads are such a necessity in the piggy market now. :-/.

If you attempt to make one of these make sure the rubber sheeting is pinned in the middle before you sew it together. Stupid me, put the rubber sheeting on last and sewed it all together only to turn it inside out and find that it got sewn in the middle. Good thing fleece and rubber sheeting is durable because I used the seam ripper for a little bit and then just ripped everything apart because it was taking too long, lol. The fabrics stayed intake with no holes from the ripping.

I saved my mom like $50 bucks because I'm such an awesome daughter.

Side note: this thing could also be used for the bottom of a playpen for messy babies, a dog mat, changing pad, I guess for anything that you think is going to leak.

My Fondness of Fabrics

Who would of thought that I'd love browsing fabrics as much as I love shopping for clothes which I guess are completed works of fabrics. But shopping for that makes much more sense than just wanting to own random yards of fabrics. I've found that I'm on either ends of the spectrum of fabrics. I either look for the strangest fabric patterns or the most dull patterns with some texture, like solid colors. Florals aren't really my forte unless there's something different about them. I love everything Alexander Henry. He's like my Tim Burton of fabrics. Everything he puts out, I know I'm going to love.

I also have a fondness of japanese fabrics. I especially love the translations and whatever phrase they are trying to say comes out a little like "wtf?", lol.

A backpack in the making...

So my nephew's birthday is coming up and I figured why not make him a little bag. He'll be one. We got my son's first backpack when he was about one so he could start carrying his own crap plus lugging around my diaper bag was getting over rated and heavy! So now he has this little back pack that he stuffs with diapers, wipes, toys, and fruit snacks.

But anyways, back to my project. So I googled toddler backpack sewing patterns and found this awesome one at "That Crafty Mrs. V" blog. I'd like to add a pocket to the front. I 'll have to think about that for bit because I tried to add pockets to my first bag and I ended up with things that looked like oven mitts. They were not included in my bag, but now my son has more things to shove his hand in.

So as I was looking for fabrics for this cute little back pack, I started
thinking, I can't just make my nephew a bag, my son has to have one too and so does my best friend's unborn baby! So now I have 3 bags to make.

I love kawaii fabrics so I went straight to Etsy and searched in their Supplies section and I found the coolest print for these bags. I might do each bag a little different, like one will be just the kawaii fabric, and then maybe I'll throw in some plain color fabric for the other bags to break up the pattern. I don't want to push my love for kawaii on people who think its weird. The fabric also comes in different colors too so that's something else to ponder.

Oh yeah and crazy neurotic me, I just placed my order for my own labels, like I'm a popular brand or something....whatever...whoo hooo! Kei Vahns is now official.

My First Bag

Let me first start off with the idea behind the bag. I came home Saturday, super pysched that I had completed my toss pillow cover at sewing class. We picked fabrics for our next project which will be a tote bag.

I learned the basics of using a sewing machine and what I didn't know or couldn't remember I had my handy sewing machine manual. I was so pumped from class that I wanted to make something else plus I wanted to see if I was able to do so without the instruction of a teacher. So I googled to find a bag I liked. I needed a weekend bag so I was looking for an easy one to make. I decided to make a duffle bag from this link.

Off I went to JoAnn Fabrics, it was my first visit and holy goodness it was amazing and overwhelming. It was like the Super Walmart of fabric and all things crafty. I literally spent two hours in the store. I think the first hour was really just spent browsing and touching all the fabrics.

When looking for things for my bag, I found a ribbon that I thought would look cool as strap. I bought cotton webbing instead of nylon (just preference, I liked the brown cotton better than the brown nylon). I figured I could sew these two together to get a nice strap. For the piping, I got home decor piping instead of Wright's piping for the simple fact that I didn't like any of the colors available. I got an outerwear nylon quilt fabric that was on clearance. I didn't realize it at the time, all the types of zippers so I opted for a brown and gold fashion zipper. I didn't find out til much later when the project was almost done that a purse zipper has that extra edge on BOTH ends of the zipper...o well. I got two different colored threads. A light brown to sew the ribbon to the nylon and a dark brown which I used for everything else. Hopefully due to the fact that I didn't exactly follow the "material instructions" my bag won't fall apart :-/.

My original plan was to make this bag but then I decided I wanted square sides (in doing so I figured I needed a larger rectangle so I cut 19.5 x 49, only to find out that to get square sides you do not need to cut out squares, just a larger piece of fabric and then when I sewed the strap on the fabric. I used these youtube tutorials to learn how to sew a zipper on correctly here and here. The ends of the strap looked like crap so I sewed the 12.5 x 12.5 squares (to replace the circles) I cut out together to get a larger piece and then sewed that onto the bottom of the bag with piping, I followed "tote bag instruction" pictures step 9 and 10 from here.

I sewed up the sides of the bag with piping and then followed these instructions to get square sides. I measured down 3.5 inches from the tip of the "triangle".

I spent two days working on the bag, I would say about 10 hours. During this time, my thread broke a million times, my bobbin ran out a dozen times, and my needle broke once. I also sewed the zipper on the wrong way and then had to seam rip it all out and do it again. I need to figure out the tension on the machine, I think that is where most of my issues are with my thread breaking and also get more familiar with heavy duty needles and threads.

The bag ended up looking like a zippered slouch hobo and its still big enough to be a weekend bag!