by tatiana on May 19, 2013
I’m not sure if it’s obvious or not, but one of my goals over the next year (or three) is to slowly (but surely!) make a blanket for all of my favorite people in life. It might be a quilt, or a crocheted piece or MAYBE a knitted blanket (I have to REALLY like you to spend that much time on a blanket)… but this is my goal. Blankets are comforting and time consuming, but they’re a fun challenge.
This blanket was made for my good friend Brianna (you can read about some of my adventures with Bri here and here). We’ve been buddies since high school and she is basically the Ron Swanson to my Leslie Knope. We are pretty opposite, but at the same time have SO MUCH in common. It’s a great friendship. Having said that, I wanted to make her a rad blanket that would compliment the decor in her house and be a fun enough keep my interest whilst crocheting it for hours (upon hours, upon hours). Also, Bri’s mom is an avid sewer and quilter, so I had a lot to live up to as far as decorative blankets go in that house! (Bri’s mom – your quilts can never be topped!)
Ok, I’ll stop sucking up now. I found the pattern for this blanket in this book. The square crochets up pretty quickly, which was great. It helped that I was using 5 different colors for this blanket, so my eyes never got bored looking at the same color. This is important! When I get bored during a project, I lose motivation to finish it and then it’ll sit around for a few months. No bueno!
This blanket took about 2 months. I would have finished it sooner if I didn’t feel so intimidated/lazy about sewing the squares together. Eventually, the work got done (with RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars on in the background, of course).
I’m really happy with the outcome of this blanket. The colors are very vintage, but the pattern feels updated. This is another blanket that I thought about keeping (much like this one).
Are you working on a blanket project? Have you made blankets (knit, crochet, quilted) in the past? What was your biggest challenge? My next blanket is going to be a quilt… so keep your eyes peeled for that post in about… oh, 2 to 3 months. (wink)
by tatiana on February 18, 2013
2012 felt like the year of the blankets for me. I made four total! (Including this one.) This particular blanket is one of my favorites I’ve made to date. I found the pattern for this beauty over on Etsy. The pattern makes a crib-sized blanket, but since this was for my adult-sized friend, I doubled the pattern length-wise. I don’t remember exactly how long my chain was, but it worked out!
When ordering yarn for blanket projects, I almost always go with Vanna’s Choice because 1.) the yarn is really soft, 2.) the line has a large color selection, and 3.) it’s affordable (about $3/skein). This project called for about 12 skeins of yarn total.
My friend’s sense of style is very specific and always ahead of current trends, so I wanted to use colors and a pattern that would look chic FOREVER – I knew I wanted to use black and white. I thought a pop of color would be fun, so I gave her the choice of lime green or bright yellow, and I’m so happy she went with yellow. I think this blanket would look great with any pop of color (mint would look really great as well).
I’m not gonna lie… when I finished this blanket (which took about 3 months — I ended up having to give it to her as a Christmas gift!), I secretly wanted to keep it. This probably means I need to make one for myself soon. One can never have too many handmade blankets, amirite?
by tatiana on October 15, 2012
Over the last year or so, I started the loose tradition of creating a seasonal wreath to hang on my front door. I say “loose” tradition because up until yesterday, the wreath I made for Fall of 2011 was still up. But, who cares! Now a cute Halloween wreath hangs in its place. Here’s how I made it.
Supplies:
Scissors
Hot Glue
Elmer’s Glue (or a Glue Stick)
Foam Wreath
Cardboard
Chunky Black Yarn
3 Kinds of Fabric
Tulle (I used black and white)
Step 1: Tightly wrap your chunky black yarn around the foam wreath. If you have thinner yarn (like a worsted weight) that’ll work just fine, but it will take longer. Every three inches or so I would place some hot glue on the foam (in the back — I’d advise against glue or strings visible in the front) to secure the placement of the yarn. The foam can be slippery — we don’t want to leave any gaps.
Step 2: Locate some cardboard. I made frozen pizza for dinner that night and decided that the circular cardboard that lives under the pizza would be perfect. Proceed with drawing an easy bat shape on a piece of paper. Cut it out and trace that onto your cardboard. Make three.
Step 3: Grab your three different fabrics and using very little Elmer’s Glue or a Glue Stick, place the fabric onto your cardboard bats. Let the glue dry. Then make cuts around the fabric to make folding over and hot gluing your fabric a little easier… we want to make sure we’re able to see the shape of the bat.
Step 4: Make bows out of your tulle (sorry I forgot to take photos of this step!). I did this by folding my yard or so of tulle twice, then cutting a strip about 6 inches wide, cutting the folds on the ends and then tying the middle once.
Step 5: Hot glue the bows to the back of the bats. I have two solid color bats and one in a bone print fabric. I used white for the two solid colored bats and black for the print.
Step 6: Hot glue the bats to your wreath. You can place them anywhere you’d like, but I liked the way they looked at the bottom of the wreath.
Step 7: Tie a small piece of yarn in a knot and hot glue it to the back of your wreath at the top.
Step 8: Hang your wreath and wait for compliments from your neighbors!
by tatiana on October 2, 2012
Last week, in both an attempt to save a few bills and make my hair color a little easier to maintain, I decided to ask my friend to help me “ombré” my hair (if that’s even a verb!).
$40 and a blog tutorial later, we were able to get the look I wanted! My friend did a really great job. Here’s the tutorial we used: http://www.thehollywoodheels.com/2012/04/ombre-hair-diy-how-to-step-by-step.html. I slightly modified it because I a.) have a LOT of hair, and b.) my hair is a lot lighter than the girl’s in the tutorial.
Before and after
We started by dying my hair back to my natural color – I used Clairol’s Dark Rich Neutral Blonde (I bought 2 bottles & a bottle of 10 Volume Creme Developer). We waited a few days to give my hair a break, and then dove in with the blue bleach + 30 Volume Creme Developer. I wish I’d purchased 3 packs of bleach, but I only bought two. In the end it worked out because the blonde is a little streaked, and blended a little better. I was trying to avoid a harsh line of blonde. We bleached my hair twice. I think next time I’d like the bleach to go up a little higher. My friend was adamant about going higher but I was too scared! I should have just trusted her.
Anyway, I would recommend doing this on your own at home. If you’re only doing the bleach (plus blue shampoo or additional blonde hair dye to remove brassiness) this will only cost you around $20 at Sally Beauty Supply… and about 2-3 hours of your time (and a friend’s time, if you’re like me and can’t dye your hair yourself because there’s too much of it). It’s well worth it considering I would have paid at LEAST $160 at my local salon for everything I needed done (a friend of mine paid around $200 for the same thing). Beauty/hair experiments can be painful (for your wallet) but it doesn’t have to be that way if you get a little creative (and ballsy)!
by tatiana on May 8, 2012
Happy Tuesday, everyone! I’m back in the U.S. and woke up at 3:30am this morning after going to sleep around 4pm. Jet lag is wacky. Anyway, due to my lack of WiFi while I was in Japan, I didn’t have a chance to blog about my guest post on The Billfold! Check it out and maybe you too can learn to curb your spending with a creative endeavor of your own, or in the meantime, learn how to turn a large men’s turtle neck into a cute and comfy skirt.
by tatiana on April 14, 2012
This past year I did A LOT of crocheting for Babushka Designs. When prototyping new products, one tends to accumulate a lot of yarn… as I did. I finally got tired of looking at the two massive mountains o’ yarn in my apartment (a yarn Twin Peaks, if you will) and decided to turn it into a nice, warm, and crazy colorful blanket.
While I was working on it, I kept thinking that it was going to be super ugly because the colors that I had so much of were not colors I’d typically use in a blanket… and it was a little difficult when I ran out of certain colors and had to substitute with similar hues. This blanket took about 3 months to complete– I worked on it mostly while watching Dance Moms and The Bachelor. Good things come out of watching bad television, right?
by tatiana on November 6, 2011
I don’t know about you, but I had a hard time coming up with a costume idea this year. I had 3 ideas that I was debating between for a few months and found all of the items I needed for what I thought was the best costume, and then just a week before Halloween I completely scratched that idea and went with Veruca Salt. And I’m happy I did.
“Don’t care how, I want it NOW!”
I like treating Halloween as a time to pay homage to people, characters or icons I admire. Here are some of the costumes I’ve made over the last four years:
From left to right: Courtney Love, Virgin Guadalupe, Feminist Uncle Sam, Hello Kitty [click to continue…]
by tatiana on October 27, 2011
Upcycle Sundays: The 9 to 5 Ascot Blouse Revival with Babushka Designs
Hi guys! I hope everyone’s getting in gear for Halloween! I know I am. Anyway, a few weeks ago I guest posted a vintage blouse DIY that you should check out if you haven’t done so already! It might come in handy if you’re altering thrifted tops for those upcycled costumes. Have a happy and safe Halloween!
Also, if you aren’t already, follow me on Pinterest!
by tatiana on August 18, 2011
Two months ago, around the time I temporarily fell off of the blogosphere, my baby sister graduated from high school! Gah, I feel old. Anyway, it’s an important milestone, so I decided that a thoughtless gift like a Betsey Johnson handbag would not do the trick (although I’m sure she’d have no qualms about receiving that), so I decided to make her a special afghan. [click to continue…]
by tatiana on April 6, 2011
I don’t even know if I could call this a “revamp” because technically… before this, the corner of my room was pretty bland, and CROWDED. There lived my hamper, my plastic dresser from college, rubbermaid boxes full of fabric, more fabric on top, a box of patterns and some oversized books. Man oh man. A few days before my sisters and cousin were supposed to arrive into town, I decided that I needed to clean things up… and FINALLY hang some of the frames I’d purchased over a year ago. [click to continue…]
