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Otis the Owl, fail!
Over the weekend I decided to make the cute owl I found on Pinterest. I cut out my fabrics last week to save some time so I didn’t have to do all the steps at once. Anyway I was pretty excited about the color combos I had picked out. My original goal had been to use a fancy, thick stitch around the face, eyes, nose and body. Then I would sew the little guy up. Well this is pretty much where the fail happened.
First off my machine didn’t really seem to have the stitch I was looking for. I decided to play around with a couple different ones to see if any of them would do. Grrr, I managed to lock my machine up a couple of times. {This was totally my fault by not paying attention to what certain stitches needed.} Then when I did find a stitch I realized I had no idea how to actually attach the right foot. I looked in the book but nowhere did it say, to attach this foot do a, b, c steps.
After fighting with the machine for a while I decided to go ahead and sew my feet. This wasn’t too bad except they were super tiny. {There may be a reason the pattern says enlarge 200%.} I managed to get them right side out and decided I would go upstairs and glue my face and body piece to the main fabric. Then maybe I could stitch around it. The gluing was fine. A good idea in fact but at this point I was kind of like screw it. I knew I couldn’t do what I wanted so I decided just to sew him up. Well I got to the bottom and realized I didn’t have the feet on. In my haste I didn’t actually attach them correctly. I attached them so when turned right side out the feet were inside. Ugh! I ripped out the seam, put them the right way and sewed it back up.
I left a hole at the top, which should have been at the bottom, to pull the fabric out. Umm yeah, with the other pieces glued it made the fabric super stiff and hard to maneuver. Geez! I finally got him right side out but that’s where I left him. I figured it wasn’t worth wasting my filler for him. Actually I think this little project might be too advanced for me at this point so I might put this pattern on the back burner for a while. But this also means I really need to get more familiar with my machine and I need to get better.
Guess it’s back to the drawing board for more projects. And without further ado, here are the pics. He’s terrible, I know this {and I’m a little shocked I’m going to put it out here.}
~k
This is before I realized I put the feet on wrong. But they are at least facing the right way. 
The glued on face and body. 
The finished product. Well the back of it. Not too bad. -
Ranty owls?
Seriously, how hard is it to just do your job and do it well? It continues to amaze me how people just “forget” to do something. Something freaking so simple. GRRRRR! *small rant over*
In other news I have found the cutest (I hope) owl sewing template. I was inspired by my friend Christi over at Beach Dreams and Love Always. She posted the cutest little owl yesterday on Facebook. (She is an amazing sewer, too bad she doesn’t live close to me. 🙁 It has inspired me to make one of my own. I found a template last night on Pinterest and I’m going to print it off today at work. Then, well we’ll see how it actually turns out. I’m still not feeling super great with my sewing abilities. I think it would help to have someone show me how to use my machine. I think I’m a better hands on kind of person. Reading things and trying to figure out isn’t really good for me.
According to the weather report it should be nice and rainy this week, and well there is a complete lack of TV shows on right now, so hopefully I can hole myself up in the bonus room for a little while to knock this little owl out of the park. I’ll post pics when I’m done.
~k
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You will not defeat me frog! – Pinterest Post 1
I am happy to report my first Pinterest project (for the blog) is complete. There was lots of cussing and I’m pretty sure I used a half a roll of thread but my frog is complete! Actually it looked like the sewing machine threw up on me tonight. I had thread everywhere.
Okay so here’s how it happened. The other night I set up my new sewing machine and cut out my pattern.
Front and back. I had quite a few issues with my corners and ended up ripping out the seams a few
3ishtimes. I finally was like what the hell and just kept going. I’m not sure what I did but my seam got better and I continued to the end. I must add that I might be the slowest sewer in the history of the world. For serious I was like putt putt putt around this thing but I did it!
Completed sewing. Then it was time to turn him right side out. I started with the legs.
Then I worked the rest of the body out. I used a chop stick to help me push out the corners. This was actually pretty tedious and was almost slower then my sewing.
Right side out and empty. I used about a half a pound bag of rice to fill mine. I added a little bit of cloves to make it smell. (I might have added a tad too much.) You can use any herbs you like. Cloves were not my first choice but it was the best smelling herb I had in the pantry.
Filled but I haven't sewn the bottom closed yet. I must say my hand stitching it pretty atrocious so there aren’t any pics of that but once you have your frog full you just stitch together the bottom.
And front. 
Front He’s a cute little guy and he’s all mine. I think I will add some eyes and take him to work to sit on my computer. 🙂
~k
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Progress?
I got my frog cut out and pinned. And I may have one seam done. Yeeeeaaaaahhhh, I’m having some issues with my corners. I thought I just needed to pick the foot up and turn my fabric but this doesn’t seem to be working. Hmmm. I guess I’m gonna have to go back to the book. So maybe a cute little frog wasn’t quite the best first project but I’m gonna stick with it. I know I can get this. Plus if I can master this stupid little thing other stuff should be a breeze right?
~k
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I CAN SEW!
So one thing kind of lead to another. Yesterday while I was
blowing upperusing Pinterest I stumbled cross this cute little guy, a frog bean bag. The a little later I saw an idea for homemade heating pads using rice or beans. Hmmm. {You see where this is going right?} Of course I thought I could totally do this. AND I have a sewing machine I’ve been dying to use.This afternoon on Matt’s way home he stopped by the store. I asked if he would pick up some rice so I can make my cute little frog. After my work out I finally cleaned off “my” desk downstairs to make room for my sewing machine. It took a little while to clear the mess I must admit but now I have a permanent place for it. It only took me about 45 minutes and reading the instructions to get everything set up. Yes, I actually read the directions and let me just say this is not a beginner machine. Or I should say the instructions are definitely not beginner friendly. Thankfully my mom had a sewing machine that I’ve used so I knew most of the basics but I’m still not sure exactly what some of it meant but…..I SEWED!!!!!
I grabbed some of the scratch fabric I bought a while back cute a little piece and tried a few stitches. The machine itself really doesn’t seem so hard. It is super easy to change the stitch, you just push a button and BAM! done.
All of this leads to my new goal of a Pinterest post a week. My hope is to post a craft one week and a recipe the next. Since I have a mild obsession with Pinterest I think it’s dumb to not put some of these pins to use. I mean really, what is the point if I’m just going to pin something and never look at it again? This week that all ends. Come Friday I will post pics of my new little buddy. And next week I will choose a recipe and post the results on Friday. Hopefully I can keep this up for a while. 🙂
~k
