Saturday 22 January 2011

Feathery fun

I've been playing with the idea of making some pretties for the merch stall at our Tarzan and Pain bout next weekend. At first I was going to make some cute bags from this fun vinyl material

but I'm away during the week and have no access to a machine so that was a no go. I will make some but once I have my machine with me - hand sewing vinyl is a bitch.

So then I thought and decided on fascinators - pretty and easy to make. Last week I bought from ebay some feathers and got some hair clips from a shop in town and today I set to it. I got into a bit of a mess with the glue: fluff and sticky do not play well together but this is the end result.

I think that it worked out pretty well. I need to get some more shiny things like sequins but I shall now go and make some more and hopefully they will sell at the bout.

Glamgirl

Friday 21 January 2011

This is what happens when you give rollergirls shrinky plastic

Hotrod came over last night to "craft". The reality was we pigged out on crisps, cookies and wine. But we did play with the last of the shrinkies.
This is Holly Hotrod's creation.


We're classy girls!!



Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Thursday 20 January 2011

Shrink plastic skate stuff

I've always fancied playing with heat shrink plastic/shrinkies/shrinky dinks since I was little, but some how my mum wasn't convinced about me filling the house with bits of plastic (all-be-it shrunken) tat.
But on impulse I bought a couple of sheets in a $2 shop in Singapore last month. And wow! It's so worth the wait! It's such a wow moment when the bit of 'art' you've created shrinks into something cute and adorable in seconds. It might not have started out that cute, but as we all know, miniaturisation makes anything better.
There's a gut clenching moment when the plastic shrivels and deforms, but you must have faith and keep the heat on, and it will unfurl into something small (and admittedly a bit tat-like)!
So far all I can think is to make derby related pieces. But now I can have as many pendants as I like!



Ps adding silver embossing powder is very cool!



Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Saturday 15 January 2011

Baby shoes

Last week I was rabbiting about some baby shoes, and I've never given you an update. Well they turned out pretty darn cute (or at least I think they did).
They were pretty fiddly in places, but they inspired me to make more (there's boy babies on the way, so I made denim ones). I've adjusted and tweaked the pattern as I've gone on, so I'm going to share it with you all as soon as I get on my computer and can download all the pics, as I think they're needed to explain it properly.
I've played with a couple more shoe patterns over the week, but I've ended up getting frustrated with the results of most.
Like a good derby girl, what I really wanted to make was some iddy biddy roller skate booties. I'm still battling with how to do this one, so far they look like cars...but I'll share them with you and maybe you can help me out!
But here's my first attempt at baby shoes:


The flowers are from my stash of scrapbooking stuff, easy to do. And I put a popper fastener on underneath, though it's not an ideal fastener for baby shoes.


Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Friday 14 January 2011

Wrong, just wrong

Okay, so Wendy may not be one of the top wool brands in terms of luxury and loveliness but it does a good range of solid low cost yarns and I think some of them are great. One of my faves is Serenity. This came out as an aran weight a couple of years ago and was fab and this winter they released a super chunky weight which is good too. Have knitted house socks from it and am planning on using it more.

But . . . why did they think that this would be a good idea?

Does this make you go "OOOooo, that's a lovely yarn, I want to knit the potato sack with it?"

It's wrong I tell you, so wrong

Glamgirl xx

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Small skating disaster

Oh, and the reason why I'm fiddling with fimo on a work day is that I had a bit of a splodgy landing at derby on Sunday. I was trying to avoid landing on my bum and I ended up flipping forward and spraining my ankle. It's very colourful!


Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Small craft disaster - oops!

Oh dear. My impatience wins again! I want a roller skate stamp for making a skate printed fabric. I couldn't find one, so I thought I'd try and make one from fimo (I have no idea of it would make a reasonable stamp or not, but I thought I was worth a try).
After half an hour fiddling around and scattering my craft room with bits of yellow fimo, I had something approximately like a derby boot...then I microwaved it for 90secs instead of baking it.
Big mistake!!!
Oh well :-( I'll try again another day!



Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Sunday 9 January 2011

A little helper

This morning I have a little helper with me, Samson.
My two black cats are obsessed with boxes, small spaces, sitting on bags and being exactly where I want to be.
Lets see if he sticks around once I start sewing.


Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Saturday 8 January 2011

New toy!

Whooooooooop! My new sewing machine has arrived! A Janome Gold Plus - trim and stitch. It's so luverly! And quiet! And it works!
I've been struggling with a Leveria from Lidl, which on paper is a great machine, but in reality was too noisy to use in the evenings (it woke the neighbours kids) and in the end I spent more time re-threading it and trying to adjust the tension to avoid matting that I gave up on it. If I'd kept better care of the receipt I could probably have got it repaired or my money back, but I'm really not that organised!
Anyway, my new baby is here. 3/4 size and with a built in serger and simple needle threader. Not bad for £160. They're discontinued, hence the price. Maybe the rrp of £300-400 is too steep, for this price it seems a bargain. Sadly I had to get it from Coopers for that price - and I've heard terrible things about their service - so I went through their amazon store, so hopefully I'll have some recourse, if things do go wrong.
Right enough blogging time to sew. But I wanted to show it you while its all new and shiny! :-)))

Ps my hubby took the delivery as i was still in bed, he pretended it wasn't my machine so he could wrap it up for me as a late Christmas pressie - too sweet!




Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Still sweaty

Just got in from a hard and very slidey session at Ponds Forge. Lots of big hits and lots of big flailing falls for me. The Christmas break and "wheeeeeeeeee" floor were not good for my skating or confidence :-( ah well, at least I'm not bouting at the end of the month.
Anyway, I've had baby shoes on my brain all day. Weird I know, but my cousin just had a little girl 3 days ago, so now I have an excuse to make some adorable Mary Janes from Making Children's Clothes - by Sarah Hardy (was dead cheap from the bookpeople and it really does have some lovely things in it). I don't have any of my own kids btw, so not sure why I have the book! At least I have an excuse to use it now and not just coo at the pictures.
Progress:
Pieces cut out and I'm on to doing the interfacing, but I'm not sure if it's right - do you iron on first - then cut. Or cut, iron then cut again? I've gone for the latter. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
Ps still sweaty and in my derby clothes...yeah I'm gross! I'm waiting for the hot water for a bath...but mostly just obsessed with trying to get these made!


Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

Monday 3 January 2011

I got a few books for Christmas. Can't wait to get sewing. I've been at the In-laws all Christmas, so I've only been crocheting most of the time. Much more sociable as I can just about do it and hold a conversation/watch the telly. But now I'm home I have lots of bags to make. :-) now I just need a new sewing machine. My lidl one just keeps matting the thread. Best start saving my pennies though, totally skint. Thankfully big sis has lent me her machine - yaaaay! I'll let you know what I make once I've decided.


Loves and shoves
Savage Steel

New year, new diary...same old resolutions to actually do this!

I'm sure you all did it when little. Got a diary for Christmas (you know, covered in cute kittens and glitter) and determinedly decided that this was the year you'd write a diary to rival Anne Frank's (preferably with a happy ending). Of course it never happened. I'm terrible at resolutions. And writing.
BUT at the grand old age of 31 maybe, just maybe I can keep this up. And I have a lot more going on now then when I was 13.
In the last year Roller Derby has taken over my life. :-) As it has with the other lovely girls on this blog. Funny thing about Derby girls is that we love to skate fast and hit hard, and then chill out with a few reams of cloth, some lovely wool and and our imagination (though I seem to mostly make hotpants and bags...maybe that will change this year too!)

Hopefully I'll see you on here again soon, though I'm sure none of us will be surprised if the next time you see me is early January 2012!

loves and shoves
Savage Steel

It's been a while



Things have been very busy at SSRG recently, well for the past few months. In October we have a recruitment drive and it was so popular and successful. There are some amazing skaters already and it's great to see them come on in leaps and bounds. There are also loads of crafty individual there so with luck we shall really get this bloggy thing going and tell you all about our escapades.

The lovely Holly Hotrod (Martha) has been made Uniform Officer so she's now in charge of getting the t-shirts and stuff printed for the team and has come up with some brilliant ideas for bout uniforms too so we'll report on those once we get them started. Our next bout is against the Middlesborough Milk Rollers at the end of January - Tarzan and Pain (get your tickets here), so we're going with the jungle theme and it's going to be leopard skin all round!!