The Lady Beekeeper

I hope you all had an amorous Valentine’s day…

Our front hallway has been fairly boring and white since we moved in.  Painting this area is so daunting that I doubt I could even suggest it to Will without causing some sort of heart malfunction.  So instead I’ve been trying to make the space less boring without the use of paint.

For starters we got some purple and blue rugs.  I really love them, they already make the space less boring.  We also added my old desk from the apartment, a thrift store vase filled with pussywillows, and some assorted decorations from home goods.

Then we added a couple paintings found at thrift stores, yard sales, and even one we received for our wedding.

Then we added a rug and bench to the upstairs space, which was always just sort of open and awkward.

After those changes I was pretty happy with the entrance for a while… until about the 100th time I walked upstairs.  At that point I had been incepted by some pictures on Pinterest and once again thought the hallway was too white.  I didn’t think I wanted more art on my walls, but we have a dearth of photos in our house so I decided a rotating gallery wall would solve that problem.

To avoid having to figure out how to color coordinate all the photos I decided black and white was the easiest, most dignified, way to go.  And of the gallery walls I’d seen on Pinterest, my favorites were the ones with matching thin black frames and large white mats.  I went to several Michaels stores and finally found a fairly reasonably priced frame that I liked.  Strangely each store had a different selection and this particular frame doesn’t even appear to be in their online database.  We waited for a 20% coupon day to buy the frames (which were originally $17 a piece) and got 10 of them for $136.   Pretty pricey, but nothing compared to the cost of real artwork…

After obtaining the frames I stalled for a while and left them sitting on my green bench in the hallway.  Eventually the combination of the boring white wall and the pile of frames cluttering the bench annoyed me into motivation.  I drew a sketch of how I wanted to hang the frames in paint.net.  (I realized later that I could fit 2 extra frames if I spaced the frames a little differently, but this was my starting point.)

Hanging all those frames perfectly straight was going to be a challenge.  To make matters worse, the frames I had purchased did not use picture wire but instead “D” ring hangers.  This meant I had to level the two d-rings before I nailed into the wall, rather than readjusting the frame once it was on the wall.  So I went to work creating 10 paper mock-ups that I could use to measure out frame spacing and nail placement.  I re-used my favorite brown recyclable paper leftover from amazon packaging to create the mock ups.

I first ironed it flat

Then I traced out my 16×20 frame on the paper and cut it out

Next I added the marks for the nail holes based on the d-ring position.  Because the position of the d-rings varied from frame to frame, I had to number each piece of paper and each frame.

I put loops of painter’s tape on the back of each mock up so I could easily re-position.

Then I employed my husband’s help and height.  He helped me level and space all 10 mock-ups on the wall.  (Note that I kept the frames above where a railing would sit since we should probably add a railing someday.)

When I was satisfied with the layout, my husband nailed hooks into the walls right through the mock-ups (I usually use the tools, but even I will admit that I was a teensy bit too short for this task).

I printed 10 8x10s at Walmart (after deliberating for a couple hours) and added a picture to each frame.

My husband then hung each on the wall in its numbered location, removing the paper before hanging.  (Though this seemed nearly impossible to do initially, my husband became a pro at this).

Here’s the finished wall!  I now feel like I actually have something to admire while sitting on my bench!

I’ve been working on revamping my basement corner into a cute little sewing nook that I’m not embarrassed to take pictures of.  I’ll show you my before and after in a couple posts, but the whole thing that inspired me to re-organize was that my fabulous husband got me this awesome wooden thread holder last year for my birthday.  I had all my thread on it, but the stand takes up 2.5×2.5 square feet of space on my desk, which is about half the size of my sewing desk!

Since my sewing room is in my unfinished basement there are no walls to hang anything on.  I guess I could run something from the ceiling, but that seemed like it would be in the way.  What I really wanted was a rolling pegboard.  I was thinking about something like this design, but in order to keep the very tall pegboard upright the legs would have to be fairly side to counterbalance the thing so it didn’t just topple over.  This seemed like a waste of space in my small basement nook.

While I was contemplating all this, Joann Fabrics had a crazy sale on this Gutterman thread tower around Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately it was such a good deal that you could only get it in stores because the online stock sold out instantaneously.  At the time of the sale we were in Nashville visiting Will’s family for Thanksgiving… but I had to have it so we drove 45 minutes to the nearest Joann Fabrics and then had to figure out how to get it home in our luggage.  I didn’t even want the stand because I already had my fabulous thread holder, but when I got the behemoth home the thread spools didn’t fit on my thread holder so I had to keep it!  So now I had another thing to store!

This lead me to more poking around and I found this guy’s plans for a rolling pegboard with shelves for tools!  Perfect!  This seemed pretty practical, though in actuality I don’t think this design would be stable at all so don’t really try it.  Since I was concerned about the stability and material costs are expensive I designed mine slightly differently.

You can see from my rough plans above my frame is built from 2×4’s and is 4 feet high x 2 feet across on the front faces (exactly the dimensions of pegboard from home depot).  The depth of the piece is 1 foot 3 inches (which gives an inside depth of 1 foot).  Several years ago my friends had created and brought an “ice luge” to one of our parties which included a stand built of some crazily screwed together 2x4s.  When they left they told us we could “keep the stand for firewood”.  Its been sitting in my basement for 4 years taking up room so I finally disassembled it and got about half the wood for free from that.  Thanks Joe & Kayla!!

So here’s how I built it:

Materials:

• 4 – 4′ 2×4’s
• 4 – 21″ 2×4’s
• 4 – 1′ 2×4’s
• 2 – 4’x2′ pegboards
• 3 – 1’x2′ pieces of plywood or other wood for shelving.
• 4 casters
• angle brackets to hold up shelves (I used 4)
• screws in assorted sizes

The first step is cutting everything down to size.  My friend Amy recently told me about this device that would have dramatically increased the precision of my circular saw cutting, but she was 2 days too late!  I will have to invest in one for my next woodworking project.

Assemble the front and back faces, use a dog to help. 

I used two pieces of scrap 2×4 and a right angle ruler to align the pieces.

Attach the sides to the front and back faces.

With the frame assembled I screwed the pegboard to the faces

Finally I attached the casters

The depth I used makes the whole thing very secure.  There is no chance of tipping over here. I shoved the thing several times to make sure.

Next I decided where I wanted to position the middle shelf and screwed in the angle brackets (being sure they were level).

I attached shelves to the bottom and top of the organizer with screws.  I used scrap wood for all of the shelves.  The bottom is a piece left over from the kitchen bookshelf project, the top is a piece of particle board used from one of the damaged drawers that were previously part of the kitchen bookshelf, and the middle piece is left over from some ugly shelving the previous owners had in our “man cave”.

The next steps are optional…

After it was assembled I thought it could use a little pizzaz so I decided to paint it.  You’ll see in a couple posts that my craft room is predominantly blue.  This is mostly because I was reusing what I had on hand.  If I had my way it would be pink or purple instead.  So I decided to do a blue to purple ombre paint job on one pegboard face.

Materials Needed:

• 8oz of red paint
• 8oz of blue paint
• 8oz of black paint
• 8oz of white paint
• 1″ masking tape or painter’s tape.
• foam brush
• cups for paint
• polyurethane
• teaspoon

This was a fun art project.  For starters I divided the board up evenly into rectangles. Since I had 1 inch tape and a 24″ wide pegboard I could divide width-wise into 5 columns 4 inches wide.  Height wise it was 48″ which yielded 7 rows 6 inches high.

I marked off the location of the tape in permanent marker and then I applied the tape. 

I made sure the tape was secure and even.

Once the taping was done I began mixing paint.  I decided that horizontally from left to right my rectangles would go from blue to purple.  From top to bottom my rectangles would go from dark to light.  My plan was to start with cups of blue to purple paint and then add white gradually to make them lighter and gradually add black from the same starting point to make the paint darker.  For this reason I needed a “dark” set of paints and a “light” set of paints.

I took equal amounts of blue paint (1 Tbsp I believe) and added it to 5 cups. Next I added red paint to the blue paint incrementally forming a deep purple.  I left the first cup alone, added one tsp red to the second, 2 tsp red to the third and so.  I repeated this process for another set of 5 cups.

I then painted the middle 5 squares with the original blue to purple colors.  

I took one set of colors and added 1 tsp of black paint to the first cup.  I then painted a square.  I added another tsp black paint to the cup and then painted another square  I repeated this process until I came to the top.   I repeated this process for each color.I repeated the same process with the other set of cups and the white paint.  

After it was dry I carefully removed the painter’s tape.  Dany inspected my work

Supervisor Dany

I then applied a coat of polyurethane to seal everything.  

Here’s the finished product – you can see I added some hooks to hang up my ironing board which also lacks a wall to hang on.  

reusable_bag

Thank you for everyone who entered the give away last week!  We had so many wonderful suggestions for ways to save the planet – I’ll give a shout out to my favorites in a later post (perhaps around Earth day…).  By random drawing out of a hat (since we had so many great entries) our two winners are:

Amy & Erin!

Congratulations!  I’ll ship your grocery bag holder and reusable bag off in the mail!  That’s right… your mystery prize is an actual reusable grocery bag so you can cut down on all the plastic grocery bags when you can’t fit anymore into your bag holder!  Here’s a video proclaiming my love of reusable bags (and testing my camera for future uses):

For those who didn’t win this time, don’t be discouraged!  There will be 11 more give aways this year and I’ll announce the February give away soon!  Now – on to instructions to make your own reusable bag….

Reusable Grocery Bag

• 3/4 yard of rip stop nylon
• Polyester thread
• 2 inch piece of velcro
• Pattern here (Its a bit of a puzzle.  Print out all 6, and match up the arrows and tape it together.  (The arrows are labeled with the two papers that they connect.)  I have also included a picture of the final result.)

1. Cut out your pattern pieces below (be sure to size to the 2″x2″ square when printing.  Make sure to cut the bag itself on the fold and the handles on the fold.  You’ll also need to cut out a 5.5 x 8 inch rectangle and 2″x6″ rectangle for the velcro strap.

2. Attach the handles to the bag lining/reinforcement with right sides together.

3. Reinforce the connection by folding the excess back onto itself and stitching again 1/8″ from the other stitching.

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the bag handles onto the body of the bag.

5. Fold under 3/8″ fabric on the bottom of the lining to form a finished seam.  Stitch.  At this point the right side of your lining should look like so:

6. With right sides of the bag and lining together pin the bag opening and handles together forming a large “o”.  Stitch.

7. Open out the fabric and finger press and pin the opening and handles that you just stitched.

8.  Stitch once more around this opening on the right side. to reinforce the seam.

9.  On the strap side seams press inward and pin to form a finished seam. Stitch. Repeat with second side strap seam.

10. With bag right side out stitch the sideseams of the bag 1/4 inch from the edge.

11. Flip the bag inside out and stitch the sideseams of the bag again 3/8 inch from the edge to reinforce.

12.  Take your rectangle of fabric and roll 1/4 fabric of one of the long ends under and then under again to form a rolled hem.  Stitch.

13. Fold your rectangle in half to form a pocket and stitch the two unfinished sides together. (I don’t have a picture of this step but it will look like this minus the strap.)

14. Fold the thin rectangle of fabric in half the long ways to form a tube and stitch down the unfinished edge.

15. Open out the tube, flatten and stitch 1/8″ from each side to flatten.

16. Fold under 1/4 inch of each end. Stitch.

17. Attach one side of velcro to strap.

18. Stitch strap to inside top of bag.

19. Open the carrying case right side out.  Attach the other side of velcro to the outside of the tiny bag, taking care to match where the strap will land when closed.

20.  Turn the carrying case inside out and stitch the unfinished side edge to the side seam of the bag about halfway up.

21.  Go shopping!

One advantage of using rip stop nylon is in a pinch you can pull this out of your pocket and use it as a parachute if you’re falling out of a building!  (Please don’t do this. Ever. This is a joke.)  Next week I’ll show you some of the projects I’ve been working on to make my sewing corner feel more like a sewing room and less like a basement!

First off – thanks to Ka and Andrew for commenting on my Christmas Traditions post! You both are getting a ChristMoose and you should receive it very soon (if you haven’t already). For those of you who didn’t enter the give away – below are the instructions and pattern to make one of your very own!  It is a bit lengthy compared to the other patterns I’ve posted, so if you have any questions definitely send me a note!  You’ll notice at the end that they all look a little bit different (just like in real life)!  Depending on how long you make the nose, where you put the antlers, or how you position the eyes and ears you’ll end up with a moose with a different personality.  So play around with it!

Before I start you off on the moose pattern I wanted to mention that I’m going to be doing one give-away every month this year, so check back every Monday to better your odds of winning.  We’ll have some cookbooks and some other homemade items up for grabs.  I’m also working on a very beginner sewing series for those who want to get into sewing but have no idea where to start. I’ll hope to have some info on that soon too.  I’ve also been working for the last couple weeks to get my sewing studio in order (aka basement).  It is taking forever, and since it is an unfinished basement I’m trying my best to make it feel less like I’m sitting between the oil burner and the oil tank… I’ll show you some pictures of that too this month.  Okay, without further adieu I give you instructions to make this little cutie!

To make a dapper Christmas Moose you’ll need:

• About a yard of brown felt or fleece material (I used felt)
• Brown thread to match
• About 2 feet of covered floral wire
• A large button for the nose (mine were about 1 3/8″ wide)
• Two large black beads for the eyes (mine were about 1 cm wide)
• scrap fabric for a beanbag
• sand, rice or beans for the beanbag filling
• stuffing
• scrap ribbon and bells to adorn the moose’s antlers
• fabric or yarn for a scarf
• A glue gun
• Pattern here:

1. Start by cutting out all your pattern pieces from the pattern above. They already include 5/8″ of seam allowance.  Make sure when you print it it is scaled to match the 2×2 square.
2. Using brown felt or fleece (I used felt) cut out all pattern pieces.
3. Take the two front pieces and pin and stitch down center front, forming the moose’s belly.
4. Fold the rectangle for one arm in half lengthwise. Pin and stitch on the length and one end, leaving the other end opened.
5. Turn out the arm so the right side is facing outwards. You may need a chop stick or long object to help with this.
6. Put a tiny bit of stuffing in the “hoof”, enough to make the hoof a bit puffy for about an inch and a half.
7. Repeat step 4,5,6 with the other arm and both legs.
8. Pin each side front to each side back, right sides together to form the moose’s torso.
9. Cross the arms, and insert into the moose torso.
10. Remove the top two pins at the neck area on each side and re-pin, inserting the arms at a 45 degree angle. Stitch side seams.
    

    You can see here the legs pinned at center front and the arms sewn into the side seams.

11. Pin both legs side by side on either side of center front no the inside of the torso. You’ll want them to touch but not overlap (see above).
12. Pin the bottom circle along the torso to form the moose’s rump. When you get to the pins holding the legs, remove the pins and reinsert to hold all layers of fabric together.
13. Stitch & open out the moose.
14. Next create the moose’s head by folding the moose’s head piece in half along the width.Pin & stitch, leaving 1.5 inches opened.
15. Using a doubled thread, stitch a running stitch half an inch from the bottom of the tube formed by step 14.  Do this on the wrong side of the nose.  
16. Pull both ends of the thread to gather tightly to form the moose’s nose. Tie securely.When folded right side out it will look like this.
17. Pin the back of the head piece onto the nose cylinder. Be sure to align the nose properly by folding the tube in half and matching this to the top of the rounded back piece.
18. Take and ear and pinch both sides of the bottom inwards to give the ear some depth.
19. Pin the ears on the inside of the head an inch or so off from the top center. Make sure ears are facing down when you insert them like so. (Shown here on the outside for clarity, but make sure to actually put these on the inside.)
20. Stitch, leaving the neck opened.
21. Open out.
22. Sew button nose on snout covering the gathers.
23. Pin the right sides of the neck front together and sew leaving the back of the neck opened.
24. Next create a bean bag to weight the moose’s bottom. I used scrap material to cut an 8 inch by 3 inch square that I then cut in half. I stitched along the edges (twice about 1/4 inch apart for security) then left a 3/4″ opening on the bottom to fill.
25. Using a funnel I poured in 1/2 cup of clean sand. You can use dried beans or rice instead, or anything fairly heavy.
26. Next fold the unfinished edge over on itself and sew closed.
27. Insert the beanbag in the moose’s body so it lies flat.
28. Stuff the moose with stuffing in both body and head.
29. Next create the antlers. Cut two rectangles of 3×8 fabric and cut down the fabric on the one inch marks along the vertical 1/3 of the way and 2/3 of the way down. See picture.
30. Cut a length of cloth covered floral wire so you can fold it in half and it will cover the length of the first two antler prongs (the second prong slightly shorter than the first.
31. Cut a second shorter length of wire for the third antler prong.
32. Using a hot glue gun, glue the wire inside the first antler prong and fold the fabric in half to enclose the wire.
33. Do the same for the second antler prong.
34. For the third prong, secure the smaller piece of wire inside the top of the prong.
35. Next fold the third prong under and secure with glue at the base of the antler.
36. Trim the two side prongs down a bit just above the floral wire to make them uneven lengths. Your antler should look something like this when you’re done:
37. Repeat steps 30 through 36 for the second antler.
38. Using a stitch ripper or small scissor make incisions on the moose’s head for the antlers. Depending on preference you can make the incisions in front of the ears or behind the ears.
39. Push the base of each antler through the hole and use a hot glue gun to secure.
40. Hand stitch the back of the neck closed.
41. Whip stitch 3/4″ up the bottom of the arms and legs to form hooves.
42. Attach eyes by securing thread to bottom of neck and sewing through head to where you want to secure the eye. Add bead and pull slightly taunt to form an indentation.
43. Secure again at bottom of neck. Repeat for second eye.
44. Next create a scarf for the moose (or cut one out of fabric if you don’t feel like knitting!  My scarf recipe was just a basic stockinette stitch, 8 stitches wide, 6 rows wide of alternating red & white, 17 blocks long. I added fringe at both ends.
45. Adorn your moose with the scarf and bits of mismatched ribbon with a few jingle bells tied on.

Now your moose is ready for a party with friends!

For our secret santa this year I suggested that on Christmas Eve we give our person a $5 gift that was somehow representative of the person giving the gift.  Then we would open the gifts and everyone would guess who had who.  I think everyone did a pretty good job at this – for instance my brother and Erin wanted Christmas ornaments for their tree so my mom gave my brother some ornaments she found at Savers (she left the tag on so Mark would know she found them while thrifting).  My brother (a talented knitter) knitted Will a handsome scarf.  Will gave my mom cat toys with googly eyes. (Frankly I have no idea how this represents Will but he had said to everyone at some point that whoever he got was getting something with googly eyes.  Weirdly everyone forgot he said this except my mom who actually guessed it was from Will.)

I had Erin and some TARDIS material from JoAnn Fabrics so I made her a Whovian oven mitt.  (Though this backfired a bit because no one realized I made it!  I will consider it a compliment…)  So here’s how to make a look-like-you-purchased-it oven mitt!  This is a nice easy pattern for those new to sewing!

You will need:

• 100% cotton thread*
• 100% cotton fabric* for the lining and exterior (I used two different patterns)
• INSUL-BRIGHT insulated lining
• Natural Cotton* Batting

*Note: It is important that you use natural fibers for the mitts, as you don’t want polyester melting all over your hands and pans.

Instructions:

Print out my oven mitt pattern below.  You may want to add an additional 1/4 inch of seam allowance if you are new to sewing (I only account for 1/4 inch of allowance).

Cut 2 (one wrong side and one right side) each of the lining fabric, exterior fabric, batting, and insul-bright.

Form two halves of the gloves by lining up lining, batting, insul-bright and exterior fabric in that order.

Pin and baste each glove half.

Next create two 1 foot strips of bias tape by cutting 1.5 inch strips of fabric on the bias ( at a 45 degree diagonal from the grain).  This creates a stretchy, malleable strip you can use as to finish seams.

Take each strip and press the two edges towards the center as shown below.  Congratulations – you have created bias tape!

To finish the cuff of the oven mitt fold out one side of the bias tape and pin it right side to right side, matching unfinished edges, on the inside of the oven mitt.

Stitch close to the fold you opened out.

Fold the bias tape to the front of the mitt half, keeping the unfinished edge folded under.  Pin.

Stitch close to the fold and trim excess bias tape.

To create a loop for your oven mitt, cut an 8 inch by 2 inch strip of fabric.  Iron the two edges towards the center and then press in half the long way (right sides out).  Stitch down the edge and fold in half.

Next pin the two halves of the oven mitt together with right sides facing in.  Make sure to include the loop for the oven mitt.  The unfinished edges of the loop should hang outside the mitt, and the loop should be sandwiched on the inside.

Zigzag stitch the two pieces together, trim excess.

Flip to the right side – and there you have it!  An oven mitt!

Since I got everything on sale or with a coupon at Joann Fabrics all the materials only cost me $10 total for 1/2 yard of each material!  And I still have enough left over for another 2 oven mitts!

The last couple years my family has been doing a secret Santa gift exchange instead of buying gifts for everyone in the family.  This works out extremely well.  Instead of drawing names out of a hat this year we used Elfster.  The site is great and allows you to exclude spouses from drawing each other, add wish lists, and it even includes a secret messaging system.  My family heavily abused the messaging system which made the whole gift swap thing hilarious.  For instance one of the questions I got (I guess in response to my vague wish list saying that I would like “anything sewing related”) was this:

Here’s the link to what they sent me:

This had me laughing for about an hour.

For the elfster swap I had to buy gifts for Erin, my brother’s wife.  I was very excited to get Erin because it meant I could go all out with Dr. Who themed gifts in addition to whatever puzzley things she asked for.  As I was leaving Walmart after picking up another present, I saw this perfect TARDIS blue sweatshirt.  For future reference it was the Hanes Women’s Fleece Zip Hoodie in Blue Allure.

I used the applique patch patterns I had created for my TARDIS dress to adorn the sweatshirt.  Here’s the finished product on my sister-in-law amongst our other Christmas treasures:

She really liked it!  So much so that my brother wants one too and I’ll probably make one for myself.  I’m also looking into putting them on Etsy… stay tuned for that!