Blinders: Part 5

The next step in finishing the blinders project was to sew the 'moon' onto the other eye area. I'm really getting into the beaded embroidery, working on the fan pull and this. I'm imagining more embroidery projects in the future. But first, we have to finish this one.
I'm going to sew the denim to the ultrasuede with a bit of the denim left for some fringe, so I don't want to cut it too close yet. I did cut down the rectangle a bit, just to make it easier to work with. So now the blinders look a bit more like actual blinders.

Answer

Me.
I made that doll when I was a kid. Probably 8-12 somewhere in there. One of the ways I started my 'crafty' life was making things for my dolls. My mom likes to tell the story of how I was making something very cool for my barbie, and I didn't leave room for stitching, so it didn't fit the doll at all. It was a beautiful ruffled collar jacket, btw, and would have been georgeous if i would have finished it.
This doll I made is a little tight at the seams because of that same issue. But I made it work. The dress is origional. It's just a piece of cloth pined at the back, with a ribbon belt. I'm tempted to make her a very cool dress now, maybe even a beaded one.
I made a lot of funny/cool things when I was a kid, and maybe someday I'll find the photo of me at age 6-7 in the 'bikini' I made out of an old pair of boxer shorts...

Who's That Girl??

Fan Pull: Attached and Pretty

So the solution that I came up with, was to cover the exposed thread with beads, including the bugle beads that will be part of the fringe.

Fan Pull: Attached but looks funny

Even though the ladder/basket seems to work well to hold the fan pull chain onto the body, the first few sets of ladders were very difficult to controll. As you can see here, part of the fan pull ball chain is showing on this side. Not as attractive as I had hoped. Plus, there is so much thread showing.

Fan Pull: Attached (Finally!!)

I ended up making six sets of ladder stitches. I tied and glued each set seperately, before adding the next row.

Fan Pull: Attaching

When last we left our Fan Pull project, I was having trouble figuring how to attach the fan pull chain to the beaded body. What I ultimately came up with, after trying several different things, was making a kind of basket around the balls of the chain. I ladder-stitched each of the top six beads at the top of the body, stitched them each individually, then ran the thread through each of the newly added six. Then I was able to tighten the set of six around the ball of the chain. The first set tightened around the bigger part of the ball, but the second set of six tightened around the space between the first two balls of the chain.

Loom Work: Scarf

After about three weeks of looming just when I had some free time, not trying to finish quickly, this scarf is pretty long! I had originally bought 2 skeins of "Child's Play" variegated yarn. I figured two was enough for a scarf. Since I had started the knitting attempt with the one skein, when I started looming, I started the second skein. I even cheated, and didn't roll the skein into a ball first, mainly because I was anxious to get started, and didn't want to take the extra time to roll it up. I think the main reason to roll up your skein is so you don't get knots (right?), but I only had a couple little snags using the yarn straight out of the skein. I finished up the first skein pretty quickly, and cut the knitting attempt off the ball I had rolled. I tried to match the variegation, since the pattern of the scarf was very cool. I matched it up pretty good, you can see a small hiccup in the pattern if you look closely.

Knitting Attempt

This is why I decided to buy the loom. I had bought this cool yarn several years ago, first trying to teach myself crochet, then knitting this. This is at least three years' worth of attempting to knit. ;p I always wished I could knit or crochet well enough to do it without watching, to do it well, and quickly, but that's not going to happen without much more practicing. So the loom was a great trade off. I can actually make things, and see the results quickly.
I am going to unravel this at some point, and attempt to get all the kinks out. Maybe it will be the fringe of the scarf I'm making with the loom.

Loom Work

The tool is actually called a Knifty Knitter, but I usually call it a loom, it's just not knitting to me. And I like having a 'loom'. I bought it three and a half weeks ago, and I meant to post photos along the way, but the problem is...it is soo easy to use, and sooo quick to make something nice. I meant to take photos, but didn't really have the time. This is the quickest project I've worked on in like, ever. I love it. It sits by my bed, and I can pull it out any time. I took a bunch of pix, finally, last Friday, so more to come...