Quick Sewing Tip: Keep a log of machine maintenance

When was the last time you cleaned and oiled your machine? Or changed a needle?

You don’t remember?

Me neiths.

That’s why I started keeping a mini notebook next to my machines so I could record when and what maintenance I’ve done.

I change the needles on my sewing machines fairly often, but on my sergers and coverstitch machines? Unless I break a needle, almost never.  And when you can take out your handy dandy notebook and see that you haven’t changed the needles in 5 months, it can make troubleshooting go a lot faster.

When it comes to cleaning and oiling, most of my machines suggest once a month… for infrequent use. HA! For “daily use”, the manuals suggest cleaning once or twice A WEEK. *cough* Oops.

Now that I keep notes, though, it’s a lot harder to say to myself, “I just cleaned them, they’re fine….”  I can actually look (in horror) to see that they haven’t been oiled in… well, in a long time.

Since I’m a machine freak and have a fleet of machines, a wee notebook is appropriate, but if you’ve only got one or two, you could just use a Post-it note stuck to the back of the machine to keep note.

WhatTheCraft Handmade Giveaway – SmarmyClothes tees

This week’s WhatTheCraft Giveaway is sponsored by SmarmyClothes… Hey, that’s me!

The winner of this giveaway will receive:
your choice of one of my new line of SmarmyClothes tees

Valued at up to $30!

I won’t bore you with the usual giveaway interview, since you hear quite enough from me as it is. But I do want to tell you how effing excited I am about these shirts!

First- the skull and safety pins shirt is available in a ton of print options already – glitter, neon, glow in the dark, etc. And I want everyone to know that you can choose any print color/style that you want. If the option isn’t in my shop, just contact me and I will make it happen. Second, the shirt styles can be customized as well, so if you want a hoodie or a baby onesie or even a dress, your wish is my command!

The kawaii animal shirts are my favorite because 1. They’re FUZZY. And 2. The pig and the fox have TAILS IN THE BACK. It’s so cute, I might explode.

Alright, I’ll shut up now and tell you how to enter- but before I go, I also wanted to mention that I’m also having a birthday sale this weekend… all ready to ship tops, skirts, and dresses are 29% off at SmarmyClothes.com through Monday!

Giveaway Info:

SmarmyClothes  is giving away a t-shirt of your choice.

There are lots of ways to enter, so even us lazy folk have a chance at winning!

This contest will close on May 10th at 11:59 PM EST. I will randomly select one winner after the contest closes.

You MUST comment on this post with your entries as you complete them.

If you do not comment, I will have no way to count your entries.
You can post a separate comment for each entry or
put all of your entries into one comment.

If you have Liked/Followed/etc. WhatTheCraft in previous giveaways,
you can still use that as entry, just comment saying you have done so.

Ways to Enter

On Facebook:
Please include your Facebook name in your comment

• “LIKE” WhatTheCraft on Facebook
• “LIKE” SmarmyClothes on Facebook
• Post a Facebook status update with a link to this giveaway
• Post a Facebook update with a link to your favorite t-shirt design from SmarmyClothes

On Twitter:
Please include your Twitter name in your comment

• Follow WhatTheCraft on Twitter
• Follow SmarmyClothes on Twitter
• Retweet this tweet from your Twitter
• Tweet with a link to your favorite t-shirt design from SmarmyClothes
  

Other Ways:

• Follow SmarmyClothes on Tumblr – include your Tumblr username in your comment
  
• Blog about this giveaway and/or about SmarmyClothes - include a link to the post in your comment
• Subscribe to my YouTube channel – include your YouTube username in your comment

 

PLEASE make sure you include a valid email address on the comment form so I can get in touch with you if you win!

This giveaway will end at 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, May 10th, 2012.

What I’ve been working on…

Aside from the mountain of custom orders and Extreme Unicorns stuff (and I swear new video tutorials are imminent!)… I’ve added a bunch of new custom skirt designs to my shop (and two former dress designs that are now also available on a custom order basis)!

Peggy zip back pencil skirt, available in houndstooth, leopard, or any print of your choice!

Stormer zebra corset skirt

Read more

Extreme!

I have rad news! My band The Extreme Unicorns just released our first EP. All the songs make for excellent crafting background music- tested and approved by yours truly.

Check it out!

Here’s the new music video for the first song on the EP:

Recipe: Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese frosting

This is The Best Carrot Cake of All Time. I shit you not. I got the original from Bon Appétit, but I’ve modified it to it’s current excellence.

The original was super oily, so I cut the oil and subbed in some yogurt, so it’s still super moist.

Ingredients

Cake:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or a mix of nutmeg, ginger, and allspice)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 3 cups grated peeled carrots (about 10 average sized carrots)
• (optional) 2 tablespoons crystallized ginger Read more

Tutorial – How to Sew a Slipcover, Part 2

Part 2, FINALLY!

I know, I move at turtle speed sometimes.

Part 1 is here if you need it.

So let’s get started. Here’s my naked couch, stripped of all it’s cushiony goodness. (It seems weird that this is the first photo of the actual couch I’ve posted. Kinda dumb, in hindsight.)

Step 1

Last time I told you to go collect some thrift store sheets to use as a muslin, yes?

You COULD forgo the muslin and use these steps on your actual fabric, if you like to gamble, or you’re super ballsy, or really confident. I’m usually all of those, but I still made a muslin. I really didn’t want to eff this up, so I went the safe route, but if you want to roll the dice, be my guest. You’re dangerous!

Grab a sheet and tack it to part of the surface of your couch. I’m going to start with the front of one arm.

You can just stab some pins through the sheet so it lays flat. Or if you don’t want to put pins in your couch for some reason, I suppose you could use tape or something like that.

You can ignore all the marks for now. When you have it laying nice and flat and even, trim around it, leaving a good seam allowance PLUS extra. 3 inches would be good for now.  Mine has already been trimmed… otherwise it would’ve just looked like a mess of a sheet draped over the arm of my couch.

We’ll trim it down more when we’ve got it all pinned and fitted.

Step 2

Choose another surface that abuts (hehe) the piece you’ve already pinned and trimmed. In my case, I’m going to do the piece that wraps all the way around the arm.

Pin it in place the same way I did with the front of the arm. Now, start pinning the two pieces together where they meet.  It’s usually best to start at the center (in my example, I started pinning at the top of the arm) of the soon-to-be seam. Avoid puckers, you want nice clean seams. Some designs might require some darts or gathers, you’ll have to figure out what works best for your piece of furniture.

Pull the pieces taught, but not so tight that you stretch the fabric out of whack and wind up with wonky muslin pattern pieces. Read more

Recipe: Muffnuts aka Muffin Donuts

A while back I was pondering one of nature’s biggest mysteries… the doughnut. I thought to myself that there must be a way to recreate the donut at home, in a somewhat healthier manner. I.E. Not fried.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a classic fried doughnut, but they’re really only worth all that evil fattiness if they’re fresh. And I’m not in the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn, which makes getting fresh ‘nuts from the local donut shop hit or miss. Usually miss.

It didn’t take long to find a recipe for a donut-muffin hybrid. A doffin, a duffin, a monut, a muffnut. Call it what you will, I was intrigued.

Last night, having a hankering for something sweet, I decided to test drive the muffnut, and I am pleased to tell you, it passed with flying colors.

 

 

Here’s the recipe, originally from Baking Bites.

(I love the explanations in the recipe. I’m a habitual fiddler when it comes to recipes, so I appreciate someone telling me why I should not fiddle with certain aspects beforehand.)

NOTE: After a lot of comments from other muffnut testers, I thought I should point out that these muffnuts are most similar to cake donuts. If you’re expecting a Krispy Kreme style yeast donut, you’ll likely be disappointed.

 

Cinnamon Sugar Muffnuts

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used 1 cup white and 1/2 cup white whole wheat with excellent results)
• 2 tsp baking power
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (fresh! oh yeah!)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

(for rolling)

• 1 TB butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional… you can mix it up and try different spice combos, too!)

 

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with cooking spray or vegetable oil.
2. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color, about 1 minute.
3. Mix in the oil, milk, and vanilla.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour into egg mixture and stir to combine. A few lumps are okay.
5. Divide batter evenly into 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
6. Bake for 14-18 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. While muffins are baking, melt butter and pour remaining 1/2 cup of sugar into a small bowl. Mix in the cinnamon.
8. When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter, remove from the pan and roll in sugar.
9. Cool on a sheet of parchment paper. (I cooled mine on a wire rack like the original recipe stated, and they kind of stuck. Boo.)

 

Fresh out of the oven, they are nice and crispy on the outside, very much like a donut.

The next day, they’re softer… and somehow they taste even more like a donut, to me.

I can’t wait until fall, because I’ll be experimenting with apple and pumpkin muffnuts, and replacing the coffee with my favorite donut companion, apple cider.

How to frost a window with contact paper – photo tutorial

If you’ve read my recent posts you know two things.

1. I love Contact paper.

2. I moved into a new house a few months ago.

The new house has a problem. That problem is that there’s  a window IN the shower. This window is a problem because it looks directly onto the street.

No, sir. I don’t like it.

Put a curtain over it, you say! But what about all that nice natural light?!

No, no. A curtain won’t do.

When we lived in an apartment a few years ago, there was a living room window I wanted  to cover without blocking the light, so I cut out a bunch of squares of clear Contact paper and stuck them on the window. It looked like a cool mosaic frosted window. The Contact paper is cool because when you want a change, or you’re a renter moving out, you just peel it off.

I did something similar in our basement here, since we have big egress windows that look directly at the neighbors (more on that in a minute). Even though we’re not renting, and I could have actually etched the glass or painted it with frosted glass spray, I just didn’t want anything permanent.

I knew I wanted to use the Contact paper in the bathroom, but I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to use one continuous piece of Contact paper, so there wouldn’t be any gaps you could see through. Someone would have to stick their face right up to the glass to see through the gaps, but I still didn’t like the idea.

I could have just put the plain sheet over the window and left it at that, but that would have been easy, and easy is boring.

So the OCTOPY ATTACK! window was born…

 

 

All you need is some Clear Contact Paper, some scissors, Sharpies, and some time. Read more

Revamping with spray paint

There were a lot of things in this house that I thought would wind up in the garbage because they were so dirty/funky/etc. Like every single door in the house. I thought, “that’s gonna have to go eventually”. But since I was already painting damn near every room in the house, I washed them, slapped on some primer and paint, and I’ll be damned if they didn’t look almost brand new. At the very least, not in need of replacement. (This is where we cheer because that means more money for FABRIC!!!  Mwahahahah.)

Anyway, I was surprised how awesome your standard items -i.e. walls, trim, doors- looked with a fresh coat of paint. What I hadn’t considered was painting some of the house’s hardware. In my lightswitch revamp post, I mentioned painting a light fixture.

Enter the bathroom light fixture:

Read more

Recipe: Chicken + Spinach Enchiladas

These are not your traditional slathered-in-red-sauce enchiladas. They’re better.

When I first found this recipe and decided to try it, I thought the sauce sounded too simple. Milk, chicken broth, peppers, and spinach? Isn’t that going to be bland? Do I even like corn tortillas? As it turns out, this is one of my all time favorite recipes. I have been known to make it twice in a month because it’s so damn good.

I’ve tweaked the original recipe a little. If you want to see the untweaked version by Rick Bayless, it’s here: http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=167

Read more

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