crafts – Page 4 – Rae Nudson

yarn cross-stitch pillow

I have really enjoyed sewing pillow cases for the pillows on my couch. I like picking out the fabric, and I like that they are personal to me. Plus, sewing smallish pillow cases is a generally quick project with a large payoff. This particular pillow project, though, I’ve been sitting on since I saw this photo on Apartment Therapy’s instagram.

I love these designs. And I love that they use cross stitching, which I’ve been exploring lately with my embroidery. But this cross stitching is on a large, fun scale. It took me a while to figure out how I could do something similar on my own, but over the weekend I finally got it together.

I started by using some felt I had on hand. It was important to me to use felt because you don’t need to finish the edges for felt, so any holes you create in the felt won’t fray. I knew I wanted it for a 12×12 inch pillow, so I cut my fabric 13×13 inches to allow for a half-inch seam allowance. once had my square, I used a fabric pencil to draw half-inch grid lines. And then I started hole punching.

Figuring out how to create (mostly) evenly spaced holes, and how to cut out many, many tiny circles was the biggest challenge. But would you believe my little hand held hole punch cut through felt? It did. To cut each hole, I folded the fabric along each grid line so that my hole punch could reach the marks where the lines crossed. And then I got to punching. This part took a while, but I think it’s definitely worth it. Once I had my hole-punched canvas, I started stitching, using some extra yarn I had on hand and a large yarn needle that I normally use to sew in the dangling ends of my knitting.

I decided on “hi.” It’s welcoming, casual, and fun. (And also very easy to map out for cross stitching.) After that, I measured and cut fabric for the back of the black felt and the back of the pillow. Once I sewed it all together–leaving a hole to stick your pillow in–I was done!

I am really excited to see what else I could do with this idea. There’s unlimited colors and words or patterns I could play with, and it’s just too cute.

project life: october (week 2)

Obviously I have failed at my challenge of doing a project life spread for every week in October. I ran out of photo sleeves. And printer ink. (Whoops.) But here is week two, only a month or so late.

This week was one of those weeks where not much happened. I worked from home. I went to the eye doctor. I saw the movie Gravity.

But even during those kinds of weeks, #fatcat does a lot. A lot of napping. A lot of cuddling. A lot of looking cute.

So this spread is dedicated to him. This is what my days look like when I’m not doing much.

I made the pictures black and white to unify them. And because #fatcat is black, it was pretty easy to do. I thought about adding an accent color, but whatever it would be would jump out a lot as the only color on the page and I didn’t want it to be too distracting.

I like how it’s unified and I like that it’s something different for me. And he loved the attention all week long, I’m sure.

I’m glad I have these pages, and I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t start this challenge. But after a slow start, it seems my regular system of doing project life after a month or a big event is working just fine.

You can see my other project life updates here:

izabel from saga (embroidery no. 16)

I feel like I come late to the game to a lot of things. I just discovered Sandman–only 15 years after the first one came out. I am furiously trying to catch up on the Good Wife, which just started season 5. Last year I got really into Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, and the first one came out five years before I was born. I guess I can’t help being late for that one.

But I am into the comic books series Saga. And Saga is coming out right now. (To be fair, I did only read it after the first two volumes were complete.) Issue 15 came out on Oct. 30, and that issue is the inspiration for this embroidery of Izabel.

I like so many of the characters in Saga. Alana is a badass. The Will and Lying Cat really love each other. And Izabel is so nice and fun. Izabel may be dead, but she’s still a great babysitter to Alana and Marko’s daughter Hazel. She seems like a spunky teenager who cares for the family she is now working with. I really like Izabel’s fresh voice and positive attitude. Marko’s mom, on the other hand, may never warm up to her.

Saga has kept me on my toes and in love with the characters and stories. The next one comes out Nov. 27. I’ve been reading on my iPad, but if you can, swing by your local comic books store to check out Saga and see what else looks good!

I am working on a project to sew some of my favorite quotes and images from books. You can see the other pieces of my embroidery project here:

(I bought this comic book on my own and am not being paid to write about it. I just like it!)

baby blanket progress (11 inches)

At about 11 inches, I am a little more than a quarter done with the baby blanket I’m making for my niece (pattern from the Purl Bee). I feel like I really turned a corner once I started a new color.

It’s gotten a little bit chillier here in New York, and it’s nice to think about this blanket keeping a little baby warm. This stage in a knitting project is nice because you can start to really see what the final product will be. But it’s also hard to know there’s so far to go. I like that the blanket is striped because I don’t get bored with one color and it makes it really easy to mark progress. One stripe done, two stripes done, and on and on until you have several stripes in several colors.

I think it’s coming out so lovely, and I can’t wait to keep going. Since colder nights are coming quickly, I am sure I can hunker down with a warm blanket and get more stripes done in no time. And I better hurry–the baby’s due date will be here before you know it!

You can see previous progress on the blanket at baby blanket, baby blanket progress (4 inches), and baby blanket progress (a note to baby girl).

project wish list

I’m a person who reads knitting patterns for fun. You know, like how people read recipes? I like to see the different stitches and try to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I like to look at complicated patterns and remember that everyone starts learning just one stitch before they can do all the rest. Reading a bunch of great projects, though, means I have a large backlog of things I’d like to make and patterns I’d like to get to.

My dream projects right now are from the Purl Bee, a blog I am totally in love with.

I love these fun coasters. The colors are great–they’d be so cheery in my kitchen. These are pin loom coasters, and you can pick up the kit right here from Purl Soho.
These coasters have a similar pattern to these dishtowels that I also love. Their examples are all in blue, but maybe I could do pink orange to match my new coasters. They have a kit to make these available, too.
Once I’m done keeping my kitchen clean with my new coasters and dishtowels, I’ll settle in with this luxurious scarf. I daydream about this scarf. It’s that good. It would be a dream to wrap up in these bright colors to stay warm on a cold day. (Here’s the kit for this one)
You all know I love handmade things for my apartment. I still think about these cool round crocheted rugs. I’d love to layer some of these under my desk area.
And this pillow is so cute. It is handmade, crocheted, and incorporates my love for needlework in a fun new way. You could make it say anything you want!

I love all these projects. Even though I’m in the middle of several things, it’s nice to take a break and get inspired for the future.

project life: october (week 1)

I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of keeping up with project life. I think it looks great and is easy enough for me to actually do it every few weeks. I had previous attempts at scrapbooking, but they ended up petering out after a few months. This time, instead of gluing, cutting, and arranging, I’m just slipping cool things into photo pockets.

So this month I am going to step it up a little and make project life pages for each week instead of one or two pages per month.

These pages are for the first week of October. My dad came to visit over the weekend, so I didn’t have much trouble finding things to document. My favorite part of the pages is the scene of the New York skyline at night that I printed out to take up two pockets. It was a panoramic image, so a little narrow. I used the white space underneath to write about the weekend.

Paulie Gee’s, the restaurant we had dinner on Friday night, had postcards, so I included that, along with a bookmark from the bookstore where I go to book club. I also added an image from the program from A Night With Janis Joplin, a show I saw with my dad.

I’ll see how this month goes before committing to a page a week, but so far I like that it gives me a change to include smaller details.

You can see my other project life updates here:

project life: august

For what seemed like a busy summer, I wasn’t always good at documenting what was happening. I didn’t have very many pictures for August, but I still like how it came out. I added an insert to include my post about the Breaking Bad event I went to, and I added a lot of pictures of projects I worked on that month.

I included my Lying Cat embroidery with the tweet from Fiona Staples, the artist who draws Lying Cat. I also added my favorite outfit from the month and the cover of a book I read. I like adding the covers of books here and there to my spreads, I’ve done it in the past as well.

For the right page, I included my knitting and Breaking Bad embroidery, along with a few pictures from outings with friends. I feel like this summer I struggled with keeping up with picture taking while I was out and about. I think project life still turned out well, but this month I’ll focus more on that.

You can see my other project life updates here:

i am the one who knocks (embroidery no. 15)

Well, guys. Today’s the day. The series finale of Breaking Bad. Today we’ll say goodbye–and good riddance–to The One Who Knocks. (See an embroidered version of him here.)

I have never enjoyed a TV show more than Breaking Bad, but my emotions can’t take any more of this. These last few episodes have been nonstop intensity, and the following week is nonstop discussions, and my brain is nonstop fried.

But what a ride, right? It’s been blast. I’m so excited to see the end, but I’m sad for it to be over. I am also worried for the mental health of us, as a group. Will there be a giant sigh of relief tonight? Or stunned silence?

I used green and brown to reflect the colors in the Breaking Bad credits. They are also reminiscent of the desert dirt in New Mexico. When Walt yelled at Skylar that he is the one who knocks, it was an iconic moment in television. We had a new phrase for evil, a new kind of bad guy. And I expect tonight’s episode will be a new kind of send-off–a finale that takes us to depths we haven’t seen before. I can’t wait.

I am working on a project to sew some of my favorite quotes and images from books (and TV). You can see the other quotes in my embroidery project here:

superhero sweatshirt

It’s no secret that comic books are my new favorite thing. But I fell in love with some comic-book-inspired Philip Lim sweaters last year, before I read my first one. They are cheeky and cool–and just fun, right?

Unfortunately the real deal was over my budget. Philip Lim did come out with a Target collaboration recently, but it was sold out at my Target.

So I made my own.

I started with a beautiful gray crew neck from the boys section at Target.

Then I designed my own version of ka-pow on InDesign. I printed my stencil and used it to cut out felt, which I then arranged and sewed onto my sweatshirt. I like using felt for a lot of projects because it’s sturdy and pretty–but most of all because the edges are finished and that saves a few steps for me.

I used top stitching to secure the letters. I could have hand sewn it and made it a lot more perfect, but I wanted the speed that came with my sewing machine. I’m considering my imperfect lettering as part of the comic book charm.

This whole project took me one afternoon–I felt like a crafty superhero.

project life: wedding

Since I can’t stop talking about the wedding even a week later, I was stoked to work on some project life pages over the weekend.

I used mostly pictures from the actual day of the wedding. It was easy to create a color scheme that way since there was a lot of white and black.

My favorite part of these pages is my instagram picture grid! The bride and groom had an instagram tag for their wedding, and it was a blast to check everyone’s pictures. So I printed some out and put them into a 20-coin protector page. I love it. I have a few little hearts I might put in the blank squares, but I also like it as it is.

I also caught up on August and September project life pages, which I’ll share later. You can see my other project life updates here:

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