long time and no blog post.

I have been super busy with school.  I know, I know...I have said that several times since school has started.  But honestly since I have been so busy, I haven't really done much worth blogging about.  Here are some things very out of order that have happened over the past week or so, that I haven't written about!

• hung out with Jon Huntsman's daughters at the Republican debate party
• cut out the rest of Tinsley's shirts to get ready to make her blanket
• delicious dinner with great friends at Saluda's
• spent a lot of time out side laying on the infamous porch swing and on those oh so awesome rocking chairs
• a picnic dinner with Gair in the front yard
• we did some "spring" cleaning in the fall to [de] clutter Gair's house
• went to church...aka watched it online in the front yard (thanks to Newspring)

• babysat my two favorite little rugrats (pictures to come)
• watched the Carolina vs. Georgia game with friends (the weekend before last)
• attended the Carolina vs. Navy game and had two of our favorite people sitting with us {SHOUT OUT to Yates and Ash}

The Pride of the Southeast - - The Carolina Band

(I couldn't get a good picture of the entire USC...but I did my best)

First home game of the season!  The Gamecocks running out to 2001 :)

C-A-R-O-L-I-N-A- -GOOOO COCKS!!!

• spent some quality time with the parentals before and after the game :)
• Sunday lunch with the Heady's
• put the finishing touches on a dress I sewed for Baby Kaitlyn (added the "K" with my embroidery machine)

• had a little R&R time with the boyfriend {muah}

I'm sure I left some very important things out that I will remember later!  But that's all for now!

Happy Tuesday :)

getting back into it

I haven't really been doing any sewing lately . . . although there are several little [BIG] projects that I need to be tackling.  

Remember the blanket I made for Gair and also the blanket I made for my sister . . . well I am suppose to be making one for one of my bestest friends with all of her ZTA shirts from college, but I just haven't had the motivation to get it done . . . sorry Tin, because I know this was suppose to be a birthday present - which was in May {oopsie}.  Well, I am actually gonna start on it and hopefully get it done so she can have it before her next birthday (just joking).

Some other projects I want to work on I have found on an AWESOME blog that Taylor introduced me to. You can view this blog here and see some really awesome stuff that I hope to one day be able to do myself.    She is very creative and you should definitely check out all she has to offer.

I am also addicted to Pinterest.  If you haven't heard of it and you are like me and LOVE to get new ideas from the internet, it is definitely something you should check out.  Basically it is a place where you can store any ideas or {cute} things you found online, so you don't EVER forget about them.  Kinda like a notebook where you would cut out ideas you found in magazines, but online!  You can follow my pin boards here, and see all of the things that I have found online that interest me, and things that I want to do to my imaginary home that I will have one day :)

I hope everyone is having a Terrific Tuesday so far :)

-baby blanket-

I mentioned in another post how some friends of mine were having a baby!  Well...Kaitlyn was born on April 4.  I decided since I have been into the whole sewing thing, that I would {attempt to} make her a baby blanket.  Well...I did it kinda like I did Gair's t-shirt blanket.  I just went to the fabric store and bought some cute pink fabrics that would look good together on a quilt.  The process was about the same as for Gair's blanket I made.

1. cut the fabric into 6x6 squares

2. placed the squares like I wanted them sewn together

3. sewed the squares together to make one big square

4. repeated steps 1-3 to make the back side of the blanket

5. sewed the fleece batting onto one of the sides of the quilt

6. sewed the front side to the back side with the right sides facing out

7. watched 1,000 youtube videos on how to sew the satin binding on the border of the blanket

8. gave up on learning from someone on youtube

9. figured out a way to do it on my own {YIKES} 

10. sewed the binding on the blanket

11. ran out of thread UGHHHHHH

12. didn't notice that the thread came out of some part of the machine, so it got all tangled up

13. finally figured it out :)

14. finished sewing the binding on

So, here it is, the finished baby blanket!  It was my very first time doing something like this (with the binding) so I'm not to ashamed of my work!  

I cooked meatloaf last night for Trav and Kristin and took over the baby blanket AND got to see Kaitlyn for the first time :)  She is absolutely adorable!

sewing

Since I have been into the whole sewing thing, when my sister came over the other week she brought some  fabrics that she really loved for us to play around with.

Those of you who do not know, Becca (my little sis) has been to Uganda, Africa twice this year and absolutely fell in love with so many children there.  Her and her friend Morgan are moving over there for 3 months starting in August to help out in an orphanage and do a TON of other amazing things for the children there.  I will have to tell you more when I learn more about it :)

Anywho...Becca has a leather day planner that Morgan gave her for Christmas and she really wanted to sew Africa onto the front of it.  I thought there was no way possible I could do that.  But we printed a picture of the country and Becca traced it onto the fabric and cut the fabric out so it was an exact shape of Africa and I sewed it onto the cover of her day planner!

If I do say so myself we did a pretty god job!!  Thanks Bec for risking that your day planner could have possibly been destroyed!

gair's [birthday] surprise

Well...A couple of weeks ago I posted that I was going to {sew} something for Gair's birthday.  Well...I have always wanted to make a blanket out of old t-shirts.  Sew I decided to ask Mrs. Heady if she had any of Gair's old Irmo t-shirts (where he went to high school like a gazillion years ago) :)  Gair's house burned down about 6 years ago, so he thought that all of his old stuff had burned in the fire.  Well.....I was so excited that I could surprise him with TONS of his old t-shirts.

Since I am horrible at keeping surprises (especially ones that I am really excited about) I obviously told him what I was planning on doing!

First I washed all the shirts and figured out which ones I was going to use....I cut the shirts in half and measured that I  was going to have to make each square 17x17 inches.  I made a template out of cereal boxes so I could trace a {perfect} square on each shirt before I cut them out.

Here is my little work station on the dining room table.  This is while I was cutting the shirts.  I tried several different ways of cutting them...I tried using a blade and using the big clear ruler things, but that didn't work to well on the t-shirt material, I also tried cutting more than one at a time...but that didn't work either because I was too scared they would come out all crooked.  So I just cut ALL 20 shirts by hand!!!!

Then the next step was to lay them out and decide what order they were gonna go in.  This part was cool because it actually was looking like it was all COMING TOGETHER :)

This is a picture of all of the shirts placed on the bed how they were going to be sewn together.  Not an actual measurement, but the blanket was 4 shirts x 5 shirts.  Gair's shirts were all really big though!

I don't have any pictures of the next couple of phases in my first little sewing adventure :(

The next thing I did was sew the t-shirts together to make rows.  After I did that I had 5 rows of 4 t-shirts.  After that I sewed the rows together to make them all into one big piece.

Im gonna be honest, after I did this...I had no idea what I was suppose to do next.  {sew} I went to Hancock fabric and bought batting that I was suppose to sew to the back of the big t-shirt that I had made.  Then I had to decide what fabric I was going to use for the back of the blanket.  I was going to do fleece but there is such a different in t-shirt material and fleece so I wasn't sure about that.  {sew} I decided to go with a lighter flannel material, because that feels a lot like a t-shirt.

{sew} I came home and started sewing the batting onto the back of the t-shirts.  This was a little tougher than I thought!!  Then I cut the black flannel to measure the same size as the t-shirt side of the blanket and put it on the sewing machine and started sewing the back on.  You have to sew things like this inside out {sew} that the seams don't show, {sew} once I was almost done I had to leave a little opening to flip the blanket inside out and then whip stitch that part closed by hand.

The last part I wanted to do was put a few stitches where every corner of the shirts met so the blanket wouldn't separate in the middle.  This part was very time consuming!

{sew} here is the FINAL PRODUCT!!  Oh yeah, and it's obviously not a birthday surprise for Gair anymore since I can't keep my mouth shut!!

If you think you might want a blanket made from your old t-shirts please email me at braden.hancock216@gmail.com.  I only did the back of Gair's with flannel because he did not have enough shirts to do the back with t-shirts too.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

my new project[s]

well. well. well.  since i am currently J.O.B. hunting i have been keeping myself busy with FUN new projects.  i have recently been obsessed with taking pictures and playing on photoshop, scrapbooking (our hawaii trip), blogging (obviously), and making gair's birthday present (this one is going to have to be a surprise though because i want everything to be just {sew} before i show anyone).

here is a clue of what i am doing for gair for his birthday

maybe soon i will be able to post some of the things i have been doing in photoshop.  i have a long way to go, but i am s.l.o.w.l.y but surely learning.