Random Acts of Kindness...

Today my boss and I went to visit a site for a project and when I got back there was a big box with a pretty brown bow sitting on my desk. I ran over to it and peeked inside and this is what I saw:

(Okay, okay, I took this picture 2 cupcakes later....)

My good friend Kelsey left them for me! What a sweet surprise! :) She was coming over to visit me and had just missed me, but thankfully she came back and I gave her a little tour of the office.

There were fourteen pumpkin spice latte cupcakes (link to recipe) and two pink lemonade cupcakes! I had just told Kelsey a few days ago how much I loved the pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks, and then she found this recipe on Pinterest last night! I jokingly asked her to make them for me and then saw how massive the ingredients list was and said to her "omg those pumpkin spice cupcakes have so many ingredients. :(" to which she replied "yeah they do haha." Little did I know she was actually making them for me at that very moment!! They were a (very yummy) belated birthday present. She is such a sweetheart and it really made my day!

Thanks Kelsey! <3

Flower Pillow

I made a pillow yesterday! I started at about 4:30 pm and finished around 8:30 pm. There was a lot of cutting and sewing involved so it took a little longer. PLUS sometime in there I was on the phone with Verizon Support for ohh 30 minutes, no big deal. >:(


I followed this tutorial http://www.vanessachristenson.com/2010/05/guest-blogger-tutorial-allison-of-cluck.html which is by http://www.cluckclucksew.com/. The directions were very simple, the process was simple, but tedious. After sewing on a few of my petals, my sewing machine started going wacky and bunching up the thread underneath the fabric. Whats up with that?! I Googled it, fiddled with the tension (which did nothing) then called my grandma and she said to re-thread the machine. So I did that and switched the stitch style and it worked, for a while, then messed up again.. So I did that process again! So annoying!!! I really need to learn more about the machine itself and NOT just how to use it! 


Here are a few photos of my process, and the final! I am extremely happy with the way it turned out! :) I love it!

I used felt bought by the yard instead of the small sheets. This stuff is stronger.

Cut in half to make the "petals".

I used the lid of a pot to make my circle.

Working my way in. I started puckering the petals on the third row.

 Overall I had 5 rows of big petals and probably 3ish of the small ones. Instead of making complete circles when I put on the small, I spiraled them in.

 You can see the petals and their depth better in this photo!

 I'm in love! <3

 The back was very simple to sew and I love that it is overlapping instead of having to deal with zippers or velcro.

What I've Been Up To.....

Lately I have not given myself a lot of time for blogging... There is always something more important, or more fun, to do. Will gave me a Kindle for my birthday, so I have been reading on that. I also have been sewing a lot.


First: The first book I read on my Kindle was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I'm sure you've heard of it, the movie version has been number one in the box office for three weeks straight. I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie because I heard that they were both excellent. I finished the book in a few days as I read leisurely between classes and at night. I had a hard time getting into it because of the thick Southern dialect used, but soon got used to it and really enjoyed the book. I was really excited for the movie because I thought it would be just as good, if not better! Sadly, I was disappointed. Although I really enjoyed the acting, and they got quite a lot right, I felt like there was just too much missing. It was still a good movie, and Will liked it, which is saying something considering he had no idea what it was going to be about. Its so difficult to make a movie as good as the book, there is almost always so much that is left out. Throughout the movie I kept thinking: "When is _____ going to happen?", "It didn't happen like that in the book!", and "That character would never do/say that!!" It was still good though! If you're interested in seeing the movie and reading the book, I think I would say see the movie first! Then if you feel like there are missing gaps, the book will fill them in. :)


Second: I've been sewing up a storm over here!! I have been making small pouches, pencil/cosmetic bags, etc. I have sewn around 15 things in the last ten days or so. I have pictures of some of them that I will share. :) I mostly have not been going by any patterns (besides the case shown below) and have been being relatively careless, so they are definitely NOT perfect. But I have really enjoyed making them!

First bag I ever made!

Made this one into a clutch.

My new pencil bag!

Changed this one up a bit!

Really proud of this one.....

Can you guess what it is?!

A new case for my Kindle!!!!!!!

First fold-over pouch.

My sister asked me to make her a bunch of small pouches so this is what I came up with...

I included a large pouch for them all to fit inside.

Made this bag for my grandma for her 75th birthday! <3

I did not upload pictures of all of them because I didn't want to overwhelm you with photos! There are just a couple others that I did not include. I really am loving sewing though! It is really fun and I always feel so accomplished after I have created something new. :) Plus it feels good to give hand-made gifts, so I hope the people I have given some to have liked them despite their beginner's flaws. <3

Sewing & Knitting

Do you know how to sew?  Or knit?  I was taught in middle school how to sew using a sewing machine (and I'm sure my grandma had shown me before then) but completely forgot how to.  I taught myself how to knit a couple summers ago after watching tutorial videos online, but frustrated myself by using too thin of yarn and needles so I didn't get too far with my first scarf.  Recently the Jo-Ann's in my area moved locations and re-opened with a HUGE store!  My mom and I went to their grand opening and they were offering 1/2 off on their classes.  I have been wanting to learn how to sew and an easier way to knit for a long time, so I was excited to sign up for both classes (only $15 each). 

My knitting class was on Tuesday afternoon.  I was really looking forward to it because I got to take the afternoon off of work (SCORE!). I was provided with plastic knitting needles, a how-to booklet and a skein of really ugly puke green yarn.  The teacher was an employee at Jo-Ann's.  Right away she taught us how to "cast on" (put the yarn on the needle and complete the first row) and do a basic stitch.  It was just as I remembered and came back to me pretty quickly.  She also taught us a different stitch that was more complicated.  After a while she had us alternate stitches and at that point I got a terrible headache. Bummer.  I couldn't concentrate very much after that, and my fingers started hurting because I knit extremely tightly and that makes everything more difficult.  Before I left she taught us to "cast off" (close off the finished end).  I ended up leaving about 30 minutes early because my head was getting to be too much and my leg was obnoxiously shaky.  I should also mention that I forgot to eat lunch before class, so I was very hungry.  I'm sure that contributed to my headache/leg shakes.

Before I left Jo-Ann's I bought three sets of knitting needles.  Really big ones!! And some thick yarn.  From my experience, with bigger needles, and thicker yarn it is much easier on your hands and goes much faster.

My sewing class was Wednesday night.  It was a basic sewing class focusing on setting up the sewing machine and making basic stitches.  I have two sewing machines at home.  One is an antique Singer sewing machine that I think is missing the foot pedal, and I'm not sure if it works.  I got it at Stuff Etc. for $15.  The other one is a Brothers sewing machine from Walmart with 14 different stitch styles.  Will bought me the floor model so it was only $30!!  The sewing machine I used in my class was a Singer with 70 or so different stitch options!  It was so much fun!  It had a lot of patterned stitches and I could tell that the sewing machine was really sophisticated (i.e. expensive) because of how easily it could make the patterns. My favorite was a Greek fret pattern and one that looked like a curvy line with little loops.  I think that machine cost around $300.. Maybe some day I will be a good enough sewer and have enough money to get it.

I was really happy with my sewing class!  One of my classmates brought in an old Singer similar to mine, so I was able to look at how she was doing things to get a better understanding of mine (although I still haven't tried it).

Okay this post is getting really long and boring, but I just wanted to explain that I just learned these skills and I am really happy and excited that I finally know enough about something to make it a hobby.  I have a few sewing patterns I'm excited to try and I want to experiment with knitting as well...

Which brings me to the REAL point of this post... I made something!

Let's play "Find Dexter" ;)

Wednesday night I started working on a scarf.  I made it 10 rows wide and used all of my skein of yarn.  I actually ran out of yarn at the end, so I wasn't able to finish it as nicely as I would have liked. It took me around 3 hours to make.

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to add some pretty flowers to the end of my scarf.  I figured I could use my sewing knowledge as well on this project. :)  I Googled "Fabric Flowers" and found this tutorial http://iammommahearmeroar.blogspot.com/2010/09/autumn-bloom-belt.html.  I did not make the leaves or the belt, just the flowers.  It was really simple! All it took was some felt, scissors and a hot glue gun.

Please excuse the poor-quality photo!

I made one big flower and two small ones.  The big one used two 8.5" x 1.5" pieces of felt. The smaller ones used only one piece of 8.5" x 1.5". 

The colors I used are dark purple, black and light grey.  I thought they complimented the teal nicely.  To get the flowers on to my scarf I sewed on three small felt circles, approximately the size of the base of the flower, where I wanted them.  Then hot glued the bases of the flowers onto the felt.  I'm not sure how long this glue bond will last.. Hopefully forever!

I'm really happy with the way it turned out!  There are always things I can improve on, but it was a great learning experience. :)

You can click any of the photos for a larger version! Sorry they are so tiny.

Do you sew or knit? Do you think hobbies like that are interesting?

Our 'Yaking' Adventure

 Today Will and I went kayaking! We were planning on going this morning, but then we had to wait until noon so I could pick up an antique sewing machine I bought from Stuff Etc (I'll blog about that later).  As soon as we left from getting the sewing machine it started POURING! With loud thunder and freaky lightning! The forecast called for 0% chance of rain and a high of 92 so I was very disappointed.. But, just as soon as the storm started, it stopped! So we got in the car and headed out to the lake!

We rented the kayak from the university I attend.  It only cost $25 for a weekend rental, and they provided us with tie-down's, life jackets and paddles.  The kayak we rented was a tandem sit-on-top.  Sit-on-top just means that instead of sitting inside of the kayak, we sat on top of it!

We started out pretty cautious, paddling consistently and keeping our life jackets on.  After a while we got more comfortable with it and took our life jackets off (but kept them looped around our arms) because it was REALLY hot!  Then we stopped paddling and just floated around.

 Will was really sweet and paddled me around while I laid on the kayak.  We had some snacks and took some photos.  He splashed me with his hands, so I sent a tidal wave over him with my paddle.  Mwahahaha.  He got what he had coming! ;)

 Isn't he attractive?

We had some really lovely views all around the lake.  Its not very big so after a couple of hours we decided to head home.  We think next time it will be more fun if we go on a river and have someone pick us up at our "landing spot."  That way we can go with the current and have more change in scenery.

Overall we had so much fun!! It was a lot easier than I was expecting and although I did get wet from somebody splashing me, we didn't fall out or over at all!  If you are thinking about trying kayaking, do it!  I didn't think using a two-person (tandem) kayak was difficult at all.  So I would definitely suggest it to anyone wanting to go with a friend.  I'm not sure the difference between the sit-on-top and the sit-inside since I've only used one type, but we thought we might like a sit-inside one better.  I think the benefit to the sit-on-top is that the kayak itself is more stable so it is less likely to flip, even though you might fall off! :)

Look at that Beast!

Here's a preview of what Will and I are doing tomorrow! I have never been kayaking (or just yaking as I like to call it), but Will insists that it is easy and fun! We are going to go out tomorrow and spend most of the day on the lake. We will probably pack some snacks and have a picnic somewhere. I'm excited! I'll try to take photos but not sure how that will work since I'll be in the yak on the water.... :-) Wish us luck!

7-12-2011

Hello! Welcome to my new blog "Designer in Training!" My name is Christina and I am a senior interior design student with a minor in art focusing on graphic design.  I started this blog to document my life as I transition from my senior year, to my internship, and to my future career as an interior designer. I hope to keep things interesting here by posting frequently about my life, my projects, my struggles and my successes as well as DIY tutorials and random interesting finds.


Thanks for stopping by! Hope to see you again soon! :)