Pants, Totes and a Bunny

My husband wore his pants the other day to the bar. Of course they all know I make almost all of my husbands clothes and area always amused at the loud clothes he will wear. This outfit I think was very reserved compared to others. The pants fit but there are issues with the waist. As I stated in a prior post I had made the pants too small. Now they are too big. They are kind of baggy when he tightens his belt. The issue is the beer gut, it drops down in front. We use to joke that pregnant lady pants were the way to go because they have a stretchy front. But he wanted pants, big boy pants. Not just the light weight baggy pants with an elastic waist that I have made him in the past. But nice cotton pants that look good. I decided to break down and make a muslin. I have it all cut out and I will start putting it all together...making him try the pants on every chance i get.  

I love Martha Stewart. I still read her magazine, watch her cooking show and browse her web site. I like all the suggestions she has for crafting. I have a problem with the amount of $$$ she will spend on supplies or ingredients to make something. Such as the Felt Tote Bag. She suggested making it from heavyweight felt. The bag it's self is about 36" x18", so you would need a 36" x36" piece of felt. The nice pieces I found start at $70, of course there are some cheaper fabric for about $30 for a 3x"x36"...but really anything more the say $20 for a tote bag is kind of ridicules. One comment on the martha stewart site suggested jean material. What a great idea, I tried it..see above. The jean tote is kind if rough, I think it's better if the seams are enclosed instead of exposed. I thought it would look nice but now that I look at the bag it looks messy. I bought a bolt of yellow wool fabric from City Liquidators (see prior post about Fabric World). I thought I would try to felt the wool and make a tote bag. It worked in a way but the wool fabric is a little too lose. I may need to wash the bag a couple more time to make it felt up. I do like the bright yellow color and the black bias tape together..I call this my Bee bag. I want to try some free motion stitching on the bag, an out line of a bee. I'm happy because the City of Portland has 
recently banned the use of insecticides believed to be harmful to bees on city property

Sunday we went to my sisters for Easter dinner. I decided to dress up in my bunny suit. We had a nice dinner with the family. 

PDX Carpet, Howard Finster & some 

new bags

It's been a very busy week for us. We attended a meeting to discuss the prospects to get some of the PDX carpet that is being removed from the Airport. They are giving away 4 lots of 1000 sq yards (yes that is sq yards which is about 9000 sq feet). We need to write a 3 page letter detailing what we plan to do with the carpet, how we intend to distribute the rug to the community and how we plan on storing the carpet. The prospects will be read by a committee and the person or company that the committee feels will do the best job will get their choice of lots, you can bid on the however many lots you think you can use or distribute. We hope to use the carpet to raise money for the Pittman Addition HydroPark and the North Portland Tool Library. We also want to carpet one of our apartments up on 45th. How cool would that be to live in an apartment that has PDX carpet? 

Last saturday a friend called and asked me if I wanted to go to a Howard Finster show. I could not believe it, I love Howard Finster and was surprised that there is a show up for the next couple of months at the Portland Museum of Modern Art. This museum is in the basement of Mississippi Records. They have about 10 Finster pieced on display including a couple of shadow boxes. I understand the shadow boxes are rare pieces as he did not make very many. I have always loved folk environments and fell in love with Finster when I first read about him & his Paradise Garden back in the mid 80's. 

I also received my new bags this week. I upgraded my book bags to a heavy canvas that looks and feels like a much stronger bag. I have a couple of new designs that I'm shopping around. The fish are actual fish that I inked and printed several years ago. I want to print the inside of the fish in different colors. I used the yellow and blue because I was wanted the blend of the yellow and blue for a third color of green on the fish. I'm still testing this image, but so far the reaction has been positive. The hedgehog is an illustration I asked my niece to draw for me. I asked for a hedgehog wearing glasses reading a book in the tub. I think she did a really good job, but when I blew it up I lost some detail. I'm working on cleaning up the image, but I like it...it's really cute. I hope to get some of the hedgehog bags printed this week, just a couple more tweaks to the image (I think the water ripples need to be a little more recognizable). I also start a new job this week, it's just a part time job that will get me out of the house for about 10-12 hours a week.