Drawing Challenge Part 6

This 30 day challenge was a really great way to stay inspired to draw every day.  Having a prompt made me go outside my comfort zone and draw things I hadn't drawn before.  This post represents the last 5 days of the challenge.  I hope you have enjoyed seeing the work I have produced during this challenge.

Day 26, something I don't like.  Wasps, enough said.

 Day 27, someone I love. John, that is all.

 Day 28, I felt like drawing a squirrel.

 Day 29, a place I want to go.  Glasgow City Chambers, representing the area of Scotland my Grandfather came from.

 And day 30, a banner congratulating myself for completing the thirty days,

and reminding me to keep drawing.
Now that I have shared all thirty days of drawing with you, my posts should return to normal crafty projects, but before I am done, which drawing was your favorite?

Drawing Challenge Part 5

The fifth week I definitely felt like I had a routine for my drawings.  After each day I would look at the next day's prompt and just keep it in mind as I went about my daily life.
Day 21 is something I want, a juicer.  And I chose a nice one to draw, the Hurom Slow Juicer Model HU-100S.

 Day 22 is something I miss, the island from the kitchen in our apartment in Newark.  Although living in Newark, NJ wasn't the best place overall, I do miss the counter space I had in the kitchen.

 I got all weird about day 23, something I need. Because I feel like anything I say I need reveals just how spoiled I am, never having lived outside the United States.  So I chose water.  Everyone needs water, right?

 Day 24 was a couple I saw at the laundromat.  I didn't draw them until I got home, so they have the same facial structure as any face I try to draw from memory.

 Day 25 is scenery, specifically Multnomah Falls in Oregon.  I went there once with my family and was struck by the magnitude of it.

I should post my next and last drawing installment Thursday. 

Drawing Challenge, Part 4

I had a really great time doing this week of drawings.  I got to choose subjects that were really interesting for me to draw and things I had been trying to figure out in my head how to draw a lot recently.  So with no further ado:

Day 16 was inspiration and since I had been looking at the huge (and I mean for the east coast in an apartment complex) trees in our neighborhood recently and trying to figure out how to draw or paint them, I went for the tree I can see out my window.

 Day 17 was my favorite plant, one of my tomato plants.  I got the composition off so it is mostly the pot, but you get the idea.

 Day 18 was just a doodle.  As you can see I kind of let it get out of control and it covered the whole page.  It was actually slightly too big for the scanner bed, so about a half inch is missing off the bottom.  I like the bottles in the bottom left and on the right above the cloud, so I think I may be drawing more bottles in the future.

 Day 19 was something new.  I took a long time figuring out what that meant, a new object, or something I haven't drawn before?  I went for something I have never drawn before.

Day 20 was something orange and my favorite orange thing is carrots.  I love carrots!

  I am having a great time with this.  I am currently in my last week of drawings so expect this all to wrap up in the next two posts. 

Drawing Challenge Part 3

   For your viewing pleasure, the next five days of the challenge.

Day 11 is a turning point in my life, and I chose moving back to Ohio from Connecticut after graduating from college.  It was a quick decision that really affected my life from that point on.



Day 12 is my most recent accomplishment, a dress I had just finished making.

 Day 13 was a comic.  I think the intention was a comic strip, but I went another direction.

 Day 14 was my favorite of this week.  It was my favorite fairy tale and I chose The Golden Goose from Grimm's.  I chose to illustrate the princess who had never laughed having a good chuckle.

 Day 15 was a family portrait and I went with a theoretical future family.  Myself and John of course in our little house with our beagle.  I wanted to draw in the style of a children's family portrait with the boxy house and the tree in the front yard.

Day 15 marks halfway through the challenge and halfway through these posts.  I hope you are enjoying them.

30 Day Drawing Challenge part 2

Here is the next week of drawings.

Meg Murray from A Wrinkle in Time.  I really identified with this character growing up and always felt that here description was very much the way I saw myself.  I gave her early nineties glasses because that is when I first read the book and so she has always looked like this in my mind.

 Day seven was illustrate your favorite word, which is a weird assignment because I love language.  I don't really have a favorite word, but this one works.

 My favorite animated character has to be Superman and I chose to draw him the way he was drawn in The New Batman/Superman Adventures, that started to air when I was eleven.  It was a half hour show with two stories, one about Batman and one about Superman.  It was one of my favorite Saturday morning treats.

My favorite television show ended up being a bit of a silly choice.  I chose The Great British Spelling Bee, because I had been recently inspired by it.  In retrospect it should have been Doctor Who.

 And day ten was favorite candy.  This is vegan chocolate covered nougat from Desiderio Chocolates on etsy.  You should try it, it's amazing.

30 Day Drawing Challenge part 1

Remember the Challenge I shared with you in this post?

(Credit to Be Up & Doing, a very cool blog.)
Well, I promised to share my drawings, and today I have days 1 through 5.
Day One is me.

 Day Two is a polar bear.  Because since I was five and my older sister got me a stuffed one, they have been my favorite.

 Day three is potatoes, because is there a better food?

 Day four is my favorite place, sappy but self explanatory.

 And day five is my best friend of 25 years, Camille who writes Gluten Free Soy Free Vegan.

The next five drawings are coming soon, so keep your eyes out for them.

Handmade Skirt

When I was a kid, I made a few pieces of doll clothing from patterns as well as making at least one dress with the assistance of my mother. After that, most of the sewing I did were modifications of garments I already owned, or making home-goods like pillows, tablecloths, napkins, quilts, and stuffed animals. I hemmed pants or altered the neckline of shirts. I have never sewn an item of clothing all by myself, that is until this week. I thought I should start with something simple, so I found this pattern from fabric.com for a very simple 8 paneled skirt. I figured that as long as all I had to do was cut the panels, sew them together, hem the skirt, and insert the elastic waist, that would give me a good idea of if I was cut out to make more complicated garments.
 I got some lovely red cotton crepe and started work. Once I had cut the eight panels I realized that the fabric was very sheer. Being me, I decided to modify the patten, and not in a small way. I decided to make a short underskirt to make the skirt a bit more modest.

I ended up cutting the pattern and cutting eight more panels. I joined the panels at the edges and hemmed the bottoms of both the under and over skirt. I then inserted the underskirt into the over-skirt with the seams facing one another. This had the somewhat unintended consequence of making the inside of the skirt tidier.

 I then followed the pattern instructions, folding over the top of the skirt and creating a sheath for the elastic by stitching almost all the way around the top. Next time I will try to create this sheath while also folding under the raw edge of the fabric. As it is, the inside of the waistband has an unfinished edge that I finished with zigzag shears so it won't unravel. The instructions called to pull the elastic through using a large safety pin. I couldn't find one (until, typically, 20 minutes after I needed it) so I used a paper clip. I just had to carefully push the end through between the strands of elastic. At this point, the pattern instructed to "join the elastic", since it was no more specific, I consulted the internet and found some advise saying to zigzag stitch the two ends to a piece of ribbon, so that doubling it doesn't create extra bulk. I did this, pulled the ends up into the skirt and sewed closed the opening, being careful not to catch the elastic in this seam.

 All that was left was to trim the rough edges and any stray threads I missed earlier.

 It think it came out very well. What do you think?