DIY Painted Washcloths

You can't go further than two feet into the baby section of the internet without hearing how amazingly must-have the aden & anais swaddle blankets are.  I'm not one to argue - breathable, soft, stretchy fabric sounds lovely.  I'll probably register for some, but in the meantime, I wondered whether there were any DIY substitutes in the fabric world.

The internet said that Joann's cotton gauze fabric was pretty close, so I bought some with a coupon to try it out.  I started small (a ~9 inch square) since I didn't want to waste fabric if the painting wasn't working.

First I tried a rubber stamp method.  A quick brush of fabric paint on my stamp, pressed over and over onto the fabric.

(My picture quality is a little whack still - getting used to crafting in my garage now that we moved everything out of the now nursery room..)

Anyway, the stamp isn't too bad.  Not very crisp, but it has that homemade flair? Even the stamp is homemade! Haha. It's a green rupee from Zelda.

For painting attempt #2, I tried a paper cut stencil with a paint "pouncer".  Basically a foam brush you dab up and down to fill in the stencil. (Make sure you tape down the stencil so it doesn't wiggle around.)

Again, not too bad.  This one is the water bending symbol from Avatar.  It's quick, but don't expect screenprint quality in term of even paint and crisp designs.

Once the designs are dry, iron them from the backside of the fabric to set the paint (so it doesn't run when washed).  It'd be kinda lame if your washcloth was constantly running paint everywhere. :P

I added another plain piece of gauze on top and put right sides together, sewed it up and turned it right side out.  Iron it flat and add a top stitch to finish it off.

For the final test, I washed both clothes in the next towel laundry load, to see if they colors would bleed. No bleeding, and now they are nice and soft and ready to go for baby baths. Or something. Haha.

Now time to tackle a full sized swaddle blanket.  Maybe I'll just paint the border though? A 45" square of fabric is...quite a bit of painting...:P

Clover Fabric Sakura Flower Tool

I love crafting gadgets - especially those from Clover (like their Chinese knot tool).  So of course when I found a craft store in the basement level of the Kyoto Tower building I had to look for their Clover brand section.  It was pretty much all over the floor (duh, it's a Japanese brand) - they make sooo many more products than what I see imported my local Californian stores!

But I restrained myself and only bought three sewing tools.  You might be able to find these or something similar in the US, but I had not seen the small versions before.

This tool makes cute little fabric flowers! Sakura / cherry blossom shaped!

A quarter for scale.

You stick a triangle of scrap fabric in the clamping tool. And in advance please excuse my napkin backdrop and crappy photoshop batch edit. :P

Cut the fabric down to size.

And then use a bit of knotted thread to sew in and out of each numbered hole.

Once done, pop it out of the tool - perfectly even stitches!

Pull the thread and you've got a petal.

Don't bother cutting the thread, just continue the next petal on the same one.  Repeat until you have five petals.

And then sew the first and last petal together and knot it in the back.

Perfect little flower!

Attach it to whatever you like.

And add a button or piece of felt to cover the middle.

 Halloween/SF Giants hair clippys!

It's a great little project since it uses such small pieces of fabric, and I have SO MUCH fabric scrap around the house. Now, obviously you can make these flowers without a tool.  Just cut small circles and sew them in half.  But I really like the tool because it takes a lot of the measuring and thinking out of the project. I don't have to worry about not cutting the circles the same, or not sewing evenly, because the tool is rather fool-proof.

Fool-proof, but not cat proof! Sewing with a cat is nearly impossible! He keeps trying to attack the thread! Crampin' my style, Konbu - go play with Sak!

Nyaaan.

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Tanuki Charm

Since we bought a Crunchyroll subscription in the beginning of the year, we've been trying to keep up with all the latest anime. I prefer to binge watch, but having to wait a week for the next episode at least keeps me from being an all-night couch potato. :P

Our strategy for the summer season is to watch at least episode 1 of everything, and then only continue the things that we like.  It's kind of interesting, actually - I ended up keeping two shows I would have normally passed over purely on cover art - Sabagebu and Locodol.  Both are all-girl moe-type anime, but they are pretty funny and cute, so I'm still watching :P

Anyway, Sak thinks I should write up my thoughts on each of the shows this season, but that sounds like way too much work.  Plus other people already write really good reviews, so maybe I'll just stick to things I don't mind spending time on - crafts.  

The anime I was most looking forward to this summer was in fact, not Sailor Moon or SAO 2. Ha! It was actually Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun, a simple comedy anime.  I really enjoy the manga, which is 4-koma style (4 panel comic type manga).  In general I like light-hearted comedies and romances. What can I say? I'm a simple lady.

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The anime/manga is about a girl who finds out her crush is really a famous mangaka, and she ends up working as his assistant along with his other friends. Hijinks ensue.  It's cute because the dude is pretty manly, but writes girly comics. And the girl is fairly upfront about liking him, but he's too dense to notice. :P Lots of shoujo jokes.

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One of the other mangaka really likes to draw tanuki on everything, so that's where the charm inspiration came from! Ever since seeing a real tanuki last year, it might just be one of my favorite animals. :P  I put him on a headphone plug (bought the clear plugs in a pack at Ichibankan for $1.50)

As for the show/manga, I just wish there was more relationship progression, but since it's 4-koma it might not ever get there.  It's just the nature of the style, I guess - kind of like how most characters never age in American newspaper comics.

But if you're looking for a cute comedy, give it a try, it's fun. And the tanuki are cute.

DIY AoT Survey Corp Dress

Okay. Last post on this cosplay. Probably.  I figure the interest in loli Attack on Titan uniforms is pretty low, but the tutorials/methods I used are good references for many, many other projects.

Penga-Sis as model reference :)

-Purse tutorial was covered over here in this post.

-Hat we ended up not using, but I might do a post on the construction later anyway just because we went through a lot of effort and burnt fingers :P

-The cape was made with Simplicity 1771A.  I traced the  cape pattern out on newspaper, then just cut the whole length down to make a capelet instead of a knee-length cape.

I followed the pattern for the hood, but since my fabric was so thin I made the whole thing double layered (seams all hidden that way too - yip yip!)

Embarrassingly - it's pinned together at the neck with a safety pin. Because I couldn't commit on a button or a string bow and I ran out of time :P

It's super comfy though. Makes you feel positively elvish!

- The shirt was a tennis shirt my mom found at the thrift shop.  It had some wonky label on it already too. Good thing I have heat transfer vinyl! I covered that sucker right up with a fancy survey corp shield.

This is probably my favorite part of the outfit other than the purse - even though no one saw it under the cape.  It's subtle enough to be worn around with regular clothes.

- The skirt/petticoat: I used three different tutorials. For the skirt, for the waistband of the skirt, and for the petticoat.  Basically, I followed the skirt tutorial until I got to the waist, and then I switched to the half-elastic waistband tutorial.  Then for poofy cupcakeness I used the crinoline tutorial (doubling the amount of tulle and using the thick itchy stuff instead for guaranteed maximum fluff).

Other outfit bits added after our backyard photoshoot - brown fabric bows to the back of the skirt (made per the skirt tutorial), various green hairbows made with ribbon and hot glue, white $5 tights from Target, brown boots/shoes, and diy shrinky dink earrings.  Survey corp wings for me - and Marco half-faces for Penga-Sis :P

I think that just about covers it! There were a lot of components to this outfit. (In comparison, for the guys, Friend E made the sword canes and cufflinks - the vests, ties and white pants were bought from Amazon :P)

DIY AoT 3D Maneuver Gear Purse

For our dapper Attack on Titan survey corp uniform cosplay, I knew we'd need matching purses.  First I thought I'd make a titan head pouch, but then I thought of something better - maneuver gear! It'd work out well since it naturally falls at the hip area anyway.

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Those box things at Eren's hips.  We're going for a super deformed version anyway. 

I've long been enticed by those 2D cartoon bags, so that's the style I envisioned (albeit much more handmade..)

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With that in mind, let's make a 3D maneuver gear purse!

First, I sketched a (definitely not to scale) maneuver gear box on some newspaper.  With the general shape and size in mind, Sak helped me re-draw it on the computer.  I printed and cut out the shapes, which fit on two pieces of paper, and taped them together for my "pattern".

Next, I traced the pattern onto two sheets of craft foam, cut and glued the foam together.  This will give the bag a sturdy, yet pliable shape.

Use the pattern once more to cut out two pieces of grey fabric.  I used a somewhat stretchy fabric so that there wouldn't be any wrinkles once finished.  Remember to leave a 1/4 to 1/2 inch margin around the entire shape for your seam allowance (depending on how much seam you like to sew with).

I also cut two more pieces of grey fabric, in a small rectangle shape, to use for the pocket.  Now, you could also make a proper purse/bag by making an entire box covered in fabric - but I only needed to hold a wallet and a phone, so I went the lazy way with just a pocket.

This one is just one rectangle folded in half, but 2 pieces of grey work as well. You just want to be able to turn the unfinished edge in after you sew.

First, sew up your pocket. I used half of an elastic hairband for the button loop.

Leave a space to turn it inside out, and then sew up the opening for a nice finished square/rectangle.  Well, somewhat nice.  I can't sew stretchy fabrics very well, so it's all slightly warped :P

Pin it where you'd like to one of the "backsides" of your main grey fabric, and sew down.

For pocket stability, I sewed a grey canvas strap to either side of the pocket.  My strap was 1.5 yards long I think. Adjust to wherever you'd like the bag to hang.

Sew a button for your pocket loop. I used whatever I had on hand, doesn't really match or anything.

Now the fun part! Sandwich the pocket, strap, button, etc. with the remaining grey body piece.  Sew (slowly and carfully!) around the entire shape, leaving the back end kinda open to turn it inside out and to insert the foam.

(This is actually a pic of the second bag, which was mirrored, but you can see how I sewed around the whole thing leaving the left side open.)

Turn inside out, and insert the foam piece, trimming as necessary to get the right shape.

Had to trim this foam because I didn't leave enough seam allowance :P

The main body should be done!

Sew up the open back.  I used hand stitching since the foam wasn't co-operating with my machine.

Next, I ironed on a black heat transfer vinyl sheet I cut from the computer using the template shape we created.  The vinyl was cut in 2 parts, and overlapped.  (More on heat transfer vinyl in my Hataraku Maou-Sama tutorial).

I was worried the iron might melt the non-cotton fabric, or the foam underneath, but no melting occured (YAY).  There was a bit of stretching between the vinyl and the grey fabric, but it's not too noticeable.

All done!

I love it!  The second one I made for my sister came out much better than the first, since I left a bigger, more forgiving seam allowance.

Backside

Fits my phone and wallet perfectly.

It's relatively no-frills, but I think it complimented our outfits nicely.  Would work well for casual cosplay as well.

Now, on the negatives, Penga-Sis thought the pocket was too small, and would have appreciated a "beefier" bag.  So either more layers of foam or a full box-style bag might have been a better choice for her. She can make the next set herself :P Haha.  I also need to learn to sew stretch fabric..cleaner. It's a little wonky on some of the seams.

Anyway, I still have the template file, so feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like it.  The cut file is fairly simple and could probably be done by hand, or even with fabric paint instead.