151: Imperfect Giveaway

I'd been planning on doing a giveaway for my 150th post. When I started this blog last summer, it was simply a way to streamline showing friends and family the things I made. It still does that, but it's become a lot more -- a way of meeting people, a document of in-process projects, an online journal, and forth. All of which are good things. Somehow post #150 came and went without my deciding what I would give away. Hard to have a giveaway without that.

Not such a big deal, that first imperfection.

Then came the trial of my sewing machine, which decided to aggravate me thing week. In the midst of making some giveaway gifts, it started acting all funny. Huge loops kept appearing on the bottom of the fabric, usually a sign of loose tension. I tightened the tension, to no avail. And then I kept finding that the bobbin was being uncooperative. It doesn't stay threaded. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why. I've cleaned out all the lint, oiled the machine, rethreaded the machine, wound a new bobbin, and no luck. [Any suggestions or thoughts would be most appreciated. It's a fairly cheap Brother machine I got for free, so it's not the best thing out there, but it's worked for me thus far.]

So in the midst of belt-making, I almost called this off. I somehow mismeasured and they are shorter than intended. My sewing machine made the stitching process annoying to say the least. How could I distribute pretty imperfect belts? And then I realized that few handmade items are truly perfect, and these belts are still pretty nice, and I would still wear them, and it's better to use them than to throw them away.

So in that spirit, I offer 2 belts and 2 (possibly imperfect) fat quarters.

Belt 1 (~38 inches): Belt 2 (~39.5 inches):


Fat quarters will be this material:


The fine print:
1. Leave a comment on this post to enter. I will select 2 random winners on Tuesday night.
2. Each winner will receive 1 belt and 1 fat quarter.
3. If you don't want either the belt or the fat quarter, I will draw a new winner for either item.

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Belts

It all started with a black belt, or rather the lack thereof. It is remarkably difficult to find a non-leather black belt. I searched and searched. When ribbon belts became fashionable a couple years ago, I thought that I would be able to find a black belt. I could find ribbon belts with black in them, but none that were primarily black. This winter I finally decided it was time to make my own black belt. I looked at the belts I own, and did my best to mentally unmake them to determine their component parts (why I didn't immediately look for a tutorial online is beyond me). Then I tried making one, and it worked pretty well:



I used a black-on-black fabric backed with black grosgrain ribbon. I like the pattern as the black (or dark gray) sunflowers give it a little texture without making it look like anything but a black belt from afar.

Since the experiment was successful, I played with other fabric and ribbon combinations, most of which I've given away as birthday presents.


As I continue to make belts, I'll also work on how to best photograph them. If you're interested in experimenting with belts, Creative Little Daisy offers a tutorial on patchwork belts while J Caroline Creative provides instruction for double-sided grosgrain belts. My first belts would have been much quicker to make had I followed these instructions! But trial and error has its value too.

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