Visible Medning Review

Much has been said about Visible Mending:  Artful Stitchery to Repair and Refresh Your Favorite Things, by Jenny Wilding Cardon. It's started a mending movement!

As I am forever mending jeans, I thought this book would add some excitement to the chore. But it is much more than that. I found this a handbook for challenging your creativity in a new functional turn.

To begin with....yes, the beginning is the best part of this book! Only a page, but artfully challenging you to "see the beauty in the broken."

From the start Visible Mending is more than a how-to book. Each chapter: 

• Boro
• Hand Embroidery
• PATCHES (my favorite)
• Darning (new to me)
• Mending by Machine (free motion)

carries a new philosophy for celebrating scars "as an opportunity for one-of-a-kind creativity."

Of course, each chapter also shares insights on the unique tools and skills needed for it's particular technique. But more importantly, Visible Mending shows you how to look beyond the skill lessons to the catalog of

1. what type of blemish is best repaired with that technique
2. what fabrics can each technique be applied to.

Visible Mending could have as easily been organized by tear, hole, stain.....

or sweater, denim, t-shirt, linen, see! 

Here is my first project inspired by Visible Mending:

Yes, it is a jeans patch, ringed with Boro stitching :) Now instead of a tear, it's a statement! Instead of working to hide my work, I spent just as much time making something to show! See how it works?

By the time you get to the end of the book, I guarantee you'll be searching your wardrobe for old clothes to turn into statement pieces. And the next time you spill on your new outfit, you'll be thinking, "oooh, now I get to mend this:)"

Custom Dolls

Meet Alwina

 She is a very special gift, 

made by custom doll artist Molly B. Vehon.

 Can you believe all the beautiful details? 

Authentic Prim handpainted face.

 Check out the tiny zombie stitches!

I got to pick the white pumpkin fabric:)

You know how hard it is to get dolls perfectly stuffed like this!

Plus, Alwina's coffee stained hands and feet are scented with cinnamon,

just another extra charming detail.

What, you'd like your own custom doll?

Or maybe you now someone who needs a gift doll??

Molly can make you a doll for any/every season.

Convo with crochet artist T.Allie of 918 Girl Creations  to get in touch with Molly.

THANK YOU, MOLLY!

T Creation for BVB

Saturday was one of the BEST days of my life! I went to my first rock concert. The 4 bands there put on the most spectacular performance! Even Mom was impressed, and she's been to a lot of concerts in her days. But I knew that it was going to be awesome. In my excitement for the show, I made my own band T-shirt for the Black Veil Brides, the main band at the performance.




To make the T-shirt, I first used a white colored fabric pencil to trace out the logo of BVB on the shirt. Then I used white puffy paint to trace over the pencil marks. The next step Mom did was to paint inside the lines with her good Donna Dewberry craft paint. This was a beginners mistake.

We should have painted the inside of the pencil marks and then use puffy paint to outline the logo. There was less puffy paint on the logo then there had been when we started painting it. Either way it will still be an amazing craft if you want to try it.

This shirt needed some shine. So I decided that it would be the perfect idea to cover the BVB in sparkles! Before the paint would dry, I sprinkled sparkles over the BVB logo on the T-shirts. Needless to say, for the next few days, our whole house will be very sparkly.

After covering the shirt in sparkles, I blow dried the paint with a hairdryer on low so I could wear it sooner. The blow drying did wonders to the time it would have originally taken the paint to be dry as our desert soil.

Of course, what would a concert shirt be without a few rips and tears? I took one of Mom's good scissors (with permission!) and cut some wholes on our shirts and cut a sleeve off. I made the last few touches with rips at the bottom of the tee. Some of the wholes were too big, so Mom closed them with "Zombie" stitches in pink embroidery floss. Now this shirt is ready to be seen!

I was overjoyed to get to wear an original shirt I made to celebrate one of my favorite band's arrival. My bands and their music are special to me and I hope that Black Veil Brides knows this and that everyone of their fans feel the same way.