Rally Sign

You might have heard about the recent Supreme Court decisions concerning Hobby Lobby and abortion clinic buffer zones and if you're anything like me, you're outraged. You might also be attending rallies and shouting "Two, four, six, eight! The church and state don't ovulate!" in crowded public areas.

SFNOW and the wonderful CodePink ladies (along with other organizations in the Bay Area) organized a rally a few weeks ago on Powell Street. If any of you have ever been to San Francisco's Powell Street and trolley turn-around, you know how crowded it is.

Rachael and I wanted some really epic signage to bring with us to the rally (along with our t-shirts, remember from last week?), so we brainstormed some slogans and finally decided on "Get Your Religion Out of My Uterus" because it's extremely relevant to the Hobby Lobby case.

Using some butcher paper and the font I used on mom's quilt last year, Rachael, my brother and I cut out letters from neon paper and drafted some larger, uppercase letters too.

We made "Out" big and bold to make it pop, make it more forceful. You know? Get it OUT!

Gluing down letters

Ta-da! There it is!

I found some black PVC pipes in my basement which we used to support the sign. The ends were folded over the pipes a couple times and attached with 49-ers duct tape (gotta gave some team spirit, right?). 

The finished product!

The height of the sign was perfect, but we forgot to cut wind slits! We had a couple scares and thought our sign was gonna rip right off the poles. 

We also picked up some stickers that went on our sign, too. You can't read them in the picture, but they say "Abortion Providers are Heroes" and "Abortion on Demand and Without Apology." I also got a "Imagine Create a World Without Rape" sticker that now lives in my binder. Best part of these rallies are definitely the stickers :)

The sign worked so well at the rally! Rachael (holding the other end of our sign) borrowed one of my family's many radical/slightly inappropriate t-shirts and Cam (the girl with the blue hair to the left of me) also came with some signs she made. Her slogans were fantastic: "After all, your medical decisions should be between you, your doctor, your boss and the Supreme Court" and "Not having sex deprives a child of life. By Anti-Choice logic, abstinence is child murder." She's so sassy :)

Next up, maybe a fabric one? With sewn on letters? And wind slits. Definitely wind slits.

-Taft W-K

What's on your Radical Agenda?

My friend gave me this awesome, amazing, super thoughtful and very me shirt for Christmas last year:

It's really so perfect. 

Unfortunately, it was this really strange racerback tank that did not cover the chest area very well. 

And at the same time, I realized that my softest and best black tee shirt was stretching in the chest area to the point where it was see through. Yeah. It's a problem. 

See? Thank the goddess my mom noticed at breakfast, else I might've walked around like that all day. 

The two shirts were too good to give away, so I went "Hmmmm....what if we could solve two boobage problems...at the same time?" 

And immediately got to work. (Also, it was pride weekend here in SF and I needed something to wear in addition to my rainbow socks.)

At five minutes in we were here: 

Graphic cut and ready. 

Eight minutes in we were here: 

Nine minutes in, my brother asked what was on my radical feminist agenda, which I answered with "Paid maternity leave."

Ten minutes in, he was trying to argue it with me. 

14 minutes in, he walked out of the room, as he couldn't argue very well why we shouldn't have paid maternity leave. (Score one for gender equality!)

Now that I had the dining room to myself, I started hand stitching the graphic onto the black tee. 

Like so. I found some awesome pink thread that went with the font fabulously. 

And here's the final product at the Pride Parade! (It gets a little overshadowed by the feather boa, but eh. A feather boa that awesome deserves the attention.)

(That's my friend, Cam. Check back in a couple weeks, I made an epic costume for her that I'll be posting about!)

I went to another event later in the week, which prompted more radical paraphenalia....here's a little sneak peak ;)

So I'm wondering readers...what's on your radical agenda?

-Taft W-K

Jean Shorts

Hiya Everyone!

Blog posts might not be very consistent over the next few weeks as I'm working on some very big projects (a teaser is scheduled for next week!) that will be taking up the majority of my time. However, when they're finished, I'll have some Extra-Special Extra-Long Super Duper Craftalicious posts for you!

But between now and then, some smaller projects will have to tide y'alls over. How about some jean shorts, huh?

I picked up these fabulous Anne Taylor boot cut jeans at Goodwill Boutique at least 8 months ago with the intention of hemming them so they would actually fit. #verticallychallenged

Buuuuut as you can see, that didn't end up happening and after accidentally butchering my other pair of jean shorts I decided to finally take these pants off the shelf and put them into rotation.

My mom helped me trace around the pant leg at the length I wanted and then I chopped the legs off (after quick prayer to some choice higher powers to let me not butcher these like I did the last ones). 

I folded up the bottom of the hem to avoid fraying strings (so unattractive!) and tacked it on the sides so I wouldn't have to refold them every time I put them on.

And that's that! A nice, easy project that I will wear again and again!

-Taft WK

Secret Scorer Banner

Hi y'all's!

Sorry this post is a few days late. I've been doing community service with my classmates and have been too exhausted at the end of the day to write a new post. 

So, my lacrosse team has a tradition called Secret Scorer, where we pick a name out of a basket at the beginning of the season and give the person a gift every home game. You have to keep your identity a secret (by leaving the gift on their locker or having a friend give it to them) until the last game of the season when you do The Big Reveal. 

And that moment has come, my friends. Lacrosse season is over (thorn: I won't be hanging out with my team any more, bright side: more crafting time!) and my Big Reveal (Taft-Style-And-On-A-Budget) has been cobbled together in a matter of 8 minutes and wrapped before the glue dried (it was also On-A-Schedule). 

Ta-da!

I used black and yellow (our school colors) (gold, actually, not yellow) (but seriously, have you ever seen gold felt?) (is it grammatically correct to put multiple parenthetical statements in a row?) (idk, headed to google right now to find the answers to those questions...)

And my teammate loved it! She gave me a big hug after she opened it :)

I'm absolutely going to make a banner like this again. It's super easy, can be personalized and doesn't take a lot of time! (Perfect for On-A-Budget/On-A-Schedule, which is how I spend most of my life)

Excuse any formatting errors, readers. I'm typing this on my phone while on the bus to our last game. 

-Taft WK

Black Dress with Epic Pink Collar: Part 1

I picked up this lovely number at a clothing swap in January. I tried it on and it was a little too tight for my taste, but come on. There's just no leaving behind a garment with a collar that awesome behind.

I'm pretty much a sucker for ruffles and buttons.

I chopped off the bottom half (check back for Part 2 when I remake the bottom half!) to turn this baby into a shirt. 

I found this fantastic strategy for hemming knits that I absolutely love: http://www.sweetnsassygirls.com/2011/07/an-easy-way-to-hem-knits.html. Shout out to this blog, this strategy is ingenious and super easy to do. I gave it another shot on this shirt (last attempt was a bit uneven...)

I folded and serged the hem, then topstitched it.

And ta-da! I really love this one, and the long sleeves will be perfect for the summer (San Francisco weather...if you don't live here, don't even ask). 

Stay tuned for Part 2! I have plans for the leftover bottom piece...

-Taft

Black Sweatpants

Hello, Spring! Hello, lacrosse season!

With all good things come the less than fantastic, mainly freezing your posterior off on the sidelines of a lacrosse game. So to protect against frostbite in the southern regions, I went to Fabric Outlet during their 40% off sale and picked up some sweatshirt fleece with the intention of making this pattern that I got from my grandma:

80's sweatpants! (Mom's nostalgic right now, I just know she is.)

However, when I went to trace the pattern, the sweatpants pattern was missing from the envelope.

So, to the internet we went! 20 minutes and a half dozen crafting sites later, I found this pattern from BurdaStyle. They call them "Jersey Trousers", but those are sweatpants. Come on.

Shut up. They're sweatpants. (He's hands-down my favorite designer from Project Runway. #teamchristopher)

They wanted knit ribbing for the waistband and cuff, but after spending so much on the fleece, I was having none of that. Besides, I'm on the shorter side, so losing that length would probably be perfect.

Cutting out fabric!

I'm especially proud of the pockets on these, I think they look really good! They're enormous, so I'll definitely make the next pair a bit smaller.

The elastic on the cuffs is perfect; tight enough that they don't slip too much but loose enough that I can pull them on over my cleats.

When I first wore them, my friend T made sure that everyone on my team knew that I had made my own pants. She said (and I quote directly) "I will make them listen!" She's the best :)

Next up: a pair of green ones and maybe a pair in a lighter fabric? I'm also considering scaling them up to fit over all my goalie gear.

Stay warm on the sidelines, fellow benchwarmers! And have a lovely spring!

-Taft WK

Reorganized Cupboard

So, here's the thing. I love neatness, I love organized spaces, I love being able to find things when I'm crafting. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm neat, organized, or able to find things when I'm crafting. I've pretty much perfected the throw-everything-in-the-cupboard move when our dining room table needs to be clean.

A couple weeks ago however, the situation became really severe. We're talking DEFCON 2 in the cupboard. When I opened up the door, piles of fabric and a jar of supplies fell out onto the floor. I couldn't even shove it all back in, I don't know how it was in there in the first place.

So, I embarked on a mission of epic proportions: Get all my shiznit to fit into the cupboard. In a neat and organized fashion. And have it stay in when I open the door.

It took a while, this mission of epic proportions. A couple hours and a piece of chocolate later, my cupboard reached the neatest state it had ever been:

Seriously, LOOK at that! Isn't that so incredible?

I sorted the fabrics by kind and LABELED them. Now even my family has no excuse to put supplies in the wrong spot.

I even sorted our patterns, too, so next time I go to make something, I can actually find it.

It's pretty exciting. Unfortunately, we all know it's not lasting long. You'll get a new post about my cupboard in a couple months when I have a new organization system cause this one didn't work.

See you next week!

Taft WK