Cheekystitch

Living Room Makeover:Apartment Decorating

I spent some time getting my living room in order, here are some of the pictures of the decoration I added

The framed print is made by Chanel Kennebrew over at Junkprints, Shes a fantastic graphic and clothing designer.

My friend brad gave me the large painting, it was the first piece of art he bought when he moved to new York, recently he moved to Tribeca and decided he had outgrown it and gave it to me. Its called “Girl With Ginger

Cheap Kitchen makeover: Before and After

I have a really nice apartment but the kitchen needed some work. When I moved in it was completely white but some of the walls were really dirty. The kitchen was the worst, there were a lot of food stains behind the stove and near the fridge.

The second issue is that my kitchen and living room occupy the same space, loft style. The high ceilings of this parlor floor apartment help keep the airy feel but I wanted to define the two spaces.

I picked a sunny yellow for the kitchen, and a light aqua blue for the wall. I was going for a robins egg blue but I think the girl at Lows gave me the wrong color. It was obnoxious at first but looked way better when it dried, like most drunk people

How to Make Vegan Biscuits!

This is my How To video for Vegan Drop Biscuits let me know what you think or any questions you might have.

The recipe

• 4 cups flour
• 2 cups soy milk
• 1 cup  unsalted  vegan butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablepsoons of baking powder

Pre heat over to 425 degrees. Mix dry ingredients and sift, then cut  butter into chunks and add to flour. Dont over mix, pulse about 25 in a food processor. Or mix by hand until it resembles small pebbles or sand. Slowly mix in soy milk with a large fork. DONT OVER MIX! you might melt the butter. Use a large spoon to drop the biscuits into he baking pan.

Bake for 12-15 minutes and viola!

DIY Light Box on the Cheap

Speaking of ikea hacks, i found this DIY light box hack that Im totally going to do. If you read my blog you know I use a lot of Japanese sewing books, the issue is that they require that you trace the pattern you need. Because they put at least 5 patterns on one sheet tracing can be apain in the ass, heres where a light box can and will come on handy.

Baby changing table grows into light table.

Boris recycles his daughter’s old changing table into a lightbox. Love how it closes in a compact little thing.

“I made the Sniglar baby changing table into a light box. My wife, for a few years now, likes to practice sewing for our daughters. She buy a lot of books containing patterns she has to reproduce on white paper which she then uses to cut the fabric. It’s not easy to reproduce those patterns onto the paper.

As our youngest daughter is now two and a half years old, we do not need any more our Sniglar changing table, and I decided to transform it into a light table for my wife. I first thought to keep the table structure as it, but finally, I prefered to use the two level of the table to make one foldable table. I first fixed together the two vat with a long piano hinge. Then I stuck aluminium foil into the vats to reflect the light and I fixed four neon tubes into it. A few meters of cable later, I then closed the vats with two white and opaque plexiglass panels and that’s it.”

Via: Ikeahacker

Raven Burgos

Recycled Fashion: IKEA Bag dress made by parsons professor

I love Ikea hacker for so many reasons the first of which is that its hands on DIY madness that allows you to turn cheap furniture into functional less cheap looking stuff. This parsons professor turned the Ikea take home bag and created this nifty dress. Its not funtional but it makes you think dont it?

She says, “I fashioned the top of the bag and one handle as the neckline and halter for the top of the dress. Then I cut open the seams of the rest of the bag to make a backless, A-Line outfit. I sewed darts in the front and back to be shapely for my bust and back. I cut the long handles off of two more bags to create ties for the back of the dress. Waterproof and ready to tote!

Raven Burgos

Better than Paint: Contact Wallpaper makes it easy

I have a huge empty white wall in my apartment I dont know what do do with.  I always loved  this wallpaper

I have been obsessed with it since I saw it in apartment therapy a couple of years ago, its from Cole and Son and is called Birch forrest. Tempaper, makes temporarily adhesive paper in a number of different designs and shades.

“Tempaper is a vinyl coated self adhesive wall decor. Our printing process incorporates the traditional technique of gravure or intaglio copper plate engraving with state of the artmaterials to bring a classic look and feel to the finished product. these designs available for your home or decorating needs.”

So you can stick it , move it, re stick it, and brink things like your nasty fridge back to life.  many of the designs are great, but they arent quite what im looking for, I have been ruined by the birch forest. Do you have any suggestions?

Tempaper.com

Raven Burgos

How to knit an Aran Fishermans Sweater and other Insane Projects Part 1

I was at a friends house a couple of weeks ago and one of get guests had a handknit chunky sweater, I swear you must have needed like 25 gauge needles to knit that thing, it was so thick it mad me sick. It was from The Gilded Age, an incredibly expensive line of high end rugged mens clothing I covet. ( apparently they will be coming out with a ladies line Im sure wont compare to the mens , because it never does)

So I set out to price the thing, turns out I couldnt even locate the sweater online, much less its price. Iits like the thing appeared out of no where to make me sad. Every 100$ cashmere i found  could potentially run me, hmmmm, I dunno 1200.

Like the good crafter that I am I set out to figure out how I would acquire my very own cashmere sweater.  So I decided to knit one, even though I have never knit anything more complicate than a scarf.

I decided on a pattern first, I looked at many many cheesy patterns, lamented that Japanese sewing patterns would be too much of a challenge to me. It difficult enough to decipher sewing patterns. I settled on the eternally stylish Irish fisherman’s sweaters, in my fantasy I saw myself wearing this an an old lady with a grandchild balanced on my knee, in my fantasy I’m also a cartoon, but whatever.

This was perfect, I got the pattern at Downtown Yarns in New York City. Its a Yankee Knitter Design pattern for and Adult Aran Sweater. The pattern seemed complicated, the sales woman assured me it wasnt anymore difficult that any other sweater. I choose to believe her.

Next was finding the cashmere yarn. The pattern called for about 13 skeins in my size, I use a size small. I looked all over the nets and luckily found somebody who was selling yarn on ebay for 16 a skein, which would bring my sweater cost to about 200$. its not cheap but its not 1200 either, and if i was buying a thin cashmere sweater in a store I could expect to pay that if not more. So that’s how I justified spending 200$ on yarn on a project I may or may not finish. if your like me you make preemptive strikes on craft/fabric/and art stores, I am well stocked but rarely finished projects. I have about 20 unfinished projects and a dozen or more possibilities.

So armed with needles, yarn, pattern I cant read, and a case of dyslexia, I go forth!

Air Plants on my Windowsill: Easy to care for no dirt needed

I have a pretty long windowsill in my living room I was trying to figure out what to put on it. i looked on Apartment therapy for inspiration and saw a picture of airplants in little medical glasses.  I bought lots of vintage ball jars, white sand, sea glass from Dead Horse Bay in Queens, other assorted cups and bowls, and one cookie jar.

My friend Ian gave me the goat skull, he uses them in his sculptures and has beetles clean them in what is called a bug box.

The airplants need to be watered every three days and submerged in water for a couple of hours once a week, they bloom twice a year.

 comment and let me know what you think

I got mine from Airplantcity

Raven Burgos

Handmade baby: Toddler Denim Overall’s

My camera broke so I took all of these picture on my Iphone. I made these overalls from a Japanese childrens pattern. I love it. It took me about an tow to make this I had to figure out what I was doing since I didn’t have instructions to follow just a few pictures.

I used medium weight dark indigo denim, and bone buttons

Raven Burgos

Vegan Banana Pudding

This is very easy to make and delicious

2 Packs of instant vanilla pudding

2.5 cups of non dairy creamer or plain soy/almond Milk ( not vanilla if you can avoid it, the instant pudding will be very vanilla-y)

5-6 bananas

1 box of Nilla wafers ( bought reduced fat by mistake and they turned out well)

Follow the packaged instruction on the back of the instant pudding instead of using one pack of pudding use 1.5 packs, whisk, if you se that it isn’t thickening enough after 5 minutes add more powder.

While you wait, slice bananas

Once the pudding has set ( it will be creamy, thick) layer Nilla wafers at the bottom of a bowl layer bananas on top, then add thick layer of pudding (about an inch) continue until you reach about 1/2 inch from the top then lay down a single layer of Nilla wafers.

refrigerate for an hour and serve ( you need to let the wafers soften and soak for a little bit

Yeah, I didnt know instant pudding was vegan but it is!