Aprons!

I've been meaning to make some for a while now, and finally, this past Friday I made my first apron. In the past 5 days, I've made a total of 4 aprons so far, and I've got a 5th about halfway done. I love making these! They're really cute, and there's so many ways to construct them. Here's a look at what I've been working on.

This one is for sale on my website HERE.

Here is what the reverse side looks like.

Below are some ruffles at the bottom of another one.

The halter one below is going to be sent to my sister.

Each one I've made so far is different, but all are still totally cute! What I like about these items is that I can get really zany and colorful with the fabric choices, unlike garment making, where my fabric choices tend to be MUCH more subtle.

International Yarn Bombing Day

Here's a bit of what was done in San Antonio this past Saturday for international yarn bombing day. This first pic was done by the Yarn Dawgs... it looks straight out of Dr. Seuss! All projects shown below were installed at the Pearl Brewery.

The rest are what my projects looked like during daylight hours.

All of my yarn bombing was done the night before IYD, so this is what it looked like as I was installing the projects.

You can barely tell, but the next two pictures are of my knit Texas state flag hanging over the Riverwalk. You can get a better idea of what the flag looks like from the last photo.

New Website with BigCartel

In my long search of trying to find an easy to use and attractive looking website, I think I have finally come to my end!!!

I decided to go with BigCartel and for now the site is BLinkDesing.bigcartel.com, but I'm hoping to switch the domain to the name I've already got, B-LinkDesign.com in the coming days.

I really like the customization features on this, and the fact that it's a site INTENDED on selling products, which means that I can start adding items for sale right from the get go! You can also sync up your blog and original domain name to the site. There are also ways to add Facebook "like" buttons. All in all, I really like the look and navigation so far. Pricing for their hosting is pretty competitive ranging from FREE to $30 per month... that's it!

Take a look at BLinkDesign.bigcartel.com to tell me what you think!

Ocean Treasures

Today was my first full day back in San Antonio. I spent the past week on a belated honeymoon in the Virgin Islands. The trip was a blast! We visited Tortola and St. Thomas but spent most of our time in St. John, which by far, was the prettiest of all the islands. Matt and I tried out all kinds of water activities for the first time. While snorkeling, we of course found plenty of sea shells, but we were really surprised to find quite a bit of sea glass while in St. Thomas. Below are a few pictures of the treasures I found...

Here are some of the larger pieces we found.

I'll probably use the smaller pieces in fine silver settings.

Here are some of the cool shells I found in Lindberg Bay.

This shell is by far my favorite.

I'm going to try and create some new jewelry items with these treasures I found at the beach.

Men's Dresses...

More like dresses made from Men's shirts. I took a stab at this form of upcycling last year as seen in this PREVIOUS POST however to be quite honest, I was never pleased with the outcome. I tried again a few weeks ago, and along with my serger, I think I've gotten much better at altering these dresses. The first one featured sold in the shop just today!!!

SOLD!

I decided to keep this one for myself.

I'm gonna keep this one too.

Never fret. I went thrifting the other day, and found about a dozen more cool men's shirts that are just begging to be dolled up. The new garments should be ready at B.Link sometime next week.

Yarn Bombing coming to SA

In a little over a month from now, Krista and I plan on knitting the town red... and pink and lime and turquoise, orange and brown. She and I went to the craft store last week and picked out our bombing yarns.

We're still looking for some enthusiastic individuals to help us get the yarn out. You don't need to be an expert knitter to participate. All that are needed are various shaped swatches/patches of knit yarn to do some yarn bombing. Feel free to contact me if interested at brandy@b-linkdesign.com!

Speaking of yarn bombing, check out this little featurette documenting the whole yarn bombing movement made by fellow San Antonian and Longhorn, Sarah Gonzalez. She's currently accepting donations to get this documentary going. CLICK HERE to contribute.

Ojo de Dios

Graduation season is upon us and good friend/loyal B.Link customer, Sarah will be waking the stage to get her masters in the coming days. To commemorate this event while giving a nod to her cultural heritage, Sarah asked a few weeks ago if I would make a serape style graduation stole for her. I loved the idea, but the only problem I saw was finding a suitable serape fabric. After looking around in several places, I came across this Ojo de Dios fabric over at Tres Rebeca's.

I showed Sarah the fabric, and she decided to go with it. Here she is below and posing with the finished result.

As you can see, the fabric is very vibrant. Sarah has shown others what she will be wearing as she crosses the stage, and as of today, I've made 5 custom graduation stoles! With any project, there are always bits and pieces and scraps left over, and being the conservative crafter that I am (resource wise, not politically), I decided to create these additional items out of those remaining bits of fabric.

Above is a cute fabric rosette headband. $18. Below is a headband that I decided to keep for myself. It got plenty of use out of it while I was at the beach a few days ago.