craftyasiangirl

Valentine's Day stuff

2011-01-29T18:53:00.000-06:00

For the first time ever, I'm on top of my crafting more than a week before the actual holiday! Amazing!

I bought the Farbenmix Redondo skirt pattern a couple months ago and have been dying to try it out. I'd originally planned on making E another broomstick-style Valentine's skirt, but then I figured why not give the new pattern a try?

Here it is, spread out in all its twirly glory:

I have to say, I have totally fallen in love with this pattern and cannot wait to make more. It's one of those patterns that looks like it was super complicated to make when actually it was quite simple. I did make a couple small deviations from the original pattern though. The original calls for you to cut out 5 panels. Well, I wanted to alternate two different fabrics and did not want to have two of the same next to one another, so I decided to add one more panel. To try and compensate for the width of the extra panel, I left out the seam allowance (which was not included anyways) when I cut all the pieces. I will say, cutting the spirals was a bit of a pain - easily the most difficult part - because you cannot fold your fabric over and cut two at a time. I also ended up extending the waistband piece to accommodate the extra panel. It's probably a tad big in the waist, but I figure no one will see that part anyway since it will be hidden under a shirt.

To match, the skirt, I made a shirt with a simple reverse applique heart.

And because I've been on a flower-making spree lately, a matching hair clip:

E was pretty excited about the outfit, especially the skirt. Something about twirly skirts always appeals to little girls. ;)

Next time, I think I'm going to try and make it as directed, with the five panels, but I'm going to try and add another flounce to each panel, as described in this variation from the Farbenmix website.

Last, but not least, I also whipped up this Valentine's Day advent-style countdown calendar, from this tutorial. E was super disappointed that we didn't get to do her Christmas advent this year since we were out of town so much, so I thought this would be a nice surprise for her. Can't wait to give it to her on Tuesday!

Holiday Sewing

2011-01-19T11:38:00.001-06:00

Every year, I set lofty goals about all the handmade gifts I'm going to make for Christmas. And every year, I start waaaayyy too late to get more than one or two done in time. This year really wasn't all that different, but I somehow managed to crank out quite a few sewn gifts this year. Fourteen, to be exact. Most of these were not exactly what I had planned, but that's besides the point.

In a vain attempt to give me a reason to use up my giant fabric stash, I've been on a bit of a pattern-buying spree the last few months. I decided to use some of my more recent purchases from Bit Of Whimsy to make gifts for some of E's little friends. As a side note, I love her patterns. They are relatively inexpensive, very straight-forward and easy enough for beginners.

Her newest pattern line is called Wittle Whimsys and they are small stuffed animals. Super adorable. I bought the elephant/mouse set and decided to make most of the younger kids I know.

I used this as an opportunity to knock down some of my unnecessarily huge stash of flannel (from when I WAY overbought at a Black Friday sale several years ago). Their arms and legs are made of felt. I will say, making these tiny dolls was probably as time consuming as larger ones, mainly because there was so much cutting of tiny arms, legs, and ears involved. I initially dreaded embroidering the faces on, and I even toyed with the idea of using buttons for the eyes instead, but then I got all paranoid about choking, plus I didn't care for how the buttons looked. I will say though, once I got going on the embroidery, I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed it! It's actually making me think about taking up embroidery. Because, you know, I don't have enough hobbies going on. Heh.

Anyways, I also decided to make bigger Whimsy dolls for my nieces, E and a few of her closer friends. A couple of these were ones I actually started last year (had all cut out and everything) and never finished. Oops. Yeah, I suck. But better late than never, right?

Here is a big sister/little sister set:

Another "Butterbean" baby doll (these were incredibly fast and easy to make - definitely going to file it away in the back of my mind for a quickie gift)

Bunny dolls

And a couple Christmas-themed dolls

I also made a few gifts for my friends. I originally had the brilliant idea of making hostess aprons for everyone, but I only got one done before I simply ran out of time. I do love how this one turned out though.

And for a few of you reading this, try to act surprised when an apron randomly shows up on your doorstep in the next month or so. ;)

One of my friends had asked me a while back to make her a simple drawstring bag to carry her knitting around in. I decided to add a matching knitting needle roll as a bonus.

I have to say, I'm quite proud of how many things I managed to make, and all in the span between when we returned from our Thanksgiving trip on Dec. 1, and when we left again on Dec. 18, no less. But next year, I'm starting in July.

Burn out

2011-01-17T18:35:00.001-06:00

I think Halloween totally burned me out on crafting, and maybe blogging too. It's been forever since I've posted, but believe it or not, I have still been making stuff. Just been too lazy to edit and upload pics so I could blog. Plus we were out of town for long stretches over both Thanksgiving AND Christmas/New Year's...and well, you get the picture. Enough with the excuses, on to the crafts!

Like I mentioned, I haven't been totally idle, but I did take a long break from sewing after making all those costumes. Instead, I decided to get back into knitting. A little lower stress, and bonus points for being able to do it on the couch, in front of the TV. ;) First up, a newborn hat that I made for a friend's new baby boy. Photo by bernadette uzcategui photography.

The baby's father loved the hat so much that he requested a matching hat of his own, hee. So not only did I make one for him, but I also made a headband/headwarmer in the same colorways for the mom.

Next up, a hat for myself! I took a quick trip to Philadelphia one weekend to visit a friend, and we went to one of my favorite yarn stores there, Nangellini. The owner, Nancy, is so wonderfully friendly (and she even remembered me from my last visit, a year ago!), I highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in the area. I couldn't resist this yummy Ushya wool yarn and knit up a 'holey' hat, stranded with some Noro yarn for texture.

Of course, I also had to make a newborn hat for my new niece! I love that this sort of looks like a candy cane.

And here she is modeling it at Thanksgiving. :) Forgive the blur, this was hastily snapped with my phone.

I also knit up a cocoon to take pictures of her in, but sadly, she was already too big (and active) for it.

Another baby hat. This time I experimented with a sort of twisted rib pattern.

I'm not sure if I like how it turned out; I think it sort of looks like a head of lettuce, lol. It looks slightly better when the bottom edge is turned up a bit. Apologies for the creepy doll-model. I don't have quick access to any tiny babies these days.

Since the weather has finally gotten colder, I also knit up a quickie scarf for E. She picked the yarn herself. I tried to hold back my gag reflex. I used a basic basketweave pattern, K4, P4 for 4 rows and then switch.

She got all goofy and uncooperative when I asked her to actually model the darn thing. Ah, 3-year-olds.

Next up, holiday crafting! :D

Halloween!

2010-11-14T19:21:00.001-06:00

Apologies for the extended absence. Again. October got pretty busy for me, what with Halloween festivities and all. This year I took on the challenge of making not just a costume for E, but also one for her friend Sofia, and two more for a friend's daughters as well.

E changed her mind about a half dozen times on what she wanted to be for Halloween, but she finally settled on a ladybug. I was pretty happy, as I knew it would be fairly simple. I used Simplicity 1726 for E's costume which was super quick and easy to make. Outer is fleece, dots are felt, and it also has a silky black polyester lining. I ended up whipping up a matching costume for her doll, as well. Hee!

E's friend, Sofia, wanted to be a cow. I made this jumpsuit from the same Simplicity pattern, substituting a velboa cow print for the fleecy lamb fabric. Again, fairly straightforward to make, especially since it used velcro for the back closure. I did sub ribbed fabric for the neck and sleeve bands, and I left the elastic off the bottom of the legs as well.

Here they are together at their school's Trunk or Treat event. I had a bit of trouble with the hood, which turned out WAY too small, despite making it exactly according to their instructions. Have I mentioned before that Simplicity's instructions tend to suck? I ended up adding a flap to the bottom so that it would be long enough, and just leaving it open in front.

The other two costumes were for a photographer friend of mine whose kids were doing a Wizard of Oz theme. First up is her oldest daughter as Dorothy. Isn't she too adorable?! It's loosely based off of McCalls 4948, but rather than have a fake bib attached to a dress bodice, I made it an apron-style dress that tied in back, and she put a simple white shirt underneath.

Her little sister was Glinda, the Good Witch. This was made from the same McCall's pattern and was by far the most challenging costume of the four. It's hard to see in this picture, but the skirt and sleeves have a layer of sheer sparkly fabric overlayed on the pink satin. This was my first time working with costume satin, and I must say, I am really NOT a fan. If it weren't for my serger, I'm not sure if it would have been possible for me to make this costume at all! The longer I worked with it, the more it shredded and fell apart. :P But, I got it done with my insanity mostly intact and was pretty dang proud of myself. I do love a good challenge. ;)

And here's the whole gang, minus one lion. ;)

Of course, now that E has figured out that I can make things, she's started making requests. The day before her school event, she asked me for a matching bag to go with her costume. I've long admired the cute round ones from Pottery Barn Kids, and being a tad masochistic, I decided to try and replicate the shape for E's treat bag. I made one from scrap first, just to get the shape right, and then used red felt for the outer and black polyester for the lining. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I'm thinking I may take orders on custom ones next year, now that I have a pattern drafted.

Baby stuff

2010-10-02T09:15:00.043-05:00

I miss having a little baby to sew for. Although to be technical, I only started sewing after E was born and I didn't really tackle clothing or anything big until she was well into the toddler stage. So I get really excited when I have an excuse to sew for little ones. In the last year or so, there's been a bit of a baby boom amongst my friends, so I've been doing my best to sew little gifties when I've had time.

First up is a cute owl jumper for a good friend's daughter's first birthday! This is the same friend that I threw the birdie baby shower for, so when I saw this owl corduroy at Jo-Ann, I knew she would love it. It's from an Ottobre pattern.

Here it is, on the birthday girl. A little big, but still super cute.

Next up is a baby shower gift for another friend who is due at the end of October. I've been meaning to try out the Itty Bitty Baby Dress pattern from Made by Rae, and this was the perfect opportunity. My friend's older daughter also recently had a birthday, so I also used the enlarged pattern to make a matching dress for a belated birthday gift for her!

These were really fun and easy to make. I can see myself making a bunch more, especially since I have a baby niece arriving soon! The smallest size of the newborn dress also fits E's doll rather nicely, so I'll probably be making one for her as well. ;)

Last, but not least, is a shopping cart cover that a friend commissioned for her little boy. I'd never made one before, so this was a bit of a challenge, which I love. I tried looking at some ready-made patterns, but most were fussier and/or more complicated than what I wanted, so in the end, I came up with my own, which was pretty much just a large rectangle with elastic and holes.

I used quilting cotton for the top and a bottomweight cotton twill for the bottom so that it would hold up to wear & tear. I used two layers of batting, plus a layer of fleece for the padding, then I layered everything and serged the edges all together. I turned down about 4" on the front and back to create pockets to hold it in place. I added elastic to the front pocket to make it a bit more snug around the cart handle, but left the back as is. I used bias tape to cover the raw edges on the sides, as well as the leg hole in the middle, and I made large buttonholes and threaded them with nylon webbing for the safety belt.

I do wish that the elastic I used had cinched the front part up a bit tighter, but other than that I think it turned out rather well. I also ended up whipping up a quickie storage bag from some of the leftover twill.

Costumes

2010-09-22T13:52:00.001-05:00

My friend Heather asked me to make some more costume pieces for her fall show, Little Women. At first she wanted me to make 5 or 6 corsets, but after doing some research on them, I realized that those might be beyond my skill level - or at least that many in the time frame given would be - and bust her budget as well. Anyways instead, I sewed up a bunch of old-timey pantaloons/drawers/bloomers or whatever you want to call them.

I used Simplicity "Historical" pattern 9769, but realized after I started sewing that historical meant that they were wide open in the crotch, pretty much from front to back. So I had to make a few alterations, which on the one hand, made them quicker to sew, but on the other hand, gave them less flexibility in the waist. Lucky for me, the girls can to shimmy into them and once on, they won't have to change out of them during the show. Here are a couple of the girls, modeling them. (Sorry for the extreme blur, it was dark and I didn't realize how out-of-focus it was till I got home.)

I also made some old-timey aprons for the girls to wear over their dresses. Again, sorry for the crappiness of the pics, but I was in a mad rush to get them done and delivered so I only had a quick minute to snap a couple pictures. I'm hoping for better ones from the actual show.

Here's a better shot of my favorite one, which I added a cute little ruffle to on the sides.

I have to say, despite the tight deadlines, making this stuff is actually pretty fun. I really enjoy the challenge of making things that I would otherwise never make in a million years, and because they're for the stage, they don't have to be super perfect since no one will be really up close to see mistakes. ;) Also thank god for my serger - it would easily take me twice as long to sew these up without it since I'd have to turn and topstitch all the raw edges.

Oops, almost forgot. I also whipped up a bunch of little drawstring purses for the show too. Two are in a fancy brocade, the rest are from leftover scraps from the aprons or other fabric I had laying around. These were made in the most generic way possible - serged together and then a piece of scrap sewn to the inside to make a casing for the drawstring. Again, lucky for me they don't have to look nice up close, just from far away.

Stash game!

2010-09-20T09:14:00.004-05:00

About 3 years ago, I joined a sewing message board, but I visited it very infrequently. At the time, I was just beginning to sew and it was a bit overwhelming. But my friend Jacki is a regular there and always talked about this game they do, where the goal is to reduce your fabric stash and NOT buy new fabric. Since my fabric hoarding has been getting a bit out of hand lately, I figured it'd be good motivation to finally make all the projects I've been planning.

Basically, the rules are that starting on September 1st, you get points per yard for anything you sew and lose points for fabric that you buy. Anything you bought or ordered before the 1st counts as part of your current "stash," but you can't actually start cutting fabric for the item until then either. So anything you started before the 1st counts as an "Unfinished Object." I spent the entire week beforehand planning and tracing patterns that I wanted to use. I also might have gone on a fabric-buying spree. I know, defeats the purpose of reducing the stash, but I couldn't help myself.

Anyways, here are the first few batches of things I made. Nothing major yet, but I knew I'd have more costumes to make, so I wanted to start off slow.

First up, a Halloween skirt for E! She's been very into twirling lately, so I wanted to make her a nice, full twirly skirt. I used the PortabelloPixie Gracie pattern for this, but either I cut it wrong or there's something wonky with it because the top tier and the waistband didn't seem to match up quite right.

Here she is, giving it a test twirl. I think it met with her approval. :)

I also whipped up an absolute TON of key fobs to sell and give as gifts. These are actually pretty fast and fun to make. I enlisted T to put the rings on so we had a little assembly line going. This is actually only about half of them.

Last, and sort of least, I made a quick little placemat for E to use at school. Nothing really fancy, just two rectangles (and interfacing) that I sewed right sides together, then turned and top-stitched. I used the same fabrics as on her nap mat, and I also added a piece of elastic to hold it closed when rolled up.

More to come...

Finally, the nap mat tutorial!

2010-09-02T08:33:00.002-05:00

Confession: I actually started this tutorial last summer. I had all the materials cut and ready to go, but then time got the better of me and I never finished it. Also, my child developed a sudden attachment to her old nap mat and rejected the idea of a new one (even after specifically picking out this fabric). So I decided to not bother sewing a new one and shelved the tute for another time. I didn't mean to wait quite this long, but hey, better late than never, right?

Anyways, two years ago, when I first decided to sew E a nap mat for school, I was surprised to discover how few tutorials were out there. The one that seemed to come up the most was this tutorial by Jenny Garland. I made one from that tute for my friend's daughter, but I had a really hard time with it - I will concede though that that had a lot more to do with my sewing inexperience than the tutorial itself. Difficulty aside, I knew that particular style wouldn't work for what E's school required (they had a lot of rules and guidelines). Long story short, I ended up coming up with something on my own in a backwards sort of way. You can check out the old one in this post.

Even though she is going to a new school this year and will not be using a vinyl Kindermat underneath, I decided to make one in a similar style to her old one, which is only lightly padded. That being said, if you are concerned about the mat being directly on a hard floor or you just generally prefer something more plush, then you may want to try Jenny's tutorial instead. But if you want something more compact to take on trips, to friends' or relatives' houses, or to use on carpet or a bed, then this might be more up your alley. Another bonus of this nap mat? It's completely machine-washable!

When I came back to this project, I realized I forgot to account for the fact that kids have a pesky way of growing taller and my initial design is now a bit too short. So to compensate, I have lengthened it a bit and added a detachable pillow which can be flipped down for littler ones, and then flipped up as they grow. Hopefully, this will be the last one I make for a while.

So all that being said, here is the tute! I'm still rather new at writing up tutorials, so any comments or suggestions are appreciated! Oh and I apologize in advance if the pictures are confusing - I realized after finishing the first one that I didn't take enough and took some of the next one I made.

This tutorial is for personal use only, please don't sell from it. I'd love a linkback too if you post what you make from it! ;)

Materials needed:

1 1/2 yards Top (inside) fabric

1 1/2 yards Bottom (outside) fabric (*see note at bottom if you want to use the same fabric for both sides)

1 yard fleece (for the blanket)

Poly-fil or other polyester fiberfill (for the pillow)

1 yard of 1" wide nylon webbing

Approx 12 inches of 1" wide velcro

1 package crib-size (45x60) quilt batting

1/8 yd lightweight fusible interfacing (scraps will work too since you only need enough to cut one 4" square and one 4"x10" rectangle)

*If you want both sides to be the same fabric, you can get by with just 2 yards TOTAL as long as your fabric is 45" or wider. Be forewarned that most quilting-weight fabric is right on the cusp of 44/45" and will likely shrink a bit if you prewash, so you may want to go ahead and purchase the full 3 yards.

Instructions:

1. Cut one 22"x46" rectangle each from the top and bottom fabrics.

2. Cut a 36"x 44" rectangle from the fleece. If you like, you can finish 3 of the edges on a serger or with a overcast or blanket stitch, or you can leave them raw, like I did last time, since the fleece will not unravel.

3. Cut a 4" square piece of the interfacing. Fuse to the WRONG side of the Bottom panel, 20" up from the foot/bottom (assuming your fabric orients in one direction) or short end, and 9" from either side.

4. Cut a 4"x12" rectangle of interfacing and fuse to the WRONG side of the Bottom panel, centered about 1/2" down from the top.

5. On the right side of the Bottom panel, in the center of where the 4" square of interfacing is, sew a 2" piece of the female side of the velcro. I usually sew around the edges and then reinforce with an "X" through the center.

6. On the right side of the Bottom panel, along the top, sew a 9" long strip of the female side of the velcro in the center of the where the interfacing rectangle is.

7. Cut 27" of nylon webbing for the strap. If you prefer, you can make a strap out of some of the leftover top or bottom fabric: cut a 4"x27" strip. Fold lengthwise and press a crease in the center. Then open it up and fold the two long sides toward the crease in the middle and press. Fold in half again and press again. Stitch 1/8" from edge to close. If you are using quilting-weight fabric, I recommend interfacing the strap so it stands up better to wear & tear.

8. Place one end of the strap on each side of the RIGHT side of the Bottom panel, 14" up from the foot. Baste in place with a 1/4" seam allowance, leaving a 1/2" tail hanging off either edge.

9. Cut 6" of nylon webbing for the tab. (Again, you can make a tab from fabric if you prefer by following the same directions as for the strap.) Sew a 1 1/2" piece of the male side of the velcro to one end of the webbing.

10. Place the tab in the center of the RIGHT SIDE of the Bottom panel (10 1/2" from either side), velcro facing up, and pointing in towards the center of the panel. Baste in place, leaving a 1" tail hanging off the bottom edge.

11. Cut two 22"x46" rectangles out of the batting. (You can do more layers if you want the mat to be thicker, but I probably wouldn't do more than four total. Alternately, you could also purchase thicker batting by the yard instead of the pre-packaged kind.) Line up the batting on the WRONG side of the Top panel and baste in place.

12. Flip over the Top panel so that the right side is facing UP. Line up one edge (the raw one, if you finished the edges) of the fleece blanket, along the edge of the Top panel also with the right side facing UP. Baste in place.

13. Note: you can skip all the basting if you like. I just think it helps keep everything in order. Just make sure that when you make a sandwich of your pieces, they are in this order:

A. Bottom panel (right side up)

B. Straps

C. Fleece blanket (right side down)

D. Top panel (right side down)

E. Batting

14. Starting 9" up from the bottom right corner, sew almost all the way around the edges of the nap mat, using a 1/2" seam allowance. Stop just after you turn the last corner, leaving a 6-8" opening on the side. Be sure to backstitch at either end.

15. Turn the entire nap mat, right sides out. Stitch the opening on the side closed. If you want the seam to be invisible, I recommend hand-stitching. I'm lazy though and just ran it through my machine. ;)

16. Last, but not least, you need to make the detachable pillow. Cut an 18" x 25" rectangle out of whichever fabric you prefer. This will be the body of the pillow.

17. Next, cut an 11" x 9" rectangle out of either the same or the opposite fabric (again, whichever you prefer). This will be the detachable velcro tab. Fold it in half lengthwise, right sides together, so that you have a rectangle measuring 11" x 4 1/2". Stitch along the short sides and turn the right sides out.

18. With the right side facing down, place the tab you just made along one of the short sides, lining up the raw edges. Fold the pillow fabric in half, wrong sides together, so that the short sides meet and you have a rectangle measuring 12 1/2" x 18".

19. Sew along the edges, leaving a 4" opening at one of the short ends. Turn the pillow right side out and stuff with polyfil. Stitch opening closed either with machine or by hand.

20. Sew a 9" strip of the male side of the velcro to the tab, about 1" up from the bottom. You can adjust the placement if you want the pillow to be closer or farther from the body of the nap mat.

Hope that helps someone out there! :)

Fall Sewing

2010-09-01T13:59:00.001-05:00

"Fall" sewing is probably a bit of a misnomer considering that temperatures are still regularly in the mid-90s here in Texas. It'll probably be close to November before we get even close to what I consider to be fall temperatures, but I digress. It's hard to believe it's been more than 2 months since my last post. We took a long vacation for most of July and I've been playing catch-up ever since. I also am STILL tweaking my long-promised nap mat tutorial (my punishment for being OCD), but I promise to get it up one of these days, probably when no one will really need it anymore. :P

In any case, I did make not one, but two nap mats this year; one for E and one for her bff. They are actually attending the same school this year, so they'll get to spend a lot more time together.

I made the initial mistake of cutting both mats to the same dimensions as E's old one, not accounting for the fact that the kids have grown quite a bit in the last year. Doh. To compensate, I ended up adding a separate, detachable pillow, which I think actually worked out rather well.

I also had a couple commissions recently for new items, one for a friend's son, and the other for another mommy. First up was a cheerleader costume for a woman who was looking for something more authentic-looking (and modest) than the standard "sexy cheereleader" costumes you find in most shops. I had never made anything like this before, but I rather enjoyed the challenge. I used a pattern I picked up at Jo-Ann for pretty cheap, with very few modifications other than to add a few inches to the hemlines and some short sleeves to the shell.

I wish I'd had a chance to take a picture of her trying it on. It looks much better on than it does laying on my floor. I love that style of pleated skirt and I'm thinking about making a miniature version for E now.

Next up is my first boys' clothing item and first button-down shirt. I absolutely adore this airplane fabric, so I was super excited when a friend of mine requested I make her son a shirt out of it.

Sewing the collar on took me forever to get right, as the pattern directions were horrendous, but after my friend, Jacki, pointed me toward this tutorial with a video, I finally figured it out.

After all that, I decided to sew something just for fun. I settled on a simple little tunic/dress out of a Japanese sewing book (Pochee Natural and Layered Style) that my cousin picked up for me in Japantown. It's pretty much just a front, a back, and an elasticized pocket, with pintucks and binding. Except for having to make the binding, it was a pretty quick little project. I think it turned out super cute!

I had a pretty large scrap of fabric leftover after making this, so I decided to make one for E's baby doll too. I scaled down the pattern pretty much just by eyeballing it, so it's not quite right (too big around the neck), but I don't think she'll complain. ;)

Here they are together, hee! In the book, it's worn as a tunic, layered over a sleeved top and some leggings, but E wore it as a short dress.

Me, Myself and I

2010-06-22T08:11:00.000-05:00

Since I started sewing a little over 3 years ago, I have rarely, if ever, made anything for myself. I've made tons of clothes for E and her little friends, but for some reason, I've always been too intimidated to make clothes for myself. It's actually a bit silly when you think about it. I'm not a petite woman by any stretch, and I have a difficult time finding clothes that fit me properly, especially across my bust, so you would think that the first thing I'd make would be my own clothes! I finally decided that it was about time I got over this particular hangup and set out to make myself a summer wardrobe.

I started out with some simple A-line skirts. Using the guidelines from Sew What! Skirts (a fabulous resource - I highly recommend it), I drafted a simple pattern and made 2 skirts with side zippers. The first one is a bottomweight cotton print.

[I normally despise posting pictures of myself, but I realized that it's hard to get a sense of how these items look unless they are on, so bear with me and excuse the filthy bathroom mirror. :p]

Have I mentioned that this was also my first time putting a zipper in a garment? It was way easier that I expected! I don't know what I've been waiting for. The second one is similar, but not quite done yet, so I'll post it when I get around to finishing it up.

It's impossible to get through a Texas summer without spending a lot of time at the pool or sprayground (for all you Northerners, it's basically a park or playground with water features for the kids to play in). And even with a generous coat of sunblock, it's hard to keep from getting burned. So inspired by a caftan my friend Valerie picked up while in Miami, I decided to try and make my own caftan-style swim cover-up. It's basically a giant rectangle of printed cotton gauze that I sewed into an oversize "T" shape and then added a casing and ribbon drawstring. I rolled all the edges too, mostly out of laziness. ;)

I do wish that the shape of it was a little more flattering on my body, but it serves its purpose well. The bonus of using gauze is that it's super lightweight, so even if it gets wet, it dries very quickly.

Last, but not least, I made my very first top! It's Kwik Sew 3610, in case you're wondering. I always used to see tops like this in the store, but could never find one that fit me properly, particularly over the bustline.

This was also my first time working with this kind of shiny, silky fabric, and I have to say, I did not enjoy that part at all. It was extremely difficult to keep lined up while sewing (even with a billion pins), and it also did not hold pressed creases very well, if at all. The pattern was otherwise super easy to make though, and I think I may try it again with a super lightweight cotton woven or knit instead.

Shirring mania

2010-06-21T12:50:00.005-05:00

I know a lot of people hate shirring, but I've always loved it. It feels sort of like magic to take a boring old tube of fabric, sew a bunch of lines through it, and voila! It's a dress! I've made a decent number of shirred dresses at this point, but I recently discovered something that I've never seen mentioned before: all elastic thread is not created equal. I had previously always bought the same kind of elastic thread at the same store, but last time I was there, they were no longer carrying it. They had Guterman elastic thread, but a friend had warned me that the Guterman didn't work very well. So instead I bought a different kind somewhere else.

Well, the other day, I finally ran out of the spool I was using (I'm not 100% sure what kind it was since I threw away the packaging long ago) and went to wind a new bobbin from the new package only to realize that this elastic thread looked and felt totally different. Not only was it not as stretchy, it was also much thinner. This did not bode well.

Rather than risk messing up a dress I was only halfway done with, I decided to go and hunt for different thread. I came back with two more spools from two different stores and did test runs of all three on 5" x 25" strips of lightweight woven fabric (same as the dress I'm currently making). I hand-wound a bobbin with each of the three different kinds of thread and then shirred 5 rows on each strip; tension: 6, stitch length: 4, each row approximately 3/8" apart.

Strip #1 (Top)

Designer's Choice Elastic Sewing Thread

bought at Hancock Fabrics

64% Polyester, 36% Rubber

Finished length: 13"
After steaming: 9 1/2"

Strip #2 (Middle)

Dritz Elastic Thread

bought at Jo-Ann Fabrics

28% Polyester 72% Rubber

Finished length: 15"
After steaming: 11"

Strip #3 (Bottom)

Stretchrite Elastic Sewing Thread

bought at Hobby Lobby

42% Polyester, 58% Rubber

Finished length: 9"
After steaming: 8"

As it turns out, the brand and/or rubber content makes a huge difference! The Designer's Choice was the the thinnest and felt the least stretchy, so I was surprised to see that it actually shirred up tighter than the Dritz, which had the highest rubber content. The Stretchrite was far and away the most effective, and I suspect that it's what I had previously. I'll also note that it was the cheapest, although I think that Hobby Lobby's notions are generally cheaper than Hancock and Jo-Ann. Each spool has 30 yards, so one usually goes pretty far. I don't think I've had to buy more than one a year. Even so, I think next time I'm there, I may stock up, just in case.

Oh, and just for kicks, I also tried machine-winding bobbins for the Dritz and Designer's Choice threads and sewing 5 rows on shorter strips of fabric. I was hoping that the tighter, more uniform wind would make them gather more when sewn. I was shocked and disappointed to see that they both actually seemed to perform slightly worse. So I guess I'm stuck with hand-winding. Bah.

[Edited to add:
I forgot to see how much more these would shrink up after applying some steam to them from the iron. Each strip did gather up a bit more and I've added it to the stats above. (Thanks, Jacki, for reminding me!)]

Olivia dresses

2010-06-21T08:28:00.001-05:00

A friend requested that I make a dress out of Olivia fabric for her daughter. She originally requested a simple A-line dress with criss-cross straps, so I loosely traced one of E's dresses to make a simple little pattern and then sewed a couple tubes to make the straps. I rolled the bottom hem on my serger to keep as much of the length as possible. I originally left the straps un-tacked down in the back so that I could customize them to the right length, but then we decided to leave them that way and make it into a halter dress.

Of course, once E saw her friend's dress, she insisted that I make a matching one for her too. I made the top band a bit bigger to try and get more length out of it for my tall girl, but I realize now I should have adjusted the width too.
Here's the promised pic (excuse the weird face, she was not being very cooperative).

Summertime and the living is...busy!

2010-06-10T22:12:00.002-05:00

Ack! How is it that it's been more than a month since my last post? Well, needless to say, I've been busy both with life in general, and with crafting.

First up is a whole mess o' crayon rolls. Most of these were ordered by friends, but then I decided that while I was at it, I may as well to make extra to keep on hand. I won't bore you with pics of every single one, just the cute ones. ;)

Next is yes, you guessed it, another apron! I have to say, I thought I'd get really sick of these, but I haven't. I just love seeing how the different fabric combos turn out. I think the embroidery on this one really makes it pop too.

Hm, what else....Oh for teacher appreciation week, I took a page out of my friend Nicole's blog and made up some therapy sacks for E's preschool teachers. I used wheat berries scented with a little lavender oil and tied them up with a little ribbon and the same poem that Nicole used. I have to say, I was a bit shocked at how much wheat I needed. I bought 5 lbs and and used all of it to make these three sacks! Yikes! But I must say, these were very quick little gifties and I will definitely be making more in the future, especially around Christmastime.

Oh and for the first time ever, I've also been making some stuff for myself! :) I'll save that for a separate post though. More to come...

Playing catch-up!

2010-05-03T20:53:00.000-05:00

Whew, has this month been busy! After a trip to Chicago and a resolution to a minor health issue that left me too exhausted to work, I'm back to sewing like a fiend and catching up on my mountainous back-log of orders.

First up, some oven mitts and matching hanging dishtowels, made from super adorable matroyshka-themed fabric, which the customer special-ordered and had sent to me. It was a heavier weight fabric, almost like a canvas, and by the time I was done making these, I'd really fallen in love with it.

I had actually finished the oven mitts quite some time ago, but had a bunch of fabric leftover, so she requested some dishtowels with a piece added so you could hang them over an oven handle or the like. I drafted the towel pattern myself and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Definitely going to be making more of these.

Next is an apron knot dress, based on the Portabellopixie pattern, made from the same skull fabric I used for one of E's skirts.

Last, but certainly not least, is a strapless shirred dress for the daughter of my favorite photographer, who also happened to take the pic of the little girl in the apron dress above. Her daughter is really into maps, so this fabric was perfect for her!

Egg-o-rama

2010-05-03T16:25:00.000-05:00

I realized that I never posted the fabric eggs I made for Easter this year. I despise the plastic eggs, not just because they're usually filled with candy, but mostly because my child freaks out if I try to throw the actual eggs away, empty or not. So I end up with plastic egg halves scattered all over my house for months, as I gradually sneak them into the trash. Bleh.

Last year, I saw a couple different tutorials for making fabric eggs, one with a secret pocket and one without, and bookmarked them, thinking I'd give it a whirl. Of course, being the procrastinator that I am, I never got around to it. But this year, I remembered to look the tutes over again a few days before Easter. Hey, that's progress for me!

These were surprisingly easy and fast to make. I spent one evening digging through my scrap bag and cutting out as many pieces as possible, and then about an hour or so zipping them through my sewing machine. The only really tedious part was hand-stitching the holes closed, but again, it was accomplished in just an hour or so in front of the TV, the night before.

The secret pocket eggs were neat, but while they're larger in overall size, the pocket didn't hold more than a jellybean or two. My child couldn't quite dig the jellybeans out and, in her frustration, started biting them out, which then led to a sticky old mess inside. Ew. Next time, we'll stick to the regular old pocketless eggs, which were smaller and more nicely egg-shaped.

And even more aprons

2010-04-11T15:26:00.000-05:00

Ok, these are the last two aprons for a while, I promise!

Both of these were for little boys. This first one was finished a couple weeks ago and the fabric was specifically requested by his mom. I love the combo of the skulls and stars.

I had a harder time finding the right fabric for this second one since his mom did not want a specific theme, like cars, trains, etc. Have I mentioned how hard it is to find good boyish fabric? I'm very happy with this combination of stripes and dots though. I think it's nicely all-purpose and could be used for a boy or a girl.

I'm currently sewing as fast as I can to finish up a couple dresses and a few baby gifties before I head out of town next week.

Skirt-o-rama

2010-03-30T13:33:00.002-05:00

About a month ago, I started making a bunch of skirts for E with the hopes that spring would soon be here, and that we could finally make a serious effort to start potty-training. Well hurrah, hooray! Both have finally come!

Here are a few of the skirts I've made. These whipped up very quickly, especially with my ruffler foot. ;)

Here is E's favorite, mostly because it looks like the one that her plush Minnie Mouse wears. It was the quickest and easiest to make, mostly because I just did a quick rolled hem on the bottom and a wide band for elastic casing at the top.

This is not an uncommon look nowadays:

This skirt was supposed to be part of her birthday outfit, and I even had a matching "3" applique shirt embroidered by Kenzie Kouture, but of course, when the actual day came, E insisted on wearing the Minnie skirt. *sigh*

I did, however, manage to get her to wear the complete outfit to school one day, so here's a pic I managed to snap as she tore around the house like a maniac. Sorry for the slight blur. She's fast.

This is probably my favorite skirt so far. I love the skull fabric! I think I also realized after making this one that I prefer the drop-waist style.

I actually made this skirt specifically for E's 3-year-old photo shoot in Deep Ellum with our favorite photographer. I also commissioned another embroidered shirt from Kenzie Kouture to match, this time with heart & crossbones. Here is my big girl, in her "model" pose. ;)

And I can't resist including this shot of T and I, with our monkey:

Now that we are potty-training full force, I'm anticipating a lot more skirts and dresses for spring and summer!

Are you sick of aprons yet?

2010-03-28T19:49:00.000-05:00

I hope not, because here are two more, and I've got at least four more to make! These were both commissions by friends and I'm absolutely in love with how they turned out, especially since these are two of my absolute favorite fabrics. As before, the embroidery was done by my friend Chrystyna, of Kenzie Kouture. She's done a number of aprons and appliqued shirts for me, and they have all turned out absolutely gorgeous!

If you're interested in ordering an apron, please email me at craftyasiangirl@gmail.com. :)

More aprons, plus a little sewing tip

2010-03-12T08:58:00.001-06:00

As I said before, March is birthday madness around here! Here are two more aprons I made as birthday gifts, this time for a couple of sweet boys. Just like with the last set, they are reversible, with the backside using the same fabric as the straps & pockets. I love how these turned out! It's cool to see how something so simple can have so many different looks just based on fabric choices. Although I have to say, I never realized just how hard it is to find boy-ish looking fabrics! Kudos to all you sewing mommas of boys! I don't know how you do it! I'm feeling pretty lucky to have a little girl right now. ;)

Now onto the tip:

So topstitching was something I always absolutely hated doing. I used to just skip it, but it really does make things look more professional and finished, so I felt compelled to keep trying. I'm a bit OCD though, and I felt like I could never really get an even, straight line, so I spent a lot of time ripping and re-stitching. Super sucky. :P

But when I bought my new machine last year, it came with a "new owner's lesson" which provided tons of super-useful tips. One of them was how to topstitch using the blind hem foot that came with my machine, which worked great, but only if I had to stitch to the left side, not the right. But then I happened to get a stitch-in-the-ditch foot as part of a quilting set, and I now have perfect topstitching every time!

So I figured it's about time I passed it on: get yourself a stitch-in-the-ditch foot. It's usually used for quilting and looks like this:

That little ridge in the center is normally used to keep your needle lined up with the seam or "ditch" as you quilt. But if you put the edge of your item against one side of the guide and then move your needle to the same side (assuming your machine has this capability), you can stitch extremely close to the edge and never worry about veering off in one direction or the other because the guide in the center keeps you sewing in a perfectly straight line. It's like magic!

Beach dress

2010-02-25T13:15:00.000-06:00

My best friend was in town for a visit last weekend, and I took her with me to a local fabric outlet, Golden D'or. I'm a bit of a cheapskate, and it's one of my favorite places to browse for bargains. Oh and also to pick up dirt-cheap notions like elastic, velcro and zippers. She found this very pretty thin cotton fabric on the clearance table and asked me to make a shirred beach dress/swim coverup for her to wear this summer.

This fabric seemed a bit dingy and flimsy under the fluorescent lighting in the store, but I must say, it looked much prettier after we got it home. It also washed up beautifully soft, and I think the thinness will be perfect for a hot day at the beach.

It's been a while since I've done a shirred dress, and this was my first attempt at an adult-sized one. It's hard to tell from the pic, but it's about knee length, maybe a little bit longer. I've definitely come a long way though since the very first one I made for E, almost 2 years ago! Thanks to my serger, I did rolled hems with wooly nylon on the top and bottom. I love the contrast of the white against the hot pink. Then I just did a quick serged seam to make it a tube and started shirring away! It goes so much faster when you have someone else to wind the elastic on the bobbins for you. ;)

I love how this turned out, so much so that I may go back and buy some of the same fabric in blue for myself. I'm dropping it in the mail today and hoping my friend will take a pic of herself wearing the dress and let me post it. *hint hint*

Aprons!

2010-02-24T23:31:00.001-06:00

March is the month of birthdays in our house: my daughter, my mother-in-law, my best friend and myself! Plus a ton of E's little friends have birthdays this time of year too. I guess that's what I get for befriending people with kids so close in age to my own kiddo! I usually try to stock up on gifts throughout the year so that I'm not making a mad scramble at the last minute, but lately I've been really into homemade gifts. Not that it necessarily saves me money, but it gives me an excuse to buy fabric and work on new projects. ;)

I decided to make an apron for one special little girl who is currently into cooking. I decided to draft my own pattern and make it reversible, partly because I like having all the strap ends hidden, but also because I hate having to make and sew binding. Store-bought never comes in the right colors and it's never on sale!

I thought it'd be a nice touch to have her name embroidered on it, so I called on my friend Chrystyna of Kenzie Kouture. We ended up doing a little bit of an exchange, as she needed an apron as a gift for one of her daughter's friends as well. I really love how the embroidery looks. I think it really adds a special touch to a gift. In fact, I'm starting to get spoiled by the convenience of knowing someone who can do custom embroidery!

Here are the finished aprons.

I loved using coordinating fabric for the backside, instead of just plain solid.

And here is a close-up of the embroidery on one. Chrystyna suggested using blue for the lettering and I think it pops really nicely.

With the right fabrics, I think these would make good boy gifts too. I'm also thinking it might be cute to do one with a more plain fabric and some kind of applique, like an initial or even an animal face.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with how these turned out, on the first try no less, and I will probably be adding them to my Etsy shop at some point in the near future. If you're interested in ordering one, email me at craftyasiangirl@gmail.com. :)

Serge-a-licious!

2010-02-15T10:31:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, with the aid of my handy new serger, I managed to whip up this little hoodie in just a couple hours! It's the raglan tee pattern from Kwik Sew for Toddlers, an awesome pattern book that my brilliant friend, Jacki, turned me on to (it's also mentioned in this post). If you're interested in learning to make clothes for your kid, I highly recommend it. Don't be scared off by the horrifyingly dated outifts on the cover. It's got very solid, basic garments that are easily adapted to your own style.

For this shirt, I traced and cut the raglan tee/sweatshirt pattern in 3T. I didn't want to do cuffs or a waistband and my daughter has a long torso, so I lengthened the sleeves and bottom hem by a bit. I also added a hood, partly because she is obsessed with hoodies, and also so I wouldn't have to make a neckband. ;) For the hems, I serged the edges, turned them other and then top-stitched with a twin needle. Easy peasy!

As you can see, she loved it and wanted to wear it immediately.

It's a bit boxy, so I may try making it a bit more fitted next time. I may even go down a size in the body and adjust the hem & sleeves accordingly. I think the sleeves here are a little bit short, so I may end up adding a cuff there after all. Also, the hood isn't nearly deep enough, so I'll definitely lengthen that next time too. Not bad for a first try though! And it was way easier to make than I anticipated, so much so that I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner! I'll definitely be making more of these in the near future - next up is a zipped hoodie sweatshirt. Then maybe some short-sleeved hoodies for spring, maybe even a dress or two. Hoodie-mania!

Valentine's outfit

2010-02-11T23:12:00.001-06:00

About a month ago, I bought some heart-themed Hello Kitty fabric with the idea of making E a special Valentine's outfit. I had originally planned on a pillowcase dress or the like, but when I saw my friend, Chrystyna of Kenzie Kouture, making these adorable embroidered heart shirts for Valentine's Day, I couldn't resist ordering one for E. Instead of a dress, I made a tiered ruffle skirt to match. I absolutely love how this turned out!

This was also a great opportunity to use my new serger! I know, you're thinking "wait a second, didn't you already have a serger?" Well, long story short, I sold the old serger because I never used it (and it sort of scared the crap out of me). Then I realized I desperately needed one for the Great Ruffle Project, so I ended up getting a new one. Thanks to some hand-holding by now I'm totally over my serger fear and LOVING it!

I was especially excited to try out a rolled hem with wooly nylon, although I had a bit of trouble with it and the bottom tier ended up being a bit shorter than I intended, especially on one side. Oops. I had originally intended to use the serger to gather the tiers too, but it didn't quite work out the way I wanted, so I ended up using the ruffler foot on my regular sewing machine instead. I have to say, I absolutely love that thing! It made sewing this skirt so quick & easy, and I ended up with pretty much perfect gathers for each tier. I'm definitely going to make more of these in the future.

Here's a shot of just the skirt.

I usually put some kind of ribbon tag in the waistband to distinguish the front from the back. I couldn't resist using some Hello Kitty ribbon that my cousin gave me.

My love for HK has definitely rubbed off on my daughter. E was very excited to wear this outfit to her school Valentine party today! She also wore Hello Kitty socks and rain boots - she's very into matching too, haha!

I ended up whipping up another skirt or one of E's little friends too. I'm thinking that with spring around the corner, snow notwithstanding, I may start selling these!

The Great Ruffle Project of '10

2010-02-11T09:34:00.002-06:00

About a month ago, a friend of mine asked me to make some costumes for a high school musical she's directing. Specifically, she wanted seven tango-style skirts. I rarely work from patterns, but I am generally good at picturing how I want things to turn out, so I agreed to give it a shot, even though I've never made anything like that in my life. Little did I know that I would end up knee-deep in ruffles!

Basically, I wanted to make a wrap-style skirt that has a high slit up one leg, and then I attach layers of ruffles to the skirt. In my head, this all sounded very simple and straightforward. So off to the fabric store we went, where we picked out a bunch of glittery satin-y fabric in four different colors, as well as a drapey black jersey for the skirt bases. I think in total, I ended up taking home about 20 yards of fabric, easily the most I've ever bought in one go, for one project!

My original plan was to cut long, 7" wide, single strips for each row, and then to gather those strips. But after spreading out 4 and 5-yard swaths of fabric across my floor, I realized that not only would it be exceedingly difficult to cut a 4-yard long straight line, it would also be a tremendous pain to pull & gather that much fabric. Instead, I cut strips across the width of the fabric, which was just shy of 60 inches. I probably should have seamed the pieces together, but in order to save time, I opted to slightly overlap them when I sewed them on. I think the overlaps are barely noticeable.

The other thing I failed to think through was just how long it would take me to make all these ruffles. I did the math at one point, and I think it came out to around 100 yards worth of fabric strips that needed to be gathered! Can you believe I thought I'd be able to do this by sewing basting stitches and then pulling and gathering hand? That insane delusion lasted long enough for me to make one very pathetic-looking ruffle before I started searching for other ideas.

Lucky for me, I have lots of very clever sewing friends, one of whom suggested a ruffle foot, and another of whom was extremely kind and generous enough to loan her ruffler to me. Can I just say, that ruffler saved my freaking life?!

Here's a pic of the ruffler foot. It looks like a totally insane and intimidating contraption. There are a number of moving parts, as well as various knobs and dials that need to be adjusted, so there is a bit of a learning curve to overcome. But once you've got it set up properly, it makes the most beautiful, evenly spaced gathers! I loved it so much that despite being rather pricey, I went out and bought one for myself! One word of warning though, because it does move and shake so much, I noticed that after a while, some of the knobs tended to come loose, particularly the big one that holds the foot onto the shank of my machine. So if you're going to be using this for big projects, make sure you frequently give everything a quick twist to tighten.

Once I had all the ruffles done, it was a simple matter of attaching them to the skirt bases, turning down the top to make a simple waistband, and then adding velcro closures. Although when I say simple matter, I should mention that it still involved hours of careful pinning, haha. And there was also the not-small issue of having to finish the edges of the satin, which unravels like crazy.

In any case, here are two of the finished skirts. I ended up doing 4 in green/blue and 3 in red/purple.

It's very difficult to get a sense of how these really look when they're just laid out on the floor, so here is a picture of the back one skirt pinned around a pillow. Basically, the ruffles start just below the buttocks, and the slit goes almost all the way up the thigh. The hemline is tapered a bit, so they are longer on one side. My understanding is that the girls are going to be wearing these with black leotards, black tights and maybe black booty shorts too. I'm hoping to be able to get a picture of them in action at some point.

A bunch of FO's - and more on the way!

2010-02-10T23:43:00.001-06:00

Yes, I've been MIA. No, I have not been slacking off. In fact, I've been so busy that I haven't even had time to post!

I've been doing some major cleaning and reorganization of my craft room, which included the purging of stuff I know I was never going to get around to using, as well as finishing up a few old projects that have been hanging around. I've also been working on the biggest sewing project of my entire life (yes, bigger even than the Christmas quilt), which has consumed pretty much all my free time these last few weeks. I'll have to save the details for a separate post.

First up, a granny-square afghan. I originally started this as a gift for someone about 7 years ago. I love the pattern for this square, but it was extraordinarily time consuming because of all the color changes. I got about 1/4 of the way done and realized it was going to take me a million years to make it as big as I wanted, so I abandoned ship and did a different, faster (one-piece) design. Which left me with roughly 1/4 an afghan that then sat in storage, forgotten. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, when I found the squares in a bin and thought to myself, I may as well stitch these together and see what I can do with it. I think it'll make a nice little lap blanket. Or maybe baby/toddler afghan. Still not sure what I'm going to do with it. I thought about trying to sell it, but I'll probably gift it to someone instead.

Then here's another hat that I actually finished a while back but just never got a chance to post. It was a commission by a friend for her son, who wanted a football hat. I had to come up with the fair isle football design myself, and I'll confess, I'm not 100% happy with it. But I'm also not sure how I could have improved the shape of it. I do otherwise love it though, especially the yarn I used, which was a wonderfully soft & yummy wool/bamboo blend.

I have two more finished hats too, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of them. One is a hat I started last month as a gift for a friend's daughter. It has a fair isle heart design all around it, which I adapted from a pattern book. I love the hearts, but unfortunately, it turned way too big, so now it's probably going to end up as a hat for E. Or I may put it away and sell or gift it next winter.

The other one is a hat I made for E. After seeing the owl hat I made for a friend's son, E requested one of her own. Knowing how rough she is on her things these days, I opted against using the same wool/cashmere blend yarn and instead picked up some Lion Brand Thick & Chunky Wool-ease. It turned out a teeny bit bigger than the original, but she seems to be ok with it. I still need to sew on the face, which I've been rather lazy about. I'll try to get pics up soon.

Edit: here's the heart hat!

Hot pads tutorial

2009-12-22T21:41:00.003-06:00

I know there are only a few days left before Christmas, but there's still a little time left to whip up a few quick gifties. So I figured why not go ahead and put up my very first tute?

I love to bake, but I hate oven mitts and find most other potholders bulky to use. I've always wanted something that I could use to quickly grab a cookie sheet out of the oven or a hot plate out of the microwave. I remembered seeing this blog post a while back about making little round pads that had pockets for your fingers. I wanted something slightly different, so I thought I'd give it my own spin. This is a great way to use up scraps and other odds and ends from your stash. I actually had all the supplies necessary to make these already on hand - ah, the benefits of being a fabric hoarder.

This makes one pair.

Supplies:

Enough fabric to cut four 4"x7" rectangles and four 4"x 2 1/2" rectangles; half a fat quarter would be more than sufficient

[They can be all the same fabric or all different, depending on your preference.
For the purposes of this tute, I'm going to assume you're using 2 different fabrics, one for the front, and one for the back of each pad.]

Cotton batting - about 1/4 yard

Insul-Bright - enough for two 4"x7" rectangles

Binding/bias tape - about 1 yard of 1" single fold (or 1/2" double fold)

Like I mentioned above, this is a great way to use up odds and ends, so the amounts given for the supplies are approximate. The pieces for the finger pocket are pretty small, so you can definitely get by with scraps.

In case you're unfamiliar with Insul-Bright, it is, as the name implies, insulated batting. It's good for hot or cold, so you can use it for potholders, lunch bags, etc. It is usually found with the interfacing and sold by the yard. I had bought some over a year ago with the intention of making a lunch bag for E, but well, that never happened. I'm happy to have a use for it now.

I made my own pattern from brown paper grocery bags, but you can just print out the handy dandy electronic version I made by clicking on the image to the right.

Instructions

1. For each PAIR of hot pads, you'll want to cut:

2 BODY pieces from Fabric 1
2 BODY pieces from Fabric 2
2 BODY pieces from Insul-Bright
4 BODY pieces from Batting
2 POCKET pieces from Fabric 1
2 POCKET pieces from Fabric 2
2 POCKET pieces from Batting

Here are pics of the pieces for just one pad. Yes, there is a fair amount of cutting involved, but if you're making a bunch, do it in front of the TV; it goes by more quickly that way. ;)

2. Next, take one of each of the POCKET pieces. Place the fabric RIGHT sides together. Then take one piece of batting and place on bottom.

3. Stitch along the straight edge, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance.

4. Turn the right sides out, and press.

5. Topstitch along the bottom, leaving a 1/4" seam allowance. Set aside.

6. Make a sandwich of BODY pieces in the following order:

Fabric - right side DOWN
Batting
Insul-Bright
Batting
Fabric - right side UP

7. Quilt together. You can do this however you prefer - straight lines, criss-cross, swirls, circles, etc. I did diagonal lines across, about 1" apart. Because the sandwich is so thick, I didn't pin, but I tried to hold the pieces together as tightly as possible to minimize shifting. You may want to trim the edges after quilting.

8. Baste the pocket piece along one end of the body.

9. Apply binding. Because of the curves on these pads, I recommend stitching the binding on the "right" way, by opening it up sewing along the crease, then folding and stitching again. There's a great video tutorial on how to do it on the Angry Chicken Blog, so I'm not going to go into detail on the step-by-step, but here are some pics of the process.

Here it what it looked like after I sewed all the way around with the binding unfolded:

And then after I flipped it over to the back:

I'll warn you, the bulk of the pad can make this part a bit tricky, especially if you've never worked with binding before. I highly recommend using wide binding and going slowly around the curves. This was easily the most time-consuming part for me, after cutting all the pieces. It took me a few tries to get it looking nice and clean on both sides.

The key is, when you're folding the binding over and stitching the second time, you want it to be folded over just enough to catch the back edge, but you don't want it folded so far over that you end up with a flap, like this.

Needless to say, that one ended up ripped out and redone. *sigh*

After folding it over, I pinned it like crazy, even though I generally hate pinning this way and it resulted in me getting jabbed more than a few times.

Side note: I'm obsessive about matching, not to mention stingy, so I made my own bias tape, which in the effort to save time, I merely creased in the middle. Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment. Basically, you cut fabric into strips on the bias (45 degree angle), then sew the strips together and press. I'm not going to go into more detail than that because there are a ton of great tutorials on how to cut and press to make your own binding. Obviously, the store-bought kind would work just fine too and take a lot less time.

Once that's done, voila! You have hot pads! I'm going to have to pull a bit of a bait & switch on you and show a different completed pair since I need to find matching fabric to cut and make binding for the pair shown in the first few pics.

This is definitely a project you could knock out in an evening. I spent 3 evenings cutting and sewing almost a dozen pairs, assembly-line style. But again, a lot of that time was spent making binding, so if you use store-bought, you could probably do it a lot faster.

Feel free to make as many of these as you like for friends and family, but please don't sell them.

I hope that this was helpful to someone out there. I'd love to hear any feedback! This is my first tutorial though, so go easy on me. ;)

Doll quilt

2009-12-12T09:22:00.000-06:00

I had a bunch of extra squares leftover from my Christmas quilt project that I realized would be perfect for a doll quilt for one of E's Christmas gifts. She is very very into playing with her animals and baby dolls lately, and spends a lot of time making elaborate beds for them out of couch cushions, blankets from her own bed, and bits of fabric from my scrap bag. It's actually pretty hilarious to see her "sleepover" set up all over the living room floor.

The doll quilt also was the perfect opportunity for me to get some practice with free-motion quilting, which I'd never done before but have been wanting to try. I have to say, it was a bit difficult, but I really enjoyed it! I think I still have a long ways to go before I really get the hang of it, but I'm fairly sure I'm going to go ahead and use this technique on my big Christmas quilt.

Here's the finished doll quilt, front:

And back:

And an "action shot" where you can see the quilting in a bit more detail:

I cheated on the finishing and instead of making binding, I left a 1 1/4" border all around of the backing fabric, which I then folded over twice, pressed, and stitched down. WAY easier than dealing with binding. I'm actually pretty happy with it overall. Not bad for using up odds and ends I had laying around!

The only thing I have left to do now is wash it, which I'm actually sort of terrified to do. Normally, I prewash and dry all my fabric, but since I used the layer cake, that wasn't an option. The ladies at the quilt shop told me that it was better to keep it all the same, so wash everything or nothing. I'm really nervous about how badly the red fabric is going to bleed, especially since I have pure white squares in the mix. I think I'm going to do a trial run with one of those 'color catcher' sheets and see how it turns out. I keep telling myself, "it's only for a doll, it's only for a doll..." But if it does bleed, I guess that means that the full-size version will never be washed. *sigh* Keep your fingers crossed on that one.

Of course, now that I've made this little doll accessory, I feel compelled to make some little clothes for E's dolls and animals as well. She's actually been asking me to do this for a while, and I think I'm finally going to suck it up and make a few outfits for her stocking stuffers.

Way way behind

2009-12-11T19:18:00.000-06:00

I've been sick on and off (but mostly on) for the better part of the last month. It's been really frustrating to not feel 100%, but even more than that, it's been driving me crazy how far behind I've fallen with my holiday crafting. I swear, my list just keeps getting longer and longer as I see more and more cute ideas for gifts and such.

The only project I've managed to finish recently is the tree skirt I started over a month ago for E's little Christmas tree. She's so excited about Christmas this year that we thought it'd be cool for her to have her own little (fake) tree in her room that she could decorate herself. I decided to make a little tree skirt for it, loosely based on this tute. Obviously I made hers a lot smaller, 26" diameter, and because of that, I also opted to only use 6 pieces instead of 8. I won't go into boring details, but if anyone's interested in how I did that, just post in the comments. ;)

I actually am extremely unhappy with how the tree skirt turned out, mainly because I screwed up the binding pretty badly. It's extra sloppy (and don't even get me started about how the backside looks), so sorry, no close-up shots.

So since I lamely have nothing else to show for the past few weeks of sickies, I thought I'd post about some WIPs and a few links to cool projects that I'd like to attempt to have done in time for Christmas. Some are decorations, some are toys, most are holiday-oriented.

I have a couple commissions I'm almost done with, one knit and one sewn, and I'm also trying to concurrently work on some handmade Christmas gifts for friends and family. I really want to post a tutorial for the gifties, but I also don't want to ruin the surprise...decisions, decisions.

I'm also still hopeful that I might be able to finish the Christmas quilt before Christmas. I have, however, given up on hand-quilting. Partly because I just didn't like the look of it, but mostly because I regained my sanity and realized that it would take me about 10 years to finish it by hand. Now I'm thinking I may give free-motion quilting a go.

This weekend's big project is baking! I'm hosting a cookie exchange next week and I have LOTS of baking to do. I still haven't entirely decided on what kind of cookies I'm going to make for the exchange, but being the overambitious nerd that I am, I also want to make decorated cookies for everyone. Going to be a busy busy weekend.

In a perfect world, I'd also have time to make some of this stuff:
Felt circle garland
Origami star
Paper evergreens
Salt-dough ornaments
Crochet snowflakes
Snowman decoration

Christmastime is here!

2009-12-03T17:39:00.005-06:00

I love Christmas and all the hoopla that surrounds it. I'm especially excited this year because not only are we not traveling for a change, but my daughter is finally old enough that she really 'gets it' when it comes to holidays. It's really fun to see everything through her eyes for the first time again.

That being said, she has already started driving me nuts asking me, "Is it Christmas yet?" So I thought an advent calendar would help her count down the days. I remembered seeing this calendar in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog a while back. But even if I did want to shell out major $$ for it, it's no longer available. Of course, crazy person that I am, I figured I could make a reasonable facsimile.

I decided to take advantage of the Black Friday deals at Jo-Ann's last weekend and picked up a yard or two of felt in several different colors (I figured whatever I didn't use I could save for other kid-crafts).

I wanted to stick with a tree, like the PBK one, but seeing as how I waited to start this till November 29, I knew I couldn't do anything too complicated, so elaborate embroidery or applique were out. Instead, I decided to make a felt ornament pocket for each day.

Starting with a yard of green felt, I cut out two large tree shapes (one top piece, one bottom). Then I made a couple ornament stencils on cardboard and cut out 25 in various colors. The balls are just under 4 inches in diameter, and the bulbs are about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide. I wanted them to be big enough that I could stick a little gifty inside instead of candy, if I felt so inclined.

I also decided to embellish some of the ornaments with some of the fancy decorative stitches on my sewing machine. Even though a lot of the stitching ended up obscured by the numbers, I think it adds a nice touch. I did sort of wish I had more stitches to choose from, but oh well. This was the first (and probably last) time I used almost every one of them.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Santa face on the 25th day is from a small felt stocking I found at the dollar store. I just cut him out and stitched him to an ornament shape. Again, I had originally planned to make on myself from scratch, but when I found one already made, of course I opted for the short cut. ;)

I stitched each ornament to the top tree piece using contrasting thread, and leaving the top open to make a pocket. I used one of the blanket stitches on my machine, but a straight or zigzag would have worked just as well. I cut two rectangles of brown felt for the trunk and two stars out of yellow for the topper and then stitched each of these together. Again, I used the blanket stitch, but you don't have to. That's the nice thing about felt, you don't have to worry about finishing edges or turning and topstitching.

Next I put the top tree piece on top of the bottom piece, sandwiching the trunk in between at the bottom. Pinned and stitched all the way around and then I stitched the star to the top. Really, you could probably skip this step, but

Last, but not least, I let E help me put the numbers on each ornament. I originally thought I was going to have to either cut out numbers from felt on my own, but then I lucked out at found sticky felt cutouts at Jo-Ann. I had to buy two packages to have enough numbers, but I managed to use coupons for both so that I only ended up spending an extra $5.

Actually, when all is said and done, this really was not a very difficult or expensive project at all. You could even hand-stitch this if you don't own a machine. Definitely could be made in a weekend - it took me the better part of 3 evenings to complete it. One to cut everything out, one to embellish the ornaments and figure out what order I wanted them all to be in, and then one to sew everything together. Even with the "splurge" on pre-cut numbers, this whole project cost me less than $10. Take that, Pottery Barn!

Edited 12/11/09 to add:
Here are a couple close-ups, as well a shot of E standing in front of it, so you can get a better sense of scale.

Slowdown

2009-11-18T20:33:00.000-06:00

Sorry as usual for the lack of posts, but life has gotten in the way of crafting. I recently found out that our beloved dog has renal failure, so I've been too busy worrying and tending to her to be very productive. Here's a pic of my sweet girl in her prime, back when we lived in Chicago.

I have, however, still managed to finish a few items in the last couple weeks, mostly commissions for friends.

Black and white pompom hat for a toddler. I don't usually make hats with the squared-off top like that, but I think I may start. With the pompoms, it's super cute!

And this one is one of my new favorites - owl hat!

My friend's son is obsessed with owls and she asked if I could make an owl hat for him with some extra soft yarn since he's been having issues with hats being scratchy. I was really excited to find some yummy wool/cashmere yarn (Debbie Bliss Como) at my LYS in what I think are perfectly owl-y colors. I came up with the pattern on my own, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. His eyes and beak are 100% wool felt, and stitched on by hand.

E was also very excited about the owl hat, so I of course now I'm making her one too. But being the cheapskate I am, hers is made from Lion Brand's Wool-ease Thick & Chunky, which I got on sale not too long ago.

Currently, I'm working on another commission (a football themed hat in yummy wool/bamboo yarn), and I'm also making slow but sure progress on the Christmas quilt. I'm determined to have that thing done by Christmas, come hell or high water! However, in a bout of insanity, I decided I wanted to hand-quilt it. Let's just say it's not going so well right now. There may be a total about-face in the near future.

Here's some pics of the finished quilt-top and the back.

Biggest project yet (WIP)

2009-11-01T12:09:00.002-06:00

And I mean that quite literally. I think I mentioned at the beginning of the summer that I had bought a "layer cake" of Christmas fabrics (moda's ultra-yummy Figgy Pudding line) with the intention of making a big quilt. Well, only about 4 months later, I finally got started. It's odd. I never in a million years thought that I would take up quilting, but after making one for E's toddler bed, I've totally been bitten by the bug. Something about the excuse to buy so many different yummy fabrics is irresistible to my fabric-hoarding self.

As usual, I got a bit overambitious with this one. I decided that instead of doing straight squares like last time, I'd try to get a bit more fancy and do a pattern. After googling around and reading up on the basics and such that I'd skipped last time around, I settled on what's called a "disappearing nine-patch" pattern. I was drawn to it partly because it looks way more complicated than it is, but also because it can be done in so many variations, each with its own distinctive look (one of my favorite was this one, which used almost all black and white fabrics, with a splash of red in the center of each 9-patch).

Basically, what I ended up doing was cutting each of my 10" layer cake squares into four 5" squares. Then I sewed those into 9-square patches. Here's all the 9-patches, laid out together.

After all the work involved in sewing & squaring off these patches, I was sorely tempted to just leave it like this. But I decided to push on and, holding my breath, cut each 9-patch into quarters, like so:

This felt like it took FOREVER, especially squaring everything off, but I finally ended up with 64 squares. Then I spent a while arranging them on the floor until they were "random." After all that, sewing them together was a snap, although as usual, there was a lot of ironing involved.

Here's the quilt top so far. I'm pretty happy with it.

I had held off on ordering any yardage for the backing, binding etc. because there are so many colorways and I wanted to see exactly how the pattern was going to look before settling on coordinating fabrics. The big disadvantage to waiting was that a lot of this line is now sold out. I did manage to find a few different fabrics that I'm going to piece together for the border, backing and binding, so I'm hoping it'll all work out.

I'm on a bit of a knitting kick of late, so it may be a while before I get back to this quilt, but I WILL have it done by Christmas!!

A few FOs...

2009-11-01T10:27:00.003-06:00

For once in my life, the lack of posts here has not meant I've been slacking! Just so busy working on so many various things that I haven't had time to finish enough to post.

Here's the lone Halloween-related item I made this year:

Sadly, it's not the costume, but the striped goody bag.

I opted not to make E's costume this year. She is notoriously moody when it comes to wearing the things I make her, and I knew that if I spent a lot of time sewing her a costume only to have her refuse to wear it, I would be crushed/furious. So instead, I bought her this simple, but cute bee costume from Old Navy. It was basically a fleece vest with wings and antenna on the hood, so not only would it be easy to get on and off, it would also be highly adaptable to any variations in weather.

True to form, as soon as I showed her the costume and asked her to try it on, she refused. This continued until literally minutes before the party we attended. I actually whipped this bag up the morning of the party after being hit by a wave of guilt that I hadn't made her costume. It's about as simple as it gets: yellow felt stripes appliqued onto black felt, then folded and sewn down two sides to make a bag. I did flatten the bottom into a gusset of sorts, but that's about as fancy as it got. I thought it made a pretty cute accompaniment to her costume, and it was WAY cheaper than the $12 Pottery Barn Kids version (although I'll concede that the PBK one is a lot cuter). If I'd had a little more time and energy, I probably would have found a way to add some wings, but oh well.

My other major accomplishment this week was finishing the Stella Pixie baby hat that a friend had commissioned for her newborn baby. I absolutely adore the Cascade Heritage yarn that I used to make it, and I'm more than a little excited that I have enough leftover to make something for E too.

A couple minor warnings for anyone else making this: first of all, even knitted to gauge, it's big. Since this was for a newborn, I made this a full size smaller than the pattern originally called for and cast-on 8 sts less than the smallest size they had listed. I read this same complaint on a few other blogs, but of course, not until after I'd already started mine.

The other complaint is that the pattern I linked to on Etsy's Storque blog has an error in it (the buttonhole section towards the end), so I would recommend downloading the PDF link they have instead, which comes from the publisher. I struggled for a while with the buttonhole part, which it made no sense, before finally giving up and doing a different kind.

Here's a pic of it on one of E's dolls. It's missing the bottom strap portion, but you get a better idea of the pixie shape when it's on a head.

Last, and sort of least, there's this random stripey hat that I've been working on here and there for the last few weeks. I started it mostly to use up a few odds and ends that I had laying around, but I also wanted to try out an idea I'd seen where you knit the earflaps first and then incorporate them into the hat round. I hate picking up stitches almost as much as I hate seaming, and this was a nice compromise. This was also a nice chance for me to practice my "jogless jog" striping.

My original intention was to make a hat for E. Well, of course, it ended up HUGE so now I think it's going to be a hat for me, haha.

I hate hot glue

2009-10-12T11:50:00.001-05:00

I've never been big on bows. I think they look super cute on some kids, but they never seemed to go with my kid's personality. Plus, I just could never be bothered with them. However, lately my kid seems to prefer clips in her hair to ponytails, so I thought I may as well jazz them up a bit.

I recently saw this tutorial on how to make felt flowers and thought they'd make for cute hair clips. Super fast and easy and a great project to do in front of the TV. However, when it came time to glue them to the clips, I had nothing but trouble. Have I mentioned that I hate working with hot glue?

In the past, I'd covered some alligator clips with ribbon and again, had a helluva time getting the ribbon to stick properly. And even once I did get them on like I wanted, they ended up falling apart because E kept pulling them out of her hair and chewing on them. Ah, toddlers.

Anyways, after futzing with them for quite some time, here are two finished clips.

And a pic of E wearing the Halloween one.

The flower promptly fell off the clip about 30 seconds after I snapped the picture. I didn't even get that far with the red one. *sigh*

A friend told me I need a high-temp glue gun (I have low-temp). And that I have to be very very generous with the glue. I'm thinking I may find some other kind of adhesive because I've had it with the stupid glue gun.

Another birdie sling

2009-10-11T18:23:00.004-05:00

A friend commissioned me to make another Amy Butler birdie sling bag for her to give as a gift. She picked out all the fabric (and did a fantastic job, as I adore the colorways) and I finally got it all sewn up the other day. These bags definitely get easier to make the second time around. I'm hoping it'll be even easier the third time, as I actually have all the fabric to make one for myself; I just haven't gotten to it yet. I think it's because I can't stand cutting & ironing all the fabric and interfacing, so I keep putting it off.

Here's a pic of the inside. I added a magnetic snap closure, which I meant to do last time but then forgot. Oops. I also used some of the leftover fabric from the exterior to make the interior pocket since I prefer a little contrast.

I'll also reiterate my complaint that the pattern calls for WAY too much fabric for the bands and handles, especially is you use 60" wide home decor fabric. I think I got 3/4 yard instead of the 1 1/4 called for, and I still had a ton leftover. Next time I may take it down to a 1/2 yard and see if that works better.

Pants, pants, pants!

2009-10-02T16:31:00.001-05:00

For a long time, I've been intimidated by the thought of making pants. Or bloomers. Or pretty much anything with a crotch. It mostly stems from the time I tried to make a little romper for E and the crotch turned out just awful. Weirdly misshapen, with a point in the back, almost like a deformed tail. I've avoided anything crotch-y ever since.

My uber-crafty and ultra-wise friend, Jacki, kept telling me how easy it really was and pestering me to try again and I finally decided to give it another go last weekend. She even traced a pattern for me and wrote out detailed directions. Of course, she was totally right (as usual). In fact, I knocked out these three pairs of flannel toddler pants in an afternoon! The sheep ones are for a friend's daughter. I also happened across a t-shirt I'd bought for either tie-dye or applique, but never used, so I put a little heart on that with the same sheep fabric as a bonus.

The owl pants are for E. She also picked some ladybug flannel out of my stash for another pair of pants, but I realized I needed to wash the fabric first, so I'll probably do those another time. I'm thinking these will mostly end up being pajama pants or just lounge-around-the-house pants, especially once the weather gets cooler.

And just in case you're wondering, the pattern is from the Kwik-Sew for Toddlers book, which I also got on strong recommendation from Jacki. It has really good, basic patterns for shirts, pants, etc., and they also give you instructions on how to alter the patterns to make them longer or shorter as needed. Perfect for my tall, skinny kid. So if you can look past the grotesquely dated fabrics on the cover, it's a really good book to have. I'm really eager to try and make some knit easy-pants and leggings next so I don't have to keep buying them from American Apparel!

Birdie kimono set

2009-09-28T00:16:00.001-05:00

I'm ashamed to admit, I have had this outfit 75% done for the last 2 months, only to get stuck on the binding and put it aside in frustration. Well, the pregnant friend that this was for had her baby last week, which lit a fire under my behind to get it done.

It's the Kimono PJ Set from Amy Butler's Little Stitches for Little Ones book, generously loaned to me by the above no-longer-pregnant friend. I had the bright idea to do it in flannel instead of cotton, thinking it'd be cozier. This actually worked out fine for the most part, except for the binding, which I foolishly also tried to do in flannel. Here's a tip for anyone trying to make tiny flannel bias tape: don't do it. Trying to get 1/2" flannel single-fold binding to hold a sharp crease was next to impossible. And then folding it over and pinning the now 1/4" on each side? Infuriating.

So instead, I went and bought some double-fold bias tape from the store and sewed it on the "wrong" way (meaning, I just jammed the raw edges into the fold instead of opening it up, sewing along the crease, then folding and sewing again). I also opted to put binding along the cuffs of the sleeves too. I think it added a nice finished-looking touch.

Like other Amy Butler patterns I've tried, this was not a difficult project, but there were a lot of steps and the directions can be confusing at times. I think I read them about 20 times before I started, just to be safe. My main complaint though is that the pattern instructions were a bit lacking in common sense.

First off, folding 1/2" hems on the bottom of the pants and the bottom of the kimono top looks totally absurd on a tiny size 0-3 month outfit. I was unhappy enough with how it looked that I ripped it out and sewed a 1/4" hem with an additional row of topstitching along the edge.

Second, how the heck they expect you to be able to sew the hems on the sleeves is totally beyond me. I ended up ripping open the side seams so that I could open it up flat, sew on the binding, and then sew it back up. If I ever make another one of these, I'm going to be sure to do my hemming BEFORE I stitch everything up and overcast the edges.

A last note about working with the flannel instead of regular cotton: because the weave is a little looser, it is not as forgiving when you make mistakes and have to rip out seams. If you look closely at the pic above of the pants, you can still see all the holes from where the original hem was. Also, the edges tended to fray more easily and the fabric is overall less stiff, so it was a little trickier to keep it pinned into the bias tape. But like I said, it all worked out fine in the end, so don't be afraid to try it. I'm pretty happy with how this outfit turned out, and I'll likely make more in the future.

Bumblebee tutu

2009-09-27T10:42:00.003-05:00

Despite my desire to be uber-crafty, I opted not to make E's Halloween costume this year. Being the ornery & mercurial little toddler than she is, I had a feeling that after killing myself to make her costume, she'd refuse to wear it. Instead, I picked up two moderately priced store-bought costumes that are big enough for her to wear for dress-up for a good long while. I figure she can pick whichever one she wants on the day of.

One of them is a bumblebee costume from Old Navy, which mainly consists of a fleece vest with wings & a hood. I thought it'd be cute to have a tutu to accompany it. There are a million tutorials all over the web on how to make no-sew tutus (in case you're too lazy to search, you basically just cut strips of tulle and knot them around elastic or ribbon). For some reason, the idea never really appealed to me until now, and I have to say, it was crazy mega easy.

I picked up a couple rolls of tulle on sale at Hobby Lobby last week, and I already had some black elastic laying around that I sewed into a loop. After that, it was just cutting & knotting. I did the whole thing in front of the TV and finished it in just an hour or two. And it cost under $5. My kind of project.

Of course, as expected, my child refuses to wear it. Or even touch it. I'm hoping that she comes around soon, but if not, whatever. At least I didn't spend a ton of time or money on it.

Birthday cupcake

2009-09-26T17:11:00.003-05:00

I whipped up a quick little cupcake last week for a sweet girl turning 2 years old. Unfortunately, me throwing my back out and the subsequent appointments that followed interfered with me being able to give it to her on her birthday. But I thought I'd go ahead and post it here, just for giggles. I'm not entirely happy with how the cherry on top turned out, so I may take it off and do it over.

Return to knitting!

2009-09-17T19:07:00.005-05:00

I honestly can't remember the last time I knit anything. Between the unbearably hot Texas summer, my newfound obsession with sewing, and also just general impatience for how slow knitting can be, I sort of lost interest for a while. But last weekend, I went to visit my best friend in Philadelphia and at the last minute grabbed one of my many unfinished projects work on during the plane ride.

It turned out to be a lifesaver as my flight ended up delayed over 3 hours; I had no music to listen to, and I couldn't focus enough to read the book I'd also brought. I'd forgotten how soothing it can be to just mindlessly knit while watching crappy TV or chit-chatting with a neighbor.

Sadly enough, the project I brought ended up frogged, but I did find some fun new yarn & related supplies to work with on my trip. I got a very cute toddler sweater pattern and some more circular needles (one can never have too many!) at Loop. I also couldn't resist some of the adorable fat quarter bundles at their sister store, Spool. And then I picked up some crazy fun "marshmallow" yarn at Nangellini, which I ended up mixing with some hot pink eyelash yarn to make this funky scarf.

I very rarely work with bulky yarns, and it was really gratifying to be able to start and finish a project in a day. It really re-inspired me to pick up my knitting again and now I'm combing through my various bookmarked and queued patterns trying to decide what to work on next. In retrospect, I should have sprung for a second ball of the marshmallows so that I could have done a tighter knit, but I think the eyelash yarn fills in the holes nicely. I also picked up some super soft green & brown variegated wool that was half off. Score! Not sure what I'm going to do with it just yet though. Oh and of course the pattern I bought calls for bulky yarn, which I don't have, so I guess I'll need to make another trip to my favorite local yarn store. ;)

Oh, and I had to come back and add that the yarn stores I went to in Philly were so different from one another, but both absolutely fabulous! Nancy, the owner of Nangellini, was particularly friendly and cool and my friend and I had a great time chatting with her.

Another bento lunch

2009-09-09T19:28:00.006-05:00

Here's E's lunch for her second day of school. I featured the bunny-shaped egg this time, cut in half and with yolks removed. Otherwise, it was the same old, same old: cubed cheese stick, pretzels & blueberries.

Oh and here's a shot with the super cute lid, which I realized I forgot to show last time I used this bento box. I also decided to get crazy and add an applesauce cup to her lunch, which I've never done before. I forgot to ask how she did with it.

First day of school bento and egg molds!

2009-09-02T23:21:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is E's first day of preschool, and I've been super excited about packing her a cute bento lunch. So much so that for what is probably the first and last time, I made it the night before.

Since she's been a chowhound lately, I decided to use one of the few two-tiered boxes I have. I don't use them often because I usually don't have enough food to fill them, but not today! In the top part, I made four little sandwich cut-outs, plus some blueberries, and a stick of colby cheese. The bottom tray I just filled with Veggie Booty.

It was only after I packed the lunch, took pics and then put it away in the fridge that I remembered I had made eggs earlier and forgotten to put them in.

On my trip to California both this year and last, I picked up some egg molds. For the uninitiated, they're plastic molds that you shove a warm hard-boiled egg into that forces it into a fun shape. I briefly tried them out last year, with lukewarm results. At that point in time, E was decidedly not interested in eating eggs, cute shapes or not.

Here's a pic of my lame attempt from last year. I will add that I did indeed use XL eggs, and they STILL were not big enough!

But a lot can change over the course of a year. E's little palate has definitely broadened a bit and while she still claims not to like hard-boiled eggs, I knew that if I let her help me make them, she'd change her tune. Just like with sandwiches - she used to hate them, but now happily eats them if I let her make them herself. Of course it takes about 45 minutes to make one sandwich, but that's a different can of worms.

Generally, I've always been told that you need to use extra large eggs, and that some brands tend to be larger than others. I had exactly four large organic eggs left in my fridge that needed to be used up, and I figured it couldn't hurt to try.

Oddly enough, I went 2-2. Two molds turned out great, two did not. I honestly don't know if it's the eggs or what, but I'm thinking next time, I might orient them a different way before I press them in there.

In any case, E was super excited about the whole process and could not wait to open them up and see. And when I told her she could eat the car...I think she was in hog heaven.

Here she is, waiting patiently.

We opened the car first. Success!

It has a bit of a greenish tinge because I tried putting it in a cup with water & food coloring. But both E and I were too impatient to wait for the dye to take, so I pulled it out.

She ate most of a whole egg - a first! I don't think she cared for the yolk, so I picked it out of the second half after she spit the first half in my hand - lovely.

Here are pics of the second set (minus the car). I'm hoping to get her to eat one for breakfast before school tomorrow.

Can't wait for school!

2009-08-30T12:51:00.008-05:00

E starts up with preschool (better known down here as "Mother's Day Out" or MDO) this week and I cannot wait! It's partly because I'm excited to have a couple days to myself (thus the term, "mother's day out"), but mostly I'm just excited to use all our new bento stuff to make her lunches!

I got these little sandwich cutters that I've been dying to try. Usually, I just use mini cookie cutters, but from the picture on the packaging these appeared to be specifically for sandwiches. They even have a stamp, so that you can stamp the outside of the bread. So neat!

Anyways, I took advantage of our trip to the aquarium last week to do a little test run. E is really really into making her own sandwiches. It takes about 20 minutes to make one sandwich, but I figure it's worth it since she actually eats the sandwich when she's done (as opposed to wasting it, which was her previous MO). She LOVED cutting out the shapes and stamping the tops. So much so, that she's been asking me to make them every day since. Of course, I wish these didn't result in so much waste since I can only get 4-5 shapes out of a full size sandwich, but for now it's a price I'm willing to pay.

So here's a picture of her lunch, packed in the cute new giraffe bento box I picked up in San Francisco last month. The box turned out to be a bit smaller on the inside than I anticipated, so I ended up having to pack the pretzel sticks in a separate baggie. That partly defeated the purpose, but I was in a hurry to get out the door. Next time I'll try to be more strategic. Stay tuned for more bento lunches!

Birdie baby shower

2009-08-29T18:43:00.005-05:00

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but I have been crazy busy getting ready for a baby shower I'm hosting and I didn't want to post about anything I was working on for fear of ruining the surprise. But the shower was today and was a roaring success! I threw a bird-themed baby shower at my home for a good friend having her second little girl. She's obsessed with birds (the mom, not the fetus...yet) and is decorating the baby's room in a bird theme. So I thought why not throw a birdie shower?

I've noticed that birdie stuff is super popular lately, especially for kids and babies. I had some ideas brewing, but a simple google search brought up some really lovely ideas. I cribbed a few from this site and this one, and then it sort of grew organically from there.

I loved the idea of doing cupcakes with a "nest" of coconut on top. And I had the perfect recipe to go with it (for more on the food, check out my cooking blog). However, I had a really hard time finding the robin's egg candies that were pictured on several different sites. I'm guessing that they might have been easier around Easter time. So instead, I had to make do with Jordan almonds, which was less than ideal. In the end, I nixed the almonds and just left the cupcakes as is.

My best friend gave me the idea to do a kind of bird garland made of felt. She even went so far as to make me a template and a few prototypes and mail them to me from out-of-state! I loved this idea, but I'm not entirely sure I executed it as well as it deserved.

I ran out of time to put wings on all the birds, and I probably should have thought of a better way to hang them too. Ideally, a tree branch of some sort would have been perfect, but I simply did not have the time or energy to find one or chop one down from the tree in my yard. Still they were very pretty individually, and I think that they'll look nice in the baby's room.

I also picked up a few birdhouses to use as decorations, but I kind of floundered at the last minute over what to do with them. Again, I ran out of time to paint them, but they were cute as a makeshift centerpiece, especially once I paired them with a "nest" made of green excelsior and some fake eggs.

My mother-in-law even got in on the act, and sent me this beautiful birdhouse that I put in the entryway, next to the favor bowl.

For favors, I ordered a bunch of bird-shaped soaps from Etsy, which I then packaged in a cellophane bag with a little excelsior nest.

Last but not least, I had a group craft. Neither the guest-of-honor nor I are much for shower games, so I thought this would be a nice little activity. I didn't want to do the typical onesie painting since this was a second baby and I knew that she already had plenty of clothes. Instead, I thought it'd be cool to do something that could go in the baby's room. So I bought some 6-inch square canvas boards and acrylic paint with the idea that everyone could decorate one small board, and then she could hang them all in some sort of grid in the baby's room.

Unfortunately, I didn't think this one entirely through before I started buying stuff. I realized that some of my guests were not going to be as thrilled with an art project as I would be and would beg off, claiming a lack of artsy-craftsy skills. I thought that perhaps making stencils would make it easier, but the more I thought about it, the less I thought that people would want to mess with paint.

Instead, I decided to have them do paper cut-outs. I recruited my wonderfully talented friend Jacki to make templates so that people could just trace, cut and paste. Then I conscripted my very patient and understanding husband to help 'prime' the canvases by painting them solid colors. This may be the only photo you will ever see of him on this blog, haha!

Here are the finished canvases. I think they look fantastic, especially against the tablecloth, which is more or less the color of the baby's room. Now we just have to figure out how the heck we're going to hang them, haha!

Mini-bento

2009-08-21T08:44:00.003-05:00

E recently decided to stop taking naps, so there's been a lot less time for crafting lately. So instead, I decided to have her help me try out some of my new bento goodies. I have a bunch of rice (onigiri) molds that I've been dying to try out. E has never been a big fan of rice (it almost makes me wonder how we're related), but she really enjoyed making these rice shapes the other day.

I realized after playing around with some of the mold the other night that most of them are going to make onigiri that are way too big for most kids to eat. But on a whim, I did pick up this cute set that makes little shapes.

If you do a basic google search for onigiri, you'll find lots of links to recipes and how-to's. For the uninitiated, it's basically a big old ball of rice, usually vaguely triangular with something in the middle. I'm not a big fan of plain rice, or of the traditional Japanese fillings (like umeboshi), so I decided to wing it with some other stuff I had on hand. My two favorites of late? Furikake and pork sung.

I have nori furikake, which is basically bits of nori (seaweed), sesame seeds, salt & sugar. It comes in lots of flavors though, including salmon, shrimp, etc.

So as I mentioned before, I don't often eat plain rice - usually I eat it with stir-fry, leftovers, or even as a super basic fried rice with just scrambled eggs, onion powder & sesame oil. But once in a while, I'll eat it with some furikake sprinkled on top. It's still rather bland that way though though, so I decided to add some pork sung too.

Again, for those that aren't familiar, pork sung is basically pork that's been dried with sugar, soy sauce and usually lard & MSG (hey, I didn't say this was healthy food!), and then ground up so it has sort of a fluffy, powdery consistency. There's also pork fu, which is similar, but a bit more stringy. I'll admit, it's not for everyone. T thinks it's weird and is not a huge fan, but I grew up eating it, usually with rice porridge, so it has a comfort food aspect that appeals to me.

It normally comes in a small tub, but since I'm a freak, I have the gigantor jar.

Anyways, I mixed a bit of each with some warm white rice.

Then I spooned rice into each of the molds, and E helped by pushing the rice down.

Put the top on and press.

Then flip it over and pop out the finished rice shapes out! Voila! (Excuse the crazy background - E insisted I use this plate)

I was really surprised that E actually ate these since she's shown little interest in rice up until now. Although to be honest, she ate maybe 2 of the 4 shapes, and I ate the other two. I think she enjoyed making them more than eating them because she asks me every day now to make more. I'm going to work on coming up with some other fillings to mix in and hopefully these will become a regular fixture in her school lunches. Slight word of warning, these do dry out quickly if you leave them out, so either eat them right away or wrap them up and put them in your fridge for later.

A quickie post/plug

2009-08-20T09:16:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to point out my brand new logo (above), designed by my amazing & talented friend, Roberta. I heart it with a burning passion and can't wait to use it for some cards and such.

That is all.

Bento booty

2009-08-16T17:50:00.005-05:00

Not that kind of booty (dirty minds!), I'm talking more about the treasure kind. We are finally back from our trip to California and somewhat back to normal life! While out there though, I may have gone a little bit bento crazy. Believe it or not, this isn't even all of it - I couldn't fit everything on the table when I went to take a picture.

I just couldn't help myself - between all the cute (and different things) at Daiso and Ichiban Kan, it was very very hard not to overindulge. Thankfully, most of this is NOT for E. In order to enable my shopping fix (because honestly I didn't really need very much), I offered to pick up some items for friends back in Texas. It might have gotten a wee bit out of hand. Needless to say, I have a very very understanding husband who did not even bat an eye when I told him I'd need to ship a box home because my suitcase was too full. Eek!

In any case, I know the bento supplies themselves don't have a ton to do with craftiness, but with school starting up in a few weeks, I will (hopefully) have some fun and cute lunches to post about. Last year, E was not interested in anything beyond chunks of fruit, cheese, and turkey ham. I'm hoping that her palate has evolved a bit to include bunny-shaped sandwiches and maybe rice & seaweed.

Crayon mania

2009-07-28T15:16:00.005-05:00

I decided to make E a drawing case for an upcoming trip. I figured the novelty of it would keep her fairly occupied on the plane - hopefully for longer than 10 minutes. Being somewhat of a cheapskate, I decided to try and draft my own pattern rather than buy one, but then a friend ended up loaning me her pattern. Unfortunately, I'd already cut most of the pieces according to my own measurements, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover they actually weren't all that far off from those in the pattern. So after a few adjustments and a little bit of re-cutting, here's the finished product!

I have to say, while there were some good ideas in the store-bought pattern, I think that I could definitely improve on it. I'm definitely going to give it another try when I get back. The bad news was that I ended up wasting quite a bit of the pretty (and not cheap) butterfly print fabric. I did, however, manage to save enough to make a crayon roll.

The inside:

And while I was cutting the fabric for that one, I decided to go ahead and cut a whole bunch more. I have a ton of ladybug fabric leftover from the nap mat I made last year, so when I came across some fat quarters in the sale bin that had a coordinating red & black polka dot print, I knew they'd make super cute crayon rolls. I'm hoping to sell some to try and recoup some of my fabric purchases of late. These are actually quite fun to make once you have them all cut and ready to go (cutting has always been my least favorite step), not to mention a great way to use up leftover fabric.

I'll also note that while the original crayon roll I made for E was based on a couple of the tutorials I've found online, these are modified to be a bit more to my liking. I also made them padded by lining them with fusible fleece. It makes them a little bit bulkier, but they also feel sturdier. Get ready to be bombarded with lots of crayon rolls over the next month or so!

Oldies

2009-07-24T15:26:00.004-05:00

Here are a couple outfits I started about 3 months ago and finally finished up this week. One was easy, but I just lazy about finishing a step that required a serger, and the other seemed easy until I hit a major stumbling block and then gave up out of frustration.

First up is my very first Ottobre pattern! For those that don't know what I'm talking about, Ottobre is a cool pattern magazine from Finland. They have a couple different editions, and a few months back I signed up for a subscription to the kids' version (in English, of course). They print all the patterns on a couple big sheets, overlapping in different colors, so it makes your head spin to look at and trace them, but once they're traced and cut they're not all that hard. Or at least, the one I picked was not.

I picked this dress in particular, partly because it was cute and also because I knew it'd be easy. It's essentially a glorified pillowcase dress. I loved the addition of the little ruffle-y "sleeves" which are really just two petal-shaped pieces that are threaded onto a ribbon between the front and back pieces.

For those that are thinking of trying out this magazine, I'll warn you, the patterns do NOT include the seam allowance. I didn't realize this until after I'd already traced and cut my pieces. But because this is such a simple design, it was pretty forgiving and didn't make too big a difference - the arm holes are bigger than they should be and it's overall probably 2-3 inches shorter than I'd like as well. But as I mentioned before, I started this several months ago, and E has since grown at least an inch or two, which contributes all the more to the shortness.

Here's a pic of E modeling it (excuse the milk mustache).

Next up is the PortabelloPixie reversible jumper (from the Gracie pattern) that I also started like, 3 months ago. After being pleasantly surprised by how easy the Claire peasant dress/top was, I thought this would also be a piece of cake. Oh, how wrong I was!

The pattern seemed straightforward enough until I reached the neck yoke, which I could not figure out to save my life. I read the directions over and over again and studied the diagrams till my eyes crossed, but I could not get it to line up or look remotely right. I even asked a couple friends who are much more experienced seamstresses, and they were also confused by the directions. Finally, one of them suggested a method totally different from the pattern instructions that made more sense. Still, my frustration was such that I needed to put this project aside for a while.

I decided to come back to it last week, when I discovered it hiding under a pile of fabric as I was cleaning off my sewing table. Like I mentioned before, I'm trying really hard to clear out my backlog of projects before I start new ones and/or buy new fabric, so I figured it was about time I finished it up. Also, I realized that if I waited any longer, it would probably be too small for E to wear (she has had the most insane growth spurts lately), not to mention that summer is almost over.

Not to bore you with the details of how I ended up putting the neckpiece, but for anyone else out there who is attempting this pattern, here's what I did (everyone else skip to the next paragraph):
Instead of sandwiching the entire top between the upside-down neck yoke pieces, I separately sewed the yoke pieces wrong sides together and left spaces to insert the front and sides of the main body of the jumper. Then I turned it out and pressed it, making sure to fold the raw edges under, and then stuck the gathered top and the sides of the body inbetween. Then I topstitched the entire yoke piece to secure it. The big downside to doing the neck this way is that you're sort of flying blind with how the bottom side is going to line up. I ended up ripping a few sections and re-doing them more than once to get it to look right and I'm still not totally happy.

So let's just say that this way was still kind of a pain in the ass, but it got the job done. However, I was rather excited to finally use the buttonhole function on my machine for the very first time! Woohoo! I had no idea how easy it would be!

Here is the finished product. I didn't like the way the pocket looked, so I left it off.

I'm about 90% happy with it. The neck is still kind of a mess and I wish that I'd done a neater job topstitching overall, but honestly I'm more annoyed that what was billed as a reversible jumper is really not that reversible unless you sew buttons on both sides, which I think would be uncomfortable for a kid to wear. So I feel like I went to all this trouble to use the two fabrics and line up seams, and it was all for naught. Also, I don't know why it has you turn the jumper right sides out and topstitch before sewing the bottom hem together. Seems like a waste since you end up having to turn both sides in and sew it at the end.

Here's a shot of the back.

Still, I guess it is pretty cute and I did get a lot of compliments on it when E wore it out today, so I can't complain too much. It's just not the best written pattern, in my opinion, and if I ever make it again, I'll likely ignore the instructions.

A new "packback" for E

2009-07-18T14:58:00.005-05:00

Despite saying I wasn't going to, I suddenly decided this week that I wanted to make a backpack for E after all. We're going on another trip soon, and I really wanted her to be able to carry her own books and toys. Plus, I know she loves "packbacks," as she calls them, and the monster one I made before just doesn't cut it for anything beyond home play - it really needs a velcro closure.

I've long admired the Dante Beatrix backpacks, but I couldn't ever bring myself to spend that much money on a toddler backpack, so I decided to make my own version after a friend turned me on to a pattern from Etsy. Believe it or not, except for some notions (zipper, piping, and D-rings), I bought nothing for this! All the fabric used was from my stash, as well as the nylon webbing and ribbon.

I'll be honest. This was not that easy to make. Matching the front & back panels up to the sides & bottom was difficult (especially the bottom), and I spent a fair amount of time ripping seams and re-sewing to make it fit together right. And just after I took these photos, I realized I had a big mistake at the bottom back edge and I think I'm going to have to spend a couple hours ripping the seams that I super-reinforced to fix it. *sigh*

I'm not super happy with the straps though; not sure if I misunderstood the directions or what, but I don't really get why the bottom ones are so long. I may go back and shorten them once E tries it on and I get a feel for how long they need to be. I'll also note that I have an absolute TON of this ugly nylon webbing, which is why it keeps turning up, usually sadly dressed up with some ribbon. It's hard to find webbing in fun colors, and I sort of regret being lazy and not making both straps now.

I used some leftover home decor fabric from the Everything Bag. It's fairly stiff and holds its shape ok, but if I do make this again, I'm definitely going to add a layer of interfacing. I love the piping. It gives the bag a very finished, store-bought look, so even though it was a pain to deal with (I had to use a zipper foot to sew the bag together), I think it was worth it.

But the bag is more or les) done in plenty of time for our trip (I learned my lesson after the 4th of July top) and looks vaguely like the original that I aspired to. Here's a close-up of the bunny applique. He's made from some fuzzy furry material I had bought to "pimp" E's cozy coupe into a panda. His carrot is made of wool felt and the eyes are purple buttons. I'm debating whether to add a little pink to his ears.

Sheeeeeep!

2009-07-15T14:09:00.004-05:00

Woohoo for an FO!

Since I couldn't bring my sewing machine on my recent vacation, I was forced to limit myself to buying fabric and crocheting. Despite having about a 101 unfinished projects already, I decided to go ahead and start a new one. Today I finally finished it: an amigurumi sheep from this pattern for one of E's little friends who happens to be obsessed with sheep. He ended up a bit bigger than I had anticipated, and I'm not 100% happy with how I did his face (I think white on black may have been a mistake), but overall I think he's pretty cute.

In case you're wondering, I used one strand of regular old acrylic yarn and one strand of nylon eyelash yarn (some Lion Brand "Tiffany" that I found in a clearance bin for $1!) to make him fuzzy.

Toddler pillow

2009-07-12T20:54:00.004-05:00

I threw together a little quickie project for E while she was in her bath tonight.

E loves having pillows for her "big girl bed," so we picked up this $2 pillow from Ikea a couple months back. It's the perfect size for her toddler bed. At the time, I didn't realize it was going to become her actual pillow that she uses every night. She also likes to drag it all over the house. I decided to make a little pillow case for it so it would be easier to keep clean. Also, being a cheap $2 Ikea pillow, some of the red & black dyes have bled, so it's not looking so pretty anymore.

I decided to do an overlapping envelope-style for the back, just to keep the pillow from falling out too easily.

In case you're curious, a little backstory on the fabric I used:
Those of you with kids will probably immediately recognize the print as the children from Eric Carle's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Apparently, you can buy Eric Carle fabric. E spotted a fat quarter with the children on it when we were in a fabric store last month and went crazy for it. After she dragged it all over the store and even put it in her mouth, I felt compelled to buy it. Hrmph. But she really seemed to love it and has been playing with it, using it as a doll blanket, among other things, and she refers to it as "my fabric."

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with her fabric until last week, when she spotted another Eric Carle print, this time from The Very Hungry Caterpiller (she refers to it as "the balls). I figured what the heck and bought it too.

It actually me longer to figure out the math on how I needed to cut the pieces than it did to sew the pillowcase. But for anyone interested in making one for this specific pillow, here's what I did:
I cut one 18"x12" piece for the front of the pillow.

For the back, I wanted to cut two 11"x12" pieces, but I ran into a minor problem. Fat quarters are generally around 18"x22" and once you wash them (I almost always pre-wash), you lose a bit to shrinkage. So I fudged a bit and ended up with two 10 1/2"x12" pieces instead.(*see note below)

Take one of the back pieces and on the 12" edge, turn it about 1/2 inch and press, then turn another 1/2 inch and press again. I used to be lazy and skip using an iron (I'd just finger-press), but I got tired of wonky seams and edges so I'm now an ironing-convert. Sew down the turned edge (I used a 3/8" seam because that's what I get when I line the edge of the fabric up with my presser foot). Repeat for the other back piece.

Then I laid the large front panel on my table right-side up and lined up the two back pieces on top of it, right-sides down, so that the outer edges lined up and they overlapped in the middle. Pin all around. I also put a couple pins in the middle of the overlap, just to keep it all straight.

Sew around the entire edge (again, I used a 3/8" seam, but 1/4" would be fine too). Clip the corners and turn out. I reinforced my seams with an overcast stitch, but you don't necessarily have to do that.

*Honestly, 10 1/2 inches was really cutting it close, and if you have a particularly fluffy pillow, you may end up with some gapping at the overlap. If I make another, I'll probably cut 12"x12" pieces, just to be safe. Unfortunately, that rules out using fat quarters unless you have an extra. Or alternatively, when you press down the edges, you could make the turns much smaller, like 1/4" or even 1/8".

A new pledge (or subtitled: yes, I really do need an intervention)

2009-07-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

I am going on the fabric wagon. For real.

Here's my new pledge. I am not buying a single scrap of fabric until I get rid of some of what I have. I have easily 2o sewing projects in my queue right now (don't even get me started on the dozens of unfinished/unstarted knitting & crochet projects), mostly for other people, and until I knock out a significant number of them, I am not buying another bit of fabric. Seriously. I'm counting on you people to hold me accountable.

Just to give you a taste of how crazy things have gotten, here are some pics of recent fabric acquisitions. Never mind that my craft room is already packed to the gills with bins and shelves and bags of fabric.

Top two are Japanese prints that I got for reasonably cheap from a website that was going out of business. The bottom two are Michael Miller prints that I got on sale about 3 weeks ago. I hadn't intended on getting very much until E looked at them and demanded that I make her a new nap mat. So I guess I'm making her a new nap mat for this fall. Whatevs.

Robot fabric!! Need I say more?

Random cute fabric. Had to take advantage of being in Iowa last week to pick up some licensed fabric from the local Jo-Ann. And who doesn't love owls? And sushi?

And here's a big bunch of fat quarters, most of which I got on sale yesterday. I'm planning on churning out a ton of crayon rolls and maybe some drawing cases or bags too. In fact, I'm thinking I may try and sell a bunch to fund my habit. I'm happy to take special requests. ;)

Maybe when I'm feeling less embarrassed, I'll post some more of my gigantor stash. Or better yet, maybe I'll be able to post it as FOs!

I'm really in trouble now...

2009-07-11T14:49:00.004-05:00

I think I've been bitten by the quilting bug. I don't quite know how it happened. I always swore that I had no interest in quilting, that the idea of cutting and sewing all those small pieces would surely drive me insane. And yet...

OK, so I did make a little quilt for E. That was sort of the start of it. I never knew that you could buy pre-cut squares of fabric (called charm packs)! So when I came across them at this amazing fabric store a few months ago, I thought, how hard could it be? Half the work is cutting, and that's been eliminated! That was the the beginning of the end. I actually finished the crib-size quilt in (for me) a reasonably quick mannger, even though the actual machine quilting was such a pain that I swore I'd never make another one.

Then a few weeks ago, I came across a "layer cake," which is big 10" squares, in this adorable set of Christmas prints and at almost half off! How could I resist? I thought, "This would make a wonderful Christmas gift for a family member." I resolved to pay someone else to do the quilting with a long-arm machine, since that was the part I most disliked. And that's where I got totally sucked in.

I started thinking to myself, well, just sewing these giant squares together is sort of boring. Maybe I should try and do a slightly more complicated pattern. So I started looking online at patterns and tutorials. And then I wandered into another cool local fabric shop with the idea that I'd at least pick up coordinating fabric for the backing and binding, and pretty much all was lost. I came out of there with a pattern, a ridiculous number of fat quarters (I'll save my stash issues for another post), a million ideas for new projects, and neither backing nor binding fabric. Eep.

So now I'm waffling on whether to actually use the pattern I bought or to save it for some future new quilt (because I'm realizing there WILL be more quilts in my future). And I've realized from the yardage requirements on the pattern I bought that I don't have quite enough to make as a big a quilt as I had originally intended, so I've started debating whether I should try and find another layer cake, or maybe get some yardage and do more borders...and it just gets crazier and crazier. My initial savings of $20 is probably going to end up costing me hundreds.

Although I'm happy to say, at least I'm taking others down with me; I think I've managed to suck a few friends into my new quilting mania. Haha!

Because I'm not busy enough

2009-06-26T15:35:00.004-05:00

I decided to make E a dress for 4th of July. I actually bought the fabric for this over a month ago, but of course, being the procrastinator that I am, I didn't start sewing until 2 days before we had to leave town. Needless to say, I was up very very late.

My original idea was to do a halter-style dress, with 3 gathered tiers, so it would be nice and twirly. I bought 3 different patriotic-themed prints of fabric and started cutting. Well, no matter how I arranged them, the 3rd fabric (it had stripes and stars) just never seemed to fit in quite right. So at the last minute, I scrapped the bottom tier and replaced it with a thick band. I also opted to make my own bias tape for the top and ties so that I wouldn't have to fuss with turning and hemming the armholes. In fact, now that I think about it, I pretty much did zero hemming on this project! Score!

I drafted the pattern myself by more or less tracing part of an existing top that I liked the shape of for the bodice. Then I measured the width of the bodice (12" each side) and multiplied by 1.5 for the skirt. Sewed that into a tube, gathered it and attached it to the bodice. For the band of trim at the bottom, I cut a piece the same width as the skirt, sewed it into a tube, then folded the whole thing lengthwise so that there were no raw edges sewing. It's a method I picked up from making the Portabello Pixie peasant dress, and it's my new favorite way to add a finished touch to the bottom of a dress (as you can also see from the last two shirred dresses I made).

Because I love shirring and hate making casing for elastic, I decided to continue the binding along the back and shir that for a snug fit.

I'm super happy with how this top turned out. It fits her exactly. In fact, if it were even an inch narrower, I'm not sure she'd be able to get it on. It's a good thing that the 4th is next week! I still sort of wish it were longer so it could be a dress, but otherwise, I can't complain. I'll probably make more of these for E to wear the rest of the summer since it's been so unbelievably HOT. Next time I'll attempt to make a tutorial.

And here's the matching reversible hat. It's from an Ottobre pattern, but minus the rickrack and interfacing because I was too lazy. I've never sewn a hat before, and it was a bit trickier than I thought it'd be. I had some trouble with the two prints lining up quite right, but I think that's because I had to add the seam allowance myself when I cut the fabric, and it wasn't exactly scientific. Like I said, I was in a bit of a time crunch. It's not as perfect as I'd like (nothing ever is), but I'm happy enough with it. I think the crown part is too deep and pointy, but again, I chalk that up to hasty sewing. I'll probably try another soon.

Hats, shapes, another crayon roll

2009-06-23T22:36:00.005-05:00

I've been pretty caught up in my new cooking blog, so it's been a while since I've made anything non food-related. A couple weeks ago, I went to a knitting night with some mom friends though, and I got back into doing a bit of crochet. Even though I prefer the look of knitting, crochet is what I turn to when I want to make something quickly.

I had been playing around for some time with a pattern for a hat that uses a criss-cross sort of look. It's not quite perfected yet, but I think I'm getting close. The color of the pink cotton yarn I was using reminded me of watermelon, which is E's latest obsession, so I decided to use that as inspiration to make her a watermelon hat. She calls it "water-lemon" which always cracks me up.

I'm not entirely happy with how the brim turned out. I think I increased too much, which is why it looks ruffle-y instead of flat. I also used a different kind of cotton yarn for the brim, which contributed to the floppiness.

I also finally finished up some stuff commissioned by a mom-friend. Another crayon roll, made from more of the dinosaur fabric (I'm so glad I bought extra - I love that fabric!), and some crochet shapes.

She had originally asked me for a sun, moon, and star, but I had a hell of a time with the moon. I usually come up with my own patterns, but I was kind of at a loss for where to start. Even after Googling extensively for patterns, I only found one pattern that was remotely close to what I had in mind and it still needs quite a bit of adjustment. I'm going to make it my vacation project next week.

In the meantime, here are the sun and a star. I think they turned out pretty cute. E loved them too and was sad when I told them they weren't for her, so I'll probably be making her a set now too.

I stuffed these with Eco-craft instead of my usual poly-fil. If you're not familiar, it's this environmentally friendly, man-made corn-based fiber. Interesting stuff. It definitely is not as fluffy as poly-fil, but it is softer to the touch. I feel like the finished products were a little more dense than usual. I have a couple bags that I'm going to try out, but so far, I'm not quite sold. I'm going to wait and see how it performs for stuffing some plush animals before I make a final decision.

Mmmm...more food

2009-06-15T13:32:00.003-05:00

I'm on a big cooking and baking streak lately. One of my favorite recipe blogs is 101 Cookbooks, which has a lot of great vegetarian fare and healthy baking ideas. Last night, I made her Summer Squash Gratin using some zucchini and yellow squash from the farmers market. It turned out sooooo good! Savory, crunchy, herb-y deliciousness! Definitely a great way to use up zucchini from the garden...if I had a garden.

My notes:
I don't own a mandoline slicer, so it was a wee bit labor intensive to slice the potatoes paper-thin, but definitely worth it - just make sure you have a very sharp knife. I also didn't have fresh bread crumbs so I substituted panko, which I think worked out perfectly. I probably could have browned my butter more, but I think the difference would have been negligible since most of the crumbs end up browned in the oven anyway.

I loved the lemon zest in this recipe. It really added a nice bright flavor to the dish and I think I'll probably add more next time, maybe even mix it in with the squash and potato mixture so it's more evenly distributed. I also think reserving some of the pesto to drizzle on top was a waste. I may just use less olive oil next time for a smaller yield and mix everything in.

Cake-tastrophe

2009-06-14T15:12:00.003-05:00

I've been busy with family and travel lately, so no new crafty stuff to post as of yet. I did get a chance to bake yesterday though, which has become a rare treat ever since I started dieting last month. I've had this chocolate matcha (green tea) cake bookmarked for a while now, and used a Knitting Night as an excuse to finally make it.

It was pretty easy to whip up, although the batter did look very very curdled after I added the milk (probably because I didn't quite let it get up to room temp). But once I added all the flour and such, it was fine. I love the deep green color of the matcha batter.

The whole thing baked up like a dream, including the little heart cupcakes I made with the leftover batter,

but I had a horrific time trying to get it unmolded from my pan. I used to never ever have problems with this pan but I seem to have lost my magic touch, even after greasing the bejeezus out of it. This was the end result :(

With a little careful surgery, I managed to do get most of the rest out of the pan and salvage a little of my pride, but I was still pretty bummed. It never fails that this always happens when I'm baking for other people, dammit.

In any case, the cake itself was quite delicious. I did not get quite the deep dark chocolate color that Bakerella did, but then I used natural cocoa powder, not dutched. I suspect that Dutch-processed cocoa may have yielded a different result. Here's a shot of the cake after sliced.

Monster!

2009-05-28T22:44:00.003-05:00

E has been talking a lot about backpacks lately (or as she calls them, "packbacks") so I thought I'd whip one up for her. I originally wanted to make either a bunny or a robot backpack since she's been obsessed with both lately, but I realized that they were going to require a bit more thought and planning. So instead, I came up with this monster backpack. The nice thing about monsters is no one cares if they look all wonky and ugly, haha! For instance, I misplaced one of the eyes I had cut, so I just snipped another out of a scrap from my pile. It doesn't get any better than that.

I made this out of fleece and felt and then stitched ribbon to some nylon webbing I had laying around for the straps. I think I may try and make a "nicer" one that'll be more finished-looking, and probably lined too.

Here's a shot of his 'mouth' with the flap up.

And E proudly wearing it with her boots.

The quilt...

2009-05-26T12:44:00.004-05:00

is done! Hurrah! After much griping and the loss of maybe a pint or two of blood via a million little pinpricks, the quilt is finally finished! I have to say, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. But I'm also unlikely to ever try this again. I did get to test out this very clever little trick for making my own bias tape that I will definitely be utilizing more often. It's a bit labor-intensive and heavy on the ironing, but the end product is SO much nicer than store-bought binding!

Anyways, here are some pics of the finished product, as well as a bonus shot of E rolling around with it in her new "big girl" bed. I have to say, I'm really quite happy with how it turned out. I absolutely love the fabric. On the off chance that I ever lose my sanity and decide to make another one, I'm definitely sticking with the charm packs.

Next up, some crafting-for-hire in the form of another crayon roll and some crochet shapes. And I'm also working on making a little backpack for E.

Little things

2009-05-13T18:42:00.006-05:00

I am on a sewing streak! I've got the top part of the quilt totally done. Now I just have to quilt it together with the back and the batting, which is the part I think I'm most intimidated by. Unfortunately, I just realized that I did not by the right color thread for the backing, so I'm losing out on some prime sewing time tonight while the hubs plays poker with his buddies. Dangit.

So instead, I'm digging through the crazy long list of tutes I have bookmarked and working through some of those. First up, this crayon roll tutorial. I've been dying to make this, and after last weekend's brunch debacle where E's crayons kept rolling off the table, this jumped to the top of the list. I must say, this thing was super fast and easy to make. And since it's relatively small, it's a nice way to use up some of the scrap pieces I have hanging around. I made a few modifications though.

First, I shortened it so it only holds 12 crayons instead of 16. Because really, my kid is 2 and she doesn't need 16 freaking crayons to color with while we're out. Honestly, she doesn't need 12 either, but I thought it would look funny to have a crayon roll that only holds like, 6 crayons. Basically, you can make it as long or as short as you want by figuring out 1" per crayon, plus your seam allowances (she uses 1/4" in the tutorial)

I also gave myself a wider seam allowance (1/2") on the sides so that I'd have a little more room for error, and also so when I topstitched, I wouldn't end up with too narrow slots on the ends. So I cut two pieces of 13"x5" fabric for the inside and outside, and then one piece 13"x6" and folded that in half lengthwise for the slots. I also decided to use some thin cotton batting instead of interfacing and basted that to the inside piece. E is rough on her crayons, not to mention things get banged around quite a bit inside my bag, so I figured the extra padding wouldn't hurt.

Here is the finished product!

E walked in the craft room just as I was finishing it up and when I told her it was for her, she said, "Oh Mommy! It's pretty!" Ah, that kid sure knows how to make my heart swell.

Here's where I'm at with the quilt too.

Next up, some more zipped pouches (in a couple different styles), and maybe a dress for E as well. And I have more diapers and such to make too, so probably lots of cutting.

More weekend sewing

2009-05-10T21:07:00.004-05:00

A friend and I ventured out to Fort Worth to check out this fabric store we'd heard about. I was a bit skeptical about taking an hour drive for fabric, but I have to say it was totally worth it! I didn't have anything particular in mind when I walked in, but one hour+ and $50+ later, I had the makings for a quilt!

Never mind that I've never made a quilt in my life. In fact, I'd previously said I'd NEVER take up quilting because I've always been intimidated by the precision required (read: cutting and sewing straight lines), not to mention all the steps to get a finished project. But of course, once I mentioned offhand to E something about making a blanket for her, she got very very excited. A little too excited - she was way too unfocused to express any kind of preference (shocking for a 2-year-old, right?), so I decided to pick on my own. Now if someone had told me before that you could buy the fabric already cut into squares, I would have been all over this years ago!! Cutting is easily my least favorite part of sewing.

So with about 4 "charm packs" of some gorgeous Moda fabric, I managed to get all this pieced together at my mommy sewing night last night!

I'm really excited, albeit still nervous about how it's going to turn out. I had originally had the bright idea to do sashing inbetween each row, but I'm thinking now that maybe I should keep it simple. Although I did already spend the money on the fabric, so I keep going back and forth on it. *sigh*

Last, but not least, I FINALLY got around to making a zipped lined pouch from this tutorial that I've been dying to try. If I'd had any idea it was going to be so easy, I would have done it ages ago! I see a lot of little makeup bag gifties in my future. Hee! This one is made with some leftover fabric to match the Amy Butler Birdie Sling I made a few weeks ago.

Scary new apparatus

2009-05-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

I've been toying with the idea of a getting a serger on and off for some time now. Mostly, I'd dismissed it as an unnecessary luxury since I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on a decent one. Also, I've always been intimidated by how often I've heard they're not that easy to use. But as luck would have it, a cheap used one sort of fell into my lap, and after getting over my initial reticence (and some technical difficulties), I think I may be in love!

I'm still playing around with it and getting used to how it works, but I decided to start simple with some diapers and wipes. I must say, this is MUCH faster than turning and top-stitching, although I do still think that Tn'T looks more finished. But assuming I can figure out how to make a rolled hem, this will be super handy for doing a quick finish on the bottom of dresses, and I'm hoping to also figure out how to gather with it so I can make some twirly skirts for E. She loves to spin around in circles lately!

I suspect this will end up being a love/hate relationship as it looks like a bitch to thread (I'm hoping to never have to thread it from scratch EVER), and I'm also highly intimidated by the fact that blades are involved.

Anyways, here are the first few things I've made with it! The diapers still look a little rough, but I'm happy enough with them.

More bibs and the dino dress!

2009-05-05T00:09:00.003-05:00

I am on a crazy sewing streak lately. I just can't rave enough about my new machine. It's really made sewing so much more fun! Nothing crazy exciting this week. More bibs, this time for one of E's little friends. Sorry the picture is sorta crappy - I had to rush to snap a quick one since the girls decided to put them on and wear them around the house.

I also whipped up this bib and burp cloth set for a friend who needed a shower gift. It's funny because I've had this flannel for a while, and I had been feeling sort of 'meh' about the print, at least in regards to making anything for E, but I think it was perfect for something for a little baby.

And last, but not least, I finally finished the dinosaur print sundress! I'm really happy with how it turned out. I managed to find some green grass-looking fabric to go with it, which I though would be apropos since at least some of the dinosaurs on there are herbivores. Hee!

And because I love this print so much, here's a close-up. I'm feeling really glad I bought extra now to make other stuff later.

The shirring went much much more smoothly this time around, partly because I did not cut it as wide, so it didn't have to be gathered quite so much, but also partly because I upped the tension so I didn't have to pull the threads at all! I also came up with a nice little trick to keep all the loose ends out of the way - Scotch tape! I taped all the ends to one side, which kept me from accidentally sewing over them, as well as kept them exactly in place when I stitched the knots down. And since it was off to the side, I never had to sew through it; I just pulled it off when I was done and trimmed the threads down.

And not to keep harping on my machine, but I have to say, having an overcast stitch makes all the difference in the world! Look how much neater and more professional the inside of the dress is. I don't know how I ever lived without it!

I spent this past weekend doing a major inventory and reorganization of my fabric stash. I managed to clean out a lot of odds and ends and get everything stored in a more efficient manner. Mostly, what this means is that I can actually see the top of my sewing table again! And hopefully, it'll stay that way from now on.

Another bag

2009-04-26T19:51:00.003-05:00

Yes, it's 2 Finished Objects in 2 weeks! Can you believe it? I have been wanting to try the Amy Butler Birdie Sling bag pattern for a while now and finally broke down and bought it last week. I didn't think I'd be up for making another bag so soon, but this pattern looked significantly easier than the Everything Bag, and a friend of mine wanted one, so I had her pick out fabric and I sewed it up.

I've come to accept that making anything but the most basic of bags is going to involve cutting lots of pieces, no matter how easy or complicated it is. Besides the fact that you just have a lot of parts of the bag to contend with (lining, exterior, pockets, straps), there's also usually some kind of interfacing involved which will double the number of pieces. And then the ironing - so. much. ironing. *sigh* It's frustrating, but a necessary evil.

In any case, I think I'm getting better at putting it all together, and I would definitely make another one of these. It was still fairly time-consuming, but fun to make. And I love the look of it. A couple friends are also making the same bag and it's very interesting to see how different it looks with different fabrics. This bag is made from home decor fabric - a kind of brocade-looking fabric for the main part of the bag, a thick woven upholstery-type fabric for the strap, and then a striped canvas-y fabric for the lining and pockets.

I was nervous that the brocade would be hard to work with, but once the interfacing was on, it was no problem at all. The strap fabric was a bit tougher. It was very heavy and hard to press and it also shed loose fibers non-stop. I ended up reinforcing all my seams with an overcast stitch because I was nervous about it falling apart with heavy use.

Other notes about the pattern:
I thought it was very clear and well-written, with good diagrams, unlike the last bag. I do think that the fabric amounts were a bit off, especially if you use home decor fabric, which is going to be wider than lightweight quilting fabric. I ended up with an absolute ton of the strap fabric leftover, so I'm probably going to make a matching pouch or something to go with the bag.

I love the shape of the bag, particularly how the pleats at the top stand out so nicely, as well as the rounded gusset at the bottom.

I'm looking forward to making one for myself, maybe later this spring, if I can decide what kind of fabric to use. I like the durability of home decor fabric, but I feel like short of spending more than $12/yd, there aren't as many fun options (I'm a total cheapskate, in case you didn't already know). I'm contemplating trying it out with some sari fabric next time I see it on sale.

It's done! Hurrah!

2009-04-19T20:23:00.004-05:00

After that last post, I decided to take advantage of naptime and make the big push to get the bag done. After much grunting and griping (and I literally mean grunting as it was damn near impossible to force through my machine at times), here it is!

Inside:

Outside side pocket (there's one on each side):

So now that that's done, here's the rundown on the pattern. Keep in mind, I don't work much from patterns. I generally prefer to work out my own ideas.

The good:
It feels like a very solid bag. It's also HUGE, so while I probably won't use it for everyday, it'll be great for those days that I have a ton of crap to lug around. I also like that it has some padding to it.

The bad:
This bag is a LOT of work. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are 48 separate pieces to cut for this bag. Once you get past all the legwork of cutting and ironing, it can go together fairly quickly. The inside is definitely the trickiest part since you have to deal with the divider and pockets, with elastic.

The pattern itself could probably be written more clearly. I got stuck for a long time on making the center divider panel. There really weren't enough diagrams, and the ones they did have were confusing to me. I also wish that the book had included pictures of the inside, bottom, etc.

The ugly:
Again, as mentioned before, the center divider makes it really really difficult to stitch the bottom panel on the lining. Also, because of that divider, the way you have to attach the lining to the exterior is also pretty difficult to manage. I used about a bazillion pins, stitched very slowly, and I still ended up with uneven seams and stitching. I'm half-tempted to rip it out and do it again, but at this point, I just want to be done.

Changes I made:
I made the straps longer by about 8 inches. I am not a small person and I knew there was no way 18" straps were going to stay comfortably on my shoulder. I also added a strap with a key clip, since the it's a pain to be carrying a kid and digging around for your keys all the time, especially in a giant bag.

I also contemplated adding a wide panel at the top with a magnetic closure because I don't like how open the bag is. But I was getting really burned out on this project and just wanted it to be done, so I skipped it. But I may go back at some point and add it since I'd only have to rip the top seam. I wish I'd added a smaller pocket for my cell phone and maybe done elastic on the outside pockets too.

Tips for anyone else insane enough to want to try this pattern:
Definitely be as precise as possible when you cut your pieces. I used a cutting mat and rotary cutter and it made a huge difference. There is not a ton of room for error on this pattern. I had to really work to get the inside and outside to match up.

Also, my sewing machine has an adjustable presser foot, so I could ease the pressure. This was a huge plus when it came to sewing over the pockets and corners, where there were sometimes as many as 8 or 10 layers to sew through! If your machine doesn't have that, I'd consider using a walking foot. Oh and make sure you have a nice sharp needle.

Update on the stupid effing bag

2009-04-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

I finally started sewing together the Amy Butler Everything Bag last week. I'd say I'm about 80% done with it. I think it was definitely way over my head in terms of skill level, but at least I'm pushing myself and learning something new, right?

The major major issue I ran into was sewing the bottom panel of the lining to the sides. It's the last piece you sew on for the lining, and because there the center divider is stiff and does not bend, it made it virtually impossible to smash down into my machine to sew on with the 1/2" seam allowance.

Here was my pathetic 1st and 2nd attempts before I gave up and just hand-stitched it.

A few other random notes for anyone attempting this project:
I went with the recommendations in the book on the interfacing and bought Thermolam Plus for the fusible fleece. Well, I come to find out it is NOT fusible fleece unless it says Thermolam Plus FUSIBLE on it. Sounds pretty obvious to most people, but I guess silly me assumed that if it that was the only one I saw at the store and it was on the fusible interfacing shelf, why wouldn't it be the right one? And I only figured this out after ironing and ironing like a moron and wondering why it wouldn't fuse, only to have a friend look at it, give it a quick feel and say, "That's not fusible. There's no glue." Grrrr. So of course, this added about 10 extra steps since I now had to baste the fleece to the exterior panels, and it doesn't lay right and I had to trim it, blah, blah, blah.

But once I got that done, by comparison, the outside was easy to put together since there were no pockets or dividers to mess with. All I have left is to match up the inside and outside and stitch them together. I'm debating on whether or not to add a tab with a magnetic closure on top, but I will likely skip it since at this point, I just want to be done. Here it is so far.

The lining is looking like it's a little bit higher than the exterior, so I think I may have to go in and rip some of that out and restitch it to get it to be the right height. And no, I can't just fold it down more because again, the stupid center divider is in my way. I am never ever making a bag with a divider in it again.

Tutus, bags and more dresses

2009-04-10T19:35:00.003-05:00

Believe it or not, my lack of posts does not mean I've been slacking! I've actually been pretty busy rotating between a few different projects lately, and I even finished one the other day but have not had a chance to post just yet (that whole full-time mom thing has an annoying way of disrupting my craft & blog time).

Anyways, I bought the stuff to make E a tutu skirt a while back but sort of lost steam on it when I couldn't quite decide how I wanted to put it together. Well after getting annoyed with a different project I just started (more on that in a minute), I decided to come back to it. It's basically on layer of shimmery chiffon-y material, and then 3 layers of tulle. I do sort of like the look of the finished product, but next time around I'll definitely put it together differently. I screwed up the order (my punishment for not thinking it through before starting to sew) and it ended up taking me probably 3 times as long as it should have.

No action shot just yet, but only because the day that I gave it to E and let her wear it, her shirt was absolutely filthy and I couldn't bear to take or post any pictures of her looking like that.

Other projects I'm currently working on:
Another PortabelloPixie outfit, this time the "Gracie" reversible jumper. I'm not big on pockets or rick-rack, so it's going to be pretty plain. I am, however, totally perplexed by how the neck yoke is supposed to go on. I'm hoping that it'll make more sense once I get to that part. I had to temporarily put it on hold until I got a new ironing board after my old one went kaput.

I'm also making another shirred sundress, this time for the daughter of my favorite photographer. That one shouldn't take me more than a couple hours, once I get everything cut. Again, I've been waiting on getting a new ironing board. I have to say, for someone who hates to iron, I've become very reliant on my iron and ironing board. :P

I'm starting to have a love-hate relationship with my other big current project. I've never made a bag before and have always wanted to, so instead of sucking it up and springing for the Birdie Sling pattern, I decided to start with the Everything Bag from an Amy Butler book that a friend loaned me, even though it looked sort of complicated.

Well, "sort of" is a huge understatement. I've spent the better part of the last 3 or 4 evenings cutting out 48 freaking pieces from 2 different fabrics and 3 different types of interfacing. Yeesh. All I can say is, thank god for rotary cutters. I finally got a new ironing board last night, so I'm hoping that I can at least have all the pieces prepped tonight before I go to another sewing night tomorrow.

That's it for now! Hope to have some completed stuff to put up after this weekend, or at the very least some pictures of the work in progress.

Aptly timed silliness

2009-04-01T16:07:00.004-05:00

I finally got a chance to give the Care Bears dress to its intended recipient today and of course, she couldn't wait to put it on (heehee, sorry Heather!). Then of course, once E saw her wearing a dress, she wanted to wear one too, so what better opportunity to try on the skull dress I just finished. I thought I'd share the action shots of the two dresses, even though they're both being worn over clothing, and accompanied by silly accessories.

Oh, and I did end up finishing the bloomers to go with the Care Bears dress. I didn't end up putting elastic around the legs because I was worried they'd be too snug, so they look more like shorts than bloomers or spankies or whatever the heck people call them. But they were definitely a lot easier to make than I thought, so I'll definitely be making more from now on.

Here's a crappy last-minute picture.

Action shots

2009-03-30T17:12:00.003-05:00

I had E wear the peasant top today and I have to say, it looks much better on! I'm really really pleased with how this turned out and I can see myself making more in different colors and patterns.

And here's a bonus shot of her just being silly and giving me her "cheese" face.

Busy weekend!

2009-03-29T22:24:00.004-05:00

I went to a Sewing Night with some mom friends last night and I managed to be surprisingly productive. I haven't had a chance to get any action shots (E was uncooperative, as usual), but I'll try again later this week.

I finally finished the shirred skull dress I started ages ago. I way overestimated the width, so it took me forever to get it pulled as tight as I needed. I think it's still going to be a little big, but I'm otherwise happy with it.

I also managed to whip up another PortabelloPixie outfit - the peasant top this time. It was much faster the second time around, partly because I already know how it goes together, but also partly because I decided not to turn hems and just ran an overcast stitch along all the raw edges. I also skipped the ruffle at the bottom.

And, with a push from my friend Jacki, I finally made my first pair of bloomers! Up until now, I've had a weird phobia about making pants, shorts, bloomers...pretty much anything with a crotch. Yeah, yeah, insert lame joke here. But she gave me a pattern and it was very easy! I still have to insert elastic, so no picture yet, but I'm very happy that I'll be able to make matching bloomers to go with some of these dresses now.

Next up, I think I'm going to try a lined, zipped pouch, which I've been wanting to do for ages. I also want to try one of the dresses from the other PortabelloPixie pattern I bought (Gracie), and then I have some less exciting projects to do, like recover my torn up couch cushions.

Some better pictures

2009-03-27T01:57:00.004-05:00

Can't sleep, so I thought I'd post some better pictures I took today of the peasant dress. I have to say, the more I look at it, the more I love it! And if you know me at all, you'll know what a rare thing it is for me to be really happy with something I made.

Next up, I'm going to make the peasant top, probably without the ruffle. I'm also almost done with another shirred sundress, this time with pink skull fabric. And I really want to try out one of the other Portabellopixie patterns I got. Hoping to get them all done this weekend.

Yay! It's done!

2009-03-24T20:45:00.005-05:00

It took me a little longer than I thought, but I finally finished the PortabelloPixie dress!

Despite my nervousness about working with a pattern, I have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, especially once I got past all the cutting. The directions were pretty straightforward and easy to follow, although I was annoyed by the fact that there was no warning about the fact that the pattern calls for serged edges. There were alternate instructions for those without a serger, but it added easily another half dozen steps (including more ironing, which I hate! grrrr).

Anyways, here is the finished dress and a rather crappy picture of it, worn by an uncooperative E over her other clothes, mid-twirl.

It's pretty long, so if I end up making this particular version again, I'll probably shorten it quite a bit. Or I may just make the peasant top, instead of the dress. I will also probably not bother turning all the hems again and just leaving them raw with an overcast stitch or whatever. I think it'll go much more quickly next time around, now that I know how it goes together.

Confession time

2009-03-21T20:05:00.000-05:00

I've never really sewn from patterns before. Much like my knitting, I sort of prefer to figure out how things go together and just work it out on my own. I've come to realize though that while that generally works out ok in knitting, in sewing, it can have truly disastrous results. It's much harder to figure out how a particular piece of fabric needs to be cut, and unlike yarn, it can't be undone. So in an attempt to have a more polished outcome, not to mention a cuter style overall, I ordered a couple PortabelloPixie patterns through a co-op.

I'll be honest. I'm totally intimidated. Even the prospect of laying everything out and tracing and cutting pieces has me a bit frozen with fear, especially after I unfolded the patterns and realized it's on this HUGE piece of paper. I don't know why I get like this (I mean, is IS just fabric), but for some reason this is the root of my procrastination. But I'm determined to power through it and get going on a dress this weekend and I think posting this will help force me to do it!

Here is the fabric I have picked out.

Actually, I'll confess that this is round 2 of fabric. I also bought some other stuff earlier that I ended up changing my mind about, although I did stick with the same big print on the left for the skirt. I'm hoping to spend tomorrow tracing patterns and maybe even cutting, depending on if the kid cooperates. Wish me luck!

Finally finished the dress

2009-03-16T21:48:00.003-05:00

I'm probably ruining a bit of the surprise here, but since it's already a belated gift (and I know that the recipient won't mind), I figure what the heck, I'm posting it!

I made E a couple of cute little shirred summer dresses last summer and decided to make one in for a friend's daughter's birthday. I chose this Care Bears print partly because I know the birthday girl loves Care Bears, but also partly out of revenge for introducing E to Dora the Explorer, the new bain of my existence.

Anyways, turns out that I'm a little rustier than I thought at making these, so it's not 100% perfect (which also means that I'm not even close to 100% happy with it), but I still think it turned out cute. I cheated and just used ribbon for the straps since that way I don't have to worry about them being the wrong length.

Partytime!

2009-03-07T14:04:00.005-06:00

Most of my crafting these last few weeks has revolved around stuff for E's 2nd birthday party. I decided on a farm/barnyard theme, partly because she loves farm animals, but also because it was relatively generic and easy to find/make stuff to go with it. I've already posted the cardboard animals in various states, but here are the finished products. Forgive the crappy quality of the pictures. I was a bit frazzled this morning trying to snap them before everyone arrived.

Sheep (that wouldn't stay stuck to the wall)

Cow (I actually made two, the other is the same, just mirror-imaged)

Pig (whose tail I forgot to put on, poor guy)

Chicken

And duck (see below). Oh, I only made the bigger duck though. The little ones were pre-made wood cutouts from Michael's.

I also got a roll of red paper from a teacher-supply store and made a very generic barn to go on the wall. Black construction paper for the roof "shingles" and long strips of white paper for the barn doors and windows. I used the rest of the red paper to cover my coffee table and pushed it up against the barn to make a coloring station for the kids.

I attempted to make a 3-dimensional barn cake to go along with the paper barn. Of course, I procrastinated on starting it until last night, so it's not quite as nice and polished-looking as I would have liked. Still, I think it's pretty cute. And luckily, 2-year-olds don't really know the difference.

Here's a rather crappy picture from an odd angle:

And a better picture with T holding up E while she blows out her candle:

I have to say, even though I was dead tired while icing this at 1am last night, I realized how much I've missed working on cakes and pastries. I think I'm definitely going to have to get back in practice, even if only for fun. I had actually also wanted to make a silo out of stacked cookies to go with the barn, as well as animal cupcakes, but I simply ran out of time. I ended up ordering the cupcakes from a local place instead, which I was not super juiced about, especially after I got them and they were sort of crappy. I think I could have made better ones myself, but oh well, what's done is done. The kids ate the cupcakes and were happy, so that's all that matters.

Last, but not least, were the little goody bags I made out of bandannas. Nothing super special or complicated, just bandanas that I cut in half, folded and stitched up two sides. Throw in a bunch of favors from Oriental Trading Company, tie with ribbon and voila! Homemade goody bag! (Although I do have to give some credit to my cousin to stuffed and tied all the bags. Gotta love slave labor!)

Finally, some pics!

2009-02-27T14:46:00.004-06:00

So here's what I've been working on these last few days.

They're decorations for E's birthday party. They're all in various states of done-ness (read: still not finished), and I have more drying in the garage but I thought I'd put these up anyways. Now, if I could only get going on the cake...

quickie weekend update

2009-02-24T00:02:00.003-06:00

Just so you all don't think I'm still slacking....

I did start a new knitting project on Saturday night. It's actually this exact hat kit, which my sister-in-law gave me several years ago as a Christmas gift. Yes, I know that I still suck for admitting that I've had it sitting around untouched for that long. In any case, I didn't get nearly as far as I would have liked (too much chatting, not enough knitting), and it's actually a far more complicated pattern than I initially realized, so I think it's going to take me a while to finish.

However, I did also work on some stuff on Sunday. T actually joined me for a rare joint "crafternoon," helping me out with prep for E's birthday party in a couple weeks. We're doing a farm/barnyard theme and since we had all these large cardboard boxes in the garage, I had the idea to make some large cutouts of farm animals.

Figuring out how to cut the cardboard into recognizable shapes took some thought since there was no way scissors would work on something so thick, and a box cutter would have made it hard to get clean curves. I toyed with the idea of using my electric carving knife (which is almost like a mini-saw), but then T solved the problem by finding a jigsaw attachment for his dremel tool. It worked like a charm!

I also got a base coat of white paint on everything, so now I mostly just need to fill in details. Lucky for me, I picked mainly white animals, haha!

Sorry, still no pics just yet, but I plan on working on them more tomorrow, so soon...

Gah! I suck.

2009-02-21T10:05:00.001-06:00

Yes, it's been over a month since I've posted anything. Again. I know, I suck. In my own defense, I've been a lot busier lately. Also, I've got a lot of half-finished projects, so I have been spending time crafting, just not finishing anything.

But today I'm turning over a new leaf! I'm done with traveling for a good long while, and I'm going to finally knock out some of those half-finished projects that have been laying around. I also have a TON to do leading up to E's birthday party in a few weeks, so you can count on the fact that I'll have something real to post before then. And I have a knitting night with friends tonight too, which I'm using to kick-start this. Woohoo!

Unintentionally looonngg hiatus

2009-01-15T23:45:00.005-06:00

Whoa. I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted! But the holidays got pretty crazy on me there. Between a holiday baking, hosting playdates, all of us getting sick, and a somewhat last-minute decision to drive up to the Midwest for the holidays, it was a busy busy month. Also, I had a surprising surge of Etsy sales in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Who knew that crochet food would be so popular?

In any case, I did not get much of anything done over the holidays beyond restocking my Etsy store with stuff that I'd already made before. Sorry, I'm boring. However, I did get a fancy new sewing machine for Christmas (well, technically, I just got it last week) and I must say, I think I'm in love! It's a huge upgrade from the cheapy Walmart machine I was using before and now I'm starting to wonder how I ever got anything done before!

I'm really excited to finally make a dent in the giant stack of fabric on my sewing table. However, I'm still learning how to use all the bells and whistles, so I thought I'd start off with a few easy projects. I'd promised to make some bibs (among many other things) for a friend months and months ago and finally got around to them last weekend. One has bias tape around the edge, which I actually tried to sew on the "right" way. The others are just turned and topstitched.

I also made a couple more for E while I was at it since the teeny baby bibs I've been sticking on her haven't been keeping very clean lately. Oh, and these are all made from flannel on one side, and knit from recycled t-shirts on the other. Cheap and easy, my two favorite words when they're not describing me.

Next up, I'm working on a tutu for E. Yes, I know, it violates my 'no pretty princess crap' rule, but she loved the one she wore at friend's house, so how can I deny her? I've got it about 1/3 done, but I need to pick up some ribbon or something to bind the waistband. Hopefully I'll get it done this weekend.

Late night Photoshop fun

2008-12-14T17:38:00.007-06:00

T had to work the rare overnight last night so I had the house to myself. I took advantage of the peace and quiet to play around on the computer without any interruptions. I'd been wanting to try out some of the free actions I downloaded a while back. Nothing crazy fancy, just some simple color adjustments to get a little closer to a pro look. I tried out quite a few, but most were too wacky for my taste. But there were a bunch that I think I will definitely hang onto. Just for kicks, I thought I'd share. All of these are available free. I think most of them are from ActionCentral. You can probably google for the ones that aren't.

Here is the original pic. It was a bit dark and also had a reddish cast to it.

I did a little tweaking to the curves to brighten it up, and I also did a defog, but nothing else major.

Here's the first set of afters (click on the image to see it larger). From left, Midnight Sepia, Black & Color, and Barely Vintage.

Set 2: Urban Acid, Bloom, and Lomo.

Gotta love trades

2008-12-13T16:23:00.006-06:00

This is another brimmed beanie hat, crocheted in alternating stripes of hot pink and a pink/white variegated cotton yarn. I'm slowly but surely perfecting my pattern for this style of hat. This is my favorite so far in terms of the shape of the brim, although I made it a single layer instead of the usual double, so it's softer. This was part of a trade for a mini-session with one of my favorite photographers, the uber-talented Chera.

Judging by how our pictures turned out, I think I definitely got the better end of the deal! ;) Here's a peek at one of my favorite shots.