Valentine's Day stuff

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.

Holiday Sewing

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.

Egg-o-rama

 

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.

Christmastime is here!

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.

Because I'm not busy enough

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.

Happy Halloween!

I have to confess, I got super lazy this year. Even though I love Halloween and had big plans to paint and/or carve 3-4 pumpkins this year, I didn't end up getting to any of them. Instead, I copped out and bought the very cute Mr. Potato Head pumpkin kit, pictured above, which I sorta love.
I did manage to pull it together enough to make these little pumpkin crayons for a Halloween playdate we went to yesterday though. My original plan was to make these for E's class party, but I just ran out of time. It turned out to be relatively easy though. I broke up some crayons, melted them in a tin can double boiler, and then poured them into a candy mold that I sprayed with a little Pam, just to be safe. I'd say the most time-consuming part was cutting the labels off all the crayons with an razor blade and then breaking them up into small pieces. Oh and having the patience to wait for the crayons to melt completely. I'm very happy with how they turned out though and am definitely going to keep my eyes open for cheap candy molds now. I think these would make great little gifts or favors for a party.

And just for giggles, here's a picture of E in her costume as Rosie the Riveter.


And for reference, the poster

10 little pumpkins

I volunteered to supply the craft for E's "fall harvest" party at school tomorrow (they don't celebrate Halloween). It's nothing fancy, just stickers and pumpkin cut-outs. But I couldn't resist getting each kid their own little pumpkin too and decorating them with little sharpie faces. How cute are these?

I think I might have to go out and buy ten more to put on my mantle or something. I love Halloween.