crafts making it simple

DRIVING/GOLFING CAP SEWING PATTERN AND TUTORIAL

2012-01-24T23:11:00.000-05:00

Do you remember the Driving Cap pattern I made for Travis a few weeks ago?

I finished writing up the directions. I'm sorry I only have the pattern in one size right now. I will post other sizes soon as I get some free time (this week is full of craziness at my house). This pattern should fit a preteen boy or a man with a smallish head (I don't think it will fit on a big head). It should fit a 21-22 inch head just right (using 1/4 seam allowance). My 4 year old daughter has an 18 inch head and it is loose on her.

To make a hat like this you will need
The pattern
A small amount of fabric for hat (thin fabric will need iron-on interfacing).
A small amount of fabric for the lining (you can use the same fabric you cut for the outside of the hat).
A small amount of very stiff interfacing (you can use plastic food trays, plastic file folders, or a in this case a cereal box will work).
Other than that you will need the pattern, scissors a sewing machine, needle and some thread.

This sample I've made from an old suit. The lining was cut from the same suit. A cereal box was used for the brim interfacing. It cost me $0 to make.

Print out the pattern and tape together lining up the registration marks.
I like to use masking tape or painting tape because you can reposition without tearing the paper.

When you snip along the corner registration marks and tape them together you should end up with a nice circle in the center like this.

Cut out pattern and you should have something that looks like this (my lining looks wrinkled because it isn't new fabric it's out of an old suit).

You can buy real interfacing for a hat. It is often called buckram. Joann fabric sells it here. I have bought it at Walmart a few times they don't always have it but when they do it's cheap (but I don't think they call it buckram). It looks like regular interfacing but it is rougher, very thick, and stiff (just like a ball cap). I don't know if you can see how thick it is from this photo. Seeing it so bent makes me regret the way I've stored it but it still works fine.

If this is your first try at making a cap or if you're making it for a costume you can skip the trip to the fabric store and use plastic from a food tray (like the large plastic fruit/cookies trays and lids), plastic file folders, or even a cereal box. You can double or triple the layers to make it as stiff as you like. I have some cardboard brims that held up for years and I've had some made from buckram only last a few weeks (depends on how destructive the child you give it to is). To keep this a free project I'm using my empty box of Post cereal for the brim.

I think this hat will hold up for a very long time (a few years). Travis puts normal wear on his hats. If this was for Demi, my middle child, I don't think a cereal box brim would hold up very long (she breaks 3 necklaces a week).

Here is my stiff interfacing layer.

Now we're all cut and ready to put this cap together. First I like to put a pin, in the center front, on the cap top piece.

And a pin at the center on the side piece.

Lay right sides together lining up the pin in the center and pin both layers together at that spot.

This part isn't really tricky but it's hard for me to explain. Look at the two purple pins below.

Match both of them up.

pin together like so.

Take your time and pin all around. Do this for both the hat fabric and the lining.

To me it looks like a giant baby shoe.

Pin the flaps together (the large V shape on the Top cap piece). Do this for the hat and lining layers.

With right sides together pin the brim pieces together.

Sew around you hat. Be careful to keep fabric layers smooth around the curves. Sew around your lining being careful to keep layers smooth around the curves. Sew around the outside brim. Snip all around your seams, use pinking shears, or cut right along seam without cutting into the seam.

For this hat I cut with pinking shears because I knew it would photograph better.

Flip lining right side out and stick it into the hat keeping the hat wrong side up (right sides are now touching each other).

Flip brim right side out and stuff in your interfacing.

I like to stuff it in REAL TIGHT. You will need all that extra room to sew.

I often put pins in to hold the interfacing down in place.

Put brim in place between the cap and lining and pin around (I went pin crazy with this hat).

Double check to see you've got all 4 layers of fabric around the brim pined in place. If one of the brim layers slips down you will have a big hole in your hat.

Sew around the cap leaving a 3 inch opening in the back to turn the hat. Then turn the hat right side out being careful not to wrinkle or fold your brim.

Turn in your rough edges on the back opening and pin closed. Top stitch all around or at least from brim on one side around to the brim on the other side (the area over the brim doesn't need to be top stitched because the cap and brim get sewn together over the brim).

Sew the brim and top of cap together by hand with just a few stitches.

Then go wake your boy up to snap a picture so you can call this project finished. You might not want to do that but I felt to finish this tutorial up I had no choice (He's such a good sport bed head and all).

Then make one out of a beige fabric.

Make one out of leather (matching messenger bag tutorial I'll get posted in a few weeks when life slows down for me).

Make one out of a pair of jeans. This shows how this hat pattern will fit on a 4 year old.

Here is a cap made from cotton fabric with stripes.

Make sure you line up your stripes when cutting the pattern. Please ignore the very wet hair on my son (he was getting ready for school).

I hope you have as much fun making Driving caps or Golfing caps as I did.

My favorite. is the leather one with the cool looking worn/dark marks on the top (hat on the left in above photo). My son loved the beige hat at first (he picked out that fabric) but after a few days he decided the denim cap was his favorite. That is until tonight when I gave him the one made from a suit (that's now his new favorite).

Only the cap in the tutorial was made using a cereal box but I think they will all hold up about the same amount of time (this wasn't my first time using cereal box for brim interfacing).

When working with leather I use a walking foot, a leather needle, a stitch length of 3.5, and a bit of plumbers Teflon tape on my sewing machine.

disclaimer this pattern was drawn in the PatternMaster Pattern Editor and posted with permission from Wild Ginger Software, Inc.

If you have any questions feel free to write me. I usually try to take my time to write tutorials but this week is such a mess I feel like I have to rush this and hope for the best.

I'm linking up at...

Sock Hop

2012-01-19T22:52:00.000-05:00

This week we're on our way to the Sock Hop. I made it for this weeks Project Run and Play week 3 Sewing through the Decades challenge. I designed this pattern using Child's Play software I love using CP software when I don't have time to draft my own pattern (I think it's so worth $125.00 to make any type of pattern you want for kids clothing when you can't draft by hand). I did have to draft the scallops by hand because the program doesn't have a large scallop hem choice.

In the photo above if you notice a small spot of the pink showing on the back left side hem and an odd scallop in front of it. That spot is not an unfinished area or mistake on the dress. Zehira's hand is pushing in the dress and underskirt making it look off in that spot (my cousin told me it looks like a mistake). I'll post a photo of the hem laying flat soon as it is washed. Sorry, I was in such a rush I didn't notice that in my photos (I was more upset over the ugly shadow in the picture).

Zehira LOVES her new dress. She danced around the house all day today.

The sweetheart neckline on the polka dot print feels so 1950s to me.

I added a chiffon scarf around her neck. The sleeves are simple cap sleeves with piping along the hem to give them shape.

A circle skirt with a scalloped hem.

I cut up an adult turtleneck sweater to make a cardigan with lace trim, 3/4 length sleeves, and a button-lace loop closure.

I added a green polka dot scarf to her long ponytail.

I made a 1950s sweater pin from some charms, a chain, and some findings (all bought at Walmart).

The sweater fits more snug when worn with jeans or with this dress minus the underskirt that's hid under the dress. She can wear the sweater with anything (good news in my drafty house).

I am very happy with how it turned out. I'm sad that I didn't finish making all the things I had started. I wanted to finish saddle shoes and bowling bag purse to finish this look. I also have to finish a poodle skirt, dress top, and leather coat for my other daughter. AND a wool skirt, a stiff crinoline, and cardigan sweater that I also have started to go with this 1950s challenge. Honestly it might take me a week or two to finish all the things I have started... I think I will put them all to the side for now. I will stop sewing for a bit to get that drivers cap pattern posted (the ones I made last week). I can go back to 1950s sewing later on (so much for my promise to not leave any WIP around). I hope you all had as much fun sewing this week as I did!

Hello Kitty

2012-01-16T17:07:00.000-05:00

I've been making a lot of crochet hats over the last few months. I like to crochet but only one or two projects a year then I'm ready to put away my hook and get back to sewing. I don't like making the hats that much because it takes a full day to make one and my hand hurts for the next day or two after I finish. As I've been making all the hats for friends (and friends children) my kids kept asking when I was going to make them a sock monkey, hello kitty, or bear hat. This weekend I couldn't put it off any longer I had to make Demi her hat. Today was hat day at my kids school. Neither of my kids wanted to wear the large stack of hats they already own. Travis had the 3 new hats I made him last week to pick from. Demi wanted a Hello Kitty hat. Last night I stayed up very late to finish this hat.

She was a very happy girl this morning.

I have a few more hats to finish for friends before I can put away my crochet hooks for the year. The hats are so simple you don't need a pattern at all. Just crochet around increasing until it is wide enough to fit a child's head. Keep going around until it's long enough. Then add yard tassels to braid, a few buttons, simple ears, and a bow.

Sewing 4 my boy.

2012-01-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

Free hat pattern and tutorial can be found HERE.

Honestly, I didn't think I would get this done. It was a hard sewing week! I worked on making a drivers cap pattern most of the week. I had plans to make a wool winter coat, a messenger bag, a hat, slippers, a pair of jeans, a shirt and a vest. I could have done it all if I stuck with patterns (boo hoo, boo hoo). I ended up making 3 drivers caps (one denim, one neutral fabric, and one of leather) along with a messenger bag.

The cap pattern drove me crazy. Trying to get a nice fitting hat takes so much time. The good news is I finished it and once I tidy up the pattern I'll post a tutorial for it (sometime next week).

This hat is in the fabric Travis picked. I would LOVE to embroider on it but he won't let me.

I feel bad making him model for me when he's sick (poor kid).

Here's the denim cap.

Here's little sis wearing it (I forgot to snap a photo before Travis left for school).

After I got my pattern worked out I moved on to a messenger bag and another hat. The messenger bag was a must because my son lost the latch for his Lands'End messenger bag this week (I think a girl who likes him took it off his bag). Do your kids loose strange things when they go off to school?

Here is my boy at 6:30AM this morning with his new bag and hat (tired and glossy eyed from a cold).

The fabric for this project came from a thrifted leather coat. The leather is so nice and soft.

The coat I found at the thrift shop for $19.99. I got it on 1/2 price day so it was $10.00!

I LOVE how this bag turned out. It has two belts on the front to close the flap and a larger belt for the shoulder strap.

I lucked out on this because my original idea was to buy some thrifted belts and a leather coat to make a bag, the shoulder strap, and front closures. This leather coat came with one large and two small belts! Each wrist had a small belt making it the PERFECT coat for this project.

Here's a photo of the original coat sleeve.

Another showing the large belt around the waist.

Here is a close up of how I used the small wrist belts on the messenger bag.

Late last night I was ready to call it a night after finishing the messenger bag but 24 Hour Catwalk came on TV and I felt energized. I felt like I could stay up all night and sew with the people on the show. Not only that but Mondo on Project Runway last night was wearing a leather driving hat! I felt like Mondo was telling me to make another hat in leather. He told me I could keep sewing and get it done before morning.

Last night I broke a LOT of needles. Breaking leather needles isn't an easy thing to do on a normal sewing day. Things broke, stuck, and jammed... I stole some of my husbands plumbing stuff out of his toolbox (I used some Teflon tape on my machine to use for a quick fix for the leather sticking problem). I had to make some rather crude sewing tools after midnight (hubby knocked over my sewing box and I was missing a few things). Do you know if you don't have that tool handy that lifts up your presser foot to sew over a bulky seam a small needle box will work in a pinch?

Here is a photo of my boy in his new hat. He's on his way to school. Did I mention he woke up with a cold? I see he didn't dry his hair this morning after his shower. Wet hair+winter weather= sick child?

I'm very tired. I feel like I was in all the TV competitions I watched last night. I was sewing when Project Runway came on at 8:00 PM (last weeks show). I kept sewing during the new episode at 9:00 PM. I remember seeing 24 Hour Catwalk and Dance Moms. Then I saw both Project Runway All Stars again! I think I turned off the machine around 2:00-3:00AM. I'm feeling happy with what I've made but yet sad over what I couldn't get done. Instead of sewing the rest of the things on my "sewing for my boy" list I think I'm going to turn on sesame street and curl up on the couch with this child for a little morning nap.

Please forgive the very poor writing today. It's hard for me to think/write when I'm tired.

I forgot to write this was part of the sew at home Project Run and Play week 2 boys week

BTW, I love this messenger bag so much I know I will be making myself one real soon! I plan to look for some leather more worn out and old looking to make myself a bag.

New/old skirt and more leg warmers

2012-01-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

My MIL gave Demi a cute little school skirt. The skirt wouldn't fit her because she's so thin. I ripped it apart added buttons and a button hole to the inside waist band. I then ran some DIY button hole elastic inside the band and stitched it all back together.

I think it would have been faster if I made a new skirt from scratch, I think I sew faster making my own things. Does anyone else dislike mending store bought things? Maybe my problem is I don't like to work on something I didn't get to make? The up side is it is another finished project so I am a happy girl for finishing. Please forgive my poor photos. I have a hard time taking photos at 6:30 AM. I'm not a morning person. Lets pretend I didn't chop off her head in this photo.

I also made a pair of leg warmers. I made them from a sweater.

I'll make 2 more from the same sweater another night. I added a lace and button bow to dress them up.

I made a crazy amount of leg warmers back in Nov. I didn't make any of them to fit the school dress code (I started making them for Sat. dance class) my girls love to wear them (they are dress/skirt wearing chicks). I think by the end of this month I might have a stack of school wearing leg warmers as big as the leg warmer collection I made in Nov. My girls will have warm legs this winter. I'm starting to worry the dresser and closet might explode before warm weather come back.

Junebug Remix

2012-01-05T22:31:00.000-05:00

I'm finished! Yes, I finished adding the trim to my Junebug remix dress last night. I enjoyed doing this weeks at home sew along contest at Project Run and Play. I'm calling this dress the Once Upon A Junebug Dress.

It's the Junebug dress in a fairytale.

I didn't change much on the bodice pieces to the Junebug pattern. I put the bodice front behind the bodice sides. I added 1 diamond gem button to the top of each side. I left off the other 4 buttons off because the bodice sides hold the dress in nice and snug. I made the sleeves about 1 inch longer than the pattern. For the skirt I made it full length and added lots of ruffles to the front.

To finish it off I added lace down the sides

and at the bottom of every ruffle.

I added a removable silk flower with a button center later today (that's why some photos have a flower and some don't).

The fabric is vintage and sweet perfect for a storybook princess. This dress was made from a full size sheet (picked up for $1 at thrift store). Yes! That's right this a $1.00 gown! Well $1 dress with $4 of lace added to it (total cost $5.00). My girls both love it. Here's a photo of Demi (my 6 year old) wearing it.

I have to make another so they don't have to share. Zehira (my 4 year old) wore it to bed tonight. I was going to stop her but after remembering the dress is a sheet I decided for tonight I let her wear it to bed. I might have to make her a new dress tomorrow to get this one off her body so i can wash it.

leg warmers

2012-01-04T16:10:00.002-05:00

I'm trying to finish up my Junebug dress remixbut I don't have it done yet (I'm adding some trim tonight to finish it up). I hope to have photos of that tomorrow.

I made a pair of leg warmers last night. In this photo you can see Demi wearing them over her knee because that's how she rolls. She also wears her knee socks over the knee.

Nothing exciting but it is another finished project. I was doing laundry yesterday when I found a white undershirt 2 sizes too small for my son. After wondering how something so small could be in his dirty clothes hamper (I KNOW he didn't wear it) I got the idea to cut it up to make a pair of leg warmers for Demi. It is VERY cold in PA right now. Temps. are in the teens and my girl goes outside for recess. I worry her little legs are going to freeze. Demi's school has a strict dress code so covering them isn't that easy. The girls have to wear blue or tan uniform skirts/dresses with blue or white knee socks/tights. I figured white leg warmers made from knit jersey would blend in with the knee sock/tights rule.

I made small flowers to pretty them up a bit. I hope the extra layer on her little legs helps keep her warm. I will make some more over the next few days. They only took about 5 minutes to make.

I made them thinking the top would have a fold down cuff and a flower at the top. Demi decided to flip them and wear cuff at the bottom and have the flower on her ankle. I hope the school is OK with the flowers (if she wears them the other way the flowers will hide under her skirts).

Finished projects

2012-01-02T22:30:00.000-05:00

My first sewing project of this year is the gray dress on the left in the photo below. I wanted it to be done before christmas but after getting the smaller dress for my youngest finished I came down with a high fever and was not able to finish the second dress (yes, I was sick Christmas Eve and Christmas day this year). I made most of this dress on Dec 31 but it wasn't finished until Jan 1 (around 1:00AM AND I was snipping the threads at 8:00Am). have plans to make cute sweaters to go over the dresses so they can wear them without shirts under the dresses this winter but I worry if I wait until the sweaters are done I might forget to share a picture. I wish this photo was nicer but I took it after a night with little sleep (New Years Day) and after a long day at church (we left for church at 9:45AM and didn't get back until around 2:30PM).

Here is project #2 it is the Junebug dress free pattern over at craftiness is not optional I wanted to try out the pattern so I can give the remix challenge over at Project Run and Play a try later this week.

I made this dress out of an old sheet. It can be a play dress or a nightgown. I'm not crazy about it but Demi LOVES it.

I didn't add the elastic in the sleeves yet (Demi took off with it before I had a chance). I hope to have photos of my remix in the next few days.

It's Jan 2 and I've shared 2 projects. I hope to keep blogging all month!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T22:19:00.001-05:00

Wishing you a very HAPPY New Year!

I LOVE this photo because it shows my family keeping it real.

In this one Daddy is happy but the kids are not. They look like tired kids who stayed up all night.

Here's a pic of Daddy teaching Zee how to use a party horn.

Here is the reason Zee is pouting in the first photo...

Her sister blew a horn very loud in her ear! At least Travis looks awake and very happy.

May your new year be full of joy and without any horns hurting your ears at midnight.

I hope to blog more in 2012...

I'm going to try real hard to find the time to do it.

Rapunzel

2011-11-07T20:57:00.002-05:00

I know it's a week after Halloween but I can't move on without sharing my youngest child's costume.

Zee was Rapunzel. The purple satin dress I made her for her birthday last month. I often go over the top with embellishing our princess dresses. This one chose to keep simple. The reason I did that is because I know she is going to want to wear this dress to church or to the store sometime soon (we don't agree on what Sunday best is).

I made her a bouquet of flowers to hold and 2 simple yarn wigs (just in case someone chops off her yarn hair). The shoes are the ones I glittered up a couple weeks ago. At the last minute,

I made her a princess hat. She was a very happy princess!

I love the photo above. She is bending over to let down her hair. How cute is that?

I have to admit, it felt so good to have 3 happy children loving mama made costumes.

Here she is out with her daddy.

Crusader (Halloween costume #2)

2011-11-01T18:30:00.002-04:00

My son chose to be a crusader for Halloween. I have to confess I was up until 2:30 AM (might have been later than that) Sun. night so I could finish this costume.

I didn't plan to wait until the last minute to finish this but I've spent many days in bed over the last week (fighting off a cold). His costume was a tunic, cloak, belt, and scabbard. My husband bought him a helmet and sword. He chose not to wear the helmet (I think he looks better without it anyway).

I love the beautiful fabric hubby bought for me to make this. It is a very heavy bottom weight fabric and it's very soft. I didn't need a pattern its a very simple tunic with a cloak. The tunic is half the width of the fabric (it's a wide fabric) and the cloak it the full width of the fabric. I measured down how long Travis wanted his cloak then added a drawstring to gather at the neck. I then closed up the sides on the top to form the hood. I finished it off with a simple belt and scabbard using some foe leather. The scabbard was simple I just traced around the sword to make my pattern and added ties to attach it to the belt.

Isn't he one good looking crusader?

I love how serious he looks (crusaders can't go around wearing a big silly smile). The smile on his face when I showed him the costume made my day (he doesn't like mama made things most of the time). When he got home Monday night he said I'm going to go hang up my costume!!! My son hardly ever hangs up anything so I'm guessing he really likes it. Two weeks ago I didn't even know what a scabbard was (silly mama). I am happy he decided to dress up this year.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T23:47:00.000-04:00

I got to make costumes for all 3 kids this year. Most years I have at least one child who wants a cheap store bought thing. I'm happy to say all 3 children loved what I made them (I'll enjoy this day because I don't think it will ever happen again). My middle child asked to be a peacock. Our name is Peacock so I couldn't say no.

The body of the costume is an adult skirt. The skirt had 2 layers so I used the underskirt for her arms/wings. I used fringe yarn for the blue front. I added green fabric pieces to create feathers.

The back lower tail (she's a 2 tail peacock) was made from layers of tulle. I added some peacock feathers to it and some more fringe yarn. The top tail was made from a fan. Finding a way to attach the fan took some time. I ended up making an elastic belt to hold it on. To fasten the elastic belt I added a button to the belt and cut a hole in the elastic to use for the button hole. I also added a button at the top back of her dress and I added an elastic loop on the fan to loop on the button. That kept her proud feathers from flopping down. The blue ribbon bow was to dress it up and to make sure my elastic didn't show.

I got her 2 different feather masks and she loved them both. She talked for weeks about how she couldn't decide which one to wear. At the last minute she completely changed her mind. Just before we left the house she decided she didn't want to wear either mask. I've had a bad cold for the last 2 weeks so trying to make 3 costumes in time was very difficult. I ended up finishing them 15 minutes before we left the house. I will try to take some pics of the tiny details (loops to hold it up and the belt) tomorrow. If anyone wants to see them just let me know (I doubt many people want to be a peacock but it could happen).

I hope you all had a very safe and happy night!
I'm linking to

DIY princess shoes

2011-10-28T22:24:00.000-04:00

My youngest is going to be Rapunzel for Halloween. She needed princess shoes to finish off her costume. I have a lot of sewing to finish up three costumes. I knew I wouldn't have time to sew up princess slippers. To save time I decided to upcycle an old, scuffed up, summer shoes that she already had.

Here are the old shoes.

After a little bit of Mod Poge, Martha Stewart glitter, ribbon, buttons, and spray sealer...

Ta-da! One pair of glittery, pink, princess shoes!

At first Zee said Rapunzel wears purple shoes but after I let her pick from my large collection of glitter she changed her mind to pink.

She is very happy!

My other daughter is very green with envy. I promised her that I would make her some glitter shoes after I finish all 3 Halloween costumes.

I have to rush off I've got some cosumes to finish! Halloween in in just a couple days.

I'm sharing this with

Sleeping Beauty

2011-10-27T22:31:00.000-04:00

Demi (my 6 year old) played the part of Aurora (sleeping beauty) when she had on our thrift store wedding gown.

I'd love to make her a story book and put this photo in for the sleeping princess.

What do you think?

She reqested I make a photo in a shade of pink.

This dress is so much fun to play with!

Is it wrong that I can't wait to cut it into pieces to make lots of little dresses?

I think everyone who has a little girl so try a photo shoot in a wedding gown.

I'll race you all to the thrift store to find another gown.

Sweet dreams everyone!

I hope tomorrow to have at least one Halloween costume finished so I can share.

Reason #2 to buy a wedding dress.

2011-10-26T15:12:00.003-04:00

Reason #1 in why to buy an old wedding dress was to make pretty fairy wings. Reason #2 is to use for a child photo prop! Zehira (my 4 year old) loved playing dress up in our thrift store wedding gown today. We didn't need a back drop. This 1980's princess style dress has a train so long it covered our sofa.

Here are some unedited photos for people who don't like the look of edited photos.

Either way I think they turned out pretty. I think I'll have prints made to decorate her bedroom and maybe a few to give as gifts to family. I think this $10 thrift store dress gave me over $10 worth of pretty pics. I'll be using this dress to take photos of my other daughter (and all my friends with little girls) before I cut it up.

I'm sharing this post with

DIY Ponytail holders

2011-10-24T20:47:00.010-04:00

We're no longer homeschoolers. This year my 11 year old son and 6 year old daughter enrolled at a small private school. My children have made lots of friends and they both LOVE school. BUT going to school did create a small problem... TORN TIGHTS! UGH! Demi has to wear a uniform skirt (pants are not allowed for girls) so I put her in white tights to keep her legs warm. She stumbles/falls at least once a week and gets a hole in the knee of her new tights (she never seems to tear her older tights). After a bit of thinking I decided to cut them up to make ponytail holders. In a house with 2 little girls both with long hair we use a LOT of ponytail holders. Every week I buy a large pack of ponytail holders (at the same time I'm buying new tights). NOT anymore! I now cut up the tights to make ponytail holders. They work great in my girls hair (they don't tangle or break hair). It's so simple you can make a large amount of ponytail holders in a couple minutes!

Above is a pair of tights with a hole in the knee (they are size 4-7 but any size tights will work).

Grab your scissors and start snipping the tights. I snip them about 1/2 inch wide.

Here is one leg all snipped in loops (not looking like ponytail holders yet).

Stretch the loops a bit and they will curl up into a ponytail holder like magic!

I now have a few weeks worth of ponytail holders. No need to get mad over tights with holes anymore. :-)

I have no idea what happens to all of our ponytail holders after they are in my girls hair. I know they should be in the house someplace (Demi comes home with them still in her hair every day). They seem to vanish soon after she gets home. Someday I'll find that hidden spot under the bed or back of closet that is holding 6 years worth of ponytail holders. Until then I'll keep cutting up torn tights.

Here's a photo of Zee's ponytails (snapped when she was eating grapes).

Here's a shot of Demi's ponytails after a long day of school and changing into play clothes.

No more tears over torn tights at my house!

Newborn size Tinkerbell costume.

2011-10-24T19:09:00.003-04:00

I'll start out by writing about the sewing project I just finished (I'm going to pretend I never took a blog break). My brother and SIL had twins (both a girl and a boy)! I was SO EXCITED when my family asked me to make a Tinkerbell costume for Halloween! I've never made a tiny newborn costume before. It was so FUN! I didn't spend any money on supplies. To make this outfit I used 2 dresses I bought at the thrift store a few months ago (dresses I didn't have any plans for yet). The body of the dress was made with from a very large, green, dress. I will use the rest of this dress to make more things over the next few months. Please forgive the wrinkles in this dress (I took this picture before I washed and ironed it). The wrinkles are from leaving it in the shopping bag for so long (I often hide thrift finds in the shopping bags under fabric yardage to keep my hubby from asking what I plan to do with it until I find a use for it). Check out the price tag $4.99 and I bought it on 1/2 price day. I paid $2.50 for this dress!!! I'd say the dress size is over a size 20. It's a full length dress made for a tall person (or a girl with very high heals). It is LOTS of fabric for $2.50!!! This dress and trim is all the same fabric. The satin fabric was shiny on one side and dull on the other.
To make fairy wings I used part of another dress. I bought a wedding gown at the thrift shop for $9.99! This gown has a HUGE train! To me it was an awesome deal! I'm sure you will see a lot more of this dress in the next few months. Do you see how crazy long this train is? I can make oodles of child size dresses from the train alone! This dress is wrinkle free because I didn't have to hide it in the bag. I've been asking my hubby to let me cut up my wedding gown (to make little girl dresses) for years now. He won't let me (he thinks our marriage will fall apart if I cut into my gown). Hubby has known I've wanted to cut up some wedding gowns so I didn't have to hide this large gown I hung this out in the open the day I bought it. What a great deal! $9.99 for so much satin, lace, buttons, beads, ruffles and such.

Here is a close up of the ruffles (what I used for fairy wings). This dress has 2 full skirts with a huge train. Both skirts have the ruffles (over $10 worth of ruffles on this dress). In a house with 2 little girls I know I'll use up every yard of ruffles.

I sort of made up the pattern as I went along. I made half the skirt shiny and half not (trying to give it more a leafy look). I tried to add petal sleeves but they were so tiny I got tired of fussing with them so I bound the arm holes with some matching FOE I had on hand. The dress is fully lined using the lining from the original green gown. To make the wings I just cut off some ruffles from that wedding gown and tacked them on the back. It was such a quick way to make baby wings!

To finish the look I made tiny fairy shoes. I used a tiny bit more of the wedding dress ruffle to make the puffs on the shoes.

I love how her wings turned out. I was worried the standard nylons over coat hanger wings would be an unsafe choice for a newborn baby.
Here is one more shot of our sweet little fairy. She's in her nana's arms.

Whatcha Working With Wednesday

2010-12-01T13:41:00.002-05:00

NOTHING! Can you believe I just said I am working on NOTHING???? It's true! I don't have any started projects out on the table. I am sure I have several hid up in my fabric closet (but I don't feel like digging them out). I do have a LONG list of things I want to do before Christmas that I haven't started yet...

Leather coat for Zee
Leather coat for Travis
Leather or Pleather coat for Demi (I have something I want to with pleather for her)
PJ's for all 3 kids
Christmas dresses for both girls
a cool boy top for Travis
A fleece pullover for Rob
Slippers for Travis
A shaving bag for Rob

WOW! I guess I better get busy! I know a lot of this might never get done in time. I am a go with the flow kind of girl. If none of it gets done in time I will have a lot of fun things to work on in January. :-) I think for today I will make up a Dec. sewing list on my side bar then start making some patterns.

Tutorial How to make your own buttonhole elastic

2010-11-30T16:38:00.007-05:00

OK this might not count as a real tutorial but I didn't know what else to call it.

Have you ever ran out of buttonhole elastic when sewing pants for a child? I have many times! I have very skinny kids so buttonhole elastic is a must. Late one night (probably around 2 AM) I was in a crazy sewing frenzy (that's normal for me at 2 AM) and I noticed I was out of buttonhole elastic. Nothing is worse than being on a roll with my sewing machine, with several projects almost done, and look to see I am missing something I need to finish the projects! Does this happen to anyone other than me??? First I panicked! I was thinking how sad it was to be on such a roll with all 3 little children fast asleep (most nights at least one child wakes up and cuts into my treasured sewing time). I started ripping apart my craft/sewing bins in hopes of finding just a little more buttonhole elastic. I found fold over elastic, swimsuit elastic, wide elastic, thin elastic, elastic thread, lace elastic and several other elastics that I didn't even know I had but NO buttonhole elastic! I sat almost in tears looking at all my elastics and finally it occurred to me that I could make my own. Here's how I did it.

I got some regular elastic.

and the pointiest scissors I own. A seam ripper works but isn't as easy to keep under control.

I poked scissors into the center of the elastic and made a tiny snip.

DONE! It doesn't get any easier than that!

I snip my holes 1/4 smaller than the buttons because the buttonholes stretch a lot when you pull on the elastic. In the picture below the elastic is folded in half so you could see the size of hole compared to the size of the button.

Wasn't that easy??? When I am making jeans for someone other than my kids I snip several holes (about an inch or so apart). For my own kids I often just snip two holes in both ends of the elastic. If my kids need a new buttonhole in the elastic I can make one in 2 seconds time.

Below is a view of how I do my elastic ends in the jeans. Elastic end on the left side I have out of the casing so you can it. Elastic end on right shows the end tucked into the casing and I opened up the fold so you could see it.
Below is a picture of the elastic all tucked neatly away. I know the elastic is in different size loops. You can make your loops as large or small as you like.

I know my buttons don't match! I like the fun handmade look of bright colored mismatched buttons. Clothes I make for others I usually match them but I always mismatch when I sew for my own kids. The silly buttons make me smile when I do the laundry.

I am sure other people have done this before for adjustable waist kid pants... I did a google search for make your own buttonhole elastic but nothing came up so I figured I would share this story so if someone else runs out of buttonhole elastic at 2 AM you will know what to do (and hopefully can skip the tearing apart the sewing area in tears part). For me this works just as nice as the real button hole elastic.

One word of caution! All elastics are made different. Some wear out in clothing quicker than others. If you notice the elastic you buy looses it stretch or frays after lots of washings you might want to switch the brand you use. I have had a few rolls of bad elastic over the years. Don't fret too much over that I have used more yards of elastic than I can count over the last 5 years. Right now I use about 6 yards a week. Back in the cloth diaper years I used a lot more than that in a week. In all of that elastic I have only ever had maybe 9 yards that didn't hold up. The good thing about using the Do it yourself elastic is you can easily take it out and replace it if it wears out. Taking out the type that comes in store bought jeans takes a bit more work. OH! I should say that I have had some of the real buttonhole elastic fray or break over the years. That also doesn't happen very often.

The Fashion Show

2010-11-28T21:13:00.012-05:00

I watched The Fashion Show again last week. The challenge was to make a femme fatale outfit. I was a bit sad because sewing something mysterious and seductive is out of the question! My beautiful models are only 3 and 5 years old! I really wanted a sewing challenge so I decided to get as close to the challenge as I could. They used some 1940's clothing for part of the inspiration so I decided to sew a 1940's outfit. The only problem with that is I knew NOTHING about 40's clothing. I haven't watched a 1940's movie in a very long time (I find it hard to watch any movies with 3 young children at home). I wasted most of my weekend looking up 1940's clothes on the web. After 2 days of looking I finally found something I liked.
I thought this would be a good choice. Knee length dress, flared 6 gore skirt, large pockets, belted waist, square neck, with a matching bolero jacket.

I stayed up until 4AM Sunday night (Monday morning) to finish this...

Seriously is this super cute or is it just me??? I know it is the model that makes the dress look nice. I think all 3 year old children are so cute nobody ever notices the clothes or the stitches. It is very cold here in NE PA so I put thick red tights and fur boots with it and I love the way they look with the dress. The jacket is reversible.

I think this dress style is timeless. I doubt anyone will ever see it and think that's a 1940's outfit.

I might have to add a tie to the front of the jacket. She is very active so it might not stay on her without a tie in the front. In picture above the wind blew the one side open. I am thinking about changing the jacket to have that fold up V cuff. I wasn't crazy about the cuff but my hubby finds it interesting so I might work on that later this week. I have to take out the seam at the bottom of the pockets. I rushed them at 4 AM so I could get to bed. I want to hand stitch them so they are invisible. I will do that while watching TV tonight.
Above is a picture of the dress without a jacket. It was windy and cold so we hurried. I wish I would have taken a few more pictures.

Side picture.

And the back. I am so happy with how this turned out. I made it with some cheep fabric from Walmart (I think I bought it last year). Demi wants a dress just like it. I will have to use another print because I don't have anymore of this fabric left.

Looking back I don't think I really wasted my weekend. I think I learned a lot. I knew nothing about 40's fashions and now I have TONS of ideas for future outfits... Wartime gray shirt dresses, tailored skirts, tailored jackets, wool coats with fur trim, cute swim suit ideas, and oodles of hats. I doubt I will ever search for 40's stuff again but I think I stored a lot ideas in my head to use later on.

Now the sad news... The dress is soaking right now because Zee dripped ketchup down the front at lunch time today. It is just a play dress but I hope the ketchup comes out.

Faux Fur Coat.

2010-11-26T19:25:00.008-05:00

Please forgive the poor photography in this post. I think I had a setting wrong on my camera. I should turn off my sewing machine and read the books that came with the camera... LOL! That is funny! I think everyone knows I am not willing to turn my sewing machine off to read CAMERA books. Lets pretend I was trying to get some "Artsy Fashion" pictures with this one. ;-) We can pretend not to notice my blond girl looks like she has no hair on the top of her head.

This is a simple coat made with a layer of black faux fur on the outside, a hidden layer of thick polar fleece, and lined with a purple Asian print. The fleece gives it a lot of warmth.

I chose a large cloak style hood. For closures I used black snaps and a thick satin bow that ties in the front.

The Part that I like the best is how the cloak hood gives a very large Peter Pan type collar when the hood is down. I hate to admit this but that part was NOT planned out. The coat just turned out that way.

I don't know if I can remember how I made the pattern. I had a lot of projects going on all at the same time and I just can't remember exactly how I did it. I do know I used the Child's Play software to make it. I know I changed a few things as I went along. For Child's Play users wanting the info I think I picked Jackets, style oversized, closure single breasted short length, draped hood. I can't promise but I think that is what I did. I remember I cut the pattern a bit larger (maybe an inch) to give more room because I knew the fur and thick fleece would be bulky. I am happy I did that! If I didn't make the body and arms a bit larger when I cut out the pattern this coat would have been very snug on her (probably wouldn't have fit). To make the casing for the satin tie I hand stitched above and below the ribbon into the fur and fleece. It is so easy to hide hand stitches in fur and it didn't take long to do. I think as I get back into the habit of blogging I will get better at writing down details before I forget what I did.

Note: Wild Ginger does not pay me to say nice things about the Child's Play software. I love it and think it's an amazing program. I use it whenever I don't have the time to draft my own pattern out with pencil and paper.

Finished Fashions Friday

2010-11-25T23:26:00.006-05:00

Picture of my children on Thanksgiving day.

I feel like I got a ton of sewing finished up this week.

I finished up a red, corduroy, embroidered, top and pant for my 3 year old. You can sort of see it in picture above. Her top has a little owl embroidered on it but you can't see it from this picture.
An owl turtle neck for her to wear under the outfit (that was an ugly sewing project full of tears). She has it on under the corduroy top in the picture above.
I whipped up my 5 year old a brown turtle neck to wear with the circle skirt I made her last week. She has it on under her dress in the picture above.
I made her a hand smocked, red, corduroy top/mini dress. Yup! You guessed it! She has it on in the picture.
A red corduroy hat to match her dress that is the large floppy hat on her head.
one pair of Elmo jeans got finished (I wanted to get 3 done).
Two hats for my niece (wanted to make 3 but ran out of time with the last one). Sorry I made them up Wed. night and I didn't remember to take a picture on Thanksgiving.

I love that I was able to get so much done on a short week (I didn't sew at all on the holiday).

Circle Skirt, Brown Leggings, and Turtle neck.

2010-11-24T15:18:00.004-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I wrote this post up a couple days ago (so I could post over the holiday and not fall behind). The temps. are dropping fast here in NE PA but I like the layering of clothes that goes with this time of year. I can blog action shots of 3 items I made all in one post. I think I made the brown leggings about a week and half ago. Last week I created the circle skirt. Tuesday I whipped up the turtle neck. Demi's odd look and folded hands are because it is COLD at my house (40 deg F).

The circle skirt is was made from a pink and brown houndstooth print I bought at Walmart a few months ago for $1.50 a yard (uber deal). I am sure my husband who does a lot of fabric shopping for me doesn't believe it is Walmart fabric but I swear it is and it was in the $1.50 bin (hurry to your local Walmart and buy any they have left). The skirt is hemmed with brown bias tape. I sewed an exposed brown zipper because I really liked the way the brown zipper looked showing on the pink and brown houndstooth print.

Love the twirl of a circle skirt. When she twirls you can see the cute, brown, ribbed, leggings and her fur pom pom boots.

Please forgive the large crease down the front of the skirt. It was a dark dreary day and the little bit of sun we had was going to set soon so I rushed outside without running an iron over the skirt.

The turtle neck was made out of brown ribbed knit fabric (Joann fabric). The leggings are made from same fabric.

Patterns used...

Leggings I made from my own simple pattern.

Turtle neck top pattern was made using Child's Play Wild Ginger pattern making software All I did was select my daughter's clothing size (size 5) clicked active wear, long sleeve, turtle neck and print... POOF I had a pattern in about 2 minutes time (I love that program).

Circle skirt- I just cut out a large doughnut (large circle of fabric with a circle in the middle) and a waistband. No pattern needed for circle skirts (I LOVE that).

I plan to return tomorrow with another finished sewing project (shame on me I am such a big show off this week). ;-)

Elmo Jeans and Whatcha Working With Wednesday

2010-11-23T23:12:00.006-05:00

I finished Elmo Jeans. I have made several Elmo jeans just like this over the last year. This pair is not for one of my kids (no action shots). What my family calls Elmo jeans are thanks to my girls. Demi told me years ago she didn't like me decorating back pockets because she couldn't see them. For that reason I started adding small decorated pockets to the front or on the sides. Zee didn't like small pockets because she couldn't fit rocks and toys in them so I started using over sized pockets (adult and big kid back jean pockets) Zee loved Elmo (I digitized an Elmo for my embroidery machine). I then added a bit of what I like to the Elmo jeans I love a roll up cuff (have room to grow). I love adjustable waist. I love a worn in distressed look (try to make them all from distressed adult or big kid jeans). A fake zipper fly looks nice to me. A big colorful button is a must. A roomy pair of jeans is important because it gives active kids freedom to move and moms a easy time dressing and undressing (I created a very roomy pattern that will fit very chunky cloth diapered babies).

Large rolled up cuff. I think this pair will fit 12 months-3t.

Zee loves the embroidered Elmo pockets. I LOVE putting large back jean pockets on the sides of baby/toddler jeans. I have never seen anyone do it before so I think it makes my jeans look original. This pair of jeans started out as size 12 boys jeans (my 10 year old son wore/distressed and outgrew them).

fake fly stitching and very cute large round button. I LOVE this fun button! I hope to find more just like it.

Here is an inside look at the adjustable waist. Very easy to do and a must have with little kids clothes.

Whatcha Working With Wednesday

I am thrilled to say I have several projects finished up already...
Embroidered Thanksgiving outfit for Zee
An owl turtle neck to wear under the outfit
A smocked Thanksgiving outfit for Demi (still needs a new zipper)
A turtle neck (for Demi to wear with circle skirt)
AND the Elmo jeans I shared above

YAY GO ME!!!

I need to make some hats and a purse. Easy peasy hats and tiny purse (hope to knock them both out in just a couple hours tomorrow night). If I find time I might make up Zee's new Elmo jeans, an underskirt for Demi's circle dress, and slippers for my son. I don't have to have them finished right away so I might let them go into the weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving! I think I need some roomy Elmo jeans for Thanksgiving dinner (I love to eat).

The fashion show

2010-11-23T00:56:00.006-05:00

I LOVE Project Runway and I am so sad the season is over. Last Tues. I found a show called The Fashion Show. I was so excited to find another TV show about sewing/fashion. Last weeks challenge was the human body. It was kind of gross looking at the inside of a human body! After the show was over I started thinking how I could take on the challenge at home. The loosing team all used red for a fabric color and they all put pleats on the outfits. I already had some red corduroy material on my work table to make Thanksgiving outfits for the girls. I figured I could use that red fabric and not have to drive to the fabric store with my 3 children (if I went shopping for fabrics I would have tried to make something to go along with the winning team). I knew working with red corduroy fabric, a 5 year old model, and the inside of a human body for inspiration wasn't going to give me a high fashion runway look. I went ahead with taking on the challenge myself because I thought it would be a good way to get an outfit done before Thanksgiving morning (past years I was sewing Thanksgiving morning trying to finish up). Here is my outfit (It isn't my favorite dress but I am happy it's done).

It is a very dark rainy day her in Pa so please forgive the bad photos. I hope to snap some pictures of my daughter wearing it on Thanksgiving.

Before starting this project I thought about so many types of pleating. My first choice was lattice smocking but I didn't think that would look nice on corduroy so I decided to honeycomb smock it. I hand smocked the fabric first and then drafted and cut a pattern out around the smocking. I found that part a bit of a challenge. Trying to line up the pleats and my pattern measurements drove me crazy and took a lot longer than it should have. The dress was very easy to sew up (I know because I sewed this dress twice). It is not high fashion runway but I think it has an heirloom look and the one time of year the heirloom look can work is the holiday season (it's when you get together with all the older members of your family and share fond memories from long ago). I give myself points for doing all the hand work and teaching myself how to cut a pattern out around a pile of pleats. Mike quit the show last week and nobody was voted off so I feel that my made at home look is "good enough" for my weekly sewing challenge. I have to admit if I took this challenge today I would have made the outfit more "runway" looking. I would have gone for a child couture look (but that would have involved a trip to the fabric store for a bit of fabric to add to the corduroy fabric).

Here is the Big NO NO part of my projectWhat do you think Isaac Mizrahi would say about the tiny threads all over the back AND what about that green zipper? I picture Isaac might say what were you thinking? Did you think red corduroy with a green zipper would give it some kind of festive holiday look? Maybe he wouldn't have. I have noticed a LOT of puckered seams and pins in clothes on fashion shows without the judges saying a word. I need to let everyone know the green zipper is not going to stay. I didn't have a matching zipper so I used one I had on hand to work out the fitting on the dress. I will get a new zipper today and I will clean up all the loose threads.

I think a new episode is on tonight (I am very excited). I am thrilled knowing my 5 year old has a finished dress to wear on Thanksgiving! Thanks Fashion Show TV program for giving me a reason to finish a dress a few days early. I need to get off the computer because I still have that pile of projects out that I need to finish up this week. Please forgive the poor writing. I am fighting off a head cold so I am having a hard time keeping my thoughts in order.

This week sewing list is TOO long!!!

2010-11-22T16:48:00.004-05:00

I am going to try to find a bit of computer time in this week of sewing madness. Here is my list of sewing projects for this week...
An embroidered outfit for Zee (to wear on Thanksgiving)
A turtle neck for Zee (to go under the outfit)
A corduroy dress for Demi (to wear on Thanksgiving)
A turtle neck (or T-shirt) for Demi to go with the circle skirt I made last week.
2 pair of Elmo jeans.
4 hats
A reversible purse (for Demi).

Here are the fabrics I am using.

It's only 3 tops, 1 dress, 3 pants, 4 hats, and one purse to sew up in the next two day. I want to finish them all up by end of day Wed. I NEED most of them ready for Thurs. morning. I hope to be back tomorrow with some pictures BUT at this point I can't make any promises.

I know I haven't shared action pics from last week yet... How I wish I could find a few more hours in my days!! Fingers crossed my girls don't have to go to Thanksgiving dinner naked or in old play clothes!!! My next post might be UGLY! I pray not to make any dumb swing mistakes. Hubby just called me from work and let me know I need to finish Elmo jeans tonight. Looks like my sewing machine will be running all night tonight. My children might find me sleeping on my sewing machine in the morning.

Finished Fashions Friday

2010-11-20T00:18:00.005-05:00

I know it is almost Sat. I am typing this at 11:30 PM (I have 30 minutes until finished fashions Friday is over). I did finish some sewing this week (GO Me). If I type quick enough I might get this posted before it turns into Saturday.

Demi's circle skirt is done

Zee's faux fur coat is done.

Cat In The Hat/Fish in the pot top and jeans are done.

Kids are sleeping (it is almost midnight) so I will try to get action shots over the weekend. It is late so I will post sewing details with the action shots.

Other crafty news is I crocheted a few more granny squares.

Happy weekend! I plan to start a bunch more sewing projects tomorrow (that should make my weekend happy).

Whatcha Working With Wednesday.

2010-11-17T13:53:00.013-05:00

I thought I would go W crazy on Wednesdays the best I could come up with was Whatcha Working With Wednesday.

Here is a peek at what is ~~heaped on my kitchen table~~ set out on my work table in my studio.

This is going to be a circle skirt for Demi. I am a few inches too short on bias tape (my awesome hubby is stopping at Joanns on his way home from work). Other than that all it needs is a zipper in the back. I hope to have it finished in the next couple days. I have plans in my head to make an underskirt, top, and sweater to go with it but we all know that might never happen.

This is a faux fur coat for Zee. It needs the rest of the snaps put on it. I need to finish the hem on the sleeves and then work out if I want to add a ribbon tie on it. If I force myself to work on it I could have it done in 15 minutes (yet somehow it has looked just like this for over a month now).

Cat in the hat/fish in a pot outfit for Zee. Jeans are done but I need to make the top to go with it.

Jumbo granny squares I have 4 done (need around 36). Once I crochet a stack of them I plan to make a "pretty" bed dressing for the girls bedroom.

All projects will be quick to finish up except for the crochet. I hope to finish them all this week.

I'm Reunited With Blogger

2010-11-17T13:06:00.005-05:00

I was a fool to ever leave your side
(Please forgive me dusty old craft blog)
Me minus you is such a lonely ride
(I tried to move along and forget you but I couldn't)
The breakup we had has made me lonesome and sad
(I can't even remember why we broke up)
I realize I love you
(Crafts making it simple blog please take me back)
'Cause I want you bad, hey, hey

WHAT is that all about you ask? I didn't want to write another I'm back post... I hope this time to start blogging again and not vanish for months at a time. I was looking at some of my old sewing creations in old post and I realized how much I missed blogging enjoy looking at things I tried to make years ago. If you wonder if I have given up crafting the answer is NO! I am still a craft-crazy-nut! I spend all of my free time designing sewing patterns, sketching up embroidery designs, sewing, along with working needles/hooks and yarn. Honestly, I think my craft addiction is what keeps me from blogging. I rather work the textiles than work at typing on the keyboard. Heck, I don't even take pictures of most of the things I make because I rather sew than snap pictures. I am going to work hard on getting it together and blog a lot so I can ~~look back and laugh at all my mistakes and crazy ideas in the archives~~ save all my very creative craft-y projects. I think I can force myself to snap a picture of everything I make. I am a little sad thinking about all the things I never took pictures of. Well, there's no time to stop and cry about that now because I have 100's designs to create! My sewing machine, embroidery machine, serger, knitting machine, felting machine, spinning wheel, knitting needles, crochet hooks, and paper crafts are all calling me (I'm sure I have lots of other tools hiding in my craft room waiting for me to use). I have a few things that are almost done and I have a large amount of things I made in the last few weeks. I will share some of the things I have made over the last month as I finish up other projects. I promise dusty old (but still loved) craft blog that I will take 15 minutes a week to share what I am working on. I like having this blog to look back at the things I have made. I really enjoy seeing all my dumb ideas and sewing mistakes of years past how much my beautiful children have grown. I know the day is just around the corner when my children will refuse to wear "mama made" clothes. I want to save as much of that as I can now so I can look back when my children ~~get too big for me to wrestle to the ground and force mama made sewing projects on their tiny bodies~~ decide mama made is no longer cool to wear.

Welcome Spring.

2010-03-19T17:58:00.002-04:00

I am beginning to think I might not ever catch up with sharing all of my crafting... Computer time is so hard to find. I think if I take the computer outside on the porch while my children run in the yard I might be able to get my computer time back. If you don't see a ton of catch up post from me in the next few days you will know that idea didn't work. I have a stack of clothes on my table I need to take pictures of and several dresses in the closet. The sun is setting right now so tomorrow I will try to get some pictures. I am going to run off and get my weekend housework done now so I can play on the computer tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying spring as much as I am!

Underoos?

2010-03-11T13:24:00.006-05:00

We are busy with "potty camp" at our house. The big problem we had was my little girl LOVES having Elmo on her pampers. We used only cloth from birth until last Nov. or Dec. Our washer broke so hubby picked up Elmo pampers to use until we got the washer fixed. We decided to keep buying Elmo pampers because life was so busy and crazy around the holidays. We got a puppy for Christmas I had to put off potty training so I could spend a couple weeks on potty training the puppy then another 2 months on training her to not chew up everything in the house. Brobee (our pup) still chews but she chews on her toys more and on our shoes and kid toys a lot less than she did a couple months ago. I decided it was time to give potty training another try. Back before we bought the first pack of pampers she was already using the potty a few times a day. Life was a bit crazy back then so I didn't have the time to focus on potty training (I think we did the opposite and diaper trained her from Dec.-Feb.). When my child started yelling Mama I need a diaper change. I messed my pants a few weeks ago. I knew I needed to find the time to potty train her. Zehira told me she didn't want to give up her Elmo diapers. She said she loves her Elmo. I decided to make her up some big girl Elmo pants to replace her diapers.

The blue with the red trim reminds me of Underoos we had when I was a kid. When I first showed them to her she cried and said she didn't like them. She then told me she liked her "baby Elmo" (Elmo diapers). We told her she was a big girl and she has new Elmo big girl pants she cried again and told us she is a baby. We didn't make her wear them we told her she didn't have to wear them. We reassured her that we love her very much. I put them on the coffee table so she could pick them up and look at them whenever she wanted. We told her that she is not a baby. She said she is Daddy's baby. Rob stopped calling her a baby and started calling her his big girl. The next day she walked over to the table and picked up the Elmo undies. She tried putting her legs in them on her own and yelled need help mama. I ran over to help her. I hugged her and told her how proud I was that she wanted to wear the big girl undies. I told her to try not to pee pee on Elmo because that might make him sad. Back in Oct. and Nov. she was using the potty a lot so I knew she understood. She was very happy with her new big girl Elmo and is doing wonderful with going on the potty. Today she told us she needed to go potty when she needed to go #2. Potty camp is going wonderful.... I might have a different story to tell tomorrow. But today I am enjoying the progress we are making.

Once she put on her big girl Elmo undies I got busy making her a bunch more undies. She already had several big girl undies (store bought ones) but I thought we would need a large stack so we didn't run out if we had a day with a lot of mistakes.
If she looses interest I will add Elmo or some other thing on the front of them. She doesn't seem to care what is on her undies anymore. Now what she likes is this...
Easter Eggs with 2 jellybeans inside each one. This bucket I did fill with eggs, DVD's, Polly pockets, Kai-lan figures and other toy treasures. I told her she could pick one thing every time she uses the potty. I have to say I was so surprised she didn't pick out any of the toys in the bucket. She says needs candy inside egg every time she uses the potty. I took out the toys just have eggs in the box because Zee told me to take the toys out of her candy box. If 2 jellybeans is what she wants why try to force her to take toys? Demi wanted the toys so she was trying to make Zee pick a toy. I think this might be why Zee likes the candy so much... She doesn't have to share the candy with her sister. I would love to say we are all done with the potty camp but I am sure we will have a big step back sometime in the next few weeks (I can remember having a oops day with Demi after she stopped wetting in her pants). I hope to be ready to calmly deal with it when that day comes. Today I am going to sit and enjoy how far we have moved ahead. It is kind of sad having to think you no longer have a "baby" in diapers living in the house... I will turn 40 at the end of this year I think I am getting ready to move on to a new phase in my life... I hope it is something as enjoyable as having babies was!

12 in 12 Feb. Challenge

2010-03-01T13:14:00.006-05:00

WHAT??? You say February is over? I have no idea how the month past by without me knowing. I did a lot of sewing this month... Once again I fell behind with blogging it. I will try to catch up some in the next few days then move on to March. I have to admit I don't even remember everything I made... I didn't even take pictures. I will try to remember as much as I can. I will try to keep my camera next to my sewing machine this month.

I am late posting my 12 in 12 challenge (I think when it comes to anything that requires computer time the word people would use to describe me is late). For the challenge I made a tie dyed, long sleeve, hemp jersey, Tee shirt for my 2 year old. The fabric I dyed about 2 years ago. I dyed it to be a wrap carrier. My girl is a bit to big to wear in a wrap anymore so I decided to use some of the fabric for this project. I used Wild Ginger to make the pattern. I added a pocket to the front and FOE around the neck. Demi wants one so I think my first project for march will be one for big sister. I have to say I am sorry for the bad pictures. It is dark and gray in Pa. I am having a hard time getting a nice picture. I will share a bunch and I hope you can get an idea what the top looks like. It is hard to get a nice picture when I am in a hurry, with bad lighting to deal with, a toddler who doesn't sit still, my blurry picture taking, the box of raisins, and the marshmallow (only way to keep her in one place for 30 seconds). I hope you can see it is a very soft, comfy, and warm knit top.

I feel bad that I didn't have time to make the wonderful knit things I had floating around in my head! I feel bad that I didn't make any boy things this month. I will try to "get it together" in March. I think by the end of March the sun will come out and that should help a lot with the picture taking.

I am running over to http://acmtel.blogspot.com/2010/02/so-its-last-day-in-feburary-sign-up-for.html so I can sign my name (late again) to say I finished my project and see what everyone else made. If you have time you should take a peek at the beautiful things the very creative Australian ladies created. March challenge is Make a softie (soft toy/stuffed doll or animal). I hope to have mine done early (I can dream). You all should run over here and sign up!

Please forgive the very rushed typing... I am way behind on my day. My little one is fussing. "Life" is as usual getting in the way of computer time. I love my life so I shouldn't complain. I hope you all understand...

Heart Jeans

2010-02-19T21:12:00.005-05:00

I made them for Valentine's Day. I didn't have a chance to blog them until now.
I made a mistake on them that turned into a wonderful thing. My embroidery machine made a crazy jump out of place and messed up an area of the jeans. My family needed me so I was not at the machine when this happened (doesn't it always happen that way). The mistake had way too many threads to pick out so I made a applique to put over it. I decided to make it a frayed applique to make it show up better and add more texture.

I think the frayed heart looks wonderful. I liked it so much I added one on the bottom of the other leg.
Very large heart pockets are on the back. Zehira was OK with this because she has hearts she can see all over the front.

I had a lot of fun making this pair of jeans.
They look very cute on her. I keep forgetting to take pictures of her wearing them.

Elmo Jeans

2010-02-19T20:01:00.003-05:00

A couple weeks ago I cut up Travis's old jeans and made Elmo pants for Zehira.
The embroidered Elmo I digitized from a coloring page. I put large back pockets on the side of jeans.

My children don't like me embroidering on back pockets. Both my girls cry they can't see the characters when I put them on the back of pants. Large pockets on the side with characters on them make them happy. I like the look of big side pockets so everyone is happy.

For the back of the jeans I added some elastic and left them without any decorations.
The front has a red button, red top stitching, and a foe fly.

I think I made them back Feb 4Th or 5Th. I am a bit behind with my blogging. I have about 20 finished projects to blog. I hope to find some free time to catch up this weekend.

Holiday season and a bit of smocking.

2010-02-15T13:21:00.005-05:00

Yes, I do think I am in the middle of a big holiday season. It is Black History Month and American Heart Month. We have had Ground Hog Day, Wear Red Day, the Super bowl (might not be a real holiday but the food and celebration felt like a major holiday), the Olympics, Valentine's Day, Presidents Day, and Chinese New Year. Looking ahead to Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and Lent. Add in the bunch of snowstorms and we are having a CRAZY Feb! We don't have this much food, celebration, and excitement in the month of Dec!!! I am exhausted! I have a tummy ache! I don't remember ever eating so much chocolate candy, so many meals out, or this many hot wings in a single month. I always thought Feb. was a cold, sad, and very uneventful month.

When I am not eating, playing in the snow, or celebrating I am busy crafting. I admit I am falling way behind on blogging. I will try to catch up this week. Friday I tried smocking for the first time. I was able to find info on how to make the stitches online. I couldn't find any info on how to take the smocked fabric and turn it into a shirt.

Here is a pic of my first try at smocking. I don't have a pleater and I didn't make my pleats by hand. I used my sewing machine. I am sure that must be a big smocking NO NO because after hours of online searching I didn't see anyone write they did this. The only choices I could find was buying pre-pleated items, using a pleater, or doing it by hand. In the pic above my pleating threads are still attached. I have to admit I was afraid to pull out the pleating threads. I thought my baby waves would all come undone if I pulled out my threads. Below is a picture taken after I pulled out all my pleating threads (except for the very top holding row). I was amazed how it all held together after I pulled out the threads! I think it is almost like magic how the fabric feels elastic. After you pull on it, it magically springs back into shape on its own. In the picture above you can see how the smocking is very close to the top and near the edges of the fabric. That ended up being a big headache for me. I didn't have enough room to cut it into a pattern piece! I didn't have enough room to make a traditional shoulder seam. After a few hours of thinking of ways to use my smocked fabric I decided to make it into a simple peasant top. I had to use very thin elastic and a very narrow seam allowance to make it work. In the end this is what I made. I like how it turned out. Demi loves it.

I hope my next try my smocking stitches look more lined up.Next time I will try to place my pleats in a better place so I can have more options with choosing a shirt pattern. I think you will be seeing lots of smocked clothing made by me in the future!

Big brother jeans and Daddy's lil girl top.

2010-02-08T13:12:00.007-05:00

Here is the hot new look the Peacock girls are wearing in 2010!

I think my girls ages 2 and 4 are too young to wear something called "boyfriend jeans". They are too young to have boyfriends!!! I did a bit of thinking about this and came up with what I think is the perfect solution. My new style I am calling Big Brother Jeans. My girls didn't need to steal them from 9 year old brother. We waited until he grew out of them. By the time he outgrew them, they had a very naturally worn out look to them. This pair I placed the pockets crooked in the front. I did this because...
1. I wanted to cover up the grass stains.
2. I wanted to cover the knee to keep them from wearing out.
3. Because I LOVE the fun look of the very large pockets.
4. Placing the pockets crooked and on the front I think gives the jeans a very original look.
I added the adjustable waist band to the top of the jeans. A top stitched fly and a turned up cuffs completed the jeans.

Here is a close up of the crooked pocket. I think this would also be a fun look for a little boy.

In the picture below you can see the natural fray near the top of the belt loops. I tried to keep most of the old jean look that they originally had.

For the top I got the inspiration from here.
I thought the picture of the front of this pattern book looked a lot like the fabric in this shirt.

It is a shirt Rob has worn forever. He told me the fabric was getting very thin from wearing it for so many years. He almost tossed it out. I am glad I didn't let him toss it. I didn't use the pattern in that Japanese pattern book. It looked like a simple peasant top and I make them all the time without a pattern so I grabbed my scissors and a bit of elastic and made this.
I promise to really try a pattern in this book sometime soon! I do think my top looks a lot like the one on the cover of the pattern book. I have to admit it took a bit more thinking than I originally thought it would to make up the top. I had to work around the buttons and large pocket. I wanted the buttons centered and I had to keep the pocket out of the side seam (reason the top is a bit wide). To get the pocket to look the way I wanted I had to pull out about an inch of the stitches from of the top of the pocket. I then folded it down and added a bit of elastic.

I know this look is not one everyone will love. I am crazy in love with it because I think it has enough of the boyfriend jean look to be in style. I love that I didn't spend any money to make it. I think the very large, crooked, front pockets are very fun and give an interesting detail to the jeans. Demi loves them. Travis likes seeing his little sisters wearing his hand-me-downs. I like the Daddy's Little Girl Top just as much as the Big Brother Jeans.

Here are a lot of action shots.

If you like the look you now have something to do with jeans that you are ready to toss. They don't have to be big brother jeans. They could be big sister jeans. Adult jeans will work just as nice (pockets on my jeans are smaller than the ones on my 9 yo sons jeans). Grab your seam ripper and join in the fun!

Lovely Little Ladybug

2010-02-03T09:33:00.007-05:00

This was my last project I made in January... I found time to blog everything I made in the last month! This lovely little ladybug top was made from fabric I had in my stash. I used Child's Play to draft the pattern. I am loving this Child's Play software and I think I have already got $100 worth of patterns out of it (not bad for 1 month of use). To make this pattern I used the dress choice but cut it short into a top (a lot like the strawberry top I did a few weeks ago). The only change I would make next time is I might take an inch or so out of the center front because it looks a tad too big in the front. I wanted it to hang loose (almost like a woman's maternity top). I think an empire waist, loose fitting front, with a gathered bottom style gives it a cute and young look but not too "babyish" for little girls. This is just a tiny bit wider in the tummy than I had planned. It will shrink a bit in the wash and that might be just enough to make it fit exactly like I had planned.... Yes, I can hear you all gasping and yelling at me for not washing the fabric before I cut it!!! I do wash fabrics most of the time... BUT play clothes, every day wear, or first try with a new pattern are times I occasionally skip over the wash before I sew rule (I only do this when my children are sleeping or playing nice together and I don't have any fabric washed and ready to go).

On this top, I FORCED myself to expose the zipper. I have always thought exposed zippers in the back of little girl outfits = cheap made clothes. I have been seeing more and more exposed zippers in popular kid's clothing (in nice clothing stores). I am trying hard to keep an open mind with this idea and I want to move with the trends (in the back of my mind I keep hearing this is not the right way to do a zipper). Here is my small attempt to be "in fashion"...
I don't think I would say the exposed zipper up the back adds any type of "beautiful detail" like I read about in J Crew kids. BUT it doesn't look bad like I thought it would. I can't make up my mind if I think it looks "cheap" (like Walmart clothing) or if it is something I can learn to live with (move with the fashion trends). What do you think?

Below are a lot of pics. Zee didn't stand still for me. I hope a bunch of pictures will show all of the top. I plan to make jeans to go with it in the next few days.

By the end of Feb. I plan to make up a similar pattern for my 4 year old. I want to make one a bit "older" for her by taking out some of the fullness from all of the bottom gathers, changing the fabric, maybe adding some pockets, decorating with some fun trims, and maybe lowering the waist.

Peasant Top Retake

2010-02-03T09:18:00.005-05:00

After I posted about this top I added a ribbon to the front of it (Demi requested it). It is only a play top. Glittery firefly fabric came from Joann's (hubby bought me a long time ago). I didn't use any type of pattern to make this. I have made so many of them in the past I can make them in my sleep without a patterns or rulers.

Church Dresses Retake

2010-02-03T08:49:00.005-05:00

I tried again at getting pictures of the blue flower church dresses... I don't think I did much better than my first try... Play clothes are a lot easier to get pictures of! I let the children play and snap a few pics without any problems. My problem is I can't get a good picture of a dress when a child is sitting on the floor or running across the room. Here is my attempt to get pictures of the girls wearing the dresses.

Retro Retakes

2010-02-02T23:52:00.006-05:00

I snapped a few pictures of the girls in the retro dresses. I already blogged about them but had sad blurry pictures of shivering children to share.

Here is Demi in her dress.

Here is Zee (I think she took better pics in the original blog post).

Square Neck Top and Quilt Skirt

2010-02-01T21:28:00.007-05:00

I picked up a charm pack back before the holidays. I didn't know what I was going to do with it until the other day when Demi asked for a new skirt. I knew I needed 3 rows of quilt squares for the length of the skirt to be long enough so I split the squares into 3 piles and made them into a 3 row skirt. Then used a bit of lace on the bottom. It was a very quick project. Didn't need any type of pattern. For the top I cut up an old maternity tank I had. I used Child's Play to draft the pattern. It was also a quick project.

I should have given her a bag of candy to hold to keep her in one place like I do with her little sis! Below are ACTION shots. I swear I can't get her to stand still for one minute.

I have no idea what she is doing with her hands in the pic below.

No idea what kind of pose she is doing in the next pic. I was saying "Please look at Mommy". This is what she did.Another failed attempt with please look at mommy.

I asked her to please stand still for one minute and this is what she does...

I now find the picture above funny. I was not laughing at the time I took it!

Picture of skirt.
I know she does the opposite of what I ask... Anyone have any advice on taking photos of little children who don't like to stand and smile on command?

A-line flower dress.

2010-02-01T20:55:00.007-05:00

I made this simple little A-line dress and matching headband a couple weeks ago. I made it from Pink Posey Michael Miller print a generous friend gave me a very long time ago. I used Child's Play software to make the pattern. The tapered wrist was a bit too tight so I picked it back out and used a bit of the seam allowance to give a better fit. The flared hemline was a bit more than I wanted but I made this dress before the retro one. I think I finally got the flared hemline sweep setting figured out.

Yes, I give candy to play with to get her to stand in one place. Daddy bought candy when he went food shopping.

January finished projects.

2010-02-01T20:36:00.006-05:00

Here is my mosaic of projects I made in the month of January.

Pics going left to right top to bottom...
1. Retro dress for Demi
2. Blue flower top for Zee
3. Embroidered leather heart hair clip
4. Make up bag for me
5. A-line flower dress with matching headband for Zee
6. Embroidered soft leather shoes for Zee
7. Square neck T-shirt (made from old maternity tank) for Demi.
8. Strawberry top for Zee (my favorite).
9. Legwarmers for Zee
10. Retro dress for Zee
11. Quilt skirt for Demi
12. Headband for me
13. Retro headband for Zee.
14. Embroidered kissing frog yoga pant for Zee (made from old maternity top).
15. Church dress for Demi
16. Retro headband for Demi
17. Church dress for Zee
18. Peasant top for me
19. Glitter peasant top for Demi
20. Ladybug top for Zee

I know I didn't blog about all of them. Please forgive me and understand that I can't blog and sew at the same time. ;) I will try to find time this week to catch up but honestly that might not happen (I have a stack of sewing for this month piled up next to my machine already). I hope to remember to snap a quick pic of everything I make again this month. Happy Feb. crafting everyone!

Jan challenge. So the theme for January is YOU!

2010-02-01T10:17:00.006-05:00

OOPS! I am writing this a day late... I didn't take on the challenge to win anything... I just wanted to try to find time in the month of January to make something just for me! Last week life got busy and took away a lot of my computer time (my reason for being a day late). Am I the only one wondering how February slipped in so fast?

I am happy to say I made 3 things for myself! I made a simple peasant top. Nothing exciting but a finished project.
I made a headband.

And a makeup bag.

The makeup bag I really needed! I hope to make a few things for me every month this year. I now need to rush off and put my name down that I completed the challenge and take a look at the challenge for February.

I will be back later today or tomorrow with a collage of all my January finished sewing/knitting/craft projects (another thing I wanted to have put together and blogged before the end of Jan).

My Retro Girls

2010-01-24T16:17:00.005-05:00

My children gave me fabric from the local quilt store for my birthday (I know that is no surprise to most of you). My youngest picked out a very cool retro print by timeless treasures (I'm sure Daddy helped her pick it out). I didn't know what to do with it. It kept yelling I'm retro and won't look good sewn up any other way. I used Child's Play software to draft the pattern (I am starting to really love this program). I drafted up a knee length, zipper in back, A-line dress that I thought would give a 70's retro look. Tiny pink bias tape was added to bottom of skirt and sleeves. I made up some wide headbands to finish the look. A lady came up to me at church and told me she had the same dress exact dress (only in brown) when she was younger. Hearing her say that made me feel like I got it right. It is a dark day so my pics are not that nice. I will try to get some better pics in the next few days. The good looking young man in the back is my son. I don't sew much for him. He likes to shop at the mall like other children his age.

My New Treasure Chest

2010-01-22T22:34:00.006-05:00

I got lots of exciting sewing and craft gifts for Christmas. My hubby and children bought me fabric, soap making stuff, machine needles, embroidery thread, and other fun crafty stuff. My Mom gave me a very generous gift card to Joann Fabric (my favorite store). Rob's mom gave me a crafty box. This crafty box is kind of like an old pirate's treasure chest only it's for a craft lover (me).

The box was so full it wouldn't close.

Look at all the wonderful treasures inside!

Polar fleece!

Fabric with a Japan stamp on it. Last year my hubby bought me a lot of Japanese fabrics. I don't remember any of them with a stamp like this on them. I find it very interesting. I think I need to pull out my Japanese pattern book for this fabric.

Pic above is muslin, some lining fabric, canvas, and the green stuff is a table cloth or drape fabric. It is very interesting... Very different from anything I have ever used before.

Bottom weight fabrics. Denim and twill!

Blue is knit material. Other 2 I think one is like a satin (might have wrong side out). The brown is a very thin, light weight,sheer type of fabric.

Trims. Very cool funky trim! I know everyone knows I love my trims! I have about 50 ideas on what to do with the green trim and 4 ideas for the white.

More trims and do-dads.

Even more trims and some thread.

Yes even more trims!!!!

Dodads!

Patterns!

And this very cool fabric. It is a very heavy fabric. It looks and feels very vintage (I love vintage stuff). I know many other things in the box are vintage and that makes this box of treasures more fun for me to have!

Other than my dream box of treasures she also gave me a coat box FULL of ZIPPERS!

This box must have hundreds of zippers in it! I have already used over a dozen and the box is still over the top full! I will put all this to good use! I will try to post pics of all my completed projects. I have to admit I have 5 items sewn but I haven't taken pics. I hope to do a little photo shoot with my girls this weekend.

fix before and after pics

2010-01-20T23:00:00.004-05:00

I had to post the first try and the fixed pics side by side because I feel it is such an improvement I want to remember this. I often make mistakes and toss them out so I don't have to remember ever making a mistake. I rather pretend they didn't happen then try to fix it. BTW I didn't fix this because I wanted to fix it. I did it because my 2 yo loves her new flower shirt. I learn so much from my wonderful children!
Before pic.

It is to large. The amount of excess fabric on the sides are EXTREME!

After pic

Fit is 100 X's better. Don't you agree?

One more look...
Before

Look at all the extra fabric on the side.

After

Isn't that better?

Note to self: Taking a few minutes to fix a mistake can be worth it even with cheap fabric. This fabric cost $1.50. It only took a few minutes to fix and made one little girl very happy!

80's legwarmers and a fixed top

2010-01-20T17:46:00.004-05:00

I fixed my messed up flower top. It only took about 15 minutes to fix. I washed it, cut out all the extra fabric on the sides, stitched the sides back together, fixed a tiny pucker in the arm, and ran an iron over the embroidered flowers. I think it looks 100 times better!
Now when she lifts her arm you don't see a ton of extra fabric!

Here are a pair of leg warmers I knit for her.

Pony tail on the side of her head and leg warmers... YUP! This 2 yo is rock-n it 80's style!

Leather hair clip

2010-01-19T17:23:00.005-05:00

I embroidered a sample heart & Z before I did the embroidery on the black leather shoes. I didn't want to toss out my sample but what to do with a leather Z heart? I thought of lots of fun ideas but in the end it became a small hair clip.

All I did was trim around the heart and stitch it to a little hair clip. It was a 1 minute project.

I stuck it in her hair when she was having a snack. That is why she has cookie on her face.

Church Dresses

2010-01-18T11:23:00.005-05:00

Rob gave me this fabric for Christmas. It was 3 yards and I used every last bit of it to make 2 dresses. Both dresses have a zipper back and pleated skirts. This is not one of my "cheap" projects. I know we could have bought dresses cheaper in the store than the price of the fabric. The dresses took a lot of time and fabric to make (set in sleeves and pleats made this a very time consuming project). I think the pleats look nicer than a gathered skirt making the time worth it. I think the fabric is pretty so the cost of the fabric was also worth it. You can't see in the pics but the fabric has gold in all the flowers.
Here is a pic of all my children ready to go to church.
Forgive the writing I still have my headache.

Cobbling shoes

2010-01-18T10:38:00.003-05:00

OK, maybe not cobbling. How does sewing new soft leather shoes sound? Just a simple pair of Mary Jane's. I embroidered a heart and the letter Z (for Zehira). They aren't the nicest pair of leather shoes I have ever made but Zehira likes them.

I used her foot to draft the pattern so they fit her feet nice.
I made a little pad for the bottom with a few layers of pink fleece. I stitched the padding to the bottom of shoes. I don't like having a thick seam up the back of this style of shoe. I put the edges flat together and zig-zag up the back to make a flat seam. I added a plastic snap to close them.
Bottom view. I made them with leather from my old leather coat (from my motorcycle riding days). I turned the suede side out because I felt it looked nicer than the worn leather look my coat had. The suede side keeps them from sliding on our wood floors. The are made with a heavier leather than what a leather skirt is made from.

I have a bad headache today, making it hard to think. I hope you can understand what I am trying to write.

Dreaming up strawberries

2010-01-12T16:35:00.006-05:00

I am happy with this project. It is a simple cotton top, with a zipper in back, gathered bottom, and bias tape around the arms. I made it with Child's Play Pattern making software. The fabric was from the $1.50 bin at Walmart. Can you believe I found such a cute print in the Walmart $1.50 bin? I swore I wouldn't buy any more fabric but I couldn't walk buy this strawberry print without buying a yard. I didn't have enough fabric to make a full dress so I made it into a top. I am now happy I didn't have enough fabric because I LOVE IT as a top!

I had Travis call her from my cell phone to get her to stand still.
I think she looks cute so I will be making more like this for her in the future.

Glittery Fireflies

2010-01-12T16:14:00.012-05:00

Another very easy no need to think sewing project. It it is a simple peasant top made from glittery firefly fabric.

Demi has worn this top a few times already. I am sorry the pics aren't better. I grabbed the camera and snapped a few quick pics when she was on the floor with the puppy today. I couldn't get her to stay still.

Kissing Frogs

2010-01-12T15:07:00.009-05:00

After my pattern flop I decided to do some easy no need to think sewing. I found an old maternity top in my closet. It is a very ugly green (I don't think I ever wore it). I cut off the arms and made it into green yoga pants for Zee. I couldn't leave them boring green. What in the world to do with ugly green yoga pants? I started thinking about all things green. Zee doesn't like many green things except for frogs. I thought adding a frog to her pants might make it look very boyish. I decided to try to girl it up a bit by embroidering Kissing Frogs on the leg to make me think it was a bit princess-y. Every princess has to kiss a frog or two to find a prince. I still have the rest of the shirt I need to make into something with later on. I know the sweater does not match the pants. I was to lazy to go grab a T-shirt. I just wanted a quick pic before I forgot. Too many times I don't take a pic when I first make something then I forget all about it. I think the green color goes nice with the yellow elastic (FOE) and thread. It reminds me of retro gym shorts we wore back in the early 80's I am using my old computer again so I have my fingers crossed that the font, format, and letter s's all show up OK.

Have a hoppy day!

NEW YEAR!

2010-01-12T12:19:00.007-05:00

I plan to find time to blog more this year. I hope to find the time to share all my sewing projects this year. My first project of the year was a huge flop!!! I don't want to post it here because I would rather pretend it never happened. When I mess up on my sewing I often toss it out and pretend it never happened. This is a new year so I am not going to do things my old way. I will be brave and share my ugly mess (I already posted it on facebook for my few facebook friends to see). I hope with posting this here I will be able to look back and laugh about it later on in the year.

I don't use patterns very often. Projects can turn ugly when I use a pattern. This project is one that quickly turned into a big ugly mess. I used pattern making software to make Demi a top. I don't want to make the program look bad by putting the name of it with this mess I created. I will write the name of it on a project that turned out better than than this one.

When I first looked at my paper pattern I thought things looked a bit off. I should have went with that thought and changed it a bit when I was cutting it out. I thought that the program knew better than I did so I stuck with it. I wanted to make a top for Demi (my 4 yo). It ended up being a play dress for Zee (my 2 yo). The part that turned out nice was the zipper up the back. It was my best ever zipper. I am a strange one who enjoys sewing zippers in everything.This was the biggest problem...The sides go so far out it folds in on itself. :( I did set the pattern to slope out on the sides but I didn't want it to go out so far that it folded in! Look at how far the side of the dress hangs over the sofa. UGH! That was the only real problem with the program. The other problems are all my fault! Problems I caused are.

1. I didn't do a nice job with setting in my sleeves. It was 2 A.M. and I wanted to finish it.

2. I didn't snip around the arms. That caused the top to pull a bit across the chest on my 4 year old. I did fix that a day later after I noticed but it was after I took this set of pictures.

3. I didn't check the sleeve length when I made the pattern. The program was set at 3/4 length sleeves and I wanted full length.

4. I didn't use the correct stabilizer for the embroidery. By the time I got around to embellishing I was ready to toss it in the trash. To do it right I would have had to run upstairs and risk waking up the children. The top was already a mess so I cut corners. I knew better! It will make a good play in the mud dress or maybe a dress to wear when she is painting.

I am trying to type this on my old laptop with the missing s key. I had to copy and paste every letter s. That somehow messed up my font (made it bold in spots), created new paragraphs in wrong places and didn't make paragraphs when I wanted. I have spent more time fixing than writing and I am giving up on trying to fix this so I can move on with my day. Next week I will try to remember to use a different computer.

Not enough to call a real sewing project!

2009-11-29T16:29:00.014-05:00

Anyone who knows Demi knows her world is all princess. I made this outfit for her. All I did was cut jeans from an old adult pair of jeans. I made them with an elastic waist. Took me about 10 minutes to make them. I then used some ribbon I found at Walmart (think it cost about $3) and added it to the bottom of jeans. I bought a $4 top at walmart and carefully added the ribbon across the front of it. I thought that because it was such a cheap and easy project I should share it. Project took under 30 minutes to whip up.Here are the jeans I stated with. I almost made a BIG mistake!!! My MIL gave me the jeans and I thought they were normal jeans. I folded them one leg on the other and I was ready to cut them to Demi size when I glanced down to the hem and noticed one leg was LONGER than the other! My MIL did NOT alter the jeans. Whom ever gave them to her did the hemming of the jeans. My MIL is a very fussy seamstress and would have never done something like that. It looks like the type of thing I would have done when I was younger. The person who id it used large stitches with white thread (my mil would never sew without matching her thread). You can see the stitches here.

Here you can see my finger on the bottom leg with the other leg laying flat on top. It's a half inch off at my finger and over one inch off at the one end! LOL!
Photos below are of new hem and trim.

The top.
Close up of top. I put the ribbon right over the gathered seam. Putting it up a bit (just above the gathers) would have been easier but I didn't like how it looked. I chose line up the center of the ribbon and put that right on the seam. I had a lot of fabric under the bottom of the ribbon compared to the top because all of the gathers are under it. I took my time and kept it lined up and had no problems. I am very happy with the ribbon placement. I think next time I need a quick outfit or want a very small project to pass the time I will make another outfit like this.

Panda Crazy

2009-11-29T14:04:00.005-05:00

The weekend before Thanksgiving I got some time to sew some clothes for Demi. I was going to embroider gnomes on a pair of jeans when she tossed a fit yelling gnomes are old men and not good for her. Demi wanted "girl jeans". I took a look at the other embroidery designs I had been making and noticed I had a panda that was almost finished. Demi yelled panda's are also not a girl thing and will not be good for her. Quick on my feet I asked her what about a panda with a pretty bow in her hair. Demi smiled and said that would be a great girl thing. I finished making the panda design and got the embroidery machine humming. It quickly got panda crazy at my house. First I made her jeans.
Then I added a panda to a cheap walmart T-shirt.

Next I made panda barrettes.

and panda socks.

Demi loved it. Zee did too. The night before Thanksgiving I decided to make one for Zee. I only got 3 hours of sleep but I did finish her outfit. I was too tired to remember to get a pic. Below are action shots but they don't show the outfits much (sorry about that). Here is Zee with Mike's girlfriend.

Here is Demi with Rob's mom.
The jeans I made by cutting up some old adult jeans. The shirts were $4 each walmart. I spent about $0.80 for 2 sheets of felt. Total cost was around $8.80 for 2 outfits.

My Daughters first wearable sewing project.

2009-09-28T22:54:00.005-04:00

Demi sews a lot. I try to keep her busy with many types of sewing projects. She is now 4 years old and has just finished a project for someone (a baby) to wear. She hand embroidered a dog on some fabric and then sewed the sides and top shut (with a bit of my help using the sewing machine). I am such a proud mama! It is a little doggy hat for my cousin's baby (her baby shower is this weekend). The embroidery isn't perfect Demi made a few mistakes with the outline near the tail and the ear. We tried to fix it a bit by adding the mistakes into the design when she stitched the tail and ear details on the dog. I love things that look handmade and this has a very handmade look to it. I am so tempted to keep this and put it on a doll or stuffed animal. (sigh)... This will make it to the shower (even though I really really want to keep it) BUT the next embroidery project Demi makes is going in a frame on my wall!!!! I took pics of her doing this project and I will post them on my homeschool blog I am posting a week in advance on that blog so the pictures should show up by next week. The hat is nothing to make you can find patterns similar to it all over the web. I didn't use a pattern (I made it from a sleeve of a knit shirt). I know the hat isn't an original idea but I might post how I set it up for a young child to make herself. I will try to post how to make this project simple enough for a preschooler to do by the weekend on my tutorial blog I did set this project up a tiny bit different for her than I would have if I was doing the embroidery myself.

OK enough of my chatter! Here is the hat!Isn't it very CUTE????? I LOVE IT!!! I think it is beautiful art (considering the artist is 4).

Below is a close up of the embroidery.

I hope to have my project finished up by tomorrow. My baby shower gift is something that kind of goes with this hat. I hope I get my project done before the shower. Fingers crossed I will have pix to share tomorrow of my project!

OOPS!

2009-09-27T12:27:00.002-04:00

I just noticed that this poor blog has been left getting dusty for a very long time! Sorry! I have done a lot of crafting but I don't remember what all I made. I also got off track with taking pictures of my projects. I remember making my dad a BBQ set for a gift (I embroidered an apron, oven mitts, and pot holder. I made my mom a set of embroidered bath towels for her birthday. I made a ton of summer clothes for my girls (and lots more late in the season to wear to the beach). I made both my girls hooded towels (plan to embroider them someday to make them look nicer). I made several little things for some of my friends. OH! I am still working on a pair of socks for my mom. I NEED to get back into the routine of snapping a quick pic and post a few notes here. I am still working on my girls fall/winter clothing. I will remember to set the camera by my sewing machine as I do some crafting this week. We have babies galore popping up in my family so I plan to do a lot of cute baby gift projects. I hope to have pix of a new finished project by tomorrow night.

sorry! I will be back in just a few days.

2009-06-22T18:07:00.007-04:00

I will be back soon. Life is a bit crazy (and a bit ugly right now). I did have to take a tiny break from crafting (I went almost a week of no crafting). I realized that I need to create things (have craft time for myself) because it helps me forget some of the ugly things in life. I am now back to crafting but as many of you know I am dealing with a bunch of ugly, unkind, and bothersome things in my life right now. Adding to this difficult time is Zee hasn't been sleeping so until I get some sleep I don't think I will know how to properly deal with all the troubles that keeps popping into my life. I hope after some sleep everything will be OK. Sleep and letting time pass sometimes have a way of working things out.

I am so lucky to have my family and some wonderful friends who have been by my side. My friend Kris is a life saver (OK, that is a bit extreme BUT she is a true tear saver). Kris is one of my best friends (we have been friends for 12-14 years now). Over the last few weeks she has called daily and helped me stop crying and even start laughing so many times (more times than I can count). She has her hands full with her 2 autistic children yet still has time to help me with my dumb little problems. I love her and feel so blessed to have such a wonderful friend who lets me know I am not alone when life gets a bit ugly.

I will be back with nothing but happy thoughts in the next couple days. I promise to find a way to push ahead and put the ugly stuff behind my by the end of the week. I will also start posting again by next Monday on my family/school blog. Nobody wants me to post on that right now because all I would do is cry and complain about more the little things that are bothering me. By Monday I will be back to my happy self! I promise!

Them darn socks!

2009-06-06T20:53:00.006-04:00

OK, I am about to eat my words!!! I am sorry everyone! I know I said that I doubt I would ever learn to darn socks. Well that is true I didn't ever think I would want to darn socks! AND I didn't really learn how. But I did end up taking a stab at sock darning this week. To tell the entire story I first need to show you one of this years finished projects I haven't shared yet. Here is a picture taken end of Jan. beginning of Feb. of some socks I was working on.
It was my first time knitting 2 socks on one set of circular needles at the same time. I love this method and it was very easy for me to pick up. I was knitting 2 socks at the same time on 2 sets of dpns and that was a more complicated way of doing things and required 2 sets of sharp dpns in my lap (not very safe with little children climbing on me). If you are wondering the sock yarn is NOT one I would recommend to anyone. The yarn is Moda-Dea Sassy Stripes Yarn. The color is called vintage. It is a sport weight sock yarn. IT STUNK! As in the smell! It had a very strong odor! Rob thought it smelled nice. BUT he didn't have it in his face forever! Not a skunk stink more like a excess dye or sizing smell. I have bought some fabrics in the past with the same smell. It smells kind of like new denim jeans. The cost was about $5 for a small ball so it was $10 for a pair of socks and I don't spend much over that to buy wool sportswash, no odor, sock/fingering weight yarn. Next time I am yarn shopping I will pick the wool and skip on this stuff! HOWEVER, if I needed some sock yarn and it was on sale or the only sock yarn I could get my hands on I would buy it and give it another try (I don't hate it enough to refuse to ever use it again I am just stating that I have knit with several yarns that are a lot nicer yarns for about the same amount of money I spent on this stuff). The yarn was a bit thicker than the sock yarns I am use to using and it squeaked on the needles. It is an acrylic yarn and I wonder if it squeaked because it was acrylic or because I sized down the needles a size to knit them a bit tighter (in hopes they would hold up longer). As I was knitting them my hubby suggested I make them longer socks. Because of that I knitted and knitted until I used every last bit of yarn. It took me forever to finish them ( I worked on them for over a month). Here they are!
I think I finished them just before my parents came home from Florida. I think that was the end of Feb. This is the only picture I have I didn't have time to wash or block them I ran them over to my mom. She told me she could smell the odor but thought the smell didn't smell bad to her (but she didn't have them in her face for a month). The smell did wash out after she washed them.

OK, I know you are now wondering what this has to do with me eating my words. Well my Mom got a snag in her socks and ended up with a hole. She sent them back to me to fix. Here is the hole in the toe.I noticed the heels are already worn very thin and looking like some tiny holes are starting. This set of socks I am sure I knitted them for long wearing heels. I knit them tight and the yarn is a strong acrylic. My Mother LOVES her hand knit socks. She had to wear them a TON to have them this worn out like this by the end of May!
I didn't have any yarn to match so I took 1 inch of yarn off the ribbing of both socks. My hubby thought I was confused in how to fix socks when he saw me taking an inch of the knee when the hole was in the toe (I laughed at that). I used the yarn I took off the top to sew up the hole in the toe (I am sure I didn't do a proper darning but I did my best at fixing the hole. When I look I can see the spot I mended but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. After fixing the hole, I went over the heels adding a bit more yarn (added a layer of new yarn). I copied the stitches to make the heels thicker making them two layers thick. I hope that helps the socks hold up longer. I now see that my Mom loves all the socks that I make and I think the best way to fix the wearing out sock problem is to make her up a large collection! She now has 4 pair I knit for her but I see that isn't enough! I hope to get a few more knit up over the next couple months. Then maybe she will have enough to rotate so they hold up a bit longer.

Here is the mended socks. This time I did wash them and block them. I hope they last longer than 3 months this time!
Here is a close up of the fixed toe.
Here is a close up of the fixed heels.
After I finished them I thought how cutting out the heel and adding a new afterthought heel would have been quicker. I like making afterthought heels when I knit socks I just need to remember to do that on my sock mending. The socks don't look as good as they did new but they don't look real bad so I guess they are OK. I do hope the thick heels hold up a bit longer. 2 layers of sports weight, acrylic yarn, tightly knit should hold up. I will let you all know if it doesn't.

I guess I am now a person who darns socks! I never thought I would ever want to fix socks! I am the type of person who will often start a new sewing project so I don't have to use a seam ripper to pick out a small seam. Spending a few hours fixing things has never been my thing..... I guess I am getting old! What's next? Stuffing bread in my purse? I can't do that! No, seriously I can't do that.... the bread crumbs would get all over my knitting projects in my purse. I always have a pair of socks I am knitting in my purse. A roll or a bread stick would mess up my socks. I would not like to spend hours picking crumbs out of the knitting.

Kitchen towel embroidered gift set

2009-06-04T16:58:00.004-04:00

My husband's brother lives out of state. He and his girl friend have just came in for a visit. I wanted to give her something a bit more personal than the gift card my hubby bought for her. I decided to try to make a set of embroidered kitchen towels. I didn't have time so sew or knit anything so I bought a set of towels and embroidered her name on them. I am thinking that with the name Oleksandra she probably doesn't own many things with her name printed on it. She is from the Ukraine. I used red thread. Why red you ask? I LOVE a splash of red in kitchen decorations. I keep making things with the bits of red that I want to have for my kitchen then keep giving them away. I am determined to eventually get my red in my kitchen I hope once the paint is on the cupboards and the next round of birthdays is over to sneak some free time to make myself some red stuff for my kitchen.

I didn't want her name in the middle of the cloth so I turned the dishcloth corner facing down and wrote Oleksandra's Kitchen on the corners facing outward.I wrote the same on the center bottom of the towels (but flat across the bottom). 4 dishcloths and 2 dish towels.

I had to let them sit a few minutes before wrapping (notice in pix below the one on the top left is darker it is still damp).
Travis (my 9 year old) made her a bar of lavender soap (lavender in color, scents, and seeds inside).
He wrapped it with a bit of paper and a ribbon.I then put the soap on top of the towels and tied it all up with a matching red polka dot ribbon.

I hope she likes it (fingers crossed). It is hard to make things for people you don't know much about. I know she doesn't like dishwashers and always washes all her dishes by hand. I remember her saying that and that is the reason for this gift. I hope next time I see her I can find out a bit more about the things she likes. She is a very sweet soft spoken girl.

My hubby and children are off delivering the gift now. Demi (my 3 year old) added a picture she drew to go with this gift but we rolled it and tied the bow on when she was walking out the door. It was a very cute picture but I didn't have time to grab the camera.

WOW! 3 post in one day!! Maybe I will catch up with all the pictures of my crafting. I shared all the crafting I did so far today. That is a step in the right direction.

Embroidery gifts right hot off the machine.

2009-06-04T16:20:00.004-04:00

My pictures are not perfect. I had to snap them very quickly. I just finished this project today. My hubby and children have just drove off to deliver it.

This set was a very late Mother's Day gift for my MIL. My husband had plans to buy her something but he changed his mind (I think she didn't want or already had what he had in mind) so I made this up instead. We haven't seen her in the last couple weeks so I even though I feel bad about rushing around I guess she doesn't know that it was a very late put together gift. I started this 3 days ago but my youngest just cut a tooth and was very fussy yesterday and the day before so it took a lot longer than I had planned. I made her up a set of embroidered bath towels. 4 large bath towels, 2 hand towels, and 2 wash cloths.

I added in 2 washcloths with her name on them for face towels (I bought 2 extra wash clothes to start this project in case I made a mistake). I didn't make any big mistakes so I wrote out Emily on them and tossed them in the gift set.
My son made up a bar of lavender soap for her (he dyed it yellow and added bits of lavender to it).He wrapped it in a bit of paper and we tied a ribbon on it.

We placed the soap on top of the towels and tied it all up in a large polka dotted ribbon.

I don't know if she will like them or not but I would love to get a gift like this. My sister made me up a set of embroidered towels a few years ago and I love them. I think it is one of the best gifts I ever received.

A bit of strange needle felting

2009-06-04T15:59:00.002-04:00

Back in April I spent a few nights doing some tiny needle felting projects.
Here is a tiny frog and heart (I was going to attach them to something but my youngest 2 children took them for little play toys.
I made some tiny hair clips.

And a monster for under the bed. This crazy guy is only 3 or 4 inches big. He hides under the beds. We now know him and are no longer afraid of monsters at night.
I know the frog, heart, and monster might look a bit strange! I had lots of fun making them. Felting is my fun time. It is a color outside the lines play however I want time. I never worry if someone else might like it. That is also the reason I don't give many felted tings away as gifts. I doubt anyone would enjoy my felted projects other than my children.

This isn't "felting" but it is felting supplies and I think adding it here is a good way to do a bit of catching up (I still have 40-50 projects to post from this year). Here is some yummy dying I did. It is very soft merino roving dyed in yellow, pink, and blue (in shades that moved me that day). I love to play with dyes. I have as much fun doing it as my children have finger painting or playing in playdough.

4 small projects shared lots more to go. I don't think I will ever catch up!

Summer shorts using the felting machine

2009-05-31T13:37:00.004-04:00

I know I mentioned that I recently got a felting machine. I got it just a couple days before Mother's Day. I embellished 3 pairs of shorts with my new machine. Shorts are made from my old jeans. I know you must get tired of hearing made from old jeans over and over. The good news for you (bad for me) is I am running out of jeans. I will have to start using my fabrics soon (I might even use some of the beautiful Japanese fabrics I got for Christmas). Are you wondering how I have been sewing with an old stash of jeans for 3+ years now without running out? My large collection of jeans came from my hubby moving up in size 2 or3 times, add to that my HUGE collection of thin clothes (before I became a mom), and jeans given to me to make things with (thanks to my Mom, Dad, and MIL). My own large collection of old (thin) jeans have been tucked in a cubby in the back of my closet out of the way for years. I now need that space to store my new sewing machines (my family is getting tired of having 4 machines on the kitchen table all at the same time). I figured the best thing to do is to embroider one day, sew one day, serge the edges another, and embellish (use the felting machine) another day. That system I hope will keep the fabric and supplies tucked away and I will only need to move one machine at meal times. In the next week I hope to move whatever machine I am using out on my porch to use when my children are playing in the yard. When that happens my kitchen table should be free of my messes.

The first shorts I decorated with craft felt that I cut into a flower and a butterfly.

Close up of flower all the edges of the flower curl up a bit and look cute.The butterfly I did add a bit of hand dyed superwash merino to outline the wings.
I made them for Demi but Zee claimed them. She hugs them and yells for them when she sees them. The day Demi tried them on Zee screamed and yelled for them and even tried pulling them off of Demi. LOL! I decided it was best to give them to Zee because she likes them so much and Demi didn't care that much for them. They are longer shorts on Zee but she is happy with them so we are all happy.

My favorite shorts are this pair.
Front side.
Back side.

I used some yellow and white cotton dishcloth yarn to decorate them. I added quilt strips to the bottom. Notice this pair of shorts are not made from the bottom of jeans. I can get 2 pairs of jeans (size 18months-4 T) out of one pair of jeans. When my children are babies (newborn-12 months) I can get 3 pairs of shorts from one pair of jeans. I used my new gathering foot for my overlock machine (my family gave me for Mother's Day) to add the ruffles. I am not crazy about the gathering foot (seems to be more fiddly and takes longer than the clear elastic method that I normaly use). I hope in time it will grow on me. After looking at some clothes in the stores with the stitching showing I decided to leave the serging at the bottom show. I view them all as play clothes that will be worn playing in the sand box and at the park. they are made from old clothes. Because of that I didn't take the time to turn under the stitching to hem it under. They are my favorite out of the three. They fit Demi as long shorts and Zee as gauchos (wide leg crop pants). All I did was swirl some yarn and tack it down with the felter. Quick, easy, and fun!

The last pair of shorts are Demi's favorite. She insisted on wearing them the first 3 days after I made them. They never get put away it is right from the clean clothes basket to her body. I think she might even like them more than her dresses.

I made them from some merino roving I dyed.I love how needle felting dyed roving gives the look of water colored painting (I think that is what it is called).

Here is a close up of the big mushroom.and a closeup of the baby mushrooms.

Sorry I didn't take any pictures of the children wearing them. I am glad I remembered to snap a picture at all. I am sure I will have lots of pictures of my girls wearing them by the end of summer. I am sure everyone will be sick of seeing them.

If you don't have a felting machine but like any of the shorts and might want to make something similar let me say you can easily do this without buying a felting machine. Needle felting can be very cheap. Felting needles run $5-6 at Joanns for a pack of 4 needles. I started needle felting with a 4 piece assortment pack from Joanns. When I first started out I bought the assortment pack and the felting foam (that was about $3 or $4). The foam is not needed you can use any old thick pillow or foam. The reason for the felting foam is to give you something to stab the needles into. As long as the foam or pillow is thick or firm enough you will be fine (make sure the needles don't poke out the back side). I get a lot more than $5 of fun out of a pack of needles! I have seen some online kids craft projects that they say children can use felting needles. My son is 9 and I worry a bit that he might stab himself with the sharp needles so I let him use my felting machine (after I set the guard) and I plan to get him a clover felting tool. The stand alone needles I think are a bit more dangerous to use (for my 9 year old son who often gets distracted with what he is doing). I have poked myself with a felting needle many times and it does hurt. Of course I have poked myself with sewing needles a lot more than felting needles.

You can buy a clover felting tool that is a bit easier to use than the needles alone for a little bit more money. Joann's sells them for about $16.50 and you can buy needles to replace the ones in the tool when they bend or break.

This place has excellent prices on felting supplies http://www.tryourdesigns.com/index1.htm The person who owns it I think is the list mom for the machine felting group. Her prices for hand felting needles and machine felting needles are a lot cheaper than any other place I have seen. When I need new needles for my machine or to use by hand I will be trying this place out.

If you live near me (NE PA) and ever want to give felting a try stop by and we can make a day of it!

I am in a bit of a rush I hope this post makes sense. I don't have any time to look it over. It is Sunday and my family is waiting for me to join them. I will be back in a day or two (I hope).

Felting simple sock mending

2009-05-31T11:57:00.006-04:00

I just noticed that I haven't shared any of my felting projects lately. Felting and dying are probably my favorite two crafts to do. I have been using this blog lately as a way to jot down notes so if someone asks me how I did something I will be able to look back and see (this is the reason I have all the silly notes to self on many of my post). I don't know many people who felt and felting is such a simple process I don't ever feel like I need to take notes. I rarely ever want to felt the same object twice and I have given very few felted things as gifts. Most of my felting time is just fun playing around time.

I figured I should post a few of my felting projects (things I made April-May) so the people who hear me talk about how much I love to felt can see some of what I do with it.

Back in April my mom wore some holes in some socks I knit her. I knit her the socks well over a year ago. I knit them with some merino I spun and I dyed it in very long loops making it a self striping yarn. My Mom LOVES her socks. I DON'T love them because I was a very new knitter when I made them and the yarn I spun took forever to spin and dye. Last month after wearing a hole in her socks she showed them to me and asked if I could fix them for her. I tired to tell her it was time to get rid of them (toss them, give them to the birds to make nest with, cut up into compost to put in the garden, or such) but she wouldn't agree to that. She said she would keep them and wear them with holes if I wouldn't fix them.

Here is the hole.
The thin heel. I imagine the very thin spot on the heel is a thin spot in my spinning more than a worn spot from her wearing them.
A very thin area along the ankle. This is probably a thin spun yarn area and being soft merino wool (no nylon or mohair to strengthen it) I am sure it got thinner from shoes rubbing on it.

I didn't have any yarn dyed to match and I was very busy making Easter dresses for my girls and an Easter gift for my Mom so I took the easy way out and patched her socks with some needle felting.

I need to let all knitters, who are gasping at the thought of felting to mend socks, know that I am not a knitter! I only know how to make socks and I can't follow a real knitting pattern. I don't have the skill to "mend socks". If you are a knitter you probably already know that handspun single ply merino is not a strong yarn to make socks with. I now know to ply it with nylon or mohair but back then I didn't know anything about making socks.

To mend the socks I cut a patch of pink felt that I had laying in the craft box (the pink felt was scraps from a sweater that I machine felted and dyed pink months ago). I put the patch with a bit of roving over the worn bottoms and needle felted it together. I ended up padding the entire heel on both socks. I hope doing that will give the sad old socks a bit more time to wear them before they fall apart. I used some roving (white because I didn't have time to dye any) and felted in the worn out areas on the ankle. Last thing I did was I cut a tiny heart shape to cover the hole and felted that on.
Sure this might be the worst mending job ever done to a pair of socks but I feel the pink heart over the hole is a very cute fix! The heart is the kind of thing my Mom did when I wore out my rag dolls or favorite clothes. The pads on the heels don't show when she is wearing the sock and I hope the padding feels nice and soft on her feet. If I had a bit more time to fix them I think I would have still felted them and most likely used the pink patches but I would have dyed some roving to use so the white spots would blended in a bit better.

I don't know if I will ever learn how to properly mend socks. To me a patch on the knees was good enough for me as a child to fix my favorite jeans so a patch on the heals is also "good enough" in my eyes. I think patches are a fun way to embellish clothing (even socks). I am not the best knitter so none of my socks are "a thing of beauty". They will never compare to the beautiful hand knit socks you see online. Mine are simple, fun, and functional (both with or without the patches). I kind of wonder why others don't use patches knitting? I understand how ugly it would look on cables or lacework but for colorful fun kids sweaters or funky socks why not? I think it might be a good solution for a sweater with a moth hole or a snag.

If patched socks are not your thing don't worry I will post pictures of the denim shorts with felt embellishments I made a couple weeks ago next. They are some very simple fun kids clothes.

Cheeky monkey part 2

2009-05-26T18:50:00.002-04:00

I was making up some summer shorts and still had monkeys in my head. I decided to make monkey shorts to go with the cheeky monkey top. The shorts are made from an old pair of my jeans (I wore them back when I was a size 4 that was 10 or 11 years ago). I cut off the pocket from the back side of the jeans and put monkeys on them. I then stitched the pockets on the sides of the shorts. I did this because with the long top pockets on the back would never show. I am SO HAPPY I did that! The shorts look very cute on my girl with the tiny side pockets. I tried using autopunch (embroidery software) 2 more times today to make the monkeys and they didn't turn out any nicer than my first try (I hope to figure that out someday). I put elastic in the back of the shorts. The bottom was all ready finished nicely for me. I use the hem that was at the bottom of the jeans (I call that smart quick crafting).

Front side.

Back side.

I had to take pictures of the outfit laying flat on the table and on the body shape because Zee wasn't being a coopertive model today.

She cried unless I let her have the apple and she kept blocking the outfit with the silly apple. I tried snapping about 50 pictures but she would put that apple back in front of her before the shutter would click every time.

This is the only picture I got without the apple blocking her top. I have no idea what she is doing with her fingers. LOL!My Cheeky Monkey!!!!

PS. I did finish Demi's dress last night I forgot to take pictures I promise to do that after I get my dishes washed up.

Monkey buisness.

2009-05-25T19:57:00.002-04:00

The other night I was looking at clothes online at Gap baby (toddler 2-4T size of both my girls). I was doing a window shopping not real buying. I saw a tank that had a monkey hanging from the word cheeky. Cheeky monkey is the perfect way to describe my youngest! I decided to create a cheeky monkey shirt for my little girl. I wanted to make it quickly so I gave the auto punch that came with my embroidery machine a try. It was FAST!!! It did turn out OK BUT I want to find a way to edit the design to fill it in a bit more. To me the satin stitching (it is the part done in black thread) looks a bit thin. The shirt shows a bit all around the black. I looks like a gap between the outline and the fill (I hope that makes sense). If it was a bit wider my design would be full a better looking. I suppose making this design on a brown T-shirt would also make it look a bit nicer (I used a sheet because I was sure it wouldn't turn out). I think I might have done something to this design when using the auto punch. I wonder this mess up happened when I click on satin stitch for the outline? I wonder if it would have looked a bit nicer (been filled in all the way) if I didn't change the kind of stitching on the black part of the design? If anyone knows what I did and how to fix this (or how to prevent this from happening on my next auto punch try) and has a minute to clue me in I would be a very happy girl! I also have some puckering in the letters. I think that might be from using such a thin fabric but I wonder if I can do something to prevent the puckering the next time I use letters?

Here is the top.

Isn't that Cheeky monkey cute? My girl is only 20 months old so she won't complain that the embroidery isn't perfect.

For the readers who are not into machine embroidery I made a little dress for Demi (my almost 4 year old) yesterday. I used a lot of the crochet trims I made about a month or so ago on it. I just need to sew on the pockets tonight and I will share a picture of that. Sewing stretchy pockets on woven material might take a bit of time. I think I might just stitch them on by hand. I enjoy a bit of hand sewing to keep my fingers busy late at night. Anyway, I will share a picture of the dress very soon. I promise.

Gift For My Mom and My New Toys.

2009-05-21T08:45:00.011-04:00

Rob's xbox caught the red ring of death (that silly machine breaks a lot). The death of the Xbox ended up being wonderful news for me!!! Rob bought a new PS3 with lots of extra stuff (games and such) and he gave me the same amount of money to spend on whatever I wanted!!! I knew exactly what I wanted andwasted no time spending every last penny of my money. I bought the singer 250 futura sewing/embroidery machine (I have wanted this machine for about 2 years now). Note to everyone this machine has BAD reviews on Joann.com BUT I joined the Futura yahoo group and purchased my machine from WWW.SINGERTEXAS.COM . I felt confident that between the singertexas support and the 5,000 members on the yahoo group I would be able to find a solution to any "beeping problems". I have had my machine for a week now and have no problems. I bring up my bobbin thread and hold the ends for the first few stitches (like I do in free motion quilting) and I have had no problems with my machine. I have done about 60 or so trial embroideries and one finished project (shown at the bottom in this post) I know some people don't like singer machines. I LOVE THIS MACHINE!!!! I noticed that doing embroidery is more like quilting than sewing so I can see how some sewers or people learning to sew can struggle learning how to use an embroidery machine. I think a quilter would have an easier time learning. It wasn't hard to use at all!!! Within a couple hours of opening the box I was embroidering things. With the extra money I had leftover I also bought a huskystar embellisher (felting machine) this is something I have been looking at for about a year (safe way to let my children felt). I love felting and being a yarn spinner I have lots of wool around to use with this machine. I also got a few other things (jumbo embroidery hoop, new presser foot,and some linen fabric). I have been having lots of fun playing with my new toys (that is the reason I have been MIA in blogland). I just noticed that I have 50-100 projects that I haven't blogged and I see I am getting into my old routine of not taking pictures of finished projects before giving them away. I have made several things that I didn't bother taking pictures of (I hope nobody asks me how I made them because I know I will not remember). I need to try and do some catching up so I might try posting twice a day to catch up (if I can find enough free time in my days to do that).

The first thing I NEED to share is a garden bucket. I made it for my Mom for a Mother's Day gift. I plan to make 2 more for gardening friends and I am worried if I don't write about it now I will forget how I did it. I can't make the other two until Rob brings me home some more buckets.

To make it all I did was slip covered a 5 gallon bucket (the slip cover I made looked like a huge pillowcase) . I put the closed end inside the pail and folded the open end around the front. Elastic around the top of the "pillow case" is what holds the cover snug on the bucket. I now wish I would have taken pictures of the bottom of the bucket and a picture of what the cover looked like when it wasn't on the bucket. I will try to do that when I make the next one.

Pockets on the front of the bucket is just one long rectangle. I added elastic in the tops of pockets after I stitched them on because the pockets looked way to loose (tools hung WAY out). My next bucket I think I will add elastic across the top of the fabric before I stitch it on to make pockets. I will also tuck under my ends so stitches don't show. I didn't do that on this first one because it was easier to design the pattern this way.

I thought putting the flowers up and down would make it look like flowers growing. The problem is when the pockets are full of large things the flowers look more like mistakes than flowers growing so the next one I will line up all the flowers near the top of the pockets.I do like the look of the embroidered flowers on the pockets. I think the flowers staggered high and low looks nice on the empty pockets (to bad it doesn't look as nice when the pockets are full).

Below is a picture of the back side. I made a pocket for seed packets and two other large pockets. For the 2 pockets on the bottom I ran elastic across the top first then sewed the pockets on. I think if I run one huge pocket strip with elastic on top that goes all the way around the bucket it will be easier to sew it together and it will make snug pockets (things won't fall out if bucket gets knocked over). BUT I am not sure that is the way I should make it because I do like the look of the front pockets a bit better so I will need to do some thinking about this before making my next one. If I ever make one for myself it would be easy to tell if the bucket falls over and needs the tight pockets or if the loose nicer looking pockets hold everything inside.Can you picture how it would hold tight and look snug if the back pocket in the picture above ran all the way around the bucket? I know this would make it a quick sewing project BUT I do like the shape of the pockets on the front side of bucket a bit better.

Pillow for knees!

My Mom's name is Linda (I guess you already figured that out). This was originally going to be a pocket but it didn't look right on the bucket so I turned it into a gardening pillow.

It attaches to the bucket handle with a snap. you can see the button hole I added to the cover so the handle and the bucket can attach without messing up my cover. I made one nice button hole and one not so perfect button hole. I am not sure what hole this is (my luck it is the not so nice button hole). NOTE TO SELF... Don't sew button holes late at night. You always mess at least one up when you are tired wait until the morning to sew any button holes!!!!
For the next bucket I will tuck in the stitching above the snap and top stitch it so it doesn't show.

Below is a picture of the stuff I stuck inside the pockets. I assumed she already had a nice set of gloves and gardening tools so I bought all cheaper things that she could use if hers bend or get lost (or let grandchildren use when they want to help). They are more for looks to fill the pockets than they are "gifts". I had plans for my children to decorate wide pop craft sticks for plant markers to fill the last pocket but I somehow misplaced my huge box of craft pop sticks (shh don't tell my mom she doesn't know her gift wasn't complete).

Below is an odd angle of the bucket. It really looked much better than this (at least I think it did). I wish I would have taken a closeup picture of the watering can and the ladybug. The watering can embroidery looked so nice (it was a free one I found online but I can't remember the web page right now). You can see a close up of the elastic around the top in this picture. I ran elastic around the bottom of the bucket and around the rim. I figured it was the best way I could think of to hold the bucket cover on and keep it from sliding around.

Below is a picture of the front side full of gardening stuff. Notice how the lower flowers look bad when pockets are full? They look like crushed flowers (not the growing flower look I was going for).Inside the bucket I stuck 4 small veggie plants.
I figure she can use the inside to carry out plants or a watering can. She can fill the inside of the bucket with weeds when she is weeding. And she can fill it with her fruits and veggies when it is time to harvest. OR she can use the inside as a place to stick sprinkler or other gardening tools out of the way.

I feel bad that this project was not perfect for my Mom (I always feel this way after making my first of anything). This is the way my designing goes. I don't use patterns so I often have a hard time taking a picture in my head and getting it to work right on real materials. The first of anything I make is usually functional but always has lots of room for improvements. My Mom (like all Moms) is happy with anything her children make (even a child that's 38 years old). She doesn't mind the mistakes (this is the reason my mother gets the first of almost anything I make). Many times I only make one and never feel like making anymore. So even though my mom sometimes ends up with my worst projects she often ends up with the one of a kind projects that nobody else gets. I had TONS of fun designing it. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about how I can improve on this idea for my next one. I feel good that it ended up being a functional garden bucket (but really how can a store bought bucket not function as a bucket). Starting with a bucket was an instant success.

I think before starting my next one I need to decide on the pocket style and elastic placement. Once I figure out what pocket style I like the best making many more garden buckets should be easy. I have plans to make 2 more and I think by the time I finish them I will have my pattern set up the way I like it.