Handy

Sometimes the sewing skills can be very handy. The other day, M had a birthday party to attend. The plan was to go over to Target that morning and pick out a present. Only when the girls woke up, A was sick. So, since going to Target was out, I whipped up a quick present:
(There's a weird glare, but I was hurrying to take a picture before M's ride took her to the party.) It's a slightly larger version of the puffer fishes that I made the girls last year. I was fairly happy with the way it turned out, especially since I just whipped it up in a couple of hours.

Another recent project was the girls' Valentine's dresses. (They were the next project completed!)
I got the fabric ages ago and I used shirts we already had, so it was also a very cheap project. (M's shirt fits better than it looks in this picture.) And they're happy. :)

Yesterday I spent a bunch of time sewing. I was working on a dress for myself, but halfway through, I discovered I'd cut one of the pieces out wrong (argh!) and I didn't have enough fabric to fix it (double argh!) So I sidetracked to make a couple of denim skorts for the girls. I spent some time the other night cutting out a number of different projects, so it was just a question of sewing them together. With the serger it didn't take long at all. I already had some cute new tight to go with the skirts, so I thought I'd make a quick shirt to match. Pictures to come later. But first I'm going to finish my dress - M and I made a Joann's run to get another piece of fabric for it. (And, of course, fabric for some spring dresses. M is perfectly happy to go to fabric stores with me, but it's very hard to leave without letting her pick out a fabric! She cracks me up!) So that's this morning's project. Well, hopefully - my mom says I'm cursed with dresses, and she's got a point! We shall see - first if I can get it finished, and second if it actually fits right.....

Burda

For Mother's Day last year, I got a subscription to Burda World of Fashion magazine. And I love getting it, although it seems as though there's an every other month pattern of including patterns I'd actually wear. Or make, I guess. There were a couple of coat patterns that I adored, but the likelihood that I will make myself a nice wool coat is low, mostly because I already have one. Anyway, in all this time, I've never actually made anything out of the magazine, even when I liked things. No real reason why, I guess, other than that tracing the patterns (and figuring out which lines to trace!) seemed like a pain.

But in the last few days, I finally made something! It's from the December 2009 issue, and it's a hooded shirt (pattern 122). I used a super soft jersy-ish knit from Joann's, and this is how it turned out:
(There aren't any weird horizontal lines on the shirt, by the way; the camera was doing something funny.)
Back view, including the hood:
(Oh, I finally figured out how to use the timer on my camera, so these are timer shots. Ignore the goofy smiles.)

I quite like how this turned out - it's comfy and casual and cute. It was kind of a pain to make, though - there were supposed to be bands along the opening in the front. However, I read the instructions for that part literally 15-20 times and couldn't figure out what they were talking about. I finally gave up, folded that bit over, and sewed it together. My plan was just to make a dart there, but I had trouble getting it to lie flat, so I finally stitched a line down the entire front of the shirt. I may re-do that, because there's still a funny little bubble in that area, but it's much better. If I make it again, I'm just going to do a placket there - it would be much easier, and I think it would be more successful.

The sleeves are quite long, but that's mostly because I forgot how much seam allowance I put on there. And I actually kind of like them long with this anyway, so it works for me. I think this will be a great top to take along as a cover-up when we go to Hawaii in March!

And now I'm inspired to try some other patterns from my magazines. :) There's a skirt in the same issue that I think will be next, although it's probably a bad choice, because I think it's probably pretty tricky. So cute, though! Although I should really make the girls' Valentine's Day dresses first - it's coming right up! At least those go together pretty quickly, especially since I got a bunch of the good clear elastic from my co-op. In fact, maybe I'll get to work on those now, since I have a bit of time before M gets out of school....

Blankets

A while back, I saw a link to the Disney Give a Day, Get a Day program. If you haven't heard of it, Disney has set up something where you can get a free ticket to Disney if you volunteer for a day with various organizations. We've been talking for a while about going to Disney sometime this year, so I figured that it was a good opportunity for us to get a free ticket while doing something good. Win-win. And then I discovered that one of the volunteer groups in our area was a branch of Project Linus, which gives blankets to children who are ill or otherwise in need. Even better!

So, I signed up the eligible members of the family. (M is too young.) I got gray fleece for Iestyn to fringe - it's very plain, but I thought it would be good for a teenage boy. I had some super soft white fleece that A did the fringe on. (I didn't tell her about the Disney thing at all, just that we were making blankets for kids who needed them. And after she did the fringe, she said "I like making things for people who need them. It feels good." Such a sweet girl!) Then I added some appliqued hearts, since I thought the white was a little boring. I like the way it turned out, and it was a really easy way to make a plain blanket a little more fun:


And last (but definitely not least!), I made a quilt. I really love it:


Certainly there are plenty of flaws, but it's fun and colorful, and that's exactly what I was hoping for. I made disappearing nine patch blocks in the rainbow colors plus pink and brown, then I put borders on them and made the rainbow center block with all those colors as well. The backing is a black fabric with rainbow colored music notes, and the binding is a purple dot. I didn't actually do the binding the "proper" way (I machine stitched it), but honestly, the sewing by hand just wasn't going to happen.

Tomorrow I'm going to ship these off to Project Linus, and theoretically we'll end up with Disney tickets. But even if we don't (or never use them), as A said, it feels good to make things for people who need them.

Christmas part 2

In addition to the huge puppet theater project, I made a few more things for Christmas this year. I made lots more fabric bags for wrapping, although I need to make more, since we totally ran out before we were done wrapping.

I made a bunch of birdie ornaments like this:
They were my version of this pattern from the Purl Bee. I stuffed the body with stuffing, rather than a layer of batting, and it worked way better to use heavy interfacing on the wings and then just sew them together from the outside, rather than trying to turn them. Obviously I made them a little smaller as well. Oh, and I used upholstery thread for my hanger, rather than ribbons. I preferred the look, which I discovered after I forgot to put in the ribbons after the first set! I made a bunch of birds - teacher gifts, stocking stuffers, and gifts for random people I wasn't expecting to give presents to! I especially like the fact that they take such a little bit of fabric, because it's a good use for some of my favorite fabric scraps.

I made everyone lip balm as a stocking stuffer, too, which was a hit. I have enough left over that I'm going to make myself some more sometime, although I may do a higher beeswax concentration so it's a little more like chapstick - the recipe I used was more lip gloss than lip balm.

My last major Christmas project was an outfit for each of the girls, and I'm quite thrilled with them. Although they make A in particular look really big! I think it's the jeans.
I had the shirt with hood pattern from Burda, appliquéd a flower on the shirt, then added them to jeans as well. (Which was actually rather a pain - I ironed them on, but then I did hand stitching to secure it, because the location on the jeans made using my machine impossible, and boy, am I BAD at making nice, neat, even hand stitches! It's a good thing no one will be looking too closely at that stitching, lol!) But they look awfully cute. And A has already requested more of the shirts (not a surprise, really; she loves those shirts with hoods.)

Our Christmas itself was very nice - busy, but it's always good to see everyone. And now that the Christmas crafting is done for this year, I can make myself something - I have a few projects in mind, but I may take a short break first! I hope everyone has a happy holiday season!

I finished! Christmas part 1

Happily, I finished everything in time for Christmas. :)

A while back, I posted about some finger puppets that I made. After I finished them, I was inspired to make my big Christmas project for this year - a puppet theater and puppets for my kids:

I used (more or less) this pattern from Don't Look Now, and I really liked it. I made a few changes - no backdrop fabric, only one clown, and I renamed it to a + m theater, which took some creative lettering. Christmas Eve night we almost had a total disaster, because it turned out that we had the wrong dowels, but thankfully Iestyn had things in the garage we could use to make do. Anyway, I love the way it turned out (which is good, since it was hours and hours of work!), and the kids seem to like it pretty well. It's a little hard to tell, since they have so very many new presents to play with right now! But I'm sure it'll get use over time.

I took the ideas from the original puppets and made many more, as well as a bag for storage:
(The little birdies from the theater are so stinking cute, I'm going to have to use them on something else!)

The gingerbread man and the fox:
The Little Red Hen and her "friends":
An unpictured polar bear and monkey, and then my personal favorites, Tacky the Penguin, and his companions, Goodly, Lovely, Angel, Neatly and Perfect:
If you've never read Tacky, you really should. He's hilarious. And my kids like to play Tacky anyway ("What's Happening?"), so I figured they'd have fun with the puppets.

I also made a few more doggies for my nieces and nephew, but I took no pictures of those.

Crazy Christmas Craft

Normally every year I create something known as the Crazy Christmas Craft - some crafty goodness that I make for just about everyone that I know, and often something that takes up quite a lot of time. Like the hand-made, stenciled t-shirts last year. Or the polymer clay animal ornaments. There have been many. This year, I'm apparently not doing that. I've made crafts for people (and have more to make!), but there is less of an overarching theme. Or at least a little less stress. Although actually, I don't really find them stressful normally - sometimes a little nuts, but not stressful.

However, I *am* making my kids something that I suspect will end up in the Crazy Craft realm, because it's taking a lot of time. Not bad time, but LOTS of it. Here's a little sneaky peek - it involves this guy:

(who will have a face at some point). And I'm super excited about it!

I heart my husband

Iestyn spent last week in Japan on business. Before he left, we were talking about how I'd like to go shopping in Japan because they have such great crafts and fabric. And he is such a sweet man that he offered to buy me fabric while he was there!

So I found him a branch of Yuzawaya to visit near his hotel, and some, well, honestly, totally vague guidance about what sorts of fabric I like, and he went and got me this fun haul:
2 yards of the yellow one, which is frogs (adorable, and A loves it already), 4 yards of the pink with daisies, and a yard of the other three - ballerinas, dinosaurs, and some Kokka Trefle fabric(!) - look how cute:
He has a pretty good eye for things I'd like, especially for someone who's a little afraid of the fabric store, lol!

Plus he got a sample package of a bunch of different quilting fabrics - like a selection of fat quarter blenders, except they're not fat quarters. Maybe fat 1/8ths? Anyway, there are a bunch of different things in there. And he also got this great kit:
Stuffed chickens! Hee-hee.

I haven't had time to make the chickens yet, but I did use some of my new fabric this afternoon to make this needlecase for all the hand-sewing I've been doing lately:
(The button looks better in person, although I may ultimately decide to switch it for another one.)

The inside has felt for the needles, and two pockets - one for my embroidery scissors, and one for whatever else I need:
I basically read the Tiny Happy housewife tutorial and then made my own version. I totally love it. Now I need to get back to my lengthy list of things to make for the holidays, I suppose, but I'm glad to have a fun pincushion (see next post) and needlecase to use for all those projects. And I already have plans for quite a lot of the fabric Iestyn got me. :)