Gathered Clutch

I saw this awesome tutorial when it first came out over a year ago. I have always wanted to make it, but never had a reason to. Until now.

For the last 5 years we have had the best babysitter. She loves our kids, they lover her, she has been dependable, makes some killer mac and cheese, and we really just love her to pieces. She recently turned 18, graduated from high school, and is now moving with her family across the country before going away to college (also across the country). I knew this would be the perfect birthday/graduation/going away/thank you gift for her.



This was so easy to sew up! I cut the pieces one night and sewed it together the next. It only took me a couple of hours total (once I had the fabric picked out-the hardest part for me).



I opted to add the card pockets (the flowered fabric) and the divider (the striped fabric).

We filled it with a gift card and a few other goodies. I know she is going to love it!

Maternity shirts

I always feel like I get in such a rut with my maternity clothes. I like having lots of choices, but I don't want to buy a lot of maternity clothes since a) I will only wear them for a few months, b) I will most likely stain them, and c) they are so darn expensive. If I can make my own for little money, then I don't have to feel bad about any of these things. Here are a couple of things that I made in the last week to help augment my wardrobe a bit.


I found the pattern for this shirt here. I got it as a free download when the designer first released the pattern, but now it has to be purchased. It is basically a cropped shirt with 3 yard long tails on each side. The tails are wrapped around and around to finish the shirt. I love this shirt (although I feel a little neurotic when I wear it, always making sure that the tails haven't shifted and are where they should be). I love that it can be worn at any stage of pregnancy. I always have the problem of my shirts getting to short before my pregnancy is over. I think this shirt will be a solution to that problem. Sadly, I didn't get very good fabric, so it is running all over the place (like nylons run, not running away). As soon as I get some better fabric I will make a new one and wear it and love it. The pattern sews up really fast, especially with a serger. I think my total cost for this shirt was around $3.00.


I made these shirts using the same technique as I used on the top of my nightgown, but this time adding elastic so they would stay in place. I have some shirts and dresses that need shirts under them, but it is too hot to want to wear lots of layers. Plus, my prego belly is getting bigger by the second, so I wanted something that I could wear through the end of my pregnancy and after. Once again I used some huge tank tops that I scored for $1 each at Walmart. For the bottom of the black one I sewed on 1/4 inch elastic. (I made it a little too tight. Oops!) I finished the white one with some 5/8 inch fold over elastic (I get mine here). The white one is perfect. I think I am going to buy some black FOE and redo the bottom of the black shirt.

Here is a close-up of the FOE on the bottom of the white shirt. It is basically just elastic that is made to crease in the middle. FOE is a great invention!

I have been wearing these shirts over the last couple of days and they are perfect for what I need them for.

Nightgown

I stumbled across this tutorial and thought it would make a perfect nightgown. I love it and hope to make a dress out of the tutorial at some point, but I was in greater need of a nightgown at the time, so that was what was on my brain when I saw it.

I am a girl of average height, but I am pretty thin. I have always had a hard time finding nightgowns that fit. They are all super wide on me (even the smalls and extra smalls). They always fall right around mid-thigh, but I like my nightgowns to go to my knee. And most of the summery ones don't have sleeves, which is a must for me.

The tutorial for this dress/nightgown say to trace a shirt that fits to make the top, then to make a tube out of your fabric for the bottom, then attach the two. I thought and thought about how to make the top and how to add sleeves that would be comfortable (I'm still kind of new at sleeves even though I have been sewing forever). I finally came up with the idea to use a knit for the top, as I could make the shoulder wide enough to make a sleeve without having to add a separate sleeve (I'm sure I could have done this with a cotton, too, but the knit made more sense to me). I traced one of my undershirts onto a huge tank top (that I bought for the purpose of using for the fabric, not for wearing), cut it out, then followed the rest of the directions in the tutorial.

This is what I came up with:


I love it! It is so comfortable. I think using the knit on the top was the perfect idea for a nightgown. The bottom is big enough that I can wear it 26 weeks pregnant, and hopefully will still fit in it by the end of my pregnancy. It is long enough that I feel comfortable wearing it around the house all day if I don't feel like getting dressed, but cool enough that I don't melt in the humid summer heat.

Teacher Appriciation Gifts

At the end of each school year I like to make a little thank you gift to show the teachers how much we appreciate them. And having a child with disabilities means that there are more people to thank, since we have therapists along with the teachers and aides who work with my son.

Being in the throes of morning (all day) sickness, I didn't have much energy to make something huge and grand, so I settled for these cute bookmarks.

These ones were given to teachers, aides, and a student teacher.

These were given to therapists and other people who help make my son's school year great.

They were super simple to make. I followed this tutorial, but modified it a bit for the set in the lower picture, just adding buttons instead of flowers. The greatest part is that I used scraps and stash fabric, so they didn't cost me anything.

They were well received by the recipients. Thank you everyone who works hard to make our schools what they are!

Valentine's Day 2011

I love Valentine's Day, so I always go a little overboard with crafts and decorations. Here are a few things I made this year.

First, I made the multi-colored heart garlands from the previous post. I love them! I wish I had a daughter so I could hang them in her room all year round.


Last year I decided to made a red and white meal a tradition. This year I decided that we needed some fun place mats to go with our fun meal. Using this tutorial, I made ten of these cuties.


We decided to have some friends over to share in our tradition. Since we were eating lots of stain-causing foods, I didn't want the place mats to get all stained and ruined by the kids. Using the same templates for the cloth place mats, I made these ones out of scrap book paper. I then covered them with contact paper so that we can use them again in the future. I love how they turned out.


After going to a craft day at a friend's house and watching my friend make her own cards, I attempted my own version (our original inspiration came from craft gawker, but I can't find the post). I gave one to my husband for Valentine's Day and sent the other two to my grandmas. I even made my own envelopes using some cute scrapbook paper (with the design on the inside).


At the same craft day, I made this felt flower hair clip (tutorial found here). I love having crafty friends!

Crochet Crazy!

At the beginning of the year I was a crocheting machine. Here is some of the stuff that I made:


Scarves for the National Special Olympics. The SO collects scarves for all of the participants, coaches, etc. Some friends from my local support group and I like to participate in this project. The scarf on the left is made of granny squares and the scarf on the right is just a single crochet with two strands and a huge hook (like I use to make baby blankets).


Heart garlands, using this tutorial, with changes as listed here. The purple one was made as a baby gift for a friend. The red/pink/white one was made to decorate my house for Valentine's Day (I actually made two of this one as I have two sets of windows in my kitchen).

I also crocheted a couple of shamrock garlands, using this tutorial. I forgot to take pictures before they got put in the seasonal box. Instead of making all of the shamrocks with three leaves, I modified the pattern a little by adding two extra chains in the beginning circle, then crocheting an extra leaf. I made half three leaves and half four leaves and alternated them on the garland.

On top of that stuff, I have made many more baby blankets. As I already posted about baby blankets before, I won't add any more pictures here. You get the point.

I sure love to crochet!

Jewels

One of my close friend's birthday is in the beginning of November. I decided she might like some jewelry for her birthday, so I broke out my beads and came up with this:


A matching bracelet and earring set.


She loves earring, but not long or huge ones. I think these turned out perfect, dangly and simple.


I also love the bracelet. Of course I do. I made it! I love the sky blue beads and the silver flowers. I think the white square beads change things up a little. I even threw in a couple of dragonfly beads. And the swarovski crystals have the perfect sparkle factor. Really, I just love it all!

And so does my friend. I'd say this was a success!

Babies Everywhere

Lately it has seemed as if everyone I know is pregnant. This gives me lots of opportunities to crochet, which I love. I have four friends who were due within a month of each other, three of whom had their babies the same week. (Also born that same week were my new nephew and my husband's cousin's baby.) It has been a little crazy. I made these blankets for these four friends whose babies are now here and are all beautiful.

The green blanket went to the only boy born in the bunch.

A couple of years ago I figured out how to make a ruffly border, so the girls all got ruffles. What girl doesn't love ruffles? I especially like how the ruffles gave the gender-neutral yellow a feminine touch.

I'm sure there are many more of these coming, in the near future.

Hexagons

I found this tutorial about a year ago and have been wanting to try it out ever since. For some reason I have been intimidated by the whole process. So silly. My favorite jeans got a hole in the knee, so I figured it was time to face my fear and try it out.


It was so easy! It took me a couple of hours to get it all sewn together, and then another hour to get the patch sewn onto my pants (I used some wonder under to stick it to my pants first so it didn't shift while I was sewing). Voila! New life to my old jeans (these things are older than Skyler!).


I used all scraps for this project. It is the perfect project for scraps. I have seen lots of tutorials for hex paper piecing lately. Some of them say to baste your hexs before you sew them together and some don't. I didn't baste them this time around, but I think I will next time. I used a glue stick to stick the paper to the fabric since I knew I would be washing the patch and I didn't want to mess with pins.

I'm sure I have many more of these in my future. Perfect project for keeping my hands busy while watching movies at night.

Quilted cards

A few weeks ago Wes had his last physical therapy appointment. He has been seeing these PTs for almost 4 years now, so I wanted to give them a little gift to say "thanks". I thought and thought and had a hard time coming up with something. Then I remembered this tutorial.

I didn't come up with the idea until the night before the appointment, so I hurried and threw them together in the hour before we had to leave for the appointment. Luckily I bought some cards at JoAnns a couple of months ago when they were dirt cheap. It only took me an hour to find the fabric, cut everything, and sew twelve cards. I thought that was pretty good time.

Wes's therapist loved them. (I gave a set of 6 cards, three of each design, to two different therapists, but only one of them was at the office. I'm hoping the other therapist liked them, too.) I think they turned out pretty well. Want to see them?






What do you think? I especially love the orange one.

Thanks again, Dana, for another great tutorial.

Rainbow Afghan

About a month ago I got bored. Actually, I was practicing my knitting and my wrists started hurting and I was tired of getting frustrated. I guess I was bored of knitting. Wanting to un-frustrate myself and do something familiar, I decided I wanted to teach myself how to crochet granny squares. I found this tutorial, got out some left over yarn (Red Heart acrylic in six different colors, in case you were wondering) from an afghan I crocheted in college, and got started.


Once I got the hang of the granny squares pattern, they worked up really fast. I started out making six squares of each of my six colors, but decided I wanted my blanket a little bigger, so I made a few more until it was the size I wanted. Then I added a brown row around each of the squares, then attached them all together. Easy peasy!


I think I am going to call it my Kindermusik afghan. The majority of it was crocheted while the boys attended their summer session of Kindermusik. I love rainbows, so this blanket makes me smile.

Lucy Aprons

My boys' teachers were extra great this year, so I decided to make them some fun aprons. Once I decided that's what I wanted to make, I looked and looked for a fun patterns. I finally found this one. The Lucy Apron.

The pattern has instructions for lots of embellishments and appliques, but I ran out of time (especially since I had to make five of them). This apron is supposed to be reversible, but when I bought fabric (while on our trip to Minnesota), I didn't get enough coordinating fabric to be able to do that. So I modified the pattern, used my new serger for the first time, and made them one-sided. Each apron got a one pocket.

The pattern gave instructions for two different tie placements, at the hip and at the waist. I made the first one with the tie at the hip, but I didn't like how it fit me. So I made the other four with the tie at the waist. I liked those ones a whole bunch better.

Here are some pictures. I even got Brett to put one on for a picture (it took a lot of talking!), but I will refrain from posting it here.

The apron with the tie at the hips. See how it lays weird around the bust area? Not a fan.

The apron with the tie at the waist. Much better!


The five aprons together. I had a fun time with the fabric combinations. It was also fun trying to match the fabrics to the teachers.

The aprons were a huge success. I gave them to the teachers with a jar of homemade strawberry jam. I overheard a couple of the teachers talking about them. They both said that these were their first aprons. And they were excited to finally have an apron. I think I made a great choice with this gift.

Denim Quilt

When I was a teenager, my mom made some denim blankets for my cousins for Christmas. She spent hours on them (she one for each of the 4 kids in my aunt's family). She would work on them at night after we went to bed. When Christmas Eve rolled around, my parents handed us each a huge box and told us we could open them before we went to bed. They all sounded a little different when we shook them. We had no idea what they were. We were pleasantly surprised when we opened them to find that she had also made the 4 of us denim quilts. (My mom had put baby food jars of buttons in a couple of the boxes so that the presents all sounded different.) She made 8 quilts! Her poor fingers! Two of them looked exactly like two of the quilts she made for my cousins, and the other two were different. She told me that she had to work on the 2 different ones after we went to sleep, so she had lots of late nights. She even took them to my grandma's house to tie them so we wouldn't see them. Very sneaky!

That quilt has been very loved. It was used as my bed spread from that time until I got married. It was used for picnics and other outings. It was made using some acid wash jeans. (Just for future reference, don't make a denim quilt out of acid wash jeans. They don't last.) Lately it has been used on my sons' beds when their bed spreads were in the wash. It is falling apart. All of the squares made of acid wash jeans are shredded. Some of the cotton fabric squares have completely torn off. The binding is worn all the way through the top layer. It was in dire need of being replaced.

Last fall I started checking out our local thrift stores, looking for fabric to make mats for nursery singing time. I found a sheet set that was ugly/cool, and I think I ended up paying $1.50 because the store was having a half off sale. I was going to use it for the mats, but I decided it would make a better quilt. So I pulled out our old worn out jeans, bought some denim skirts (which happened to be Ralph Lauren and Girbaud brands) and a HUGE pair of woman's jeans (I have seriously never seen a pair that big in my life), and my new denim blanket was born.

I started cutting it out over General Conference weekend last October. I got it all cut out, but for some reason I never sewed it together. I made a goal to have it finished for our trip to DC in March, but it didn't happen. I finally got the motivation to sew it so we could use it during our trip to Minnesota over Memorial Day, and I finally got it finished just as we drove up to my sister-in-law's house in Minnesota. I mean I literally sewed the last stitch on the binding as we got to her house. Talk about perfect timing!

The decided to have a little bit of fun with this quilt. I cut lots of pockets out of the denim I used (at least 2 front pockets and 6 back pockets). I added lots of seams, a hammer loop from some carpenter jeans, and even managed to get a square with the tiny Ralph Lauren tag still attached to the pocket (I am adding a picture of that below). I wanted this to be a fun and interesting quilt.

I bought some batting at JoAnns when it was on sale, but when I got it laid on the quilt back, I found that it was thin and wimpy. I didn't have time to get new stuff, so I used it anyway. I'm really disappointed with that part. My old denim quilt is a nice, heavy weight. This one feels paper thin. I wish I would have had a better bat to put in it. Oh well. I think for my next quilt I am going to try a bamboo or cotton bat. I have never used anything but polyester batting, so I am interested to see what the other stuff is like.

I usually use quilt frames to tie my quilts, but I don't have any, and I didn't really have time or space to do it that way, anyway. I laid the back on my kitchen floor (it barely fit!) and taped it down, then laid the batting on top of that, then put on the top. I pin basted it with almost 100 safety pins. To tie it, I just laid it on my living room floor and went to work. It was actually kind of nice to not have to stop to roll the quilt when I got too far in.

Over all I am really happy with this quilt. I think it has the best binding I have ever done (and I have done a lot of them). It is a good neutral color, so my boys don't have to feel like they have a girly quilt on their bed. And it is big enough that it could almost cover our queen size bed. (I think the sheet set was a double.) Ready for some pictures?


I hope this quilt gets used and loved as much as my last one.

Twisted Fabric Flower Pins

At the end of the school year I like to give teachers and therapists a little "Thank You" gift. I had a hard time deciding what to make Wes's therapists. I finally decided to make them flower pins. I ended up making flower pins that are made with twisted strips of fabric.












I ripped strips of fabric about and inch wide and the whole length of the fabric from selvage to selvage. Then I cut a piece of felt and glued one end of the fabric in the center and started twisting from there. I would twist, then glue, then twist, then glue. When I got to the end of my fabric strip, I cut off the selvage and tucked the end under the flower. I then trimmed the felt, glued a button/bead in the middle of the flower, and glued the pin to the back.












They were actually really easy and only took me about an hour to do all four pins. I'm not sure what Wes's therapists thought of them, but I think they turned out pretty good. Brett even liked them.



What do you think?

Hobo Sack

Here is something else that I made using an idea from Dana. It is called a Hobo Sack. She featured it during her Boy Month. I thought it would be a fun bag for the boys to take their Valentines to school in.

Isn't Wes a cute model?! And check out those sweet pants!

These were super easy to make. I used an old pair of corduroy pants that don't fit me anymore. I took the pocket off of the back of the pants and attached one to the front of each of the bags. They were the perfect size and worked out great.

Rollie Pollie

For Easter this year I decided that I wanted to make my boys some "rollie pollies". I saw the pattern originally on the blog So You Think You're Crafty, submitted by Dana from MADE. The pattern is available to buy in MADE's shop, so I bought it. I think my printer settings are weird, so the pattern didn't print as big as I'm assuming it was supposed to, so with the help of my brilliant husband we played with it until it seemed right. Then I got to work.

I debated on what I should use to make the rollie pollies. Dana suggests using sturdy fabric that holds its shape well, but I don't really have a good place to buy stuff like that around here without breaking the bank. I ended up buying two children's comforter covers in the "as is" section at IKEA for super cheap. The comforter covers are made from nice cotton fabric, so I thought they would do the job okay (plus they are really cute). Those were used as the "slip cover" parts of the rollie pollies. I used a white sheet I got at Goodwill to make the inner part (that holds the stuffing). Dana also suggests using Cluster Stuff as stuffing, but no one sells it around here, so I used chopped up foam (which I bought in bags at JoAnns and Hobby Lobby).

These were actually fairly simple to put together. I had a fun time making them and being a little creative. Here is how they turned out.


I was originally excited to make these so the boys have somewhere fun to sit to read their plethora of books in their bedroom. I also thought they might be fun for the boys to use for pizza video night. Then I realized that Easter coincided with General Conference this year, so that was even better. They have gotten lots of use over the last two days.

Thanks Dana for the great pattern and fun idea!