More Birthday Crafts!

Now that Simon's party is over, I can post about some other birthday crafting that has been going on. Simon invited his three best friends (all girls) to his party. OK, I invited them, but I like to pretend that he had some say in the matter. Anyway, I made these bunnies as party favors for his little girl friends. I placed some plastic in the ears to make them all crinkly and I wrapped the bunnies themselves in lots of red cellophane so the babies had a gift of their own to open. As a result, the wrapping was just as much fun as the actual bunny inside. I think the bunnies were well received. And, I made sure that the felt ended up right-side-out when the bunnies were completed - unlike my first attempt. The best part, again, was that I spent no money on these favors since they were made from materials in my stash.


His birthday presents included a Washington Redskins outfit he can wear with his dad on game days, a board book about a snake named Simon and all the wonderful things he can be, and this adorable turkey that we had custom made by The Sweetest Pea. I love all her little fat creations and wish I had unlimited funds so I could buy more of them. Check them out!

Guess Who's Turning One Tomorrow??

Simon's first birthday (and party) is tomorrow and I've been crazy busy with cleaning and menu-planning, but I've managed to find time for some crafting too. First is this birthday banner. When my mother first saw it she was all impressed because she thought I had sewn a quilted banner. But then she came up close to it and realized that it was made out of paper. I used leftover bits from various scrapbook projects and am quite proud of the result. It's best features are that it didn't cost me any money and I can use it year after year.

The other craft I made for Simon is this birthday crown. I shamelessly stole the idea from SouleMama. When I saw that she made her daughter a crown for her first birthday, I just had to make one of my own. At first I made plans to go to the store and buy felt for the crown, but I quickly talked myself out of it and figured out a way to make one out of materials I already had. I used fabric from my stash, peltex interfacing, and embroidery floss. There are two blue panels and three gold panels embroidered with the letter S (altough you can only see one in the picture). Now maybe Simon will agree to wear it for as long as it takes to get his picture. Maybe.

Goodies From Grandma

I went to New York this weekend to visit family. While I was at my grandmother's house, I got the urge to poke through her button collection. She has a whole box of buttons that she saved from various clothing items for the past forty years or so. When I was little we would use the buttons to play poker and other card games. My grandmother saw my interest in the buttons and decided that it was a window for her to give away most of her fabric stash. She hasn't really sewn in a long while and some of the fabric cuts had been around for decades. Above, you can see some awesome buttons, ribbon and buckles I scored.

There is entirely too much fabric for me to show it all here, but I can manage a few highlights. To the right is a sweet applique that was apparently left over from a dress Grandma made me when I was a toddler. Honestly, the applique is not the best quality (it's raw-edge and starting to fray), but I thought it was just so cute that I had to have it anyway. I figured that if I didn't use it for something I would at least use it as inspiration. I mean, who knew that slugs could be so cute?

Next is this very unique and pretty floral fabric. I've never seen anything quite like it. My grandmother said that it would make a nice tablecloth, but my house cannot allow a white tablecloth to exist for long before it is bombarded with stains. That's just asking for trouble. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this fabric, but it has wonderful potential and I just know that a project will present itself at some point.

Honk Honk

The next baby quilt I'm working on is inspired by a crocheted blanket and features the Flying Geese quilt block. A few years ago, I saw an episode of Simply Quilts that gave a great shortcut for making flying geese blocks. You can find it here. I'm always nervous about Flying Geese because I'm paranoid that I'll cut off the points, but I'm doing my best to be as accurate as possible with this project. If that means redoing seams, then I shall do it. No matter how much I want to pretend that I don't see the mistake, I will admit that I am not blind and do it over. I am going to embrace my inner perfectionist.

Finally Finished!

It's funny - once I actually got down to the business of quilting this baby, it took no time at all. I decided on doing all free motion quilting with no markings on the quilt top - something which usually gives my inner perfectionist the willies. I quilted spirals over the square blocks and, since I didn't mark out perfectly symmetrical spirals, they look all wonky. But that's OK - wonky was what I was going for. They came out pretty decent, but if I had it to do again I would make them a bit tighter. You can see them best when viewed from the back:



Despite my newly acquired machine binding skills, I opted to finish the binding by hand. I like the clean look of the sharp corners and I like sitting down and relaxing while I sew on the binding. It's mindless, yet comforting at the same time.

My New Diaper Bag

I finished my diaper bag and I've already used it. Not only does it look great, but it has so much room and is very functional. Check out my modeling skills:


I made this diaper bag not only because I wanted a pretty fall bag, but also as an excuse to try out some new features. First was the adjustable strap. Making the strap ended up being very easy, but finding the hardware was very difficult. First I hit up all my local sewing stores. The best I could find was a 1" black, plastic triglide (a triglide is apparently the name of the little doodads that allow you to adjust the strap). I didn't want black or plastic and I knew I wanted a nice, wide strap. Next, I hit up some thrift stores to see if there were any old bags I could tear apart for the hardware. Again, I had no luck. Finally, I remembered that I had an old backpack from college that had a huge tear in it. When it was purchased, it came with a "lifetime guarantee" and I had held on to the backpack with the intention of eventually calling in that supposed guarantee. But I am the procrastinator and it never happened. I'm glad I still had it though, because the hardware was perfect.

The next feature I wanted to work on was using a zipper as the closure to a bag. I didn't have instructions for how to do this, but was able to make something up that ended up working very well. This bag now has a zipper and a redundant flap. The flap is not actually doing anything except looking pretty, since the zipper is doing all the hard work of keeping the contents inside the bag.

Inside the bag there are lots of pockets. There are four, large quilted pockets for all kinds of diaper-y accessories. This was my first time attempting interior pockets like these and, once again, I had to figure it out as I went. I also added a little zippered pocket and a cell phone pocket. The zippered pocket is for all of my possessions: wallet, chapstick, etc. The entire rest of the bag belongs to Simon. That is a metaphor for my life right now, but I don't really have any complaints. Especially when I can dress it up with my pretty new bag!

It's Friday and I Have Works in Progress

First is a sneak peak of my new diaper bag. It's loaded with features and I'm experimenting with techniques. So far, everything seems to be working like it should, but you never really know until the project is completed. I don't want to say too much about what I'm doing because I want to include that in the post with the finished product but I will say that I'm very excited. Partly because it's coming out so well and partly because I get to keep it.

And here we have the finished top of my tilted squares baby quilt. I really like the way the border came out, but I think in future versions I would make the green squares a little smaller and all out of the same fabric. Also, I wanted to alternate the dark and light pink squares, rather than setting them in alternating rows, but I had a hard time planning out the different tilts, if that makes sense. I know how to do it right next time. But still, I love it. Now, if only I can decide how to quilt it. Any ideas???

Bag Completed

My tilted squares quilt is still in the same folded up pile and I still haven't started sketching any quilting designs. Sigh. I was really excited about this quilt, but now it's starting to loom, and looming leads to dread. It hasn't even been a week. That's too soon for dread! I have found that it is definitely not too soon for procrastination, though. I've started working on a new diaper bag that I'm using to teach myself some new techniques. I hope I'm successful!

In other news, I finished my red and purple totes for the red hat ladies. Ta da:

Pink!

I finished the tilted squares quilt top over the weekend, but it has been sitting untouched for the past couple of days because I can't decide how I am going to quilt it. Since it's all straight lines and angles I was thinking that curved quilting would look best, but I'm afraid that might be too ambitious for me. I haven't decided to rule it out yet though - I'm planning on sketching a few ideas before I make my final decision. I just have to get around to doing it!

I had mentioned previously that I had very little fabric left over from this quilt. In fact, I have to go back to the quilt shop to get fabric for the binding. I did, however, have just enough pink scraps to put together this block:


I made it for Quilt Pink, an event where quilt shops from across the country will be making quilts to auction off to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. My local quilt shop is collecting blocks this month and a group of volunteers will get together on September. 30 to piece them all together into quilt tops. Since September 30 is my son's first birthday I will not be attending the event, but I'm still sending in my block. If you're a quilter, you should check your local shop to see if they are also participating. It's such a simple thing to do and a great cause.

WIP Friday

I feel like I've been pretty busy this week, yet I've obviously been able to make good use of the little time I've been crafting because I have two projects to show for it!

First up are of couple of purple and red bags. A friend's mom belongs to the Red Hat Society and suggested that if I made some quilted bags in red and purple that she would know lots of ladies who would probably be interested in buying them. I'm actually having a lot of fun designing bags around a color scheme. The ones shown in this picture are going to be two medium-sized totes. I'm also having a brainstorm about some bags I can make out of some satin-y material I have with an appliqued hat on the front. I want it to be nice, but not too kitschy - quite the challenge!

My other WIP is the tilted squares quilt I wrote about in my previous post. Considering how little I've been working this quilt, it's coming along very quickly! I'm so happy to be working with bright colors again (they are my absolute favorites). I'm also having lots of fun designing this quilt myself. It's a baby quilt, but it's going to be funky and modern. I'm trying to figure out how to do the borders right now and in my brain it seems like it should work, but I need to actually figure it out in reality. I did an unbelievable job in estimating the fabric yardages, but I was a little too accurate. I have just the exact right amount in some fabrics that there is absolutely no room for error because I have zero extra fabric. At least the quilt shop is nearby and fully stocked in case of a fabric emergency.

Designing Quilts

From reading several quilting blogs, I get the impression that lots of quilters are using EQ to help them design quilts. I must admit, it looks like a fabulous tool and a part of me really wants to get my hands on that software - but I can't justify the expense right now. My quilts are all designed with graph paper and colored pencils. I know. I'm very technologically advanced.

Anyway, I wanted to design a quilt around my tilted squares block and that is just not a block that I can recreate on graph paper. So I made one mockup block, took a picture, flipped it in photoshop and copied it a lot. Voila:


This is not quite what the finished quilt is going to look like. I'm playing around with the widths of the strips I use and that is just some leftover fabric I found lying around. This is definitely not the color scheme I am going for!

I'm very excited about this quilt and about getting back to quits in general. I've been doing so many smaller projects that it seems like forever since I made a quilt. Well, I've decided that September is the month for quilts! I have three quilts I want to make and seriously need to get down to business. I'll keep you posted...

Reversible Fabric Headband Tutorial

When I was in middle school, I think I wore a headband every day. It's the female equivalent of putting a baseball cap on to hide your messy hair (not that I never do that, either). Apparently headbands are back in fashion and I have been coveting some trendy, fabric headbands. I worked out a method for making them and they fit nice and look even nicer, so I thought I'd throw up a tutorial so all the citizens of the internet could make them as well!

Just a word of caution, all of these measurements are designed around the size of my head. I do not think it is abnormally large or small, but you probably want to play around with the dimensions a bit until you find the best fit for you. I suggest using scrappy fabric you don't care about for a first attempt and then use the good stuff for a second or third version. This is a super fast project, so you won't feel like you're wasting a lot of time. OK, here we go...

Choose two coordinating fabrics and cut out two rectangles from each. One 3" x 19.5" and one 1.5" x 6.5".


Take your 3" x 19.5" rectangles and fold and press them in half like so:


Use your rotary cutter and ruler to taper each rectangle. You want to make sure the headband is fat in the middle and skinny on the ends. I aligned the edge of the ruler with the folded edge of each rectangle and measured in 1/2" from the end. The pictures do a better job of explaining this step:



Now, open up each band and press 1/4" on each end of the wrong side of both fabrics.


Place the fabric bands right sides together and pin. Do the same with the smaller rectangles you cut earlier.


Sew 1/4" seams on each side. If you have pinking shears, use them to reduce the bulk by pinking the edges.



Press seams and turn fabric tubes inside out. Press Again.


Cut a 3" strip of elastic and insert it into the small rectangle. Pull one edge to the outside of the rectangle and slip the whole thing into one side of the headband tube. Sew a seam as close to the edge as possible.


Scrunch the other side of the fabric rectangle up until the elastic peeks out of the edge. Once again, slip it into one side of the headband tube and sew a seam as close to the edge as possible.


Voila!



When I saw that the Whiplash category this month was Hats I assumed that I would not be submitting an entry. After all, I do not crochet or knit. However, I decided to take some liberties and interpret "hat" as "anything you wear on your head". Therefore, this is my entry for September as a tutorial. I don't expect to win, given the stretch, but hopefully I can help some people make some nice things. I know I'm always looking for new ideas for crafted gifts and this seems like an ideal one.

Stash Busting

This week has seen very little sewing/crafting done by me (hence, the lack of blogging). I do almost all of my sewing while Simon is asleep at night. Sometimes I try for while he is napping, but he has recently decided that he does not want to nap. Sigh. Anyway, last weekend we did a family vacation at home - lots of touristy things in the Washington area without having to pay for travel or lodging. It was fabulous, but no crafting. On Monday we had some friends over for dinner and had a great time, but no crafting. On Tuesday I got a stomach bug and went to bed at the same time as Simon. It was great getting so much sleep, but no crafting was done. On Wednesday, my softball team had their first practice of the fall season and I only got a minimal amount of sewing in after practice was over. Last night, finally, I was able to get some sewing time in.

I've been focusing this month on using up my fabric stash. I've made lots of little projects (like these monsters) and am feeling quite productive, but the stash doesn't seem to be any smaller. I don't see how that's possible, because I keep reaching into my bags of scraps, and I've definitely used up some of my favorite colors - I'm almost all out of red!! I love scraps, and it's a good thing because I think I am going to be drowning in them forever!

My newest stashbusting adventure is cutting 3" squares. As I work through the stash on my various projects, I am saving one or two of these squares and setting them aside. Eventually I will piece them all into a quilt. I haven't decided if it will be a lap quilt or a baby quilt. And I haven't decided if I will keep it, use it as a gift, or give it to charity. But I will use up those scraps! One thing I have decided is that it won't be a charm quilt. I can use up more of the stash if I don't limit myself to one piece of each fabric.