Archive for the ‘Sewing/Crafts’ Category

My friend, Leigh, issued a challenge over at my home-on-the-internet, Make-Laugh-Love, to complete 52 handmade projects this year. Since I sew all the time, that’s not really a problem for me. I have noticed, however, that I sew a lot for business and sometimes overlook sewing things just for my family. That realization motivated me to jump into the challenge, but I’ll be working towards completing 52 handmade items this year specifically for my family.

Project #1 is a pattern that I’ve done zillions of times, but it’s what was on my list. Jamie got a pack of 24 twistable crayons from his big brother for Christmas, and he asked for a crayon roll to store them. These are so nice for little ones (and for mom) because they can see which crayon (or marker, or pencil) that they need right away, and they make cleaning up after creating quick and easy!

Jamie begged me to buy this football fabric for him the last time I took him to one of our local quilt shops with me, and he was really excited that we found something to sew with it!

One project down, 51 to go! This is going to be fun!

. . . and all through the house, no more projects were waiting, at least not for now!

Handmade Christmas tree ornaments wrap up my list of handmade projects. These are simple, inexpensive wood blocks adorned with scrapbook paper and digital pictures printed from my home printer. We followed the guide for these at How Does She? These will be great fun to hang on our tree year after year!

Of course no Christmas is complete for a sewing mama without handmade Christmas jammies for her little ones. I suppose that means you get 13 projects for the price of 12 . . . a baker’s dozen! (Isn’t this Cowboy Santa fabric perfect for a Texas Christmas?)

Praying that each of you is blessed with a Christmas packed full of joy and overflowing with many wonderful memories! Enjoy this beautiful telling of the Christmas story by Linus as a little Christmas gift from me to you:

This sweet giraffe is for my granddaughter, Katie. All of my little ones have had loveys that they’ve played with, slept with and just loved on, and I’d love for this on to be hers. (I have learned over the years, though, that children decide for themselves which lovey is theirs!) I used Bit of Whimsy’s Juju Giraffe pattern with just a few minor modifications. I added a dress with sleeves by cutting the body out of a second fabric for the dress and adding shortened arm pieces trimmed in underwear elastic for the sleeves. I also cut the back of the body in half and added a seam allowance so I could sew the tail into the seam. Since it’s for a baby, I wanted to be sure the tail was secure. Little ones tend to love playing with stuffed animal tails!

I sewed this bowling set for Charlie, but I may have to make up a second set for Jamie. He told me while watching me handstitch the stuffing openings closed that Charlie was going to love it, but he’d love one, too! He does have a birthday coming up in a few weeks. I used the I Heart Bowling pattern designed by my friend, Berritt, of Birdiful Stitches. Such a cute pattern and really easy to sew!

My Lego-loving boys are getting these great drawstring playmats/storage bags for Christmas this year. I first saw the Lego Sack Tutorial during Celebrate the Boy month in the spring and immediately added them to my sewing list. I think these are going to get a lot of use around here!

A quick side note on these: The long drawstrings made me a little nervous so I tacked each one down in the center of its casing so that can’t be pulled out. I’ll also be sure to remind the boys of the safety rules when using anything with a long tie like this.

My art-loving daughter, Samantha, asked me recently to sew her a wrap for her extensive set of markers, so she’ll be excited to find this on Christmas morning. I used my Art-on-the-Go Kit Tutorial, extending the width and leaving off the art pad . . . easy peasy!

I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a handmade project for my husband’s mom. I know that she loves real hard-copy pictures of the kids, though, and I know that I’m terrible about sending them to her. I was roaming through the craft department at Walmart and was struck by a great idea when I saw this unfinished wood photo carousel.

I had already planned to make some wood block ornaments with the kids. (Pictures of those coming soon!) I figured the same basic method of decoration would work for this, too. I started by painting the whole thing white, then I used Mod-Podge to apply scrapbook paper to each side. While that was drying, we cut letters out of old magazines to spell out “MawMaw’s Babies” ransom-letter style on the top. Once those were decoupaged on, we let the whole thing dry overnight.

The next morning, I sanded the edges of the scrapbook paper to smooth them out and the corners of the photo carousel to rough them up. Then I rubbed a light coat of wood stain over the whole thing, wiping it right off. When that was dry, we just added pictures, wrapped it and shipped it off!

Earlier this month, I attended a Mom’s Night Out with the other mothers from my local homeschool group, and we did a Chinese-auction-style gift exchange. I wanted a simple idea that would work for anyone, but since I’m all about practicality, it needed to be useful, too. Here’s what I came up with:

This is the “Natural Moms’ Cold & Flu Season Survival Kit”. Simple washable cotton velour tissues, oranges, tea for sore throats and congestion and antibacterial soap. Each tissue is two pieces of cotton velour cut 6 1/2″ x 8 1/2″, then serged with wrong sides together. (The velour needs to be at least 80% cotton for it to work well as a tissue.) This would be a thoughtful gift to give anytime you hear that there’s a bug running through a friend’s home this winter, too!

My 16-year-old niece is studying culinary arts through a charter program at her high school, and she asked me for a full apron in zebra stripes and purple to use for her cooking classes. I think this fits the bill nicely!

The zebra-striped fabric is a lightweight twill with stain releasers that I found at our local Hancocks Fabrics. A great fabric find for an apron! I used McCalls 2233 which I used for my sister’s apron last year. It’s a sized pattern, and I think it’s a great choice for those who need an apron in a size that’s larger than the standard size 6-10.

Adding three more handmade Christmas projects on my way to a full dozen. Today’s projects are all handmade bags!

This is my mom’s new Christmas bag. She asked me to make her one like the one that I made for her when she visited a few years ago only in black and red. I used my now out-of-print Sammi Grace Bag pattern and modified it just a little by adding a button closure with a fabric-covered button and piecing the outside in strips. Inside, there’s a divider and several pockets for cell phone, pen or pencil and business cards.

Next up is my sister’s gift. She didn’t offer any suggestions for what she’d like, but she does love green, and everyone can use a nice tote bag, right? I had a picture in my head of how I wanted this bag to look, but I really made the pattern up as I went along. I love that it’s really a simple tote, but it has a much dressier look to it!

Finally, my middle niece, asked me to sew her a messenger bag like the one that I did for her older sister a few years ago. I pulled out my messenger bag tutorial and went to work. I added a machine-applique penguin and a magnetic snap to the flap. About 3/4 of the way through assembly, at the point where I was ready to sew the flap to the outer section of the bag, I realized that I had sewn the body layers together sideways. I sort of liked the longer, narrower look . . . and I really didn’t want to rip the whole thing apart so I trimmed down the sides of the flap to match the new width and went with it.

I have to end with a few fun pictures. (My apologies that they are icky flash pictures. There was an incident this same night involving my 18-55mm camera lens, so I’m currently operating with just the 70-300mm which doesn’t work with my light scoop.) Our oldest son, Sean, and his friend, Josh, spent a few minutes frosting, decorating and eating sugar cookies with us on Sunday night. They were on their way out to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party, so they were dressed in sweaters that they tell me were borrowed from Josh’s grandmother. (Adding a note here that I am not saying these are ugly sweaters at all! Loud and very Christmas-y? Very much! But, ugly? I’ve seen uglier.)

On the first day of Christmas, a seamstress made for me . . . No, really, I’m not going to sing a new version of the twelve days of Christmas, but I do have twelve handmade projects that I’d like to share between now and Christmas Eve! (Most of them are done already, but I do have few projects that have made it to the last minute scramble)

First up is this simple quilt for my youngest niece. She is a big fan of anything giraffe related, and I think she’ll love these!

Because I didn’t have a lot of time to put this together, I pieced the quilt top together from solid 10″ blocks, alternating the four block fabrics. Then I put a quick border around it, backed it with minky, quilted it in diagonal lines and machine-bound it. The final quilt is about 50″x60″.

I love these minky-backed, no-batting quilts for little ones because they’re warm and soft, but they don’t take up a lot of storage space in your closet when you store them or in a bag when you travel.

Introducing the Everyday Camp Shirt! Every little boy needs a closet full of camp shirts, and this camp shirt is sure to make him very happy! This is a perfect everyday top that you can sew up with those amazing cotton quilting fabrics that are available in your local quilt shop or your favorite online fabric store.

The Everyday Camp Shirt has a comfortable fit through the body and a square hemline. It’s perfect for leaving un-tucked on busy little boys. You get to choose whether to finish the top with buttons or metal snaps.

You can sew this shirt with or without the yoke to give you multiple looks from one pattern, and my testers say that my method for attaching the collar is “brilliant”. It will give you a nice, clean, finished look, and it’s really easy!

The PDF version of The Everyday Camp Shirt is available now at Fishsticks Designs at Etsy and The Fabric Fairy. Paper patterns will be available at retailers including Fat Quarter Shop and Sew Baby in the next few days!

(I know it’s winter and this is a short-sleeve pattern. What was I thinking, you ask? You know, it does look adorable over a long-sleeve knit shirt . . . like the Charlie Tee pattern.)

This picture warms my heart so much . . . from the shiny new sewing machine to the the happy babies worn close to their mamas to the joy on the faces of the whole family. This family received this sewing machine through Gospel for Asia’s Christmas Gift Catalog. This simple $85 treadle-operated sewing machine can make a huge difference in this family’s ability to make a decent living. Within no time there’s money to purchase food for the children and to send them to school—with new clothes to boot! And, the giver has the joy of knowing that they’ve shared the real meaning of Christmas with a family on the other side of the world.