With These Hands

I was excited about these.
It started because I was having the darndest time figuring out what to make for teacher gifts this year. The end of school year was coming up fast and all my promises to myself to get this done early had simply gone out the window. Shocker!
Being that Matty has been in preschool for 3 years and was at the same school, in the same classroom for all of those years with mostly the same teachers, well, I was in a pickle.
I had already made: keyrings, change purses, totes and wristlets.
Any type of clothing was out and I didn’t want to simply make another bag.
Hmmm.
I knew they all wore aprons throughout the day.
It was perfect!
I just needed to guessimate sizing, as all three ladies were really different.
Furthermore, they were different from me. I of the big and tall proportions!

Since I had never made an apron before and I wasn’t using any specific tutorial or pattern (just gathering ideas from hither and yon), I decided it best to make one for myself first. I didn’t want to ruin any of the fabric I ordered especially for the girls!

I used printed cotton canvas and a cotton lawn for mine. You can’t tell in the pics, but the red is actually a teeny polka dot! For mine (and for each following) I used my favored applique method of fusible webbing then stitching around the edges. It works brilliantly and adds a nice touch of character and whimsy when mixing prints.

Me in mine:

And now for the ladies. I should have gotten up close pics of the fabrics, because they were all so lovely. I purchased each material from j.caroline creative. I just love that site!

For Rosie:

(She really is little compared to me. See how it looks like a bib on me? Haha!)

For Maria:

And For Nina:

Each apron was reversible and had a kangaroo pocket on one-side. The only thing I did different from my original one was adding an adjustable neck strap via two D-rings. I was thankful that I thought to do it as I noticed that all Matty’s teachers adjusted them as soon as they got them on. Yay for thinking ahead!

Here are all three lovely ladies with wearing their new aprons:

♥

July 2nd, 2009 ★ No Comments »

Every superhero needs a cape, yes?
YES!
Matty loves the PBS program ‘Super Why’, so I thought I would make him a cape of his own.
I used a wool blend felt (SO much better than craft felt) and a printed cotton for the reverse side.
It was terrificly easy to make and he looks adorable with it on.

He’s flying!

July 2nd, 2009 ★ No Comments »

I love making birthday presents for my two nieces. This year I wanted to make a slim, almost sleeve like bag for Ellie to hold some more adult type art supplies. Initially I was looking for an kit, but really couldn’t find anything that had a good variety and was of better quality. That’s when I thought to make a bag and stuff it with individual items for her to use and enjoy.

The outside is all canvas, while the interior is soft cotton flannel. I used fusible webbing to adhere the ELLIE letters and hand stitched “creates” with DMC.

There was plenty of room for everything: pastels, sculpty clay, brushes/watercolor, and two pads of paper:

Included in her gift box was a little softie I created from a drawing she had made for us. It’s the sweetest owl and he’s been residing on our fridge since he was drawn:

I scanned him onto my computer and printed him out onto a sheet of printable fabric. I then quilted the owl imaged fabric onto some solid cotton flannel. I finished it off by using some sweet Japanese owl fabric I had in my stash and stuffing him with polyfill and some dried lavender buds. He smelled good!

♥

July 2nd, 2009 ★ No Comments »

I hand-sewed this little lady last year while I was tending my booth at the Arlington Fair. She was originally supposed to be a smidgen of a doll that would hang out in my workspace. But somehow, I cut the arms and legs really thin and weird and I couldn’t turn them right side out. So I chopped off the limbs, stuffed her with lavender buds and made her into a sweet sachet. I like her face. And she smells good.

July 2nd, 2009 ★ No Comments »

Since I finally had the chance to give the gift yesterday, I finally get to post pictures of the lovely item.
This bag was for Melanie, my Matty’s speech therapist. She has been a part of weekly lives for about 3 years now. The help that she has provided to Matty and his verbal challenges is immeasurable. As well as the guidance she gives to me. I feel like I’ve learned as much as Matty, if not more!
Such a sweet person warranted something special.

This time it was a yoga mat bag. A bag! For her yoga mat! I was excited to make it and knew exactly the fabric I wanted to use. I had used this fabric before to make purses and wristlets and such and thank goodness superbuzzy, had some left! As I couldn’t find it anywhere else. It’s from the Echino line from Japan. And I just adore it.

I also made her a hairband to match. Sweet.

I have made a few yoga bags in the past and was pleased with the results. This one I like even better. The fabric is beautiful and I used a very slippery nylon outdoor fabric for the interior. The bag slides right in without any catching. I think I might start producing some more of these to keep in the shop.

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materials used:

heavyweight cotton
nylon blend fabric
thread
interfacing (for strap only)
elastic (for hairband)

January 8th, 2009 ★ No Comments »

Every year I convince myself that I’m going to make as many gifts as possible. Try new ideas. Search for exciting tutorials. Expand my crafty repertoire! And well, every Christmas comes and goes and I’m might eke out a few. Nowhere near the production I conjured in my head. It’s because I’m a blatant procrastinator. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

And of course, this year was no exception.

A) I was sewing up until the last moment. (Many gifts were being mailed to faraway family.)
B) I had many more ideas that I didn’t have the time/energy to implement.

There were completed items that had to go RIGHT into the box for mailing, so I didn’t even have the where-with-all to photograph them. Which still bums me out. They included various pouches and hairbands (no big deal) to new items like this crayon roll (for Tai) and this pencil and notebook holder (for Ellie). I will make these items again though, so all is not lost.

On Monday night I was yet again closing in on my own personal deadline but still managed to produce these wristlet & tissue pack sets for Matty’s teachers. This was after I completed the cookie bags for his little class. Yep, I was up until 1. Sigh. The wristlets are of course my own tried and true design and the tissue packs were an idea from Skip to my Lou. Not too difficult, but very nice indeed.

But I did get photos this time!

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And lastly, the sweet cookies.

I’m almost positive I did something similar last year. (But who could remember?!) I like to keep it simple for the kids. No chocolate, no nuts, as I really do not know if there are any allergies or such. These are simple, 5-ingredient butter spritz cookies. I adore these cookies. My mom made them for many years when I was growing up and they still bring me Christmas joy. I used the tree plate and added some green food coloring along with red sugar. Easy but cute. My kinda deal. They went into small bags fastened with red ribbon. Attached you will see nametags that I printed from Emily’s offering over at the the black apple. (I just love it when she offers cute tags!)

And that was it for this year.
I would love to say that I will start early for next year and be all done and just breeze through the holiday season.
But we all know the truth.
C’est la vie.

December 24th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

It’s taken me a bit to get into the swing of the holiday season. Even now, just over a week away and I’m still dragging my feet on my Christmas-y to-do list. But I have ideas swimming merrily around me head. Now if I can only find the time and energy.

These little trees though, well they were fast and easy and super fun to do.
I wanted just a little something extra around the house to add a bit more joyousness. Since I’m mainly a sewer, I dug through my stash to find some sweet fabric. I like these because they weren’t Christmas fabrics at all. But put together like this, they exude that holiday spirit. I found inspiration for these little guys from The Small Object and seeing these fun fabric conifers over at the black apple. (Scroll down to see hers made of polka dots!)

I set up this little scene this morning to try and get an adorable little photo of all of them together. It’s gray and rainy outside, so these were taken in our bedroom where the natural light is pretty scarce. But I like them, they make me happy just looking at ‘em. Wee wood ornaments are vintage and peppermint candies are Hammond’s handmade pillows. Aw, sweet.

After my little photo shoot here, the trees are back in there respective spots, stuffed trees on the TV, so I can get a glimpse of them whilst watching my favorite The Office and Top Chef and the stacked trees (which I placed on top of mini bud vases for the tree “trunk”) residing in front of our many, many books. Perfect.

And this little tree?
He’s a softie I whipped up just this morning.
Our front door was sans holiday decoration for many weeks now, so I finally swapped out our fall leaf painting (by Matty!) for this starred Christmas tree.
I like it.

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materials used:

wool felt
thread
interfacing
quilt cotton
polyfill
beans (to weight coned trees)

December 16th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

Oh what a mad scramble leading up to the day of the bazaar. See, I contacted the school REALLY late about my submission and they were nice enough to let me in. Then I procrastinated a day or two. Then it was Thanksgiving. Then I was sick. And like wow, I was chained to my sewing machine for a good two days straight here at the end.
But I got a lot of nice new, very cool and adorable items made and that pleases me.
Know what pleases me even more?
Doing well at a fair.
And I did!
Even though I was still pretty darned sick and foot traffic was kinda slow.
I remember being bummed at the close of the show, thinking I had done poorly.
But Sunday came and I sat down to tally and woo-wee, I did good!
As usual, I met some wonderfully sweet people who were amazingly generous with their compliments and support.

Some pics of my booth.

Really, my favorite part of my set-up was my little (real!) Christmas tree I had purchased from Whole Foods that morning. It smelled just like Christmas and looked adorable hanging out with my bags and such. I put felt little red birdies and my business cards in the branches which made me quite giddy. I’m so easy.

December 11th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

I knew back in late August/early September that I was going to create gnome costumes for the boys.
I wanted something that was basically like regular clothes, but also warm, and non-cumbersome.
The only thing I thought they would have issue with was the hat and beard, but they both did super-great and didn’t try to take them off at all!
I was so proud.

In my head, I knew what gnomes looked like. Heck, I watch the Amazing Race which is sponsored by Travelocity, so without fail I see that little gnome mascot every Sunday night!
To get a specific idea though, I just googled my way through many, many images of gnomes on the web.
You would not believe how many variations!
So I kind of settled on doing a hybrid of these two guys:

I liked the colors of the second guy, but the vest type top of the first dude.
Since I was sewing everything, I knew a sleeveless tunic was way more desirable and much faster than trying to add sleeves.
With a belt, I thought it achieved exactly the look I was going for.

The hat was loosely based on the woodland elf hat in Bend The Rules Sewing. (I love that book!)

Once I had the hat down, I tackled the belt and then beard. The belt was easy, I was happy that I had picked up some goldtone buckles from the fabric store, it definitely added to the overall look.

The beard proved to be a bit more challenging, if only because I wanted something that wasn’t going to be too annoying to the boys (like cotton-y strands and threads in the mouth) but still have a look that was full and reminiscent of a fluffy beard.
I thought I was simply going to do graduating layers of white felt.
But as I was starting it, it seemed too flat and two-dimensional for facial hair.
I got inspired at the last moment. I started thinking, loops, loops, loops.
So I started cutting strips and sewing them on in lines and a bit of layering.
I LOVED the way it turned out.
It gave it this interesting, modern, clean look while still looking like a obvious representation of a beard.
The process was quite enjoyable to partake in.
I felt proud!

Trick-or-Treat!

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materials used:

polar fleece for the tunic
wool blend felt
thread
buttons
brass buckles

store bought white turtlenecks and khaki pants from the boys’ own wardrobe

November 3rd, 2008 ★ 1 Comment »

18 million years ago (it seems), one of livejournal friends posted a link to a baby pants tutorial.
Well I finally used it!

There was once this happy cow who was placed on a little onesie courtesy of a very cool lady who has a very cool etsy shop.
We loved this onesie and got lots of use of it.
But babies grow, as they are wont to do.
I didn’t want to give up the jovial bovine, however.
So he went into a pile of “SAVE THIS OR I WILL DIE!” clothing and things in the bottom of the boys’ closet.
Yesterday I started to try and do something interesting and fun with some of these items.
Including the cow and the moon.

The before:

And the after:

Wee pants for Noah!

I had an old cut-up sweatshirt from a few years ago that came in handy.
I made the patch by cutting the screenprinted part of the onesie and using steam2seam fusible webbing.
After I ironed the patch onto the pants I did a simple straight-stitch along the edges.
I then took some more of the onesie solid black material and made a waistband through which I fed 3/8 inch elastic and voila!
Baby lounge pants!
They are cozy and adorable.

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I soon took scissors to two more favored onesies.
(This one is another from the aforementioned etsy shop.)

Before:

Truth be told, Mike was never a fan of that puffer fish.
I LOVED it.
You never see baby clothes like that!
I could not give it up.
So I made Matty a hand-me-UP!
Is there such a thing??

After:

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One more.

Before:

Now this dinosaur guy was from Matty, he grew out of it, it went to Noah, then he grew out of it.
These kids and their GROWING!
Well, I liked that dino, so he is now residing here:

I thrifted the green shirt from the Salvy and added the dino using above method.
He looks happy, no?
ROAR!
Matty likes it!

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materials used:

re-purposed tees/onesies
thread
fusible webbing
elastic

October 13th, 2008 ★ No Comments »