Handmade Gift Idea #1

Some of you may have clicked over to the Creation Corner when I was a guest blogger over there, but this is what I shared as a good gift idea for a mom, sister, or newlywed:
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What makes this mitt unique is its Thumb section- instead of being on the side, it is on the top. Where your thumb naturally wants to go when you are pulling cookie sheets out of the oven. This is my favorite type of oven mitt, so I decided to make one and show you how it is done!

First you need:
Pattern Pieces
Batting
Insul-Brite
Fabric (I would recommend home décor weight, even though I did not for this tutorial)
Bias Tape

Cut your pieces out of your fabric following the Template instructions. I then trimmed my batting and Insul-Brite about a quarter inch, so there wouldn't be a ton in the seams. Lay them on your table with Fabric first, face down. Then, Batting. Finally, place your Insul-Brite on top, like so:



Baste all these pieces together.



Take your thumb and palm pieces, and match up the small curves. Pin, and sew only along the curved edge.



Since this is curved, clip your seam allowance so it won't be bulky when you turn it inside out.



Place your top piece and your freshly sewn palm/thumb pieces right sides together. I evened them up a little bit by cutting off a small piece.



Sew these pieces together, and clip your corners. I just cut the seam allowance really close to the seam to minimize the bulk.



Take your remaining fabric pieces and sew them together as you did the first set. Clip or trim your edges.



Turn your batting pieces right side out, and slide the lining piece in so that the wrong sides are together. Shove your hand in and feel for any weird bulky spots and trim seam allowances that might need some extra attention.



I added packaged bias tape (following its directions) to the bottom edge, but you can make coordinating tape if you feel particularly ambitious :).



As an after thought, I added a hanging tab to the inside of the mitt. To avoid raw edges, add the tab before you put on the bias tape, and have all your raw edges line up as you sew it on.



Now we have a lovely oven mitt that fits more ergonomically to my hand. It is custom matching to my kitchen too! Don't you think someone you know will love to have this in their kitchen?? Make a matching pair with coordinating placemats or hot pads, or embellish a set of dish towels to match.



Tomorrow I’ll have a WAY fun tutorial for a kid gift that you haven’t seen here before.  If I can get my kids distracted enough to take pictures without them getting a pre-Christmas peek!!

‘Tis the Season

…for colorful Pyrex.
A trip to the Antique Mall near our place resulted in this blue beauty, which I am excited to fill with some yummy holiday food.
The question is… what food???
I’ve got some fun handmade gift ideas that I am working on that I would love to share with you this week.  Can’t wait!!

Turkey Day

This year, Mike’s side of the family is having a family reunion.  And part of that reunion includes a Parade of Arizona Homes, meaning, all the relatives get to parade around visiting us who live here in Arizona. 

Which means, I have a lot of cleaning to do.

So, my friends, I am signing off early here, but I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving day with you and yours!

In the meantime, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the results of this year’s Thanksgiving table from The Creativity Room.  Last year’s was so beautiful and elegant. 

Check!

 

It was my mom's birthday earlier this month, and I whipped up this checkbook cover for her using This tutorial.  It was so fast and easy, it was perfect to fit into my extra busy days.

It really was easy, and satisfying!  My mom rides a road bike (she rode in the Tour de Tuscon this last weekend) so when I saw these bikes, I  knew she had to have something out of this fabric.  She loves it!  Check one gift off the handmade-gifting list!

Have a Laugh with me.

I finished a One Yard Wonders project.  And I'm laughing my head off.

 Ha ha ha ha... hee hee... HEE HAAA HAA!!  Is that supposed to be an elephant???

I'm inviting you to laugh with me about this.  Go ahead.  A good belly laugh.

Problems:

-TINY Trunk.  Like, way too small to stuff... In think the whole head pattern piece needs to be bigger which would be more... cartoony and cutesy.

-Just leave off the mouth.  It looks so silly.

-I attached the ears too low.  And, since I used a minkee dot, the ears are heavy so they don't poke out all cute like the book picture. 

-I think a darker fabric or larger scale print would be better, like the book.  Darker = heavier and more substantial.  And more like an elephant. 

I just keep laughing.  My sides hurt.

Christmas Coal Sack, Again, Revamped.

(Last year's Coal Sack)

My BFF and I are gearing up for a Boutique for this Saturday, and we decided that Christmas Coal sacks would likely bring some attention to our little table. Why? Because we want to keep our stockings nice and clean while pulling a good joke on someone on Christmas Morning! But, since we wanted to mass produce them, my Freezer Paper method from last year was not going to be very efficient. I saw a great tutorial on Sew a Straight Line (which, Sabra, now I cant find it!!), and thought it would be perfect for what we were doing. I'll do a recap here for ya.

Gather these items:

Embroidery Hoop larger than desired final image

Sheer Curtain material

Silk Screen Ink-- it is cheaper than you think!

Mod Podge

Paint brushes

Fabric of choice

Scraper thingy

Printed image/text

First, place your curtain in an embroidery hoop TIGHTLY and cut it around so you aren't dragging along a huge curtain everywhere you go :) Place it curtain side down on your printed image, and trace it with a pencil. I chose to write NORTH POLE COAL CO. EST. 1773, same as last year, for the bags. If you wonder, 1773 is the first year Santa Claus appeared in print in the United States.

In the dead of night when my kids were asleep, and the husband was too, I had a little date with my mod podge and small paintbrushes, painting everywhere AROUND the image I had drawn on my screen. Basically, you are simply preventing the ink from going where it shouldn't. I made two screens, one bigger than the other. You can see where the mod podge isn't:

Cut your fabric to size, creating a front and back of your bag. Our cut sizes were 7" x 11". One piece of fabric will be screened. Get this jar out:

Now put your friends to work! Place your embroidery hoop down so your image is where you want it, and put a small glob of ink over your image. Using a scraper or spatula, smooth the ink out over your image. We did ours light and quick so it would have a stamped look. See? Here's an action shot:

When you are satisfied with coverage, carefully pull the screen from your fabric. Be Amazed!!

Do this over, and over, and over. Just don't let your screen dry with the ink on it, or it will not wash out, and you can't use it again. We made a total of 25 bag fronts in probably 15 minutes (not including time spent getting kids fed, diapered, calmed, etc.).

Your screen will be messy, so wash it fast!

Let your image dry. Heat set it according to the directions on the ink, and you are now ready to make the bag! Simply sew the pieces right sides together, on the bottom and sides. Make a double 1/2" hem on top, and you are DONE. Seriously, so fast. So easy. We are going to tie these shut with ribbon at the boutique. You can do a drawstring if you like, but we were going for EASY!

It makes it almost worth it to be a little naughty, doesn't it? I think everyone in my family will be getting a North Pole Coal bag in their stocking!!

Fabric Flower Origami

The 3-D flowers on my tree skirt were such a pretty addition to the project, and I thought I would share how to make them. I originally found this flower in the book Flower Origami: Fabric Flowers from Simple Shapes by Kumiko Sudo. But, since the instructions are just drawings and I had to really use every ounce of brainpower to figure out what the instructions were saying, I'd thought I'd take pictures along the way to clarify!

First is Fabric prep. Round up two pieces of contrasting fabric that are perfectly square. Size doesn't matter, but for this flower, I used 7" square pieces. One fabric will be the flower, the other will be the contrasting fabric that just peeks through when you are done. My flower is going to be the polka-dot fabric.

Sew them right sides together, leaving a 2" opening to turn the fabric.

Clip the corners and turn, using a chopstick or something to make the corners nice and pointy. Blind-stitch the opening closed. Give it a good ironing.

Now, lay your square flower fabric side down. You should be looking at the contrast fabric. Fold up each corner 1.5".

Do this on all 4 corners and iron them flat. Make sure they as perfect 90 degree angles to each side as possible- it will totally help out later!

Now bring up each side to meet the points of your corners. Pin them to hold them in place until your next step.

After all 4 sides are done, it will look like this. Give it a good ironing, with lots of steam.

Remove your pins and flip your fabric over. Fold your corners in toward the center and pin in place.

When all four corners are in the center, stitch them together. You don't want anything popping out of place while you make petals!

To make the petals, insert your needle in the center of each side, where the folded fabric meets.

Bring your needle to the adjacent side of the shared corner. Pull your thread tight, and scootch your fabric to where it needs to be to look like the petal; I usually have to pull a bit towards the corner to make it look right. Make a few more stitches to keep it where you want it.

Knot off your thread and you should have something like the picture below. Then give it a good ironing, and move on to your next petal, and so on.

There is a small petal in between each corner that will appear as you go; make sure it stays under the big corner petals. And you will end up with this:

Which can be used to embellish practically anything! If you stitch down those small middle petals, it can even go through the wash on a piece of clothing.

Lucky Number 2

Before the results for Crafting With The Stars went up, I pretty much knew what the outcome would be. Didn't you?

But, after the results were up, I started thinking. I love lucky number 2.

I'm the 2nd child.

2 children of my own.

2nd Soprano in my choir.

2 cars with 200,000 miles on them (is that unlucky?)

2 times a lady.

2 heads are better than 1.

So, HOORAY FOR 2nd PLACE!!!

I LOVE my Christmas Tree Skirt. It is extra glamorous, with a whole lot of sophistication built in. So not me, right? But I get so excited looking at it!!

Aside from the overall awesomeness, the little fabric origami flowers, supposedly to be poinsettia-y, really made this skirt what it is. A big thanks to my little sister for making these beauties. All except the two in the back of the skirt which looked like an elephant stepped on them... those are the ones I made.

I'll show you how to make these later this week. Fun, huh!

The looongest part:

The Celtic design in between the flowers... I made interlined bias tape to just glue to the main skirt, but it was a heck of a time getting it to make those curves! Darn that interlining... anyway, we had to scrap our original design because our curves weren't curving. Kind of like my body. Heh heh.

The ruched banding was actually really easy to make with my mom's ruffler machine. You can do it with a regular machine, it will just take a while to gather soooo much fabric. I got halfway through one row using my machine and my mom was like, "oh, honey... let me show you how to do it faster..." and I wanted to dance for joy!! I also used her piping/welting foot on her sewing machine to get a really nice, tight piping to go in between the skirt and ruching, and on the outer edge.

The details on this skirt are really cool, I wish you could see it in person. My place is too small and too... boring for pictures, so I hauled my fake tree to my mom's house to take pictures. I had an hour before I had to run to a bunch of church meetings, so we got beads strung and called it good! It was a rough time getting beads out of my 18-month-old's grubby fingers!

I am so proud of myself for all I've accomplished this last month! I couldn't have done any of it without Jill's help and encouragement, she was a great Star partner, I only wish we lived close to each other so we could have done all this together, literally!

Thanks Jill, and thanks Tam for putting all this together. It was fun!!