V and Co: Toasty rice Hand Warmers with Lavender

This is a post I did a few years ago. I actually had to make some more of these because my kids requested some and so did the husband…it's been a little chilly here so I thought I would reblog this in case anyone needed to make some more or if you missed it the first time around! :) 


the other day my son came in with a pink nose and yelled "MOM! I'M FREEEEEZING! do you still have that rice bag thing you made? can you heat it up?"
yeah i still have my rice bag feet warmer i use it all the time, because i'm like always cold.
so i said "yeah, i have it, hold on." i heated it up, gave it to him. as that son was warming up with oohs and ahhs coming out of his mouth, another one of my sons walked in from outside with pink nose in tow, and complained "hey i want that!"
they proceeded to fight over it...
and well at that moment the light bulb went off.

"stop it. i'm going to make you each rice hand warmers."

i started and then couldn't stop making them.

trust me you wont be able to make just one set either, you'll be making a mountain of them because of how cute they are, but also because you'll need to make extras for extra little(or big) hands that will seek shelter and warmth from being in the cold.
it's already been known to happen over here. true story.

*these are also great last minute neighbor and teacher gifts. :) 

ready to make your own?
materials needed for one set of hand warmers:
*grab some rice (i used white long grain, because that's what we eat)

*scrap of fabric (it just needs to be enough to fold over to cut out 1 strip (double fold) at 3 1/2" x 6"
*those strips of fabric cut again in half at 3 1/2" x 3"

to assemble hand warmers:

1. place right sides together for both sets of squares.

 2. using a 1/4" seam allowance sew along one side of your squares.

 **instead of doing each hand warmer separately, *chain* your squares.
to chain your squares sew your first seam and then instead of cutting the threads, place your next square to be sewn. you will end up with a couple of stitches that will not sew onto any fabric, hence making a chain.

this will be helpful is you are doing a lot of hand warmers.

 3. after you have sewn one side on all your squares, you can cut your *chain* like the picture above.

 *here is a picture of all the squares having one side sewn and then had the chain cut.
4. sew three sides of your squares (using the chain method for each side)
5. the fourth side sew your seam and leave a 1 1/2"  opening in the middle of your seam. (back stitch at the opening so it does not rip open for the following steps.

 6. once all four sides are sewn, cut at an angle your corners making sure you do not cut through the "X" your seams make.
7. turn inside out, and using a pin pull out your corners as much as you can.

 8. for filling we are using rice, so you will want to get your rice and if you have a funnel use it to get the rice inside the opening. (i made my own out of paper shaped into a funnel)

 8. fill up your hand warmer at least 3/4 full.

**add some lavender for a calming smell.

 9. and hand stitch closed.

WARMING INSTRUCTIONS:
*warm in the microwave for 15 seconds.
*hold in your hands and warm up your digits.
*can also be used as eye packs (freeze them for cool packs, or warm them for warm packs)
*i do not recommend heating them up for longer amounts than 15 seconds as it may cause burns on skin.

so far these have been a huge hit at our house, and at the neighbor's house, and with my kid's friends that have come over.


 i am including this Warning with these little guys:

**WARNING**
i can not be held responsible for boys using these as hacky saks and or pelting mechanisms. because trust me...mine have and yours probably will too. 
ALSO:
in cases where some of the hand warmers go missing...please go look in your daughter's playhouse...because they make really cute barbie pillows.

consider yourselves warned.
i hope your house enjoys them as much as our house has.
we'll talk soon

V and Co: how to: make a spiderweb table runner

 we are "enjoying" the last day of our four day weekend over here. give a girl a month and half of all 4 kids in school and my how i forget so quickly how it is to have them around.every.waking.moment.of.the.day.
anwho
  last year i was all humbug about the holidays. i think i was trying to get my life more simplistic from having a tumultuous 6 months of moving and crazyiness that we were in as a family. decorating for each holiday didn't fall in the "simplistic" category last year as we were still trying to find couches, get in the routine of a new state, a new school, and new time zone, and new EVERYTHING...this year, though my life is far from crazy...okay wait. maybe crazy isnt the right word to use...my life is busy... i do find myself wanting to make the holidays kind of fun. soooo i made this fun runner  last week in prep for the upcoming holiday. the kids thought it was cool. the third noise maker said "did you know that spiders make webs out of their butts?" to which the girl noisemaker was like "EWWWWW!!!"

*sigh* yup. 

anywho

i'm not a huge fan of cartoonish looking decor, like ever...i decided a spiderwebbed table runner might be cool, i experimented and then liked it enough, so i decided to make a how to on it. 

here it is:

 what you need:
two strips of fabric (mine is linen) cut to 15" x WOF (usually around 42"-44")
batting same size
ruler
erasable pen (mine is the FriXion Ball Erasable Gel Pen)
basting safety pins (like these.)


okay here's what i did:

1.first take your ruler and pen and draw a couple of large Xs on one of your linen 15" x WOF pieces.

(hint: it's helpful to keep in mind how spiderwebs work: they usually have to be attached to an edge or to each other. )

2. also drew a couple of small X's in the corners or on the sides here and there.

3. once you have your X's placed out, start drawing a few more lines, having a few connect and stop at the other spider web's lines.

4. draw slightly curved lines starting from the most inside part of the web.
**remember webs aren't perfect! with wind and weather they aren't perfectly even lines! :)

continue to draw your curved lines...

5. once all your spiderwebs are done grab your batting and second 15"xWOF piece of linen and sandwich them linen, batting, spiderweb linen.

6. baste your runner with your pins.

7. pick a stitch on your sewing machine.
on this bernina i had a lot of options but i went with just a basic #7 because i thought it would show up better than a smaller stitch...and i'm still learning all the ins and outs on the machine...so i didn't want to complicate things for myself just yet.
of course if you have lots of options on your sewing machine play around on a practice piece of fabric to see what other stitches would go good. (if you make one of these make sure you post them in the V and Co flicker!!! )

CREATING THE SPIDER WEBS
first things first, we are going to treat this like we were quilting the runner, so here are some steps that are kind of important. :)
1. position your needle over your drawn line.
2. holding the top thread so it doesnt go anywhere, place your needle in the downward position.

3. and then bring up the needle again. (you are basically doing ONE stitch)

4. when you look under the foot you should see the bobbin thread.

5. pull out your bobbin thread.

6. holding both threads now start to stitch on your drawn line.
7. repeat these last few steps EVERY time you you stop and start up again a new place in your spider webbing stitching.

8. slightly guide the fabric in a curved line to follow your curved line, go slow if you need to.

9. as you quilt more of your runner, remove the pins as you go. :)
10. continue till you finish all your lines!!!

11. to bind: use my binding instructions! :)

and there you have it. a pretty darn cool looking one of a kind table runner.

now go make lots of spiderwebs...but not from your butts. that would be kind of gross and an epic fail. (cause you would be pooping) <---just thought i'd spell it out just in case.
we'll talk soon. 

V and Co: how to: appliqué doilies onto a onesie

alrighty. so i heard from a few people, that lots of people are afraid of appliqué. is that true? this boggles me. it's not scary at all? but then again it's one of my favorite things because i can take it anywhere and work on it anytime. and i like the hand work.

but i get it it might be scary. so i'm going to talk a little today about appliquéing a doily onto your newly dyed onesie. and then in the near future we'll continue to talk about appliqué, because i think if you knew how to do it the easy way (no not with the raw edges though that would be find too) but with the right tools you to can do some great turn over looking appliqué. ah but i'm getting ahead of myself here. first lets just talk about this onesie at hand.

to make this onesie you will need:

doilies: now if you have heirloom ones and you wont be making anyone roll over in their grave or upset your great aunt maltilda by dyeing them or using them on something other than a decorative coaster...awesome.

if you need to buy some of your own: go here and joanns has a ton as well. i got mine at joanns (just make sure you buy the crochet doilies not the paper ones).

you can also just use doilies as is. like in my book:

where i make this simple yet elegant gathered border doily quilt. 

see you don't have to dye it...but it sure is kind of fun to do so. :)

okay so lets keep moving:

what you need:

-doilies.

-dyed onesies and doily

-needle and aurifil or any thread to match your color of dye. (i used aurifil)

-embroidery scissors

-pins

and for more thin doilies (and my favorite wonder web  to use for appliqué):

Pellon Wonder-Web 807  <-- we'll show you how to use it next.

okay so first things first:

placement.

where do you want the doily? i wanted most of the doily to show on the front but because it was kind of big i wanted it off center. and i thought it would look cute going around to the back.

so from looking at the onesie from the front i liked the off centered look of the top picture...

so next i shifted the onesie on its side (with the hem facing me) and started to pin it in place. (now disclaimer: i am not using a stabilizer because we wont be sewing it on with a machine, it will be done by hand, if you do not feel comfortable skipping this then by all means place a stabilizer.)

make sure your doily is laying completely flat.

and start to pin the front side of your doily down making sure you only pin through the top layer of your onesies.

once you have a little over half of your doily set in place with the pins, shift the onesies so it is facing down, and make sure when you lay your onesie down flat there are no puckers or loose fabric under the doily.

take your threaded needle and bring the needle up through the jersey and the doily.
next take your needle and place it close the first stitch and go back through the doily and the jersey.
take small stitches first around the whole doily, then making an X through the middle. continue to stitch more X's until you feel like it is secured onto the onesie good enough.

okay now lets look at a thinner more delicate doily:
get your pellon and cut it out the shape of the doily. (it doesnt have to be perfect you just have to cover most of the doily so it won't sag where the stitches aren't placed)

next pin in place...

and flip your onesie so the backside is showing. (you may want to place a protective thin cloth under the onesies (so any of the webbing wont get on the ironing board) and a cloth under the iron-just in case) 

iron gently till the webbing has melted and adhere's the doily onto the front of the shirt (again the edges might not be perfectly kept down we just want to make sure that the doily stays put)

after you check that it indeed is secured in place repin just to make sure it doesn't travel or anything. 

and then repeat all the other steps we did with the doily.

and now you have two adorable looking one of a kind onesies.
next how to will be the ruffled ombre flower onesie...and then i have another fun thing we'll make with all the doilies i bought. :)