Sewing Apron

I made this sewing apron for my Grandma.

She is an awesome quilter and gets together with her quilting gals once a week.

 

I'm always misplacing things - scissors, seam rippers - when doing a project,

so I thought of adding lots of pockets to an apron for all the gadgets you might need while working.

 

And if she doesn't use it for sewing, she's also a great cook, so she could wear it while making a pie or something delicious like that.

 

All of it is made from scraps that I've had for a while, so it's a bit of a mish mash of colors.

 

I used this tutorial.

Heritage Quilt

This quilt came to me in a very round-about way. Long story short, someone found out I quilted, so I after a first attempt, they asked me to make this "heritage" quilt. It is for a little girl and all the squares are from clothing items of family members. When they asked me to do it, I immediately thought of this pattern I had in an old book. It's called an Autograph Quilt, and I ran with the idea.

 So after interfacing every single block, I came up with this. Her name is on the middle on the bottom row. Her parents are on each side, and it graduates all the way up to her great grandparents on the top row. 

They were originally going to write the names on with fabric marker, but I wanted to sew them in. (Read: add tons of extra work) It ended up being a lot of fun though. I used a dissappearing ink pen to write it in rough, then I sewed over it with my free motion foot. Thank you fourth grade cursive...

Green on the back.

 Stippled around the names. 

Stars on the border.

And a little helper through it all.

So glad to have this baby done for Christmas. It was a job.

Pilot Costume

I offered to make my nephew's costume this year. I thought it would be fun to try to follow a pattern, and my daughter's costume was already done. I was happy to do it! It's from this McCall's pattern. It was pretty idiot-proof, even for a non pattern-sewer. I would reccommend a simple McCall's pattern like this one if you're a beginner like me. It takes some translation of sewing terms, but if you read it slowly enough, you can get it.

Except I messed up even before I got it home. I was very meticulous at the fabric store, buying the right notions and fabric, calling and texting reinforcements before I committed... 

I got it home and I had bought the wrong size.

Ooops.

Luckily JoAnn's was still having it's $.99 sale on McCall's patterns, so I just went and bought another. 

 The hardest part was the collar, but my sister helped me with it. We thrifted the white turtle neck. I think it totally makes the outfit (as do the sunglasses).

 JoAnn's had some amazing iron-on patches. I think little touches like this really make it look professional, and I didn't even have to sew them on . And that is my first real zipper. Thank you, thank you.

Handsome boy.

I think he really liked it.

This whole thing makes me appreciate my mother and how talented she is at sewing apparel. Quilting is so easy compared to all the technicalities of a pattern. I enjoyed learning it though.

Another Camera Strap Cover

After seeing Laura's tutorial for a camera strap cover, I decided to make one of my own. I followed the same basic instructions, but I quilted mine (of course I had to quilt it). I like the idea of re-covering as opposed to replacing because it can be washed or changed out if I get tired of it.

First, I measured how wide my strap was. This will be different for everyone. Then I just added .5" to my measurement for seam allowance. 

I gathered scraps in varying lengths, but cut them all to the same width--around 1.5" You could do this with one big piece of fabric, but I wanted it to feel scrappy.

I sewed them all together until I had enough to cover the length of my strap (about 20"+).  After those were all pieced, I cut a strip of thin batting that was 1.25". I wanted to limit the bulk in the seams so that's why I cut it smaller than my fabric. 

 This is me making sure that it will fit. It should be about half the width of your batting, so when you fold it it fits snugly after seam allowance.

I chose to quilt in straight lines down the length of the whole thing. Then I just folded the raw edges on the ends over and stitched them for a finished look. Here's where I skimped too much. I wish I would have added a bit of wiggle room as far as the length goes. I ended up maybe .25" too short. But it's hardly noticeable. 

Here's what the finished piece looks like before you sew it to make the tube.

 I sewed right sides together and turned the whole thing. The easiest way for me to turn is to attach a large safety pin to one side of one end and use that to thread back through the tube. You could use a real turner thing, but I don't have one. It took a little work, but the finished piece looks great. 

After doing this, I think another easy way to do it is to just iron down your edges .25" and top stitch the whole thing, wrong sides together.

Thread it on, and there it is. 

A softer more stylish strap. 

Kaleidoscope Baby Quilt

Another quilt done. I made this for my brother's baby girl that will be here in November. I seriously loved making this one. It was something different. I found the pattern here. She originally put circles on hers, but I decided I didn't like that look as much. Plus, I didn't want to cover up my points! They looked too good :)

You use paper templates to cut out the star shapes, then you piece half the square together on a diagonal. Sounds complicated, but it was actually really simple. I think if I were to do it again, I wouldn't do the greens so scrappy. I think it looks better uniform in a solid color. 

The quilting is my favorite part. I tried out this Dogwood quilting pattern, and it ended up being a ton of fun. 

Rounded corners and a pieced back. 

Again.

I Vowed Never to Do Piping Again

But then my friend asked me to make some bumpers for her nursery, so I attempted it once more. It really is a sweet story. They adopted two little girls, and they recently found out they were expecting their first little girl. So exciting for them.

The friend who I made them for is quite thrifty herself, so she actually found some really nice boy bumper pads at a yard sale and bought them before she found out what she was having. I ripped the whole thing apart and I used the existing piping and ties and recovered the pads to come up with this. It really cut down on the work (and the cost).

I basically just sewed a huge tube of fabric, added piping and ties, on one side, and voila. 

She loved them. As in, almost went into tears when I gave them to her at her baby shower. It's always nice giving something away when you know the person you're giving it to really appreciates it.

High Chair Makeover

Since we moved into a bigger house, we now have room for a bigger high chair. We've loved our little clip on, but this one is nice to have in the kitchen area while I'm cooking. I found a high chair on Craigslist for $10 (total steal!), but it didn't have a cover. So I just busted one out.

I'm pretty proud of this baby. I just looked at some pictures online (I found an amazing tutorial here),  measured the dimensions, then I just guessed and did the best I can. It would have been easier if I could have used the old one as a template, but I just did a mock up with some scrap fabric and tweaked it from there.

 I kind of love this fabric. Amy Butler's Daisy Chain and charcoal houndstooth. How can I go wrong? I think it could go either boy or girl. It's totally washable too.

I feel so good about this one! I'm so thankful that my mom taught me how to sew. I found some places on etsy selling high chair covers for $50+. No thanks.

Simple Pillow

A lady at my church wanted me to put a pillow together for her. It's made from a sweatshirt she wanted to give as a gift, and it was seriously Easy Peasy.

 First cut out your front and back. I just lined it up using my ruler and marking it with a disappearing ink pen. Cut it out. You could do it with scissors too. I cut both out at the same time to simplify things, but you can do it with any fabric cut separately as long as they're the same size.

 Flip so right sides are together. They didn't line up perfectly, so I just trimmed one edge. No big deal.

 Pin edges. You won't sew between the two purple pins on one side. This leaves an opening for stuffing and turning the pillow. Just leave enough open to stick your hand through. This was probably 3" or so. 

 Clip edges. This is so there's less bulk at the corners and you get a sharper point. 

 Turn your pillow right sides out. Your corners might look like this, but I just stuck a pin in there and picked the corner out.

 Ready to stuff. Put as much batting in as you want. I stuff little bits into the corners first.

 After it's all stuffed, you'll have one open side.

 Pinch the opening together like so. Pin, then slip stitch it closed. This stitch is so you cant see it. There's all sorts of tutorials online for this. It definitely takes a little practice, but it's really easy once you've done it . Don't be scared.

The finished seam all closed. Not perfect, but you can't even tell really.

And that's it. Super easy and fast. Totally washable too. You could make one of these out of a kid's favorite blankey, a favorite piece of clothing, some cute fabric or whatever.

Scrappy Fabric Letters

I got the inspiration for these babies on Pinterest, of course. I have a friend that is pregnant with a five year old and a three year old. She's pretty sick, so I'm sending her a package to get her through these initial yucky days. I wanted to add something for the boys to play with, and these fit the bill. I thought they would be great because the younger one can learn the letters and the older one could practice sounds, sorting colors, matching, etc.

I printed off letters. I used Helvitica size 370 and the letters ended up being about 4" tall. Cut out the letters. 

Trace them onto fabric (Kelli, you could use felt). I used the Mark-B-Gone side of this pen. I think you can find them at Wal-Mart. If you craft or sew with fabric at all, it's a great investment. The purple side disappears and the blue side comes of with a dab of water. You could use an iron on embroidery pencil too.

Make tons of mini fabric-batting sandwiches. They definitely don't need to be precise. I loved using up my scraps for this.

Then pin and sew away. These went super fast. I got them done in less than an hour. Make sure you back stitch at the beginning and end. Ease around the curves slowly. I used my walking foot for this, just because I thought it fed the fabric through better, but you could use a normal foot too. 

Let your baby roll in fabric scraps while you sew.

Cut the edges with pinking shears, and you're done. You use those special scissors so the edges don't fray, not just to look pretty... If you can't fit the shears into the small holes (like on the 'A'), just use normal scissors. I dabbed mine with water and threw them into the dryer on low for a few minutes to fluff them up.

And that's it! Totally washable, fun, and pretty simple to put together.