Throw Pillows

 

I found this great throw pillow tutorial over at From An Igloo.  This is a super easy and quick sewing project.  Even a novice sewer would be able to follow this tutorial.

We just bought a new brown couch and I wanted to make some fun throw pillows to match.  I love this fabric.  It is Soul Blossoms by Amy Butler.  The fabric has nice shades of blue, green, brown, and a mustard yellow.

I was able to cut and sew all four pillows in less than an hour.

 

So, I’ll let you in on a little secret… we now have a nice new couch, with some beautiful throw pillows, sitting in the basement that my husband has yet to finish.  That makes total sense right?  :)

Happy Sewing!

Japan Sew-a-long

 

I just wanted to give a quick reminder that today is the first day of the Japan Sew-a-long over at Living with Punks.  If you are interested in joining in click here or on the picture above for all of the details. 

Is it bad that I keep looking at the clock to see if it’s nap time yet so that I can get started on this?  :)

 

Happy Sewing!

 

Boy’s Raglan Shirt / Pattern Review

A few months ago I purchased Carla C’s All the Rage Raglan Pattern at You Can Make This.  Now that I am officially over my fear of sewing with knits, I decided it was time I tried it out. 

O.K. so lets talk about the pattern.  You know when you purchase a pattern and you are disappointed to find out that it isn’t very detailed  and you are going to have to figure a lot out on your own?  Well, this pattern is definitely NOT like that!  Holy details Batman!  This sucker is 109 pages long!  O.K. a lot of those are pattern pages but it still has 40 pages of instructions.  I’ll admit, at first glance, I thought that it was going to be a bit too overwhelming or difficult.  Then I took a deep breath and started reading.  Guess what?  It wasn’t hard at all.  Carla walks you through every step of the process with lots of details and great tips for sewing with knits. 

Here is the finished product!

Now in my typical fashion, I made it much too big for my boys.  I am so afraid that I am going to go to all of the trouble to make something and then it won’t fit that I tend to go too big.  So annoying!  Why do I keep doing that?

 

     

My boys are 2 but usually wear a 4t.  I foolishly made them the 5T and it was huge!  Granted it was my fault for making that size, but I also feel that this pattern runs a bit big.  I was able to try the shirt on my girls who are 5 but typically wear a size 8.

 

The only other issue that I had was that the neck opening was rather large.   (Even when I tried it on my girls.)  Next time I will attempt to make it smaller.

 

I had never tried mocked sleeves before and Carla’s instructions made them really easy to do.

 

I also added a band to the bottom.

 

Final Thoughts:

1. This is a great pattern.  Very detailed with lots of tips and pictures.  I feel it would even be good for a beginner or someone who has never sewn with knits.

2. Don’t size up as this pattern in my opinion, runs a bit big.

3. Make the neck opening smaller.

 

I hope this helps and happy sewing!

 

Small Ways We Can Help Japan

The main purpose of this blog is to share some of the things that I have made and to give you links to the patterns or free tutorials that I used so that you can try them too.  I know that I just posted about an opportunity to sew for charity with Dress a Girl Around the World.  However, I feel that we have all been thinking about Japan over the past week or so.  I came upon two opportunities to help and I wanted to share them with you.

First, Susan at  Living With Punks is hosting a sew-a-long to send shirts to the children of Japan.  Chelsea from Pink Fig is providing the pattern.  It really is adorable. 

I know that it seems like a small gesture but maybe just letting a child in Japan know that we love him/her will help in some way.  This sew-a-long requires very little material and time.  Susan will be providing step by step instructions.  For more details on the sew-a-long, please click HERE.   For the t-shirt tutorial, please click HERE.

 

 

Second, Cheri over at I Am Momma Hear Me Roar! is offering this really cute handbag called the Tohoku Tote for “pre-sale”.  All you have to do is donate $8 or more to an organization of your choice to benefit Japan.  Then e-mail Cheri and she will send this lovely pattern to you.  How awesome is that?!  This is so very generous of her.  It is a pattern I would have wanted to purchase regardless and now this just makes it that much better. If you would like to participate please click HERE  for all of the details.

Thank you so much for your generosity.

One Hour Bag

 

My aunt’s birthday was last week and I knew that I wanted to give her something handmade.  She is an artist so I knew that it would be appreciated.  Well my plan almost fell apart because I just couldn’t seem to find time to go out and buy fabric.  With two sets of twins that tends to happen.  I have actually brought them all to Joann’s with me before.  Let’s just say it’s not the most relaxing experience.  : ) 

I decided to go through my fabric stash and then search through some linky parties to find something that I could make with what I had on hand.  What I came up with is this cute One Hour Bag.  Isn’t it sweet and simple?

   

 

When I tell that I had just enough of the exterior fabric I mean just enough.  I even shrank my original pattern just a bit.

 

I love how the straps are on the outside and the little buttons add just the right touch.

 

 

I put a little pocket inside as well as a snap closure.

  

If you would like to make one too go to Vintage Ric Rac for the Free Tutorial!  Yippee!

 

Also be sure to check out the version on A Time For Everything.   Melissa’s bags were the ones I found on a linky party.  I just love her idea for using rosettes instead of buttons.

Happy Sewing!

 

Pillowcase Dresses for Charity

In my last post, I mentioned a wonderful Sew-a-long that is going on where all of the participants are making pillowcase dresses to be delivered to girls in need.  The charity is called Dress A Girl Around the World.  A Flickr Group was set up for everyone to show off the dresses that they made for this wonderful cause.  There are over 200 pictures of pillowcase dresses posted in this group.  That is so awesome!  Thinking about all of the little girls who are going to receive these dresses just makes me so excited. 

 

Here are my contributions to the group. 

  

 

 

To learn how to make these super cute pockets, go to Gingercake for the tutorial.

 

I’ll admit, my first impulse was to go out and buy up a ton of cute fabrics because lets face it I have a bit of a fabric addiction issue.  I had to remind myself to look through my fabric stash first.  Guess what?  I already had a ton of cute fabrics!

These dresses don’t take much.  I was able to whip up these four dresses just from my stash and I still have plenty left over to make a few more.  I have a feeling that as I am buying fabric for projects in the future, I will probably buy a bit extra with these dresses in mind.

 

If you would like to contribute to Dress A Girl Around the World, go to Little Big Girl Studio for a free pattern and to the Dress a Girl Around the World site for all the details. 

 

 

Happy Sewing!

 

Dress A Girl Around The World

I literally just found out about this awesome charity sew-a-long a few minutes ago and I just had to share it with you.  Little Big Girl Studio is hosting a pillowcase dress sew-a-long.  This sew-a-long is different in that participants aren’t making these dresses for their own little girls but for girls in need around the world.  How awesome is that?!!! 

Click on the button in my sidebar or here for all of the details.  Don’t worry about the date, it’s not too late to participate.   You have until March 16th to enter photos of your finished dresses in the flickr group for this sew-a-long.  Two entries will be chosen at random to win lots of great prizes!

Even if you are reading this post months from now it still isn’t too late.  Just go to the Dress A Girl Around the World site for details on making your own dresses or even organizing a group of friends to participate.  I’m off to go through my stash to see how many I can whip up this weekend.

P.S. If you are interested in other charitable sewing projects check out the Craft Hope book and these post about it here and here.

Runaround Bag Pattern Review

       

I just finished the Runaround Bag and I love it!  It is a pattern by the talented Anna over at Noodlehead.  This is a PDF pattern that is very easy to follow with lots of photos. 

 

I especially like the look of the bias tape trim.

 

  

I like how the bright yellow interior fabric contrast with the grey outer fabric.  I tried zip pockets for the first time too.  Anna makes it all so simple to do.  For me the pattern was worth it just to learn how to do these pockets.  “Oh so that’s how those are done!” 

I did make a couple of mistakes on this bag.  First of all, I was foolish and just grabbed the first interfacing that I found in my stash without looking at what I had grabbed.  Well it was Pellon 809 which is great for tote bags but really much too stiff for a slouchy bag like this. 

The second mistake I made was in the sizing.  I thought that the bag would actually be bigger than how it turned out.  I don’t know if I printed the pattern wrong.  I have printed many PDF patterns in the past and never had a problem.  I made sure that the page scaling was off.

I’m thinking that I just pictured it bigger than it actually was.  My finished bag was  13”  wide at the widest part and  10 1/2”   from the bias tape trim in the center to the bottom of the bag.  Let me clarify that it is plenty big enough for a handbag.  I was just hoping to be able to use it as a bit of a diaper bag as well.  My diaper bag is falling apart and I am just “over” carrying around a typical diaper bag since I have been doing so for 5 years now!  Here’s hoping that my boys actually potty train this year!

 

I would highly recommend this pattern!  It was very detailed and you will love your finished Runaround Bag!

Are you a chef, cause you keep feedin me soup?

 

I know what your thinking, random post title.  I’ll explain…

 

I love these cute little pants that I made for my boys.  Don’t they look like little chef pants?  Fortunately they aren’t made out of the same material.  They are a nice light seersucker and will be perfect for spring and summer.

Thinking of chef pants I kept getting that  “I Got a Man” song from the 90’s stuck in my head.

You know, the one were the guy and girl are singing back and forth to each other…

I already told ya, I got a man.

What’s your man got to do with me?

I got a man.

I’m not  tryin  to hear that see.

Than the girl says “Are you a chef, cause you keep feedin me soup?”

 

O.K. now that I got that out of my system, let’s talk about the pants!

 

As I have mentioned before, this month is over at Made and Made by Rae.  It’s a whole month of sewing and crafting ideas just for boys!  Yeah!  The first tutorial that Dana posted on Made was for some simple elastic waist pants.  It has very clear steps with lots of pictures.  Dana shows you how to draft your own pattern by using a pair of pants that currently fit your child.  You may also use her pattern which fits around a 2T-3T.  I chose to use Dana’s pattern and they fit perfectly.

 

The length looks a bit long in these pictures because the boys are in bare feet.   With shoes on, they look great and I know the boys will grow a bit by spring and summer too.

 

This is the only picture that I could get with my two monkeys in the same shot.  You can see that one is not too happy.

 

His photo shoot pretty much went like this.

Do I REALLY have to pose for a picture?

 

O.K., just one smile.

 

I’m outta here!!!

 

 

Sorry for the quality of these pictures.  I just have a little Canon Power Shot.   It takes great pictures outside, but inside pictures look horrible.   They are all grainy and blurry and yuck!

I think that I may have changed a setting on my camera by accident.   If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment.