A Flapper Headband Success

I used FleeceFun.com's great FREE pattern to make this:

This one is the slim adult which I traced onto the fabric using that line as the cutting line--kind of between the regular flapper and the slim adult flapper headband sizes.  Slim looked like it might be too thin for me (cuz I get to keep all my prototypes, of course;-).  It probably would have been fine, but my version worked, too.  I chose top stitching rather than putting in piping, but may do piping on the next one.

Here is the back.

Since this was my first try and I was making it to fit me, I decided not to bother with a buttonhole.  I wrapped it around, tacked the spot where it fit, then sewed on a button.  Directions say you might want to put on a couple of buttonholes if it is for someone else to make sure it will fit.  I think I'd use velcro rather than having an extra buttonhole showing.  BUT you gotta have A button on there even without buttonholes cuz it looks so cool.

If you use a yo-yo flower as I did, you get to have matching buttons.  Fleece Fun has a link to directions for making a satin flower if you prefer something a little fancier.

The pattern was quick and easy.  Even with making the yo-yo and hand sewing the buttons, it was finished in less than an hour including getting the pattern ready. 

The Force Is With Me

in the laundry room.

Kind of a funny thing about this fabric (from Missouri Quilt Company, btw). I saw the fabric before the movie.  From the picture of Rey on the fabric, I thought she had one leg.  I asked Brian who had seen the movie about it, and he had no idea what I was talking about.  I mean, come on!  Look at her.  Am I the only one who thinks she looks like she has one leg there? I actually thought that was kind of cool and wondered about the back story.  Okay, maybe it's just me.  Moving right along.  Back to the post.

My OCD insists that I apologize for not seeing that thread on the S before photographing this.  Stupid OCD.

I loved these hampers until I found that hampers without tops are not a great idea when the laundry room opens to the family room.  As they say, don't be airing your dirty laundry.  Hence the need for hamper covers.  Putting this on Sew Can Do link party--the force demands to be shared.

ANOTHER PROJECT DONE!!!! YAY!!!   And I got a new toy. 

Is that not cool?  It creates a beautiful, ever-moving mist.  It was a gift from the universe because my sister couldn't keep it.  Her cats viewed it as a combination personal drinking fountain and toy.  You can change the lights to a few different colors or have it change continuously from one color to another..  Then there are the light flashing options, one of which  is way too close to the disco lights of old.  That option will not be happening. Disco lights have always made me feel as though I'm one step away from a seizure.

This is the first fountain I've had with a silent motor--no noise.    All you hear is the tinkling sound of water.  I like it, but Brian has become a bit obsessed with it.  He drags anyone who comes in the house to stare at it and treats them to a light show.  I fear he will start knocking on the neighbors' doors to invite they over to see it.  I'm hoping his infatuation dies down by the end of football season.  Right now he can hardly leave the house because of games of one kind or another, and, for once, I am thankful for that.

Pillow Stand For My Kindle

I made this for two reasons.  First, I've wanted one for years.  The Pinterest links have been on one of my boards for at least two years.  Second, I thought these might make good gifts.  I finally tried one!

The stripes were supposed to be going the the other direction!  That would have looked so much nicer.

The tutorial is from FactotumofArts.com.  Of the pillow-type stand tutorials I found, this one has the best directions and finishing.  I changed it--of course.  I think most people will want this for sitting pretty much upright and it does, no doubt, work quite well for that purpose.  I want it for reading in bed, and, apparently I slouch down a lot.

Not a great angle when lying down.

 I made changes to try to accommodate the fact that I want the Kindle to be more upright, but, as it turned out,  I still really need to play with the pillow section to make it hold the device further forward.  I had already cut the fabric before realizing it would not be large enough.  I am assuming a larger pillow will have more vertical lift, right??  Changes I made to try to fix my issue at that point:

• I shortened up the lip in the front.  My Kindle is thin enough not to need the large lip anyway.
• I also shortened up the flat area where the device sits.  Again, the kindle doesn't need that much space anyway, and it would seem to provide even further space for the kindle to angle down too far.  In fact, I might even eliminate this extra space altogether on the next one.  The Kindle is so thin it should fit nicely between the lip and pillow. 

Had I not shortened up those two area, the pillow section would have been much smaller which would seem to equate with it being less able to hold the Kindle as upright as I wanted.

One success was the use of poly pellets for stuffing on the pillow section.  I have put off using these because of the horror stories out there about how hard they are to work with.   They turned out to be  easier to use than the poly fill suggested for the lip section.  The tutorial suggests using rice for the pillow section with the addition of poly fiberfill for the very top because you would not be able to fill the pillow completely with rice due to spilling issues.  I am not sure why one could not just fill it with rice.  I had no problem at all.  I left a one inch opening in the pillow section which worked out perfectly for the funnel.  I filled the pillow almost completely with the pellets.  The needle was threaded and ready to go making closing the pillow quick and easy.  I might have had five or six pellets on the table that needed to be picked up at the end. 

I shall certainly try this pattern again!  I'm going to enlarge the pattern by 3 inches in each direction the next time.   I will also use a different fabric.  I thought the decorator weight fabric would be a good choice, but it turned into a wrinkled mess when turning it right-side out.  With the seams going in opposite directions on the top and bottom,  pressing was crazy hard.  I hate wrinkles.  Fortunately I love ironing.

Here is is without the Kindle.  A bit plain and, as I said, the stripes are going in the wrong direction.  It makes it look a tad roly-poly.  I think I might try embroidering something on it next time or using a busier print.

I used poly pellets to stuff it.

Now I just need to leave it out to see who expresses an interest for gifting. 

Sew4Home's Neck Pillow

I should say Relaxing Neck Pillow cuz that's what the Sew4Home people call it.  We shall see about the relaxing part later, but I am really pleased with how easily this thing went together. The free pattern and tutorial are available at their site.  Just click on the link above.  I wanted to see if this would be something I would want to make for gift-giving.  The answer is absolutely yes.

It's a quick project that looks like it took a lot more time and effort than it does.  The site says it can be done in a half hour.  I doubt I could do one that fast even if I used the twill for handles as they suggested rather than making them from fabric.  Some of you cracker jack sewers may well be able to turn it out in that half hour time frame though.   Off to try out my new pillow. 

Caterpillar Stuffy Fail:-(

Stuffies should not be scary and, yes, those legs are centipede-scary, aren't they?

Problems?

• Obviously the black ribbon legs were a huge mistake. Nothing says centipede like a lot of blacks squiggly legs!

•  Also, while I like the fabric for the body, it needs segments.  Caterpillars must have segments.

 I do like my ribbon antennas, though.  I have got to use up some of my overwhelming ribbon collection.  Did I really just call it a collection?  That's not good.  Supply!  I meant supply!

This began with me trying to steal Sandra's Hungry-Caterpillar-book-with-stuffy gift idea.  I love both of her versions of the caterpillar.  You have to check hers out to see how good this might have been if I had just not decided to, once again, reinvent the wheel.

I can't even bring myself to donate this one.  It would be cruel.  Mine will terrify some poor child who happens upon it lying in the thrift store waiting for it's forever home. 

Until someone comes up with a kiddie book about a lovable centipede, this will will have to go the way of all centipedes--hidden in the far depths where they belong. 

Finally Got the Man Cave Pillows Finished!

The girly pillows have been finished for a few weeks,

but being as it's supposed to be an official man cave (I do let the guys use it on occasion), it needed this pillow to finish it off.

 

He fits right in.

One project down.  About a million more to go!

Update:  I wanted to add a little more about how I did this before posting it to Threading My Way's pillow page.  First, the pillow patterns I found on the web have those nice lines across like the actual emoji, but then the pillow is quite flat.  I wanted a fluffier pillow.  I ended up drawing a pattern by hand.  The downside to an overstuffed version is that you can't get sew in those lines.  After sewing that bit of a line at the top it was obvious lines further down would not work. 

To fix that first problem on the next pillow (because a half dozen people wanted one after seeing mine), I want to put together a sandwich with a little stuffing for the top piece. That will allow me to put in the lines.  Then I will sew on a back panel that can be fully stuffed.  I think that should give me both lines and fluff.  We shall see!  

Now that I think about it, everyone who wanted a pillow was way younger than me.  I may be having a Peter Pan moment--or life.  Too late to change now.

Birdseed Bag to Grocery Bag

I noticed that the birdseed I buy comes in bags made of a fabric similar to what Joann's sells as shopping bag fabric in its utility fabric section.  Yup, I did try turning one of those seed bags into a shopping bag. The seed bags are colorful and have a plastic coating that makes them even sturdier than the Joann's fabric while still being easy to sew through. 

The seed is from The Tractor Store.

I washed off the bag, cut it down a bit to be the size of a regular grocery bag, sewed up the bottom edge, boxed the bottom corners at three inches, turned down the top edge (just once cuz it doesn't unravel), added webbing handles, and fifteen minutes later I had a very nice shopping bag.

 
So there it is!  It's stiff enough to stand on its own for loading groceries which will hopefully make the store clerks happier.  It also folds up nicely for toting around

Those birds are gonna have to eat faster so I can make a few more.

The Jewelry Roll is Finally Finished

I could not find a jewelry roll pattern that I liked completely.  As a result I chose pieces from different designs to come up with my own pattern.  I used leftover fabric from Agnes' quilt.

The top strip that holds necklaces and bracelets is sewn down in a few places across the top so that it won't sag when the jewelry is on there.  The necklaces obviously get hooked onto the strip.  The center stuffed strip is for rings.  It snaps at the right side for access.

I reinforced the snap area with interfacing.

In addition to the rings, I put some of my circular earrings on here which works well, too.

I saw one design that had the pockets at the bottom.  In addition to providing a place for things like solid bracelets, long necklaces can be tucked in.  That made a lot of sense to me, and it was something missing from most jewelry roll patterns.  Without it I think things would possibly be sliding out the sides.

There are the pockets, sewn down the center to create two...

long necklaces out....

and long necklaces neatly tucked in.

I thought about putting in something to hold stud-type earrings, but decided to just push them through the pocket top.  

The studs and wires are not much more than a large needle and don't damage the fabric.

One mistake that just happened to work out was the placement of the ribbon at the center back.  I should have placed it at the bottom end.  Were my roll longer or shorter the ribbon tie may have gotten rolled up making it rather useless.  Luck was with me, though!  It works perfectly.

Agnes' Baby Quilt

Wanted to share a quilt I made for my son Kyle's goddaughter, Agnes.

The basic design is a combination of two ideas I saw online. I made a few changes, of course.  My over-sized pinwheel has soft interfacing to give the pieces body which helped with the name embroidery, too.   Look at those fun flaps!

The center circle has a quote from Shakespeare:  "Though she be but little, she is fierce."  Why?  Because I like the idea of raising daughters to be independent and fierce.

 I found "Agnes" ribbon on eBay--what??? Can you believe that?  What are the chances of finding that name on anything?

 Rather than wrap the quilt, I just tied on the ribbon.

Best part:  I actually got photos of the lovely lady on her quilt.  With all the baby stuff I've made over the years, this is the first time someone has sent a photo of the item in use.  Here's the lovely little lady sitting on her new blanket.

Love those little fingers and toes.

Edgy Pouches and Bits of Bling

I finally got a bit of sewing done!  I had a hankering for some new pastel pouches for an upcoming trip.  Despite using a stabilizer on the lining and quilting batting to the top fabric, it was still looking a bit floppy.  I thought about top stitching the four corner edges for more stability. decided not to take the chance of ruining it, remembered my New Year's resolution to step out of my comfort zone, and ended up top stitching every single edge about 1/8th inch in.  I like it! 

Then I decided to try a square pouch. I only used a decorative stitch down the center for the batting on the top fabric which I regret.  I think more quilting would look better.  The pale thread for the decorative stitching was not a great choice since it's barely visible.  Won't do that again.  Love the edge stitching, though.

Also love the double bits of ribbon at the zip ends.

I tried out the new metal pieces I ordered for making ribbon key rings.

Yup, forgot to put the clip on the second one.  I was so busy lining up the extra piece of ribbon on top that I forgot the most important piece.  The metal crimps worked beautifully.  I need to find a little silvery charm for the hole at the top.  These key chains cannot, however, compare to the blingy key chains I ordered on eBay to use as zipper pulls for larger totes.  This first one is going on the bag I made with the Japanese fabric a couple of weeks ago.  Lucky Cat!

This batch arrived in today's mail.  OMG! I LOVE BLING.

This guy is my favorite.  I'm not sure of the meaning behind a frog with a lucky gold coin in its mouth,  but I find it particularly appealing. I shall let you know if he bring me any luck.

As for achieving the New Year's resolutions:

• All the fabric, interfacing, and batting were from the stash ✔
• used some of the  ribbon from my recent ribbon-buying binge✔   
• tried some new things with the ribbon crimps, square pouch, and the edge stitching ✔

Ribbon Belts

In wandering about the internet looking for ways to use of the massive amount of ribbon I have purchased, I found this link for webbing belts with ribbon sewn on top.  They used military buckles which are nice but more expensive than my d-rings and square rings. 

They also put on belt tips. Love the look, and I have some on order.  However, I used nylon webbing and just singed the edges with a lighter to prevent fraying.  In fact I singed the edges of the ribbon to prevent them from fraying as well.  The site suggests sewing close zig-zag stitching if you don't use belt tips, but the one store-bought cotton webbing belt I have like this just has the end folded over and sewn.. 

For one of mine, I put ribbon on top of ribbon to get the look I wanted. Love it!

Whether using a tip or not, you can start the ribbon on the reverse side by a few inches like this:

so that you will have the same ribbon showing when you have the belt "buckled" as you can see below.

I started this project with the idea of just using d-ring and only used the square ones on the black belt because I didn't have any black d-rings.  I found I kind of like the square rings better because of the straight line it gives rather than the slightly scrunched effect of the d-rings.

These would make great kid's gifts for both boys and girls.  With girls you get to make some fancy hair bows to match.   Did I say I had too much ribbon?  What was I thinking!  I may not have enough. 

Using Up the Stash

I have two sewing goals this year:

First:   I am going to try to make a significant dent in the stash---again.

Second:  Try new things, both projects and techniques. 

Soooo, first project:

The Gardening Apron!

Thought this apron might be better than my usual practice of ruining clothes digging in the dirt.  Used up some of the fabric, button, and ribbon stash--triple win.  It's my usual apron pattern BUT sewing ribbon on top of the webbing for the neck and waist straps was something I've been meaning to try forever.  Turned out to be easy, too.  Made the design on my Silhouette.  Close up of the little frog button: 

I even put on a nice big divided pocket rather than leaving it off  as I would normally do in my usual rush to just git 'er done.

Gotta have pockets for the clippers and such

Also used stash items for this plastic bag holder and dish drainer set for Keegan.

Oh, look!  A tiny bit of ribbon used for the hanger as well

Made the bag holder reversible in the same fabric as the drainer clothes.

Love the terry and cotton fabric drainer idea I found on Pinterest. Need to make some for me.  Why is it that we tend to make nicer things for other people?  This is my plastic bag holder...

Pathetic little thing thrown together out of desperation one day when the bags were threatening to overflow.  She used to have a sister, "Such Trash", hanging nearby who disappeared.  Sometimes my husband doesn't like my crafty ideas.