The living room

The new couch.

And the two fabrics I'm debating for throw pillows.  I think the print.  The solid will probably be used to reupholster the old couch in its new basement location.

Little pig, little pig....

In a later post, I'll be documenting a doorway puppet theater (held in place by a spring tension rod).  The puppets, however, are tonight's subject.

Since the embroidery extravaganza of purses went over so well, I am in the process of making next year's Christmas presents.  The plan is to make puppets for all the kids, in a variety of characters, and making a puppet theater for each family.  Each puppet will be a combination of embroidery and sewing - embroidered features, outlines, etc and basic stitching for assembly, with some hand stitching thrown in to keep me honest.

After a few of the puppet designs are completed, I will be sharing and/or selling the embroidery files.  If there are beta testers who are willing to provide some test data (reports on the stitchout, assembly process, etc), send me an outline of your review procedure & machine details and I will choose a few to receive free files.

The pig ears, tail, and hooves are stitched out first (with the option of stitching the hooves directly to the pig body or making stand alone hooves).  Then, the face is stitched in the hoop, attaching ears and the back of the head last.  The body is regular machine sewing with a hem around the bottom.  Finally, the heads are stuffed with fiber fill and the body is attached with hand stitching.  Hooves, tail, and the bow tie were hand stitched to finish them off.

Approximate fabric usage is 1/3 yard of 54" fleece. (Get remnants, it's not worth paying cut prices).  Fleece, anti-pill fleece, soft minky fabrics and terry cloth would all be good choices.  Felt would be okay, but I don't like how felt wears with heavy usage and washing.

--Mickey

Merry Christmas To Me!

Recently, the sewing stuff has taken over my office.  Looking for something to contain it, I found this armoire second-hand.  The color matches the rest of our woodwork perfectly, and the price was great.

This is meant to be an office-in-a-box sort of thing, so there is lots of space, a file drawer, smaller drawers, pull out printer shelves, storage for small stuff, storage for large stuff.  It will work out well.  There is even a fold-away work surface that would fold up on the right hand side and tuck into this, and fold down for a desk.  It's not in the photos as I haven't decided if it's going to be installed or not.

Clearly, I just shoved every half-finished project into there for now.  It needs some organization.

 

--Mickey

Non-slip headbands

A quick project for keeping hair out of your eyes.

You'll need some nice ribbon, some velvet ribbon, and a bit of elastic.  Measure the head over the ears in a loop to the nape of the neck.  For a small child this would be about 21".  The velvet ribbon should be a discrete color that will not show when it lies against the hair.  The nice ribbon will be visible over the head.

Cut three inches of elastic - I'm using soft elastic lace for comfort.

Take the head measurement and subtract three inches, use this measurement for the velvet ribbon and the nice ribbon that will show.  I chose 5/8" to give the headband enough width to actually work with heavy hair.

Place the ribbons right sides together and the elastic sandwiched between.   Stitch the end with a seam allowance of 1/4" to 3/8" (give or take). 

Stitch the other side the same way.

Now, flip the headband to set the ribbons right-side out and stitch the open edges of the ribbon with a straight stitch.

Wear the headband behind the ears with the velvet against the head, the elastic part will be at the nape of the neck, under the back hair.

Enjoy!
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My new jacket

Please don't let my eyes be larger than my talent.
I found the exact suiting I've been looking for in jacket form, with one minor problem...some assembly required.  The lining is beneath (the blue, why have boring lining?).
Deep breaths....worst case is it doesn't work out, right?

Gooey decimal system

The librarian is having a baby.....

Salvageable?

A suit, four years old....is the cut still ok?

What to do, what to do....

I have some lovely yarn that I have been gifted....reddish is raw silk, orangish is wool.  I need suggestions for projects.

Choo-choo

A new shirt for the little ones.  I'm learning to digitize designs, and using coloring pages as my practice material so I can experiment with depth and geometry. 

Achoo!

Can you think of anything more prissy than embroidered handkerchiefs?

Yeah, me too. ;-)

--Mickey

Denim bag for an umbrella stroller

Stroller carry and gate check bag

Sure, you can buy a stroller gate-check bag for $15, or a carry bag for $20. I chose to repourpose a denim shirtdress for the occasion, giving the final product a button closure, pintuck and pocket detailing, shoulder and piggyback straps to attach onto another pack with a carabeaner or short length of rope.

Trek on down to your nearest resale shop, I found this at Goodwill for about $5, or if you are one of the many women with one in their closet, simply dig it out. The dress this project uses is a size medium, but a large would solve some of my difficulties related to the size.

Measure your stroller at the widest point, this stroller is widest where the wheels fold near the handle, and is about 26" circumference at this point. The length is 42". The bag shall have a square bottom 7" by 7", and an overall length of 44". It is good practice to measure and pin a strip of muslin the circumference of the finished piece and pass the stroller though, ensuring the bag will fit. When in doubt, measure twice before cutting and round up - removing material is far easier than adding.

This dress has some nice details on the front (pintuck, pockets, and a row of buttons that will serve as the bag fasteners) which will be kept for the bag. Therefore, the front will supply 16 inches and the back will supply 12 inches of the final exterior. Your dress may differ, or you may choose to omit some of the details.



Carefully remove any seams or darts that are in the fabric and either rip or cut out seams that must be separated. Measure out front and back and cut the pieces for the long sides of the tube.

This is where the medium size encountered the first problem, the sleeves were not large enough to cut the end squares, so those had to be removed from the back shoulder area. This removed several inches from the length and the sleeve ended up being attached to help create the top, with the curved portion matching up with the neckline and the straight edge along the rear to make up for the missing length.

The loops are all sewn tubes of denim, about 4 inches cut width, a 1/4" seam, resulting in a loop about 1.5" wide after turning and pressing. The piggyback loops are essentially big belt loops, while the shoulder strap is long enough to slip an arm through for carrying. For ease of design, some of the loops are stitched from the long shoulder strap.

The bottom of the bag is a 8" square, leaving half inch seam allowances on all sides, for a 7" finished size. This is plenty of room for the bottom wheels, and could easily have extra storage room.

The top is made from one of the sleeves, attached to the neckline after remsving the collar. The sleeve is then attached along the armholes in front, and the flat part of the sleeve is carried over and topstitched to the back panel, just above the shoulder loop. This creates a y-shaped seam in the upper part.

Before stitching, pin the seams together and double check the fit periodically. Ripping out seams is time-consuming and rather annoying. Most of the seams have been serged (pine-leaf stitch on the sewing machine, and trimmed to 1/4" seam. Any topstitching was created in gold thread to compliment the jeans. Where possible, topstitching follows an existing line on the jeans.

The final touch is a snap to hold the shoulder strap to the bag while not in use. This will help keep the strap from snagging on things as it is loaded into the aircraft.

--

Hat and mitten bag

Anyone with children in school knows that hats and mittens often return home soaking wet, or not at all. After finding a wet mitten had been stored in a coat sleeve, I devised this bag for the kiddo to store them in.

The main bag is 11" x 28" of nylon mesh, folded over to make a 10" x 12" finished size. Handles are 3"x 14" strips of cloth, seam allowance pressed in, and folded in half.

Hanging loop is a 1" x 3" strip of cloth, or a scrap of bias tape, sewn closed.

Top of the bag are 3" x 11" cloth strips (four total), with seam allowance pressed in, mesh and handles sandwiched inside, and snaps to shut the bag installed. One side of the bag boasts the child's name, embroidered on the top strip prior to assembly.

The purpose of this is a bag to put wet things in that can go right into the dryer, or be hung up easily; also as a designated location for hats and mitts that tend to go floating off when not in use. The two snaps keep everything inside without drawstrings, which can be a strangulation hazard.

Full pattern and assembly instructions to follow, as well as some variations for laundry bags. With the addition of a zipper, this would make a nice sock bag for laundry day.

--

Go Diego!

I needed another gift for a small child. This one is a Diego patch that I've sewn onto a backpack. The image is from a storybook or coloring book or something (I forget), scanned into the computer and digitized using Embird Studio. Pretty straight forward process, but I'm still working the kinks out of it. Not bad for a first article, though.

Diego is embroidered onto black felt with tear away stablizer above and below the felt (I removed the top piece prior to the final outline stitching. The design is 21 colors, I think (or 21 thread changes), and way too many jumps and cuts in the black - that must be improved. Finished product is about 2" x 3", keeping it small hides errors in digitizing.

Toy potholders

What small child doesn't need toy potholders for their play kitchen? Ok, probably most of them, but these turned out cute anyhow, and it's a good refresher to me for how to correctly apply bias binding.

Sewing for xmas gifts

Today's installment of Christmas presents includes tea towels. This is very easy with the proper software and an embroidery machine. The child's hand prints are converted to embroidery applique images and then transferred to a towel by the machine. In this sample run, I should have chosen better colors, the year sort of blends into the background too much. Include the child's name on the towel, and you'll have a great gift for grandparents. A layer of tear-away stabilizer I hope will help keep the hand print appliques looking nice after the wash.



For the new babies, or not-so-new babies on your list, a taggie blanket from loops of old ribbon (or ribbon scraps, check the remnants section, you only need a couple inches of any one) and about 1 square foot of fabric for each side, and I threw a layer of batting in between to give it some heft. Pin the ribbons to the right side of the front fabric, the back fabric (right side together with the front/ribbons), and the batting on the wrong side. Stitch everything around, tacking in extra at the ribbons where they'll be tugged, and leave an opening about 1.5 inches wide to turn the project. Turn it out, finish it off, and you have a custom gift in less than half an hour. Make it extra special with the child's name in big block letters, or a cute image. I make most of these with old flannel shirts for one side and curtain material or juvenile clothing material for the other. Sometimes I find a remnant of something especially silky or whatever, as long as it's machine washable, I'll put it on.

Finally, more purses.... same pattern. And I beaded some key rings with the keys and alphabet beads with the names on them.

Cool shades

The latest creation from the embroidery project...sunglasses

I had to edit the pattern from Molly Mine so that the lens material is sandwiched between the front and back halves of the frame. This enabled me to use a stiffer material for the lenses. Since I know my kids will want to use these as real sunglasses, I asked around the local eye doctors and found a supplier for post-mydriatic spectacles (temporary sunglasses given to patients after dialation of the pupils). The lenses are cut from that material, and are completely safe to use as actual sunglasses. Craft foam gives these glasses some shape and stiffness, and I tried to use a variety of colors and patterns for the fabric.

--

Still more toys

I've finished a blue purse and a red purse, and I'm working on a bunch of money.

Pennies and Quarters....

Still working on the toys, but now I've invested in digitizing software. The first creations with the new software are pennies and quarters, simple designs with the denomination on the reverse and the appropriate bust on the obverse.

The penny needs some work - the color for Lincoln looks much better on the patterned fabric than the more golden color I chose for the 1.

Mirror, mirror, in my hand....

Mirrors! Yet more work on the xmas presents... Again, this is the Molly Mine purse pattern, with various colors of cotton fabric and foam core to give it stability. The mirror material is adhesive-backed vinyl from Specialty-graphics, who sells it by the foot ($2 per foot for 15" width), and shipped it out really fast (arrived within 3 days for standard postal shipping). This is a poor scan, since you cannot actually tell the mirrors reflect nicely. The flexible material does create some distortion, but the overall effect is pretty spectactular considering the price of materials.

More photos of toys