Spring Has Sprung!

Well, I have been so busy keeping my other resolutions that the blog has sort of fallen to the side. I lost a bunch of weight already, and have also been in a frenzy of organizing and purging and planning new projects... Don't worry, though, I have all sorts of craftiness to share!

I finally finished and sent the Giftmas goodies for my DearSis and all her awesome family. I know, I know, I know... it's March. Last year the gifts went out in May (I think?) and I didn't even have a good excuse, so I figure I'm ahead of the game!

Also, instead of some handmade and some store bought, this year I sent all handmade gifts. Hand knitted skirts for her 3 girls,

a car caddy for the nephew,

a crocheted scrubbie mitt for my sister (which was one of the fastest things I made, so I forgot to take a picture, of course) and just a gift card for BIL - by that point, I couldn't stand making anything else. Sorry, bro. You'll get homemade brownies next year. In July. ;)

So, here it is, the first day of spring, and love is in the air! The baby lambs are frolicking in the fields, and I'm starting to see calves in the pastures and smell the scents of spring. (I seem to forget every year that the first few days that are nice enough for me to open the windows are also the first few days that are nice enough for the farmers start spreading manure.) In the spirit of love, rather than manure, I whipped up this nifty little gift pillow today!

It has a zipper down the side, and is actually two small pillows with a heart-shaped space in between for your gift to hide.

To make this, you will need:

• 4 pieces of appropriately sized fabric, 2 for lining and 2 'pretty' pieces for the outside (we'll look at how to determine the size in a minute)
• batting or fiberfill
• zipper, velcro or other fastener
• needle and thread (You can hand sew this if you want a small one, or use your sewing machine for a bigger one. A zipper foot isn't necessary, but might make your life easier.)

See? Not too complex. Of course, I made it harder than it had to be. Cuz that's what I do. Make sure you read all the way down, and check out the "What I Learned" section before attempting!

The first step is to determine what size you want your pillow to be. I had a 7" zipper on hand*, so I determined that one side of the pillow needed to be at least that long. So I made a half-heart template, making sure that the outside straight line was seven inches long. I just used a paper plate to trace the curve, cut out my template, and made a few snips here and there until it looked just right. Make sure to leave an even seam allowance!

*Had I thought just a little more, I would have realized that it could have been any size had I used Velcro instead.

The pillow itself would have been more even, and the opening seam would have been almost completely hidden, like I wanted it to be. Of course, I went right ahead and used a zipper, not even thinking about the fact that a) I have only ever sewn in a zipper once before, and b) with my limited sewing skills, there was no way I was going to be able to successfully hide a zipper in a seam. But hey, live and learn, right?

My fabric was a really soft and slinky remnant that I had picked up somewhere, perfect for a pillow, but scary for me to work with. I debated for a while, and finally decided to use the freezer paper stenciling idea and just adapted it to my needs. I cut the pattern pieces out of waxed paper, then carefully pinned and ironed the waxed paper to the fabric before cutting the fabric. Worked like a charm!

I just left the waxed paper on while I sewed the lining and outside pieces together, of course remembering to leave a small hole (in the same place on each half) for turning and stuffing.

I pinned the zipper in place on the wrong side of one half of the heart. I aligned the two hearts, and pinned the second half to the other side of the zipper. Then I flipped the pillow over and topstitched the zipper in place, and all around the outside edge on both sides.

Then I stuffed* it. Not too firmly, remember. I turned and pinned my stuffing holes, then ran another top stitch all the way around to connect the other sides, making sure to catch the raw ends of the stuffing holes in my stitches. Unzip, et voila! A nifty pillow with a semi-hidden zipper to stash your love notes, or... y'know... other things.

No judgement here.

*All of the lint is from my stuffing - I used shredded socks. Seriously! Gives the pillow a nice weight, and is soft and comfy. They were bleached within an inch of their life before being consigned to the shredding bin, fyi, because I know my imaginary readers are all like "Ewwww..." right now.

What I learned from this project:

• Waxed paper is awesome.
• I could have sewn the zipper in at the same time that I was sewing the lining and front pieces together, and saved a few steps and a lot of time. I will do that, or use velcro to close the pillow, next time.

Making Christmas #3: Toy Car Tote

I was clicking through the internet one day and saw a little tote for toy cars, with pockets for the cars on one side, and a play area on the other side, that folded up and had a carrying handle. I loved the idea, and after weeks of thinking it would require much more than my feeble sewing skills, I had found enough courage to try it. So of course I couldn't find the web site again. After hours of fruitless googling, I figured that there were a few design features I hadn't been crazy about, anyway, so I would (as usual) just make up my own pattern and (of course) just wing it. And here is my version of a toy-car tote - nowhere near as cool as the original that inspired it, but super-simple to make, small and portable and enough to keep that certain little boy entertained on the go. Enjoy!

This is how to make the toy car tote I made for my nephew, out of an old shirt. First, find an old cotton shirt, or some sort of leftover fabric. I chose the shirt because it was a slightly heavier, durable cotton, but you could use any type of fabric, I suppose. This was a women's large, and I had more than enough fabric.

Next - measure and cut your fabric. I just pinned an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of craft felt to the shirt, and cut around the edge through both layers of the shirt to get 2 pieces of fabric. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. The cat even helped out.

Now you will add your "road". Pin it 2" in from one short edge on the right side of one of the pieces of fabric. You will notice I forgot to embroider the yellow lines on the road before I sewed it on - it is not fun trying to embroider them on afterwards, so if you want them take care of it before this step!

Pin one end of your elastic, and use your cars to see where you need sew down in between, like so. First one car, pin to mark it,

Then the next car, pinning to mark, and so on.

I found that 5 cars fit well on this size fabric.

Sew next to your pinned markers, going back and forth a few times to make sure the elastic is secure. Make sure you sew the edges, too. Turn your piece and sew the long edges of the "road" to your fabric.

I also neglected to put on a handle at this step, when it would have been easiest. If you have a piece of nylon webbing, that would work great as a handle. Pin one piece to the bottom, with the handle part pointing towards the center of the carrier. I know it seem counter-intuitive, but it works. Promise. Lay your two pieces of fabric right sides together, with the handle sandwiched in between, and sew down one side, along the bottom, and up the next side. Reach in, grab the handle, and turn. Ta-daa!

After that, raid your recycling bin for an old cereal or cracker box near the same size, and cut it as shown. Since I was using paper sized fabric, I just cut the front of the box to 7 x 3, 7x3, and 7 x 1-1/2.

Maybe there is an easier way to do this, but I don't know how, so this is what I did - put one piece of cardboard in to the bottom of the "bag" you made, between the two layers of fabric. Leave a small allowance so that you don't sew through the cardboard, and sew across. Insert the 7" X 1-1/2" piece of cardboard, leave a small allowance, and sew across. Add the final piece of cardboard, your second handle if you're using handles (the ends tucked in between the fabric pieces with the handle part out and pointed toward you), and fold the ends under. Pin and topstitch across to seal it shut. Sew on a button to keep it closed when it's folded up, and yay! Done! Fill it with cars and give to your favorite little boy!

Making Christmas #1- Colored Corn

This is a fun little project.

I have seen multi-colored popcorn in the grocery store before, but I wanted specific colors. I searched the internets, but couldn't find a great tutorial, so of course, I figured I'd make one myself :) That's kind of what I do.So, if you've ever wondered how to dye popcorn, this one's for you. And just in case you were wondering, this only dyes the kernels, the popcorn will still be white.

For step one, you will need:

• popcorn
• glass jars with tight-fitting lids (I used pint canning jars, which held about 1 cup of popcorn each)
• food coloring in desired colors
• water

Fill the jars with popcorn. Make sure to leave about an inch of headspace at the top of the jar -or more, if you are using larger jars! The popcorn will swell, which can make it pack tightly in the jar and it will be difficult to get out if you haven't left some room.

Add water. I just ran enough water in the jar to cover the popcorn and fill the jar, I didn't measure it.

Add food coloring. I used about twenty drops for my pint-sized jars, but if you are using larger jars adjust the amount accordingly. You're going to want to add enough to make your water pretty dark.

Now just let it sit for about 24 hours. I shook mine occasionally, and turned it upside down for a few hours at a time, just to make sure the food coloring got everywhere once the popcorn started sucking up the water.

On to step two!

For step two, you will need:

• paper towels
• baking sheets
• oven

This is pretty straightforward. Just drain the colored wate

r (I saved mine for making another batch down the road) and spread the kernels on a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Then dry the kernels. I used the oven, set at its lowest temperature (170) for two hours, checking every twenty minutes or so. But you could also air-dry it, if you have the time and patience!

Now you have Christmas colored popcorn! Package it all pretty, and enjoy!

Doggie Beds

We recently decide to crate-train our dogs. Even though both are seniors, its been working really well (for us, anyway - the dogs don't seem to be as thrilled about it!) but the crates themselves - well, they're just ugly. And the plastic liners in the bottom of the crates were uncomfortable for my poor arthritic old dogs.

I finally decided to do what I could about it. I had priced some of the beds and cushions available, and they were either prohibitively expensive or too hard to wash and take care of. So, my pups used their ratty old dog bed and a fleece blanket.

Beautiful, huh? I had been puzzling over what to do about the problem for a while when I came across this while cleaning out a closet :

If you're not quite sure what it is, it's a foam mattress topper. We used it for the old guest bed. This one has actually been around for a while, so I didn't feel too badly about cutting it up.

I used my super- precise measuring method of looking at it and guesstimating, and cut it about an inch smaller on each side than the tray that fits in the bottom of the crate.

I also had a pretty, unmatched old top sheet that I had been keeping around, trying to find a use for. It's just a twin sheet, but it was more than enough fabric for both dog beds. I folded it in half horizontally (right sides together) and cut using the same measurements as before (that would be none) but I left an inch or so extra on either side for seaming, and cut down the whole length of the sheet to the fold. You will have some excess fabric if you do this, like so:

That extra length will be useful later on. After I cut the fabric, I simply pinned it, and stitched up both sides from the hem to the fold. Essentially, I was just making a big, long pillowcase. (These are the longest seams I have ever attempted, and they were harder to keep straight than I thought they would be, even with pins!) I turned it right-side out, lay the foam in the plastic tray, slide the plastic tray and the foam in to the case, folded the edge under the tray and slid it back into place under the crate.

Ta-daaaa!

It was greeted with muted enthusiasm, but I think it looks great.

*Edit - I used an old cotton sheet, but I will be replacing this cover - probably with some cotton duck or upholstery fabric - down the road. The sheet didn't stand up well to the dogs 'nesting' habits. On the bright side, though - my larger, more arthritic old pup now loves her padded crate and lays in there even when she's not told to.

The Misadventures of the Sweatshirt Pillow

I hate to just put stuff in a box and store it. I think that the things that are special to us should be out and used. My kiddos have a few items of clothing that are really special to them, and I am always trying to think of ways to reuse the really special ones and keep them around as long as possible. Although I'm not averse to a T-shirt quilt, I hadn't quite gotten up the courage to attempt a full-size quilt - little bite-sized projects are much more my speed - so I thought that this would be a fun way to keep Thing 1's Phillies sweatshirt (from the first game he and DH went to, when he was a wee boy of only 5!) around and useful. This isn't really a tutorial though, more like showing what can go wrong, going wrong.

What I learned from this project:

Sports memorabilia is a rip-off. This thing was so badly made it almost ruined the project, and I'm pretty sure DH paid almost $30 for it at the stadium. Grrr...

I was originally going to sew the armholes and neck closed and make a case for this small pillow Thing 1 likes to keep on his bed. But, as I planned the project, I noticed that:

• The logo was not centered on the sweatshirt
• The logo was too close to the neck for me to be able to sew the neck closed
• DH paid way too much for this p.o.s.

So, I had to improvise. I like improvising, so I was okay with that. I decided I would cut the seams out (faster than picking them) and use any excess fabric to sort of wrap around, under the neck, thereby closing off the neck hole and preserving the logo. Which is, of course, what DH paid $30 for when he bought the stinking thing.

Well, then I ran into another problem - the shirt was made for a child, so there wasn't much extra fabric where I needed it, and sewing around a stretchy circle (neck) was a bit above my skill set at the time. So, I decided to sew a square salvaged from the sleeves underneath the neck hole, and sew the sides together and be done with the darn thing. So, I cut off the sleeves and that's when I saw this:

The shoulder seams weren't straight at all! When I lined them up straight, the sides were crooked. When I lined up the sides, the shoulders were crooked! I almost cried. This had started out as a quick, easy project to finish before Thing 1 got home from school, and was shaping up to be impossible - and I had already cut apart his favorite sweatshirt. Sure, it was too small, but it was still his favorite.

Well, I managed. I had to cut out the shoulder seams and deal with the logo being off-center, but it was done and on the bed when Thing 1 got home from school that day. Barely. But he doesn't notice all the things that make me nuts about it, and when he gets tired of using the ratty old pillow inside it, I can just stuff it and sew it shut. Or maybe by then I'll have decided to tackle that T-shirt quilt.

For The Man Who Has Everything

My DHubs is a hard guy to buy for. Mostly because I am a complete sucker, so we buy him pretty much whatever he wants when he wants it rather than waiting for special occasions, partly because he has expensive tastes, and also because I prefer to make gifts, not buy them, and he's just not into that. I'm okay with that most of the time, but sometimes the stars align and he gets a homemade gift or two.

This year, it just worked out that he got 2 handmade gifts to use in his office, and he seemed to really appreciate both of them. I never get to see his office, so they may just be stuck in a drawer somewhere, but he said he liked them, so I'll just take him at his word.

One gift was the ultra-cool Baseball Bat Hanger and Stand, the second was this business card holder. I hadn't planned on making it for him, the way I had the stand/hanger, but we found out about his promotion right around the same time as Father's Day, so I wanted to give him a little something extra. I was just winging it (as usual), but here's my best explanation of how I made it.

Business Card Holder

Materials:

• scrap wood (I used an old 2x4)
• Hand miter saw and box
• Sandpaper
• wood burner, or paint (optional)

This is so simple to make, but there was some trial and error involved and the directions are not exact, so if you have any questions, please comment below.

Cut approximately 3" off a scrap 2x4.

Using the 45-degree angle of your miter box, make two cuts, approximately 1 inch in from the back and the front edge, as shown:

Please excuse my wonky paint illustrations.

Next, make a cut straight into the 45-degree notch you made, like so:

Now, simply sand the edges and decorate as you'd like. My original intention was to decoupage one of his new business cards to the front bevel of the holder, but he didn't have any yet, so I tried to wood burn the front of it instead. Because of the age and softness and heavy grain of the salvaged 2x4, it wasn't as professional-looking as I was going for, but he swears he likes it, so I believe him.

If anyone makes this, good luck and please post pictures!

Batter Up!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my sister? She's pretty cool. My DH had a milestone birthday recently, and she was on the ball so to speak (~giggle~) and worked with me to get him a pretty awesome gift. She knew that the Things 1&2 and I were going to take him to the

Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown for his special day, so she got him a bat engraved with his name and a message.

He absolutely loved it (I knew he would, because I had to work pretty hard to distract him from buying one for himself while we were in new York!) and he immediately wanted to display it, but... we had no way to hang it.

There are hangers available out there, as well as display stands. Some of them are all fancy and laser-engraved, and some are even reasonably priced, but I hate buying something that I know I could make myself. I searched the internet to see if I could get some tips on how to make one, but for once the internet failed me! I found not a single thing about making them, just ads to buy one. I was amazed,because they seemed so simple to make. Well, I cleaned up my rarely used basement workshop, and the spiders and I spent some quality time together while I figured out how to make a baseball bat hanger for my dear DH.

I just used what I had available, and as usual I was completely flying blind, but I'll explain it all as clearly as I can and give you my suggestions for doing it better than I did.

The holiday coincided with DH getting a promotion at work, so I also made him a business card holder for his desk. That was pretty simple, so I'll throw it in, too.

Baseball Bat Hanger or Stand

I designed this to do double duty, since DH's office has cement walls and he can't hang it there, but he may want to hang it if he decides to display it at home instead.

Materials and tools:

• 4 wood screws (at least 2" long)
• Wooden board. I used an old 2x4 I salvaged. For both the holder/hanger and the business card holder, I used less than a 3ft length.
• Jig saw
• Drill with standard bits
• 2" paddle bit
• Sandpaper
• Wood glue
• Wood burner, felt, picture hangers (all optional)

Okay.

This is my first attempt at a tutorial slightly more than basic, so bear with me, and feel free to ask questions in the comments section below.

First, measure, measure, measure! My brain hurt from all the math I was doing, because I'm one of those people that just eyeballs things. So, this was definitely outside my comfort zone.

Measure the neck of the bat (handle? Not a sports person, sorry) just under the knob at the end, and the widest part of the barrel. A flexible tape measure, like for sewing, will give you the circumference, but mine went MIA just when I needed it so I used a ruler to measure the width, and just used that number. It worked out fine.

I used centimeters because doing fractions gives me hives, and got 3 1/2 cm for the neck measurement, and 6 cm for the barrel.

So now I know that the parts I cut out (where the bat will rest) need to be at least 6 cm long, but I added some length for stability. I believe the final measurement I went with was 10 cm, but this ended up being a bit too thin, and when I was jigsawing the base where the barrel of the bat would rest, it broke. This was probably partly because I was using an old board, but I would recommend doubling your largest measurement, which would be (because bats are pretty standard) 12 cm.

Cut 4 pieces of your 2x4 to this length. One will be notched out for the top of your bat, one will be notched for the bottom, one will be the backing to the top and the last one will be the backing piece to the bottom.

Still with me? Okay, here we go. More measuring. Deep breath.

Take one of your cut pieces and mark the center by using a ruler to make an x from corner to corner. Determine what you want to be the front of your piece and draw a line from the center of your x to the front of your piece. It should look like this:

We good?

Okay.

Now measure from each side of the line you just drew along the front of the piece, and mark 3 cm to the right and the left of the line. Use these lines to draw a curve to the center of the x that mimics the curve of the bat. I actually stood the bat on my piece of wood and traced the curve, which worked pretty well. Use your jig saw to cut out the curve you just drew. I found that cutting through the center line to the middle of the x, and then along the curve from each side to that point worked well. Sand the inside of the curve and along all the edges (except the back ones!) really well.

Almost halfway there!

Mark the center of your next piece of wood in the same way, with an x, and then draw a line to the front like before, and another to each side. Your piece will be marked like this:

Measure 1 1/2 cm to each side of the line you drew to the front of your piece and mark. Draw a line from each of these measurements to the second line you drew. Now your piece is marked like so:

Now, those of you who are mathematically sharp are saying "Hey! Our measurement was 3 1/2 cm, and that's only 3 cm wide! What gives?" Or maybe not. But this is slightly narrower because the neck of the bat flares at the end, so making this measurement narrower than where we measured means that the bat, once placed lovingly in its handmade display hanger, will be locked in securely enough to not accidentally fall or slide out.

Now, after securely clamping your wood to your work bench (found out the hard way that this is much safer than trying to hold it - ouch!) take your 2" paddle bit and place it with one edge on the center of your x, and the center of the bit on the line you drew to the front of your piece of wood. Drill about 3/4 through the piece of wood and flip it over. You should be able to see where the center of the bit has already punched through the back, so use that to center your bit (remembering to secure the wood first!) and drill through the remaining 1/4. Turn the piece back over, use your jig saw to cut along the last two lines you drew (the ones marked in red on the diagram), and sand all your edges except for the back ones.

Hooray! Almost done!

Now, spread some wood glue on the back narrow edge of your top hanger, and align with the bottom of one backing piece. Clamp and let it dry.

Apply wood glue to the back edge of your bottom hanging piece, align in the center of of the second backing piece, and let it dry (clamping this seemed awfully difficult, so I deemed it unnecessary).

After about an hour or two, these pieces should be stable enough that if you'd like, you can use wood screws to secure them. Just make sure that you drill pilot holes and countersink your screws. I would think that glue would be sturdy enough to hold them, but I screwed them together because I didn't have time to let the glue dry. Sand all the sharp edges, and decorate!

I -again, because of time constraints and because I liked the look of the salvaged wood- just used a woodburner to add DH's initials, but you could paint this or seal it and really make it look amazing. I glued felt to the back so that it would not scratch DH's desk (because I forgot to countersink my screws - again, do as I say, not as I do, I made the mistakes for you!) but if you wanted to hang this on the wall you could either screw it directly to the wall from the front, or use picture hanging hardware to hang it.

I'm worn out, I will have to post how to make the business card holder separately. Good luck and I would love to see pictures if anyone makes this!

Pants-tastic!

I am a recycling jeans-ius! This is a fun, cool, and super easy way to stretch a few extra months out of those old jeans that your kids worn out but haven't outgrown yet, and recycle some that they have. All you need is heat bond (and an iron, of course), a marker, scissors and some old pants.
I cut a large piece of fabric out of some old jeans, and ironed the heat bond sheet to the back before trimming the edges. This way, the heat bond isn't wasted or accidentally ironed to the ironing board. I'm clumsy like that, so I try to think ahead.
Then, I just did a Google search for silhouettes, printed them and cut them out (or you can just freehand, which is what I did with the splat), traced around them on the back of the heat bond with the marker, cut this shape out of the heat bond fabric, and -after checking to make sure the design would adequately cover the hole in the pants we are trying to save- ironed said shape to aforementioned pants. My children now are certain that I rock.
Thing 1 got the splotch, Thing 2 got the bat.
ETA: After a few washings and dryings, the patches did start to pull away from the jeans in certain spots. Maybe it was just the type of heat bond I used, maybe I didn't heat it well enough during the initial bond, whatever... just letting you know it may happen, so it might not be a bad idea to add a running or blanket stitch along the edges of the patch once it's ironed on.




And I had another pair of jeans to recycle, so I made this little cutie... I just cut the fabric into strips and crocheted the jeans-yarn into a bowl. It looks even better filled with Mrs. Meyers laundry and dish soap samples.