Another Year Over...

I know the year's not really over yet, but it's almost October, and that's when I start planning/making/buying Christmas gifts* therefore to me, October is the beginning of the end of the year.

Anyway, it's almost October, and although thinking about how close it is to the end of the year usually depresses me by reminding me how quickly the year has gone by and how few of the things I wanted to do I have actually done, this year it has inspired me to use the next three months to finish projects that I may have began and maybe (most likely) never finished in the previous 3/4 of the year.**

So, my goal will be to post, every week of October, at least one finished project.

I hope.

October's usually a busy busy month for us, because we have three kids' birthdays, and an anniversary, and Halloween, of course, and this year we are also planning a trip to attend my cousin's wedding a few states away - but I think I can manage to finish four projects this month.

Maybe.

Wish me luck.

*Don't give me too much credit, I may start planning in October, but most gifts are frantically finished/bought at the last minute, despite my best intentions

**Or last year.

Or three years ago.

Whatever. It's all about getting things done, not judging me based on how long they've gone undone, right? RIGHT?

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!

Impermanence, And The Persistence of Memory

Well, as another school year starts, I came across this short piece that I wrote a few years ago. It still rings true for me, so I thought I'd share.

Today, Thing2 graduated from kindergarten. I used to think that kindergarten graduations were kind of silly and pointless - I mean, who doesn't graduate from kindergarten? You might get held back in first grade, you might drop out of school or fail classes and never graduate high school, but everyone gets through kindergarten, right?
But honestly, as I felt the pride of seeing Thing1 graduate three years ago, and again as I was watching the kids today in their paper hats, earnestly performing painstakingly memorized songs in low, stage-fright voices, it hit me that the graduation is really for the kids sake. It's a way of telling them without telling them that now their lives are never going to be the same. School is no longer going to be about tying your shoes and singing your ABC's, about sharing your crayons and having recess and snack time. From here on out, it starts to be work. You can still have fun, but that's just a benefit or a side effect, not a goal.
I was struck when one of the teachers mentioned that the kids would be graduating high school twelve years from now. Twelve years does not seem to be as long as it did ten years ago. Or fifteen years ago. Twelve years is an eye-blink, a nap, an afternoon with the kids away. I tried, but couldn't imagine, my kindergarten graduate in a cap and gown. But then again, when he was three, I couldn't imagine him being almost seven and graduating kindergarten, eager for the 'real learning' of first grade. Every age seems like the only age the boys will ever be, until I am shocked into realizing that they have grown up again.
My memory is terrible, which is one of the reasons I originally began writing - I started my first journal in fifth grade, I think; sometimes it seems like the only way to keep that moment and my impressions of it fixed in my mind for more than a few days or weeks or months. It provides me with a record to refer to, so that when my reality changes I can look back and say, this is what my world used to be. I wish I had had more time when they were little to write down what things where like, all of the little things they did and said that made up the hills and valleys of my days then. Now, all I have left of those days is a few tattered memories floating in my head, and a few often-told stories that have already acquired the impersonality of legends. I keep encouraging myself, trying to improve my memory by saying "This is something special that you will remember, the way he talks right now, the little lisp, the gaps in his smile" but I won't know if it works until years later, when I try to remember this fleeting moment...
Anyway, the point of this was that the graduation is a marker, a way to memorialize this transition of our children from our babies to big kids. For them, it's a thrill and exciting and maybe a little scary... for me, I just hug him tight and try to hold on to what he looked when he was three, dancing under the cherry trees.

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!

Sister-In-Law Summer Apron Guide

My SIL is big into the holidays - she always goes all-out with the decorating, creating themes and generally making a big fuss. Christmas, Halloween, New Year's Eve, Easter, Fourth of July, birthdays - all are cause to get the house dressed to the rafters, and the people, too.

I've noticed that aprons seem to be coming back as a trend lately, and she has a few themed aprons, so I thought she might like a nice picnic apron to wear for their many backyard cookouts. Add to my inspiration a neat black and white checked shirt in the donation bag, and this apron was born.

Modeled by my nifty dress form (with my favorite Tshirt preserving her modesty), this apron looks longer than what it actually is, although it is longer than a standard apron, falling to below the knee. My SIL is pretty tall (taller than me anyway) so I made this a bit longer than I would need it, using the whole front of the shirt from just below the collar, all the way to the hem. For a shorter person or just a shorter apron, you could very easily adapt this to be a bib apron, with a tie around the neck and ties added at the lower edge where the sleeves are cut off.

Anyway, to make this, all you will need to do is find a suitable shirt. I chose this button down with a collar and a pocket (because aprons need pockets), but most any shirt should do.

First, iron the shirt. I hate ironing, and avoid it whenever possible, but this will make your job much easier.

Now, cut the shirt straight across as close to the neckline as possible, without involving the collar. Then cut off the sleeves along the seams. You can pick out the side seams, but this shirt was very ruggedly constructed, with jeans-style side seams, so I just cut them out, as well.

Pin the button plackets together, and run a straight stitch up both sides of the buttons, through the top and bottom layers. I disguised my stitches in the seams that were already there. Now your buttons look cute, but they won't come undone.

Hem your raw edges. I used a plain old ruler to make where the shoulder seams were cut out more angled rather than curved, by measuring an equal distance from the buttons to each shoulder seam and marking it, then cutting off the excess and folding it over twice and hemming.

I made the ruffle by cutting two 3" wide strips from the back of the shirt and sewing them together to make one long strip. I then hemmed the bottom edge, ran a basting stitch through the top, and ruffled it as I pinned it to the bottom hem of the apron. (Here is a great tutorial for making ruffles. It's sooo much easier than it looks!)

All that was left to do after that was to fold over about an inch of what used to be the neck of the shirt, and sew all the way across to make a casing for the waist tie, thread the tie through the casing (I used a piece of salvaged woven cotton tape, hemming the ends so they wouldn't ravel) and voila! new apron!

If you want to go the extra mile, you can add an appliqué, like I did. The fabric reminded me of a picnic blanket, so I decided a watermelon would be perfect. I just cut a triangle out of red craft felt, a semicircle out of green felt, and sewed them to one corner of the apron where it looked right. Of course, it wasn't until after I had folded it all neatly, tied it with its own strings, and taken this picture

that I realized I had forgotten to embroider the watermelon seeds. {sigh} I did get them done, in the car on the way to her house. I thought about embroidering a line of ants across the bottom, too, but decided against it.

Hope this is inspiring, and if you make a shirt apron using this idea, I'd love to see a picture of it!