baby legs (again)

I'm in LOVE with making baby legs! I made some and posted them (with a link to a tutorial) another time on the blog over a year ago. With baby (no name yet) coming soon, I thought I would make some for her - I found some CUTE knee high socks for little kids at gymboree (very left in the picture) that will fit the baby's legs sooner than the adult knee highs I used for the rest. Abby - my 4 (almost 5) year old wanted to try these on and LOVES them. She calls them her leg warmers and wants to wear them all over the place. She has been asking to wear skirts just so she can wear the "leg warmers". She said she would share once the babies legs get bigger
My friend Brandy sent the striped socks and the pink polka dot socks so I could make these last two pairs. It's hard to find CUTE knee highs on island.

Baby bjorn cover

I was in love with this tutorial that I saw a LONG time ago and finally gave it a go. These aren't the best pictures, but I can't fit the baby bjorn carrier over my stomach right now, so will have to get pictures AFTER I have the baby!

I bought the material for the covers when I was in Oregon. Figured if I have a puker, these are easy to take on/off and wash! This will hook to the piece that goes around my shoulders - I just don't have it out yet.
It was VERY easy to sew up. Not nearly as easy to put the carrier into the cover, but it fits!

Applique T-shirt

In anticipation for my son's upcoming birthday, I made him his own personalized applique t-shirt.

Supplies:
Pattern for whatever you want to applique (I made mine out of cardstock)
Fabric
Felt
Heat-and-bond
Iron
Sewing machine

1) Create pattern out of cardstock for whatever you want to applique

2) Decide what material you want to use for your applique pieces - I chose fabric for the basketball and stripes, and felt for the number 2

3) Iron heat-and-bond to material pieces (don't pre-cut the pieces yet)

4) Trace pattern pieces on back of heat-and-bond paper

5) Cut out the traced pieces

6) Iron first piece onto t-shirt

7) Sew a zig-zag stitch around the edges of the ironed fabric piece to secure in place

8) Repeat steps 6 and 7 until all the pieces are ironed and sewn onto the t-shirt. (I found it easier to iron and then sew each piece separately rather than iron everything and try to stitch around it all)

Nursing Cover

Nursing covers are all over the blogging world, so I decided to try making one. I used this tutorial here from Sew Much Ado. I used home decor fabric, which is heavy enough to require just one layer.

It was really fast and easy - took me about 2 hours to complete. It has 16" of boning on the top, which should make the cover breathable for baby and easy for Mom. I am excited to try it out!

Swim Tote Bags!!

 

Here is another project that we made!! I got the pattern from I Am Momma-Hear Me Roar! It was so fun to make these and I love how the turned out!!

Yay for beautiful weather and Swimming!!

Table Tent / Fort

For Christmas, my SIL (Melissa - who is also an author on this blog) and I made table tents for our kiddos. We spent a week in August starting our projects together, and then motivated ourselves in the next few months to finish in time for Christmas.

The table tent for my little guy is made out of cotton, with some felt and velcro attachments. It fits easily over a standard card table.

Inspiration mainly came from Sew Much Ado and Homemade by Jill; but I made things up as I went.

Welcome to Tent #19! The door easily ties up and down.



Here's the view from the top. Everything is lined. After sewing all the sides together, I sewed them all to the top.


Here's a side vinyl window. I sewed biased tape to both the outside and inside panels. The window covering ties up just like the door.


On the other side is a vinyl peep hole - the cover is on the inside (keep scrolling to see a picture).


The back of the tent has a forest made of felt, equipped with velcro animals! The animals are a huge hit with my little guy.


On the inside is a felt campfire with velcro attachments for the inside flame, wood log, and marshmallow sticks. Next to the vinyl window are a few pockets for storing all of my little guy's important camping gear.


Here's the peep hole cover from the inside. To the side of the cover is a vinyl picture frame, ready for me to slip a family photo inside!




My little guy LOVED this fort...it was a huge hit on Christmas morning! Be sure to stay tuned to see how Melissa's table tent turned out - I can't wait to see the finished project!

apron for a swap

I finished up this apron a couple weeks ago for a swap I did with some friends. Loved the pattern and the girl wanted bright colors, so I used this cute fabric I found in town at the quilt shop. The ruffle was fun to do. Instead of using thread to pull the ruffle, the pattern said to sew over dental floss, then pull the floss - it was great, because it didn't break like thread does!

The New Headboard

The old Headboard. I wish i would've taken a picture of this with the bed made, oh well.The new Headboard. The full red squares have the fabric turned down on it to add a little dimension. You just can't see it in this picture.

Baby Shower Gift

My friend is having a baby boy the beginning of November and I'm super excited for her! Here is the gifts that I made for her.

I love these self-binding blankets! They are so easy and so cute!Then I did some appliques. I found a few online tutorials, but I ended up just using light weight stitch witchery. Then I put a piece of computer behind it to help feed it through. It worked like a charm and didn't bunch up the onsie at all! I'm so happy!

Then I made her a few burp cloths using THIS tutorial. I love it by the way!

I've very excited with how it all turned out!

Linen Shelf Cover

In my new apartment I have no linen closet. The only place I had to put my towels, sheets, and TP was a plastic shelving unit I got from Lowe's that I put in our guest bathroom. Well it looked terrible and I wanted to cover it up. I used Make it and Love it's tissue box cover Tutorial found HERE. I just made it to the dimensions of the shelf. Then I added ribbon on the top and had two pieces for the front and added two buttons with flowers so it would stay closed and look pretty!

So far it's worked great!

I decided to try and make this dress which is the Simplicity 3823 pattern. I'm really happy with how it turned out! I had to alter it slightly for it to fit my shape in the midsection. I used scrap pieces of white fabric and made the top so I could change it to how I needed. I also changed the midsection. I made the front midsection the brown and then added ties in the back. But for the most part I followed the pattern to the "T"!Just being silly!

Dog Leash

I decided to make Link a couple of leashes. We want to get him one of those retractable ones, but he's just a puppy and we decided to have these kinds first to teach him how to be on a leash. But I didn't want to spend too much money on them.

I went to JoAnn's and bought some belting found in the trim by the yard section. The blue and white one worked perfect by itself so I just took one of those clippy thingys, fed the belting through and folded it under and then sewed a square and an X to keep it in place. With the handle I did the same thing but left a loop big enough to put my hand through.

With the red one I decided to sew pieces of fabric on the sides to spruce it up. I took 2" pieces and ironed them in fourths then zig zaged the strips onto the belting. Then I made the clip and handle the same way as the first.

I got the idea from Anna Maria Horner's tutorial found HERE and just changed it to what worked better for me.

Another Camera Strap

When Lisa posted her camera straps she really inspired me to make one of my own!This is another great project for scrap material! I made a dress out of this material (which I'll be posting soon!) and loved it so much I decided to use the scraps for this. Also I learned how to do ruffles (which I've been terrified to do but they are actually super easy!) Lisa posted some great links for this, I used Nursery Rhymes and Sweet Times tutorial found HERE. I didn't used the fusible fleece and it worked great for me.

I used decided to put the yo-yo on here because my strap is pretty thin and I wanted to put in a lens cover pocket so the flower covers the bulging of the cover when it's in the pocket like the picture below.

Hemming Workout Capris

I am only 5' 3" and it's hard to find capris that are actually capris! I normally just roll them up, but these I'm using to workout and for running. So rolling them up wouldn't work because I'd be jumping up and down and they'd come unrolled and then I'd just get bugged. So I decided to hem them.

First I measured where I wanted them to fit, then I cut off that excess portion.Then I rolled them up and inch and pinned as much as possible so the material stayed as flat as possible.

I don't work anymore so I've really been learning more and more about my machine. I've already learned so much, and I know there is tons more to learn! Anyways, I have this niftly stitch just for hemming. (I'm sure everyone does, but I just found mine!) (Oh, by the way it's the bottom stitch on the left in the picture).

Instead of sewing on the back, like I normally do, you sew along the front of it so the stitch shows. I am so happy with how it looks!

After you sew it, you flip it inside out and trim the excess material off.

And you have nicely hemmed workout capris, or any pair of pants for that matter!

Fixing the Curtains

We bought some curtains for our front room, but they weren't quite long enough. If we would've bought the longer size they would've been way too big. So I decided to just add a little extra to them to make it work better.

I bought satin binding from JoAnn's. There weren't any that matched, so I found the one that would work best with all my room colors.I flipped the binding inside out and sewed the edges together.

Once that was done I turned it the right side out sewed along the edges to help it lay flat. This type of material frays real easy, so I took a lighter and burned the edges so I wouldn't have to worry about that.

I made them all into a loop so I wouldn't have to worry about the loops coming apart when I sewed them on to the curtains.

Then I sewed them on to my sheer curtains and hung them up! They work much better then what I had before, and now they don't look like they're preparing for a flood!