A New Quilt for E-Boy

I’ve had these Heather Ross goldfish fabrics in my stash for a long time, and finally decided to sew them into something.  Here’s E-boy’s new bedding:

The quilt is sort of “calculated randomness”.  Each block has a center and borders, but I didn’t want the centers to be the same size or the borders to be even, although the blocks need to be the same size.  In the end, I had some blocks that needed to be trimmed to square before proceeding.  Luckily none of them ended up too small…that would have been a trick to fix.  I had some scraps, so I made up a couple pillowcases to match.  And the blanket that Great Grandma crocheted for E-boy when he was born is a perfect match for this handmade bedding set.

Here’s a view of the whole thing, laid out flat:

And the obligatory “cute kid” picture, E-boy sound asleep under his new quilt.  Yes, he always likes to have some toys in his bed when he sleeps:

Some More Scrappy Sewing

Today, I dug to the bottom of my scrap basket for the “just right” fabrics for these two purses.  When Hubby arrived home and peeked into the sewing room, he exclaimed “what’s all that?!?” at the mess of fabrics laying all over.  It’s amazing how many little scraps fit into my bin, and how enormous they look when they’ve been dug into for a few hours trying to find this or that.  I’m pretty pleased with what I found in there, each purse has a wide variety of prints, with the color being the unifying factor in the design.

They’re newly listed in my Etsy shop, click on the picture to view the listing details.

Today I Dyed.

I had this adorable fish print twill to make into a pair of shorts for e-boy, but the background was white.   Not only is white not exactly a practical choice for a toddler boy, I already had made him a pair of shorts this summer with sharks on a white background.  So, when I had sewn up the shorts, I decided to garment dye them in this royal blue that reminds me of water.  The end result: I love them!

Another New Style

I made this purse last week, and have been using it since then, trying to decide if I needed to make any modifications in the next one.  So far, the only thing I need to change is to make the center pocket a little shorter, as when my cell phone is all the way at the bottom, it’s a bit hard to reach when it’s ringing.

The front is accented by the pieced flap (this one is Amy Butler fabrics) which is bound in bias.  The bias binding is repeated around the edges of the bag itself. 

Inside, there are three pockets, two larger outside pockets and a smaller inside pocket.  This design keeps everything organized.  There’s plenty of room inside for what you need without being big and bulky to carry around.  Here I have wallet, cell phone, keys and GPS.  The flap closes with a magnetic snap to keep everything secure.

From the side, you can see just a peek of accent fabric.  I used nickel rectangle hardware on the strap, but future models will also have a slider to adjust the strap length.

I’ll be making a few more of these this week to stock in the Etsy shop, so keep checking back!

And a little more sewing…

Here’s what I made today, a set of new pillow covers for our sofas.  The old ones were getting pretty grungy, I think I made them about 6 years ago.  These new ones really help freshen up the living room, they’re so fresh and springy!

I’m loving these Amy Butler prints!  I did some quick strip-piecework for the fronts, then used fusible fleece and quilted them for a nice textured effect.  Two of them have a simple envelope style back, and one has a zipper.  I was working with what was on hand.  The covers are totally washable, important in a house full of kids!

Gadget Purses

A friend of mine asked me to make her something like this a few weeks ago, so today I sat down and sewed it up.  Then I kept sewing and ended up with two more.  The idea is it’s a safe place to keep your cell phone/mp3 player/other electronic do-hicky.  You can clip it to the handle of your purse or diaper bag, or thread the strap through the belt loop of your jeans (I modeled this for my family while they were eating dinner, the concensus was I looked dorky like that, but if you’re cool, you can pull it off).

I love the one made with Amy Butler fabrics so much I might keep it (if I can get over the dorkiness of wearing it on my belt loop).  The red-and-black combo came about because the only other zipper I could scrounge up in my sewing room was black, and…well, I was on a roll, so I had to use that black zipper to make one of these.

At long last…a new sewing post.

I know, I know!  It’s been forever and a day since I posted something new that I’ve sewn.  Yesterday I attacked my bin of knit scraps and sewed them up into new undies for my girlies.  This is my own pattern, both the girls like the way these fit.  They’re super comfy (so they say) because they have no elastic, only cotton/lycra bands at the waist and legs that keep them in place.  I sewed up this whole stack assembly-line style, and made so many I probably won’t have to sew any more undies until these ones are outgrown.

Every Toddler Needs a Truck Tee.

I am so proud of the reverse applique I did on this tee for E-boy!  It has just the vintage-y look that I was going for.  Of course, it took three times as long to sew as a standard raglan tee shirt, but I think it was worth it.

And, here’s a close-up of the reverse applique (pardon the threads dangling and the edges that need to be neatened up).

 

A Preview of Coming Attractions

Here’s a Week’s Worth of Sewing

I’ve been busy this week sewing up some new summer clothes for the kids.  I think I’ve made good progress:

These two tops I made today, loving the round neck style.  I was glad to find perfect buttons for each one in the button box, so I didn’t have to stop and go out to the fabric store before having the satisfaction of seeing the finished project.  And about the buttons, I’m loving the buttonholer that came with my Rocketeer, now that I’ve figured out how to use it, perfect puttonholes are a snap!

And, I tried out shirring with elastic on the bobbin…once I got started it was tough to stop!  This is one of those techniques that I had put off trying for a long while, who knows why.  I am so glad I got around to it, because I just love these, and they were so easy to make!

And a modelled shot of the other shirred garments, excuse my silly kids.

Here are the t-shirts I made for summer.  Love the mock wrap style, not so sure about the other:

This dress and shorts caused me no end of frustration, the ribbing just would not cooperate for me.  But it turned out cute in the end, and it’s sure to be a favorite cute and comfy outfit this summer.

And for the boy, I made a couple of short and tees.  This shark fabric just begged to be made into a pair of surfer style shorts.

These brown shorts were made out of the leftover bit of fabric from making the brown pants I showed earlier.

And this outfit has to be my favorite one of the week!  The basic black twill shorts have triple topstitching in light blue – red – blue to match the robot print knit curved raglan top.  We had to wear it right away, and it gave me an excuse to get out the red shoes that used to belong to big sister.

And here’s a close-up of the topstitching, which totally makes the shorts:

This week’s sewing by the numbers:

• garments sewn: 18
• garments already appropriated and worn by the chilrden: 9
• bobbins wound: 9  (4 with shirring elastic, wound by hand)
• broken needles: 2
• 1″ elastic left in my stash: about 12 inches (not enough for another waist)
• trips to the fabric store: 0
• curse words: only at the striped dress