Pretty Pillowcase

As mentioned in my last post, I have really been into embroidery lately. It isn't too time consuming, and it's quite fun to do. Also, unlike hand sewing, I think this is quite easy as well. I'm still not the greatest at it, but again, I am really enjoying doing it right now.
After thinking of things I wanted to do with our bedding, I decided I wanted to have embroidered pillowcases. I saw this and knew that it was perfect. Most embroidered pillowcase patterns are very flowery and girly. I am not a really flowery kind of girl anyway, but I knew that my husband would demand that very flowery pillowcases be immediately and completely removed from our bedroom. So I don't think that he will mind this pattern too much. If he does, I'll just have to come up with more masculine patterns just for him.

Mom's Birthday Gift

I love making gifts for my mom. She loves pretty much anything handmade, and I know her style pretty well. So I can get creative and come up with tons of things that I know she will like. She has a hoosier cabinet in her kitchen that she decorates beautifully every season. During the summer she usually has a small collection of beehive knick knacks displayed in her cabinet. I've been wanting to make something beehive related for a while to give her, and I decided to do this. (She really liked it.) It is a small about 5" square wall hanging.

I have recently rediscovered embroidery. I really dislike hand sewing, but for some reason I really enjoy embroidery. It's just something about seeing a picture come to life with color that I really love.

The Sunday Bag

So, a few weeks ago at church I looked around at all of the other mothers of young children and realized something. None of them were carrying big overstuffed diaper bags like I was. They were all carrying cute little tote bags. This is when I realized that I didn't need my huge diaper bag anymore. All I really need for those few hours is a diaper and pacifier, really. So I decided to join the "in" crowd and downsize to a cute tote bag.
The only problem with this decision was that I didn't have a cute tote bag. I had several plain canvas tote bags, but again, not very cute. I was trying to decide what I could do to spruce up one of these bags when I remembered this. I looked up more images for sashiko embroidery and decided on the pattern that I wound up using. I didn't want to bother with trying to find a pattern that was the same size as my bag, so I grabbed a plastic cup and started tracing. I completely free handed it, so the circles are off center a little bit. But even with those imperfections, I really like how it turned out. In fact, I like it so much that I am now constantly thinking of other projects that I can make with other sashiko designs.

So I took my new bag to church on Sunday and everything I needed fit, plus it looked really good too. 

I learned!

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to learn how to crochet. So when I joined a swap on Swap-bot where you send your partner something that you made which was a new craft for you, I decided to jump in and do something crocheted. I'd seen this a while ago and thought these bracelets were very beautiful and decided to make one. I used larger crochet thread, and so it look me little while to figure out the gauge, but I think it works. My work certainly isn't perfect, but I think that it turned out very nice any way and I sure hope that who I sent it to likes it.  

Christmas Quilt

This is the quilt that I made for Cody for Christmas. I think that it turned out very nice. You can see the quilting detail much better on the back. (Oops, should have taken a lint roller to it before taking pictures.) When Cody and I got married a few years ago I decided that I wanted the color theme for our bedroom to be red and black. So I bought the material for this quilt then, and finally got around to making it for Christmas.

Then I put it on the bed. I decided that even though it is a nice quilt, I am not that fond of it. I don't like the monochromatic look of the red on top of the black. It just isn't my kind of aesthetic. So now I have to go back to the drawing board and figure out a quilt with these colors that I'll like better. I might even change the black to blue.Wish me luck.

Bear Hat

So, before LJ was born I made him a whole bunch of hats, including this one. I just love hats that have ears on them, I think that they are super cute. (Plus it doesn't hurt to have a super cute baby to wear them.) But now that he is here and wearing them, I realize that the ears are too small. So I am planning on cutting these ones off, and replacing them with bigger ears. Hopefully I can figure it out, and actually do it.
One of the best ways that I learn is by messing up and making mistakes. Because if everything that you make is perfect then you will never learn. (Although after frogging a project for the 4th time, I really wish I was perfect.) So, I look at my imperfect projects as learning experiences and hopefully never make that same mistake again. I figure that eventually I will have done every mistake possible and then have perfect projects, haha. Well, time to go figure out how to make bigger circles for ears.

Time

So, I knew that having a baby would be time consuming. I just didn't realize how much. Hence my blog being neglected. Perhaps I shouldn't have created it just a couple of days before I was due, haha. But even though my little one takes up much of my time I wouldn't trade him for anything.

One thing that I have made sure to make time for though is some sewing. Even though LJ was born in the middle of Oct. I still decided to make many of the Christmas gifts that we gave this year. Now in retrospect I realize that was a little crazy of me, especially considering that I didn't finish several of them until the day before Christmas. But I did get them done, and all of the recipients loved their gifts. For that, I do think it was worth it overall. I just wish that I had taken pictures of all of them.

I made this photo album cover for my mother-in-law. My husband's little brother is on a mission for the LDS church in Colombia right now. The only source of communication he has with us is through letters. My mother-in-law had all of his letters scattered throughout her house, so I decided that she needed a nice place to keep all of them together. So I bought just a plain photo album and three ring binder and made slip covers for them. I think that they turned out very nice, and she loved them.

Knit Work Hats

The weather is starting (very slowly) to get colder.  So in anticipation of the -20 degree days we will be facing in just a few months I have gotten a jump start on making work hats for my hubby.  He works on natural gas wells, which means that he has to wear a hard hat, so I had to come up with something that would keep his head and ears warm, but still fit comfortably under the hard hat. My solution is just a simple beanie with a 2” ribbing for his ears. Then the thinner stockinette stitch fits nicely under the hard hat. I used Caron Simply Soft which is acrylic because it feels nice against the skin, but is fairly durable and machine washable. 

 He requested a plain green hat, and just to break up the monotony for me, I decided to do a little bit of color work. Yes, it is very basic, but is still some of the very first that I have done. I like how they turned out, and now I know that switching colors is easier than I first thought it would be.  Plus, the best thing is that my hubby Cody likes them very much too.

PVC Pipe Quilting Frame

One of the things that my mom and I wanted to do at my older sister's baby shower earlier this summer was to tie a baby quilt. We just didn’t have a quilting frame.  My mom mentioned that she had heard about making a frame out of PVC pipe, so I got online to look for ideas. I used this as a basis of how to make it. (There is a mistake in the materials section. It says (4) 9 ½” PVC pipe, but should really read as (4) 19 ½” PVC pipe.) We wanted to use it while standing, so we didn’t have the two 6” pieces to tilt it, which means that we had 4 elbows, only 2 T connectors, and no end caps. We also cut the side pieces 37” tall instead of 25 ½”.  We also didn’t glue it so that we could unassembled it and store it easily. The only difficult thing about making this was that in our small town we couldn’t find any of the correct size 3-way connectors or the snap clamps. Thank goodness for the internet. I was able to find them here.
We wound up buying 16 snap clamps, so that each side of the frame could have 4 clamps holding the quilt in place. 

I think that it turned out to be a major success. No, it isn’t as sturdy as some wooden frames that I have used, but it has plenty of support. We used this frame for my sister’s baby shower, my baby shower, and I have also used it to pin a full sized quilt that I am working on.  This frame worked amazingly for the baby quilts. The only thing about this frame is that it is only 40” across, which means that most people can easily reach the middle, but you can’t stretch the entire quilt all at once like you can with a traditional frame. So the best way that I found to make it work is to line up the quilt with the back and the batting on the floor and then slide the top of the frame underneath all of it until the frame is about in the middle of the quilt. Then just snap the sides down and put the top back onto the frame. (Having someone help you with this is strongly recommended.) After doing that I was able to tighten the quilt and begin tying or pinning it.  (I pin my quilts to machine quilt them on my old Bernina 830.) Then after tying the middle section of the quilt, I just moved the quilt around on the frame until it was all done.  Moving the quilt around is not the most ideal way to do this, but with patience and a little work I was thankfully able to make it work.

Car Seat Canopy

Another project that I have done in anticipation for this soon to be here baby was to make a car seat canopy.  I love the idea of it. Blankets can fall off of the car seat, leaving baby exposed and cold.  But with this, it can't fall off considering that it is buttoned to the handle.  It was actually very easy to make. 

Materials I used: Two 1 yard pieces of fabric (1 print, 1 plain), ribbon, and buttons or Velcro

·         The first thing I did was to wash my material. Then I cut the 2 pieces so that they were the same size. Mine ended up being about 35”x45”.

·         Next I sewed right sides together leaving about 10” on 1 side so that I could turn the material right side out. I highly recommend pinning the sides so that they don’t stretch when sewed together.  

·         I turned the material, and pressed all of the edges. Then just to give it a nice finished look I sewed around the edges with my ¼” foot, which also sewed close the open part.

·         Then I cut two 8” ribbons. If I do this again, I think that I would make them a little shorter. To make the ends not fray on the ribbon I melted the edges a tiny bit with a lighter.

·         I measured the halfway point the long way on my material, which was approximately 23”. On this middle “line” I measured in 13” both sides so that the ribbons would have about 7” between them.  I sewed each ribbon down in a square with an x in it to make them secure. 

·         I made button holes and sewed buttons (before I sewed the ribbon on the material) on my ribbons as a way to attach it to the car seat, but Velcro would work too. Or just leaving the ribbon long enough to tie would work great too.

The hardest part about this was putting on the ribbon handles, but once I was actually doing it, it wasn't that hard, it just sounds tricky.  So now I have a lovely cover to protect my baby when he finally decides to show up.

-Update: Now that I am actually using it, I realize that the ribbon handles need to fit snuggly on the handle of the car seat because they just slip and slide all over the place. So I will be shortening them to fit better. Otherwise, it works great.