Stemware Slippers

I recently went to the Outer Banks, NC to spend some time with my Aunt, Uncles and their families. It was really fun and I felt so lucky to have gotten to go.

Part of the fun for me for the OBX is shopping! While out with my Aunt, she just kept looking at things and saying "I bet you could make that" and she was often right. Most of the stuff I loved I just tucked away in my brain for the future. One thing we didn't find that my Aunt said she would love to have were little stemware coasters that slipped over the bottom of the glass. I knew exactly what she was talking about and when I got home, I got on making her a set. I think they turned out nicely and I plan on making a bunch and putting them in the shop (which has been horribly neglected this summer).

Bag it up!

My girlfriends from high school and I get together every year and participate in a gift exchange. We used to do it around Christmas time but we've since moved it to summer because the holidays are way too hectic. Especially dealing with shared holidays with every one's in laws and what not. It's a secret santa type gift exchange. So it's really fun and we've actually gotten pretty good at keeping it a secret who we have.

This year, we decided that all of the gifts would be home made. It was amazing and everyone was so creative. I was very impressed with every one's gifts. Everything was so thoughtful and some were even hilarious. It was great and I  hope this is a continued tradition.

I got our dear friend Rachel. She's a self proclaimed hippie as well as a grad student at UVA working on her PHD in Neuroscience. Being the hippie-type, she's always carrying around what I like to refer to as "sacks". I decided to make her a more adult (but still very Rachel) bag. 

This was the very first bag I've ever made as well as my very first time using interfacing. It came out really well. I didn't follow the instructions to the letter because the pattern for this had some pretty ugly embellishments. I decided to keep it simple. I might even make one for myself :-)

hello long neglected blog

Hello! I'm aliiiiiiiive! And I made a new style of apron today for my Etsy Shop! You can find the listing here but here's what it looks like :-)

You like? We'll see how it goes. It's a lot more simple than most of my other styles but some ladies are less frou-frou and I don't want to leave them out!

New Style!

So today I decided to make a brand new apron style! I'm a little bit obsessed with it and I have a feeling that it might become my newest best-selling style! Now I just have to work on making a variety of these for my shop!

L.O.V.E

Ironing Board Cover Tutorial

I really don't know how helpful this will be but this project was particularly easy so you probably don't even need a tutorial (I didn't use one) but in case you need a little help, Here you go!

This is what our ironing board looked like:

All gross and nasty because I've been using and abusing it making all of my sewing projects. ALSO the padding was really thin and would create a diamond pattern on anything you were trying to iron. Not fun and really annoying.

Things you will need:

Old Ironing Board Cover

Cotton Fabric (2 1/2 - 3 yards)

Insulated Batting

Yarn/String

Sewing Machine

Mad Skills

STEP ONE:
Remove current skanky ironing board cover

STEP TWO:
Take the padding and trace it onto a large piece of insulated batting. Check the size with your board.

Pretty good. If it's a little big, who cares? Not me. It's just an ironing board.

The batting that I had wasn't long enough so I had get all McGyver on it and sew two pieces together (with out overlapping because that would make indents in the things that you are ironing). I basically zig-zag stitched it together and then zig-zagged it a second time (with smaller stitches) for good measure. You can't even tell it's there under the cover.

STEP 3

Time to make the cover! Take the same piece of old padding and lay it on your fabric. Mark around it with 3 extra inches (this will be what you fold over to make a hem/place for the string).

Then connect your dots. Don't worry if it's not perfect, it doesn't need to be.

STEP 4

Cut that sucker out

STEP 5

Fold over about 1/2 inch all the way around. At this point, you could either iron it (although now you've taken your ironing board apart so that would be a pain) OR you can do what I did and just sew it willy-nilly around. Again, it does NOT have to be perfect just try to keep your hem consistant all the way around.

STEP 6

Fold it over AGAIN this time about 1 1/2 inches and pin it down. Working around the corners will be tricky but don't worry about it looking pretty because this will be on the underneath side of your board so it doesn't matter. Stitch around the whole thing. Make sure to a space open to get your string in there after you've sewn it up! I left a corner open but it looks slightly sloppy. I would suggest leaving a spot open along the long edge.

STEP 7

Use the ever-handy safety pin attatched to yarn/string/whatever you've got laying around to thread it through your new open hem.

Now that you've got it all ready, put your batting piece on your board, cover it with your new cover and pull the strings tightly so it's hugging your board. Tie it tight and admire your handywork!

There you go, that's it. Takes practically no time at all and you've given new life to something! bravo!









And again!

I'll stop posting these, I promise! Well, I can't promise but I just love how they all turn out and I want to share! I can't wait to have some extra time to make some of these and put them in the the SHOP but for now, I am making special orders almost non-stop. Which is a good thing, but I would like to build up inventory in my shop!

This was made in conjuction with another in the same fabrics (but in the original style) for one of my old High School Teachers! She doesn't teach anymore and she's young and fun and lives in DC! She sent me a message on FaceBook requesting these! I was so excited to make them!

And now for something completely different - part 2!

I think that the porportions on this one are better than the pink one.

And now for something completely different...

Today I made a NEW kind of apron. I finally got the hang of 'gathering' fabric so that I can make little ruffle-type skirts! This isn't the best picture and I'm not sure why the bottom layer looks so sad and heavy but, I'll fix that :-)

Out with the old

In with the new!

New sewing machine, that is! My fabulous husband bought me a brand new Brother CS6000i sewing machine for Christmas! I didn't ask for one but his insight is always on point. My old machine IS from when I was in middle school for crying out loud. It works just fine and I'm not going to be getting rid of it (uh-oh... Hoarder) but it will be nice to use this beautiful new computerized machine with 60 different types of stitches (60! Whoa! That's a lot).

This is my old set-up. My 14(?) year old sewing machine and a pair of scissors that I stole from our home office (not exactly fabric-sheers but they did the trick).

iPhone photo

And my NEW set up! My new Brother CS6000i sewing machine, 24x36inch self-healing cutting mat, Gingher rotary cutter, fabric sheers and pinking sheers. Baller.

iPhone photo



I haven't actually sewn anything with the new machine yet but I can't wait! Obviously, I will post my new projects when I make them!





Happy New Year!

Hello there internet and welcome to the year 2011!

So, let's re-cap Christmastime. I gave my apron-gifts to their intended recipients and they were well recieved! I don't think anyone could believe that I made them (which was kind of flattering and a little insulting... I mean, I'm pretty handy. Don't people know that? haha). 

So anyway, here are some pictures of family members enjoying opening their hand-made-with-love gifts!



My grandma and Aunt! Grandma loves birds and my Aunt has a cow-themed kitchen!



It may seem odd to have given my brother an apron but, he actually requested one. His has wizards because I couldn't find anything space-related.

My mother-in-law was scared to use the pot-holders on Christmas day because she didn't want to get them dirty. Haha. I assured her that they were washable and she gave it.

Uriah's Aunt (pictured) and Grandmother got the same one. I wasn't there to witness this (thanks a lot sickness), but I heard they love them.

Aunt Gigi models hers!

So, there you have it folks, this is what we had been waiting for!

More to come on all of my fabulous Christmas gifts that I recieved (most of them involving sewing and baking/cooking... such a good little housewife I am going to become)

Festive!

When Uriah and I shot our Christmas Card, we used a few yards of christmas fabric as a background. Well, I couldn't just fold it up and never look at it again so, I decided to make an apron (I know, I know, you're shocked). I decided to try to make a "butcher-style" apron to switch it up a bit sooo I made myself a pattern and got started.

For some reason, this apron gave me a super hard time but I got it together after a while. It's pretty but the proportions seem a little off. It's very long and the pocket is in a bit of an awkward place but, it'll do the trick of keeping me realatively clean while I'm baking all of those cookies for my mom's party. :-)

This picture really sucks. I should totally stop using my iPhone when I have multiple professional cameras at my disposal

This only used up 1/3 of the fabric that we have leftover so, I see a few more tries in my future.

Pogi Project!

So the other day Uriah and I went to the fabric store to pick up some supplies for our Christmas Card Photo Shoot (which has yet to happen) and I decided to pick up some fleece remnants to make some dog toys for my favorite pup (and his doggy cousins and friends)!

Pretty simple project, all I needed was a template (I chose a bone), fleece and some fluff to stuff the thing with. It turned out pretty well (for a 10 minute project)!

Pogi seems to like it. He hasn't even destroyed it yet!

Bag it up!

Okay so, I made these a while ago and planned on using them as gift bags for all of the handmade goodies that I will be gifting for Christmas but, with the recent addition of the potholders, these will be much too small.

The reason I'm even posting this at all is because it was my first foray into button-holes on my machine. It was ANNOYING but I eventually figured it out (after much swearing).

Potholders Potholders and MORE Potholders!

Yesterday I was browsing the internet looking for something to sew because I had a lot of "scrap" fabric leftover from all of the aprons I've been making. I found a lot of potholder tutorials. A lot. So, after reviewing some of them, I headed off to the fabric store to get some insulated batting and when I came home, I got crackin'!

As for most projects, my first attempts were decent but not stellar. They'll be good to use in my own home (in fact I used a set last night to pull my chicken out of the oven). Turns out, they work better (meaning keep my hands from burning off) better than the ones I have that I purchased in stores. I was very hesitant to use them at first.

Anyway, so it will seem that everyone will get matching potholders to go along with their aprons!

Deck the Halls!

With home-made adorable-ness made with scrap fabric!! Wahoo!

This is actually twice as long but, I couldn't find a place that I could hang it so I just did the half. Please ignore the lingering Halloween decoration... we are slow to put stuff away around here.

I found this little project while searching the interwebs for things to do.

It's HERE at a fabulous little blog that I've found called MaggieMakes.

She posts lots of tutorials and inspires lots of craftiness. She also has a flickr page so, you can see lots of photos of all of her projects.

Just so you do not think I'm decorating far too early for Christmas, I have to admit that I took down the stars after 24 hours of appreciating my handiwork.

PS- I also made that "leaf art" in the frames

Redundancy!

Do you like seeing the same thing over and over? Yes? Good!

Finished another apron today!

I should probably take pictures of these with something other than my iPhone but, I guess I'm just lazy.

A legitimate photo shoot is pending.

Handmade Kitchen Couture

I've been busy lately (as reflected in my lack of posts). What have I been doing? I've been SEWING! I don't know how it happened but, the other day I just got the urge to bust out my sewing machine (I hadn't touched it in at least 5 years). I went to the fabric store, picked up some apron patterns and some fabric and decided to get to it! To quote the lady at the fabric store "Aprons are very popular right now!"

The first apron I made is definitely a "Monet". It looks good from a distance but not-as-good up close. I suppose it's still suitable for personal use but I definitely won't be gifting it to anyone.

The next apron I made was from a different pattern. Much more girly and all around adorable.

See? So cute. I love the dog fabric.

After my success with this style, I decided that I would stick to it and not revert back to the original pattern. I planned on making some more to give as Christmas gifts! Hooray! So, Uriah and I went to the fabric store (turns out they are all in the ghetto) and got some kitchen-themed fabric and I got crackin!

I had to cut a smaller pattern because all of Uriah's family is small and asian. So this next one is a size "small" (the first one that I made was a "large")

Love it! Uriah found this fabric. He's occasionally useful:-)

Perhaps if I become faster at making these, I'll start up an Etsy shop and make a bit of money. We'll see.

In the mean time, I have a few more to make that will be dedicated as Christmas gifts so I'll have plenty of practice! I can't WAIT to give these to their intended recipients. I have a feeling they will be well received.