I try to have a new project finished to display every week. But I have to admit that those Frozen Costumes have kicked my butt. Every little step seems to take three times as long as it should.
This is just a tiny example….yesterday morning, I was ready to put this little clasp on Anna’s cape. The very last absolutely final step.
Please note on the BACK of the card that the clasp was stapled to, it says it’s NOT WASHABLE! Why would BUTTONS ever be NON WASHABLE! Seriously people, What’s next? I am making clothes here. And, as far as I know, eventually clothes need to be WASHED! So now I have to figure out an alternative. Heavy sigh of exasperation.
Okay, on to the rest of the projects.
Karen, my daughter-in-law in Tampa asked if I’d make a tote for her Fall Festival auction. She owns and manages two private schools in Tampa, The Reading Corner and TRC Academy. She’s the principal, creates the curriculum plus teaches at the schools. And Andy and her have five kids.
This event is one of their major fund raisers so I immediately said yes. The event is Oct 17th but I want to hand off the tote and those beautiful Frozen dresses this Saturday. Which was no problem until I ran into the numerous issues with the costumes. But I do have the fabric for the tote and should be able to put it together in a few hours. Guess what I’ll be doing this afternoon?
One of my next projects will use this bit of fabric left from the Catnap Blanket.
I’m planning to make my version of this contemporary quilt that I found on Pinterest. The fabric should be here today!
I also want to recover some old pillows that have seen better days with an Autumn theme. Then I’ve got to start working on CHRISTMAS!
As my heart does some extra lub-dubs at the thought of all those projects that are stacking up,
I’m thinking, other than those costumes for my adorable granddaughters, I don’t really HAVE to do anything.
Think it’s time to do some meditation and get my priorities straight!
I made a fun blanket last week for a fun friend who was hitting a monumental birthday. (Not a fun one but we made it fun) I call it the Catnap Blanket.
It’s nap size. Which, according to a post on Pinterest is 40” wide and from 50 to 60” long. 40” is easy. Most fabric comes in 45” width and after washing, drying then shrinking, and cutting the ½” selvages off plus doing 1/2” seams, you end up with about 40”.
My friend, let’s call her Yvonne, is a former mermaid and likes all things mermaid and hummingbirds. Which everyone knows so I figured she’d be getting a few for gifts. What only a few people know is that she really likes wild cat prints and has about a dozen cats at her house. Just kidding. Once upon a time there were six and a few of them just happened to follow her granddaughter Austin home after school. That was her story. Austin moved away but the cats stayed.
So I decided to make a very cool leopard blanket with faux fur and an appliqué and to make it even funkier, I added pom poms.
Anyhow….
Here’s what I made.
This is a simple project to make. Except the applique. You could leave off the applique and make this in a couple hours. But then it would just be a nap blanket. Not a Catnap Blanket
I wanted something soft like minky for the back but minky can’t be ironed. Well I guess you could iron it but you wouldn’t like the result. And you have to iron that applique. So I went with flannel.
I used fun felt for the appliqué. Wool felt is nicer but can’t be washed and I wanted Yvonne to be able to wash it after Maggie spends the night with her and gets her little dirty paws all over it.
The front is faux leopard fur. I thought about a nice thick black panther faux fur but, once again, Maggie does occasionally stay at Yvonne’s and we wouldn’t want white JR hair mixed in with that black panther.
I didn’t quilt this because I didn’t want lines in that nice soft faux fur so I didn’t use batting. (Hey we live in Florida, we don’t need three layers for a nap.)
So here’s the shopping list. (I bought all of mine at the local Jo-ann’s because I didn’t have time to order it online.)
1 ¾ yds of 45”wide cream color flannel
1 ¼ yds of 60” wide faux leopard fur
6 yds of black pom poms
1 yd of 72” black fun felt
2 yds of Heat ‘n Bond Lite
I washed and dried everything except the Heat ‘n Bond Lite.
Cut the selvages off of the flannel, it will now be 41” wide. Cut the piece to be 59” long.
Cut the selvages off of the faux fur, it will now be 59” wide. Cut the piece to be 41” long.
The hardest part was creating the appliqué. I found a couple different panther graphics on Pinterest and melded them together then printed them out. The easy way to make a graphic bigger is using an overhead projector and just tracing it onto paper. But who has one of those?
Then I thought about making it really large on PhotoShop and then just printing out letter size portions and taping it together. Waste of printer ink which is 100 times more expensive than gasoline.
But then I said to myself, “What kind of an artist am I if I can’t draw this cat figure?” And then I remembered, “ Oh wait, I’m not an artist, that’s my sister!”
I did it anyhow.
I used freezer paper. Cut and taped it together to the size I wanted. (I didn’t measure it but I matched it up to the flannel and left about 5″ on each side.) Folded it into quarters.
Then I printed out the cat graphic to fit on a letter size paper. Folded the graphic page into quarters.
Then I did a rough drawing on the paper side of the freezer paper—trying to match up each quarter of the cat.
When I was I was kind of satisfied, I put the freezer paper on to the fun felt. Waxy side down, and ironed it. That will make the freezer paper temporarily stick to the felt.
Before I cut it out, I made sure that the appliqué outline width was 2”.
Next I pinned the appliqué fabric to the Heat ‘n Bond lite, cut out the shape, then ironed the back side to Heat ‘n Bond lite. Then I peeled the Heat ‘n Bond lite off of the back and centered the figure on the flannel.
Now I ran into an unexpected problem. The Heat ‘n Bond lite is like a glue that melts when pressed and holds the appliqué in place which makes it easy to sew onto the fabric. But I could not get the stuff to melt onto the felt so it would adhere to the flannel. I went out to their web site and checked if there was a problem with using felt, but no. If the fabric was thick, I was supposed to just press a little longer. Still didn’t work. The website said that I probably used fabric softener when I washed it and that’s why it won’t stick. Can’t remember if I threw a dryer sheet in there or not but washing it again was out of the question. I ended up pinning the appliqué to the flannel, flipping it over, and ironing on the flannel side.
Next I stitched with a regular stitch close to all the appliqué edges.
Basted the pom pom trim ½” from all the sides of the right sides of flannel.
Then I pinned the faux fur and flannel with right sides together and basted on all sides, leaving about a 6” opening for turning. I turned it right side out, checked that the pom poms and edges were okay, turned wrong sides out again and stitched. Turned right side out, checked again, then did a hidden hand stitch for the opening. Done!
The final measurement was 40 x 58, not counting the pom-poms.
Too early to think about Christmas? I think not! If you are a DIYer, it might be too late! 5 more days in September, then it’s Halloween, and BINGO, it’s Christmas!
If you follow me on Pinterest you may have noticed that I’ve been pinning lots of holiday ideas. I start earlier every year with Christmas designs but never get everything finished.
I made these stockings last year but not in time to post here. Then I made two more earlier this year when I found out that we were going to have another grandbaby.
I decided to start putting up Christmas ideas NOW! Just in case you also want to start early and need some motivation.
It was getting close to Christmas last year and I wanted to use some of the yards and yards of burlap I had stored away from Jes and Andrew’s wedding. So I was out on pinterest, pinning lots of burlap Christmas items. And a few minutes after I pinned this one:
I almost immediately received an email from my daughter-in-law Lauri, “so are you making us those stockings????? I would love them!!”
How could I turn down that request?
I waited for Fabric.com to have a sale on Premier Prints which was a mistake because a lot of the prints were out of stock. Like the super big dots and the chevron. Hmmmm, lots of people were waiting for that sale to make those stockings! But I ordered a yard of five different prints in lipstick red.
Then I started looking for a pattern. Which I found on Postiviely Spendid. Just downloaded, printed and taped it together. I traced it onto freezer paper and added ½” to all edges. Why? Blogger Amy from Positively Splendid has a serger and she surges all the raw edges. That wasn’t going to work for me. First, I don’t have a serger; second, burlap frays like crazy; and third, I didn’t want any raw edges.
So I designed my own tutorial, and here it is!
Burlap Christmas Stocking:
Used ½” seams
Using the pattern:
Cut two pieces of burlap for exterior
Cut two pieces of fleece or batting
Cut two pieces of lining
Cut 6” x 2 ½” piece of cuff fabric for strap
Cut 10” x 15” for cuff
Sandwich fleece, burlap, burlap, fleece
Stitch ½” seam around all edges except top
Trim fleece
Clip curves
Zip zag stitch around top edge of burlap stocking to help prevent fraying
Turn right side out and press
Lining
Stitch lining wrong sides together, leaving a 4” opening for turning on straight edge of back seam.
Clip curves
Cuff
Sew short ends together. Press seam open.
Fold up, wrong sides together, raw edges meeting. Press. Baste at 3/8” along raw edges
Make sure you only baste the two layers—it should be a tube.
Slip cuff over burlap sock and match seam with back seam of sock.
Hanger
Sew long ends together with a ¼” seam. Turn right side out and press.
Fold together and baste to back of sock. Use a 3/8” seam.
Yeah, that’s a lot of basting but it’s sure easier to baste several times then do the final stitch and find out something is not lined up correctly!
Slip the lining sock, wrong side out (which is also right sides together!) up over the burlap sock.
Line up the seams on top and stitch. This will be really thick—hope your machine sews through it!
Pull the burlap sock through the gap you left in the lining.
Pin the gap closed then do a stitch very close to the edge.
Put the lining inside the sock.
Done!
By the way, five yards of fabric was way too much. Typical for my DIY calculations. I made six stockings plus a Christmas pillow and some for Valentines Day. I never did make stockings for my house but I have still have burlap left and plenty of time before Christmas!