Stroller Blanket

This blanket is for Brodie. His fave colour is green :) Its the windproof/waterproof fleece on one side and this pretty green flecked with other colours wool on the other. I thought it would be great for the stroller and car trips. M

My First Etsy Purchase

was this print for my son's room



You can see more of the artist's work on her blog The Black Apple. Scroll down and you'll see why I suddenly really, really need some trees in my living room.

-A

Assorted Gifts and Crafts

Quilted christmas wallhanging. Quilting requires patience and precision, so I don't do much of it. Look at my loops, they are crazy lopsided and I will have to include that specific stick with the gift to make sure it hangs straight.



I whipped up another bag out of the remnants. I always request or purchase extra fabric in case I make a mistake and then if it all works out I have remnants to play with.



Embroidered bear bib. It has the sweetest blue, white and red Red Riding Hood print on the back, but I couldn't get a nice picture of it.





-A

baby mittens

I've concluded that baby mittens you buy in stores ar a joke. They are super short, super thin and can generally be removed by a baby in about 5 seconds. So (or sew) waterproof/windproof fleece was 50% off the other day and I got some to make some real baby mittens. the kind that basically go up to the baby's armpit lol. I'm trying them out in our -40 weather today. Next out of this fabric will be car/stroller blankets for the boys and a pair of mittens for Brodie, his will be slightly trickier because his will need thumbs ;) . M

Xmas Stocking

Here is a simple stocking for Brodie. Its hard to see int he picture but it does havea a cuff around the top. - M

Tea towel

An embroidered tea towel bday present for a friend. Long live the satin stitch :) M

Tree ornament

I cut this little tree out of felt, then embroidered the garland then sewed some sparkly beads onto it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy tree decoration! For the next one I am going to make the galrand look more draped..M

Free Vintage Holiday Embroidery Patterns

at Pattern Bee. I like the dancing santa and the teddy advent calendar, myself.

-A

Marvelous Muppets!

Gah. I cannot believe all the work and creativity that went into this quilt. It was made by Roxy Nova on Craftster. Click to see more pics.



-A

Christmas Stocking Ornament

I got my monthly Martha Stewart Living magazine a few days ago. It had the most adorable gift card holders in it. They had made them out of paper and I thought they would make excellent tree ornaments if I miniaturized them. Here is the very first one. Sewing on the ribbon was a pain! I may stick to a paper border at the top and jsut glue it on, although the sewing really reinforced the loop for hanging on the tree. I need to get some craft paper with a really condensed pattern, for such a small item big prints are kind of useless. I had snowflake paper but they were so spread out that some stockings didn't even get a snowflake! lol

Here is the Martha link. M

Paper Stockings

Some for me

Took a moment to make a couple of belts for me! the top is my "child of the 70's"reminiscing moment which is super wide and worn over the belt loops. The below is my more reserved through the loops lol. M

Throw Cushions part 2

I used this quilting fabric to cover the 2nd set of pillows on the couch. (see black set down below...) I loved how bright and retro it was. Its got a bit of nice stretch to it so your cushions won't look crinkly sitting on the couch. Boo on crinkly cushions! M

Etsy Stuff I like, Part I

Click to be taken to the etsy store where item is sold

Koi Hoodie



Sweet puppets and stuffies



Feltboards



-A

Quick Gifts: Knit Gnome and Santa Puppet

Santa Puppet Pattern




-A

It's Official. I'm Starting the Holiday Craft Posts.

We celebrate Christmas (sort of, in a non-religious, trying to be non-commercial-or-materialistic way) so I am now starting the holiday posts.

I am trying to avoid wrapping paper this year as much as I can, so I'll start off with these Santa sacks I saw on hgtv.com. It would be neat to make the santa face an ornament that could be hung on the tree after. Click to go to their site for directions.

Christmas Presents!

I've started making Christmas gifts. This one is for my grandma. I got the fabric at a garage sale, the lining is a pillowcase from the same sale. The outside is a forest green courdoroy.





-A

Throw cushions

Just some plain-ish black throw cushions. Black jacquard with black embroidery on it. I'm going to make some bright ones to go with them on a black couch. I made them the same was as the heat bag cover tutorial below. M

And a Green Dotted One, too

Kind of a sister bag to the first. I made the pocket a little bigger, a little lower and put the cell phone pocket on the other side.

Polka Dots and Stars Bag

Sweet little tote with magnetic snap, zip pocket and cell phone pocket.

A wallet to match

I had some leftover fabric from the belt so what they hey! Why not a wallet to match.

I used the same stretch corduroy, and a vintage button for the closure. Corduroy is my new favourite material ever. I didnt' need interfacing or anything and it "grabs" the cards and bills nicely. M

Another birthday present!

Phew almost finished with birthdays and I can move onto Christmas gifts! I'm sure I will think of a couple more things to pop in with this gift. M

Here is a curdoroy belt, there is interfacing on the inside to stiffen it up and its stretch corduroy so it will hug the body nice:

and a set of flashy felt bookmarks with cardboard inside to keep them stiff. (bday girl is in University)

Toddler Backpack

Pattern from Sewbaby. I love the rainbow ribbing on the straps. Pocket lining matches the strip across the front.

More Wallet/Organizers

I made two more of these today but am still not completely happy with them. I blue and gold one turned out nice on the inside with a pale green satin lining and the cotton was much better for the card pockets but the bias tape is still hard to work with and looks unprofessional to me. I made another and turned and top stitched it, only to have problems with the top-stitching as it was so thick because of the fabrics I used. My next one I will use thin cottons and top-stitch and hopefully that will do the trick.

Peacock Wallet

Tomorrow we are taking another guy from my vball team out after our game for yet another birthday! I find it incredible that so many of us have our bdays in the span of a month, even more so that 2 of us have the same birthday. Anyway, he likes birds and although I would have wanted to make it out of pheasant(his fave bird) fabric I only had this peacock brocade.

I have to thank Amanda tenfold for posting the wallet she did earlier. It totally inspired me to do this one and especially since all the ideas I had for this guy weren't quite panning out!

The brocade was a royal pain in the a$$ to work with and I probably will not make any more wallets out of it! I did use interfacing, and will probably go with a thicker cotton next time instead. The plain black I used had a little too much stretch and was very hard to keep straight. (so its not...but nobody's perfect ;)

But all in all my first attempt was relatively stress free and the directions I followed from this link were fantastic.
How to Make a Fabric Wallet

M

Large heat bag

This is the same idea as the booby heat bag tutorial and cover tutorial below but larger for use on back, neck etc...Another bday present! M

Apron

This apron is a gift for a guy on my volleyball team for his birthday. Its a restaurant style apron that just goes around the waist (its folded up in the picture so the embroidery is on one side of the top of the apron). It has 2 big pockets on the front. I got the phrase hot cha cha from sublime stitching and drew the little pepper. Oh I adore the satin stitch!

It was nice to come back after my crafting hiatus. I msut almsot be getting over this cold! M

Wallet/Organizer

This was a first attempt for me. Unfortunately brocade frays as fast as you can look at it and I am not too crazy about the bias tape but otherwise it is a pretty nifty little organizer. I may make another one and try to turn under the seams instead of using the bias tape.

One that was just shopping/membership cards plus parking change would be nifty to keep in the car. If you didn't live in my neighbourhood that is, because here that would get stolen.







-A

Brocade Bag

This is one of my prettiest bags, just because the fabric is so gorgeous!

Oh embroidery, how I love you.

Click to see larger (my new HTML trick).





And the bum of the heart and dagger one:



Also in the works: many bags.

-Amanda