so much for mom sewing

I went downstairs to work on some quilt blocks. I did not. I untangled yarn and threaded needles over, and over, and over. For the entire two hours Dad and the big girls were at church. Seriously. As soon as I had one taken care of, the next needed a refill on her needle. It was a constant rotation. Plastic canvas and yarn, and these girls are ready to get their craft on!

Future Crafters of America

November journal

1. Loads of fabric pumpkins. I lost count, but there were more than 30.

2. Two more Squared Away quilt blocks - I did make two of this block, but when I went to take the picture, I realized I'd put one of them together wrong. Fortunately, I just need to take one of the side rows off to turn it around.

3. And it's not sewing, but I made my Christmas letter blocks ...

I'm excited to do a lot more sewing this month! I spent the summer traveling and doing theater and camps. This entire fall has been totally sucked up with editing a book. Ya know what? It's December tomorrow. I'm self-employed, and I don't work during Christmas! I'm doing service, and baking cookies, and sewing for my kids!

If anyone needs me, I'll be in the kitchen. See ya.

gimme some sugar!

Welcome, blog hoppers, to the Virtual Cookie Exchange hosted by Just Let Me Quilt! Thank you for including us, Carol! We are sisters who live at opposite ends of North America.

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MINDY
Christmas and crafting go together for me. I was just beginning my sewing adventures when I came across this tutorial for a tiered skirt.  I pulled out the small stack of Christmas fabric I had been given by my mother-in-law and tried it out.  Once I saw it on my toddler I was hooked!  Now, five Christmases later, I have started quilting along with making clothes for my two daughters, so many of my holiday gifts are made from fabric.

But this couldn't be a cookie exchange without some sugar!  Our family made tin-foil-covered plates of cookies to give to our friends and neighbors as we went caroling every year.  As we got older, and many of the siblings moved out, Emily was in charge of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and I made the sugar cookies.  

I now make these sugar cookies multiple times a year.  I play with food coloring, cookie cutters and cookie stamps.  I've made several cookie bouquets.  Last Christmas I painted them with dyed egg yolk.  And for Halloween I added crushed candies for a stained glass effect.  I've swapped out the vanilla for peppermint extract a few times, or even turned them into lemon or pumpkin sugar cookies.  This is just the best go-to sugar cookie recipe for soft, chewy cookies.

SUGAR COOKIES

Cream together 3/4 cup butter and 1 cup sugar.  Add 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon each of salt, vanilla and baking powder.  Stir until smooth.  Add 2 1/2 cups flour, one cup at a time, incorporating it fully before adding more.  Refrigerate the finished dough for 30-60 minutes before cutting into shapes, or immediately roll into balls and smash lightly to flatten.  Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes on a non-greased baking sheet.

• You can freeze both dough or baked cookies.
• When using food coloring, add it before the flour for even color.  To blend colors make two (or more) batches and then pick small pieces from each to roll out together.  Or you can add color to finished dough - it will be more saturated and will get all over your hands. 
• To make egg yolk paint, simply add some food coloring (and water to thin it out if you'd like) to some egg yolk.  A little goes a long way, so one yolk can be used for multiple colors.  Paint on the cookies with a clean paintbrush before you bake them!
• I used lollipops but jolly ranchers or other hard candies would work for the stained glass.  Crush it and use it to fill in the cut out shapes.  Bake as normal with parchment paper on the pan, but let it rest on the pan a few extra minutes afterwards to harden.

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TRINA
There's a back-story with the sugar cookie recipe. Because there's a bit of an age gap between us - I'm the oldest, and Mindy is the 7th of the 8 siblings in our family - it didn't occur to me until we were adults that the recipe story hadn't been shared until one day Mindy said something like, "I heard there's a story about this recipe and a shirt but I didn't know if it was true." Well, I do! Because I was there!

Once upon a time, Tawnia (#4 of 8) was about 2 years old and wearing a shirt with Cookie Monster and a bunch of words on it. Eric and I were 7 and 8, and it dawned on us that those words were a recipe. Did it really work? Was it a real recipe for Cookie Monster Sugar Cookies? So we asked our mom to try it. Tawnia was plunked up onto the counter, still wearing the shirt, while we read off the ingredients and measurements. And it worked! The best sugar cookies! We read it off the shirt at least a couple of times, usually while Tawnia was wearing it, before Mom got around to writing the recipe on a piece of paper. It has been our family's go-to cookie recipe for decades now, all because of a 2-year-old's shirt.

And now - seriously, just last week - I learn that it originally came from a book.

Trina's real-life, un-staged messy kitchen with sugar cookies. 

Bring on the frosting and the sprinkles! 

My go-to is three-ingredient fudge, which I first found on here on Made Everyday with these ingredients:

Chocolate mint is my FAVORITE. I wondered if it would also work with white chocolate and peppermint, so I tried my own variation.

Put all three ingredients - the both entire bags of chips (12 oz chocolate chips) and the full can of sweetened condensed milk - into a microwave-safe bowl and nuke it for a minute at a time for 3 minutes, until it's all soft enough to stir and blend together. Then spread it in a pan lined with parchment paper and let it set. That's it! Seriously!

YUM. If you get super-peppermint-y chips, I've actually had this turn pink in the past. Pink fudge is AWESOME!!! And it won me the Most Creative Dessert at our church's Christmas party a couple of years ago.


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Thanks for visiting - we'd love to hear where you're from in the comments. Please check in with the other blog hop participants as well!

November 27

Kwilty Pleasures

Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

Songbird Designs

Creative Latitude

Ms P Designs USA

Gray Barn Designs

Alycia Quilts

Happy Cottage Quilter

Sew Many Yarns

For The Love Of Geese

November 28

Creatin' in the Sticks

Vroomans Quilts

It’s A T-Sweet Day!

Domestic Felicity

That Fabric Feeling

Home Sewn By Us

Karrin’s Crazy World

Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Bumbleberry Style

Melva Loves Scraps

Beaquilter

November 29

MooseStashQuilting

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Kathleen McMusing

DesertSky Quilting

Life in the Scrapatch

Ridge Top Quilt

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Bejeweled Quilts by Barb

Pumpkin Patch Patterns & Quilting

Operation Domestic Goddess - YOU ARE HERE! 

Just Let Me Quilt

black friday boycott - craft day!

My sister-in-law and I had an awesome Black Friday! No shopping - we didn't even leave the house. Instead, we raided the bin of blocks that Adam made for the girls years ago that rarely get played with anymore, and played with mod podge, craft paper, and paint. I had some letter stickers for "Joy to the World" and little teeny wood letters for a bit of 3-D-ness on the "Happy Christmas" sign. That one needs to have a couple of holes drilled into it so I can loop craft wire through to hang it up.

My halls are a little more decked now ...

 

plump purple pumpkins

I'm the Wednesday night activity leader for the 8 to 11-year-old girls at my church, and these kiddos love crafts! They're required to do a certain number of service projects for their award program, and I love it when we can combine the two. My partner Megan and I decided to have the girls make a craft to give to the elderly ladies in our congregation as a holiday gift for Thanksgiving, and we went with these fabric pumpkins.

I cut the fabric in a 9x18 rectangle - I bought a bunch of fat quarters at the fabric store and cut them in half. So quick. I also used fall-ish scrap fabric I have kicking around in my sewing area. I ran the side seam through my sewing machine so the girls would have time to make more rather than spending the whole evening on just one.

At the activity, the girls handstitched the bottom to pull them closed, stuffed them, and sewed the top closed. I have a lot of scrap felt that they used to make stems and leaves.

Each of the girls had time to make two - one to give and one to keep. They were SO excited to keep a fabric pumpkin, and they really were very cute. Both the girls and pumpkins.

The girls LOVED it so much that I sent all their moms the link so they could make more at home to keep for themselves. I was told later that a couple of them did.

When I got them home, some of them needed some extra stitching on the bottom because it wasn't tight enough. I did large side stitches with colored embroidery floss for the pumpkin "grooves." I also made more so our gift bags would have two each.

I loved the variety of colors they chose to put together.
 

I never got a picture of all of the pumpkins in one big pile because we started giving them away before we finished them all. We made more than thirty all together. If you have time tomorrow, or maybe for next year, they make a great little centerpiece or are fun to put on a shelf or windowsill! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

July journal

Just two projects this month: the seven mermaid tails for Peter Pan ...

... and continuing work on a decorative pennant garland (May journal #5) that I'm making for youth camp in 2 weeks.

The garland pieces will all be attached across the top by a (really, really long) strip of dark blue with stars on it. So far I have 60 triangles of various sizes, depending on the size of scrap fabric I was working with, and 40 circle flowers done. I'm using every piece of blue in my scrap bin that won't be added to a quilt because it's too scratchy, too flimsy, or I just don't really like the print. It's going to be outside at camp, so I'm using the less-loved fabric that I don't care about it getting trashed. (And for that matter, it's all scraps that were given to me when people were cleaning out their sewing - someone else's rejects!)

still insane

Two years ago, I went a little insane with making ten togas for the community theater's summer production of The Music Man (which I was in with 3 of my girls). We weren't able to do summer theater last year because it was the same week as our family reunion (it was Annie, which we were very sad to miss) but we are back at it this year! Peter Pan!

I am still insane, because this year, I declined taking an on-stage role and instead, I was backstage as the costume manager. I figured I needed to be backstage to help take care of my own kids - JK is technically too young to be in the production (the rule is 6/entering 1st grade - she's 5 and entering Kindergarten), but she was going to be dragged along to all the rehearsals anyway. As for me, well, I can sew or figure out costume planning, as already demonstrated with the togas, so that's where I ended up even before the end of the auditions.

JK arrived at the audition and marched straight up to the executive producer, Jane ...

JK, very firmly: I want to be the pink mermaid!
Jane: Oh? Is pink your favorite color?
JK: No. My favorite color is purple.
Jane: Don't you want to be the purple mermaid?
JK derisively: There aren't any purple mermaids. I want to be the pink mermaid.

Her role was pretty much cast in stone at that point. And since I'd already agreed to take care of costumes, I needed to figure out mermaid tails ... seven of them.

This is a small community theater that's all volunteers, so there's no big costume shop. Everyone is pretty much on their own, unless it's a specialty piece. My job was basically to decide (with Jane, and some consulting with the director) what the costume guidelines would be for the various groups - pirates, lost boys, islanders - and everyone was on their own to get a costume. The theater organization was able to rent an outfit for Captain Hook and a few of other pieces. We also raided the high school costume room (where we perform) for some more items. Lucky for us, the girl playing Peter Pan is a major cosplay fan, and had multiple Peter Pan costumes of her own - the director chose the one he liked best. And I'm traffic control for all of it.

Back to the mermaids ... specialty piece, so I made all the mermaid tails. Most was fabric pulled from my own boxes, but I did go buy PINK.

I looked up a couple of tutorials, but basically they were all made totally freehand and based on each girl's measurements. The body part goes all the way to their feet, with the fin separate. The fins have stiff interfacing between two pieces of fabric. I couldn't figure out how to enclose the seams and still be able to turn them on the curves, so I left them raw edge and finished them on the machine with a wide blanket stitch. I also sprayed everything really thoroughly with starch to cut down on fraying and unraveling, and used glitter glue on the edges. They're holding up pretty well.

Some of the girls did their own decorating with tulle, pearl beads, shells, and flowers. I worked on the ones for my own kids and a couple of the younger girls. Lots of glitter paint. Another mom covered them all in a glitter spray. They seriously look really awesome.

The mermaid scene is that they help Peter play a trick on Hook, when he "disguises" himself as a woman and covers his head with a lace shawl/veil. There's a duet between Peter and Hook that's really funny, "Oh My Mysterious Lady." My two littles are bottom right, and you can see that JK is indeed The Pink Mermaid.

Another costume I'm proud of is Tiger Lily - this one was all me. I decided that she'd wear a Polynesian sarong, and I made her flower crown.

(When TA and JK were not being mermaids, they were also islanders so they could run around and not have to sit the entire time.) 

So this is what we've done nonstop in the three weeks since getting back from vacation. And probably what we'll end up doing most summers for as long as we live here. It's long and tiring, but it's FUN. Theater is AWESOME.

P.S. Because I've been asked - yes, all 5 of my girls were in the play. SM was one of the Lost Boys. RG and JE were islanders. TA and JK were islanders and got the extra of the mermaids.

V is for Valentine

We went a little crazy with Valentine's Day this year. We made:

- hearts out of plastic canvas and yarn. We ended up with more than 20 of these, and we looped ribbon and hung them up in windows. TA and JK kept saying they wanted to "knit" and I had to keep correcting them to "sew" or "embroider." They had found some random sheets of plastic canvas that have been kicking around for forever, and I cut every last bit of it into hearts. It was a lot of handstitching. My little girls thought it was awesome.

- cards with cardstock, foam stickers from Target, and ink/stamps. We didn't mail any out this year, just made them for each other.

- envelopes to hold all those cards along with some treats. I trimmed the tabs off manila folders and closed the sides with packing tape. Easy. Even SM, a big middle schooler now, loves our family Valentine party every year.

- "suncatchers" (although obviously without the SUN) with contact paper, tissue paper, and a Sharpie.

I'm in a bit of a craft-like-crazy mode this year, just to clear out a lot of old supplies that have been sitting around for forever. This was helpful with the plastic canvas and the contact paper.

And even though we moved into March and now April, I was still in heart mode when I made my little quilt for A Doll Like Me. I was trying to get it done for Project Quilting, but I got just the top done. Finally did some light quilting and the binding today. I outlined the hearts with stitch-in-the-ditch to make them stand out more, and then the loops down the side. I didn't want it too dense because I'm learning that dense quilting makes things stiff. This is for a child so it needs to be soft. The back is the same flannel that I used on the doll quilt TA made.

H is for hatinator

My hat for "The Music Man" ...

Th original hat was in a box of random hats, and this was the only one that fit my head over my hair ... but it was too big, and the brim was too floppy. So I cut the dome and settled the top down into it further - you can kind of see the line on the top left in the picture. The stitching was really obvious so I knew I had to cover it with something ... obviously I went with lace. I also cut about a half inch off the brim and that helped A LOT. I originally wanted to get a feather boa and just wind it all around but I never made it to the store to get one. When I was doing the lace, I also pulled out the tulle, thinking I'd make some kind of bow but fortunately (because this was about 3 hours before the dress rehearsal), inspiration struck and I just twisted a long strip of tulle around and around and fluffed it up. Except for the stitching on the dome, the whole thing was done with a heck of a lot of glue in my hot glue gun.

And here we are!!

The hat in action! On stage, I was the Pick-a-little soloist ... "Just melt her down and you'll reveal a lump of lead as cold as steel ..."

And with three of my girls in "Wells Fargo" ...

P.S. This type of big foofy hat, in England anyway, is actually called a Hatinator. Here, we just call it a Kentucky Derby Hat. HA!

soft and warm

Lamb attempt number one:

Only about six inches tall.  

Forgot to add the ears (pinned on for the picture).

Not happy with it.

So I scaled the pattern 150%, tweaked it a bit

and used cuddly pink fleece to make lamb number two.

Much much happier.

Nose is embroidery floss and eyes are permanent marker.

Rice-filled bags are fabulous to use as heat packs.

Just microwave for a few seconds and toasty warm.

Little pocket warmers are a great way to use scraps.

D is for Dragon

Cupcake asks Daddy to read her "dragon" every night, The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch.  He knows it so well that he has his own version of telling it, with sound effects and silly lines added in.  One day I'll get it on video.  When I came across this link to making your own rug, I thought it looked pretty easy, and we are in need of a good rug in the kitchen.  I found the non-slip rug liners at Walmart, and some denim at the thrift store.  The other side had flowers all over it, and while I would be happy with it I didn't think my husband would be too thrilled with it for a Christmas present.  So I turned it to the solid blue side, but it was too plain.  I debated a lot about what to paint, but finally settled on a dragon (which he loves), so it will be from both me and Cupcake.

The actual making of the rug was easier said than done.  The rubber doesn't go through the machine easily, and getting the whole thing smooth is difficult.  So not a project I'll do often, but glad I did it at least once.  

 And while I'm on the topic of rugs, I made a scrap rug too!  This one goes to my sister, Tawnia.  I worked on it off and on for exactly three months.  I used the same non-slip rug backing and just pushed strips of fabric into it.  Because I was constantly adding more colors and patterns and textures, as I finished other projects, I added scraps at random.  But working from one end to the other makes sense too.  Not every hole needs to be filled - every other or every third is plenty.  I will definitely be doing this again - I've already got lots of other scraps trimmed (around 1" by 6") for future rugs.  It could be fun to try stripes or pattern or even a giant heart in the middle.  I used the scraps from other projects but thrift store sheets would be great to get a lot of fabric at once.  And old t-shirts are fabulous because knit doesn't fray.  Although this one took a lot more time, it was a mindless, relax in front of the TV but still being productive, sort of project.  Yay!

Nothing Says Love Like Practicality

I wanted to join the challenge of sewing for seasons and holidays.  I really did.  I made a Pinterest board and had all these cute ideas for Valentine's decor and gifts, and we were going to set a sweet table with a well-planned, fancy dinner.  And then life happened.  Late nights, papers to grade, long hours for my hubby, school concerts...etc., etc.  So I decided that, rather than kill myself trying to make something that was PURELY seasonal, I'd go along with (what I interpreted to be) the "spirit" of the challenge and do something FOR a holiday.  And that led me to focus on sewing my Valentine's gifts, rather than the decorations (which were essentially nonexistent, by the way...a candle on the table and red placemats).

Our family follows the Dave Ramsey financial plan, and we are working our oldest kids into it; the little one doesn't care yet, but loves money!  Anyway, the girls have been using -- for a year -- envelopes that we write "Give", "Save", and "Spend" on to keep up with their money.  The envelopes rip, get wet, and get lost, and we have replaced them often; they also weren't great for holding coins.  Last week, though, I found a seller on Etsy who made three-pocket zip wallets for just this purpose.  They were a little pricey, but I was able to dash off two of my own in about an hour.

They are really easy to make.  You need:

-2 pieces each of exterior and lining fabric (mine were 9" x 4.5")

-1 zipper (mine was 7")

-ribbon or twill tape for the labels (I used ribbon and wrote with a Sharpie; it bled a little on the satin but was great on the grosgrain.  Next time, I might try using printable iron-on transfers because I think they would look neater.)

-matching thread

First, measure where you want your tags; I folded the fabric in half longways, pinned on there, and then divided the remaining distance equally for the other two.  Baste the tags into place.  Then lay one lining fabric face-up, place the zipper face-down on it, and lay one exterior fabric face-down, then sew them together along the zipper.  Iron both pieces of fabric out away from the zipper.  Then do the same thing on the OTHER side of the zipper.  When you iron the pieces out again, the two lining fabrics will be on one side (facing up); if you flip the whole thing over, the two exterior fabrics will be on one side facing up.  Next, unzip the zipper about halfway (to help with turning later).  Pin the two matching fabrics together, right sides in.  Sew from the middle of the bottom of the lining, around one side, across the bottom of the exterior, down the other side, and back to about 2 inches from your start.  Reach inside, unzip the zipper all the way, and turn the fabric.  Then close your seam, put the lining back inside, and iron the whole thing.  Finally, zip the zipper and mark where you want your dividers to be.  (Each of mine was a hair over 2 inches wide.)  Sew from the bottom up almost to the zipper, but don't sew the zipper shut!

Overall, I was really happy with how these turned out, especially since I was just using scrap fabric.  If I was going to do it again, I would say to make the whole thing a bit longer; the pockets are a tad narrow, but little fingers can handle it.  Also, if it gets too long, you need to worry about maybe folding or rolling the whole thing (and having a closure for it) so that it doesn't get too unwieldy.

My husband laughed (in the most good-natured way) when I told him what I was making the kids for their Valentine's Day gifts; I assured him that they would love these.  And they DID...there was so much excitement over giving and saving money!  Which, really, is what this whole thing is about.

Christmas Wreaths

I had hundreds of ornaments leftover from my wedding four years ago.  We could have two, even three trees full of ornaments and still have extras.  So finally I decided to do something with them.  Found the idea on Pinterest (of course).  Bend a wire hanger into a circle, untwist the top and slide the ornaments on.  It is smart to hot glue the caps onto the ornaments first so they don't fall off.  I filled in any gaps and added more sparkle with the silver garland.  It is a surprisingly fragile wreath because the caps tend to snap, so I'm not sure that I would have wanted to buy ornaments specifically for this, but if you have a lot on hand it is a nice way to use them up.  I'm going to keep this hanging (in the storage room) instead of packing it away when the season is done, to help keep it intact.

This summer while I was in Oregon my Mom gave me a bunch of tulle.  I made a tutu for Cupcake, and this beautiful wreath.  I didn't want to spend the money on a wreath form (although if you do you'll need to cover it in white fabric before you start), so Aaron brought me home some sheets of Styrofoam from work and I cut out my own.  Cut the tulle and tie it on.  Hot glue stuff in the middle for pretties.  It is such a forgiving project, you can muddle your way through it and it will still look fantastic.  I already had the white snowflakes, so the only thing I spent money on was the red snowflake that I got at the dollar store.  If you like the style you can always use different colors and different middles for each season.  I've started one with cream tulle and will add autumn leaves in the center.  I'd love to see it in pink or green with flowers and Easter eggs for spring.  Or for another Christmas variety, just so the lower half in white, and add a Santa hat on top.  I guess this is my way of pleasing my inner-ballerina.

Tutorial for ornament wreath: here
Tutorial for tulle wreath: here, or here
How to cut tulle: here