2014 sewing inventory

Here's my final list of items sewn in 2014:

- 5 flannel nightgowns, one for each of the girls, a variation of the Oliver+S playtime tunic. I made the top the same and lengthened the skirt part all the way to the floor.
- 4 heart pillows with letters that spelled L-O-V-E. I also helped my girls make their own little heart pillows. Holiday challenge - Valentine's Day.
- I helped a friend's daughters make 2 "simple skirts" out of my leftover Minnie Mouse fabric to wear at Disney World. The girls were 8 and 6 and did quite a bit on their own but needed a lot of help.
- 4 tier skirts and an Oliver+S ice cream dress, all with Dr. Seuss fabric. Holiday challenge - Read Across America Day (on March 2, Dr. Seuss's birthday). The dress was also JK's birthday dress.
- Spring break "sewing camp" with some friends - the girls made dresses and square block "quilts" for their dolls.
- JE's birthday dress: Oliver+S roller skate dress.
- SM's birthday dress: Oliver+S music box jumper.
- 9 Independence Day skirts for my 5 girls and 4 of their cousins - all simple skirts with added pockets and ribbon trim. Holiday challenge: Independence Day.
- a t-shirt playdress for TA.
- jumper Sunday dress for JK.
- SM's white baptism dress.
- 4 comfort blankets for JK, which are a king-sized blanket cut into quarters and re-hemmed.
- 2 flannel baby blankets for gifts for friends - the edges were hand-stitched.
- a pillow cover from MADE's video tutorial.
- 3 Origami Bento tote bags - ballet bags for RG and JE, and one for a friend's birthday gift.
- a team project with SM to make a "picture quilt" for Grandma's birthday - I basically sewed everything onto a background fabric in a very crude version of applique.
- RG's birthday dress: Oliver+S music box jumper.
- TA's birthday dress: a t-shirt dress with an applique (she's only 3 so has no idea she was cheated on not getting her own new Oliver+S dress, but I'll make it up to her).
- 7 doll skirts, 5 doll shirts, 10 doll dresses.
- a kitchen floor rug for Adam's Christmas gift.
- the roof and walls for the playhouse Adam built for the girls' Christmas gift.
- 4 stuffed animal cats.
- 20 items out of my mending box fixed and returned to circulation, although from the size of the pile, you'd never know I did anything at all.

Wow. There are so many things I wanted to do that I didn't get to, but this is definitely more than I've ever sewn before. I'm happy with the list! Onward for 2015!

D is for doll clothes

My girls all have the My First Disney Princess dolls - not the baby dolls, but they look "toddler"-ish. Very cute. They're 14-inch dolls, so a bit smaller than American Girl dolls but LOTS cheaper. We were starting to have issues over the doll clothes because they come with just the outfit they're wearing, so I decided to make doll clothes for one of the group Christmas gifts.

I started with this list of ideas and links by Nest Full of Eggs. That got me going on skirts but my attempts at a circle skirt did not go well. It was enough for me to decide to move on to another idea for my letter C in Sew All 26 - a Circle skirt was not going to fly. I got through 7 skirts - one for each doll - and called it good. The trims were the fun part!

I needed something for the top half of the dolls, of course. So I did a couple of searches and found 2 shirt patterns/tutorials for dolls. I had to tweak the sizing because they're designed for the 18-inch dolls. I used this pattern from Serving Pink Lemonade to make 4 shirts - 2 light blue and 2 hot pink (only one of each in the picture). I stopped with 4 because my pattern tweaks were still pretty wonky and it was my first attempt at working with knit fabric ... which ... like the circle skirt, did not go very well.

The second shirt pattern - here by New Green Mama - was tweaked larger instead of smaller, and made into a dress. I made 10 of those. Still wonky but whatever. The girls don't even notice, or care. My favorite is the white/navy dot with the hot pink ribbon. While I was putting the combinations of fabric and ribbon together, I was thinking that I wished I had more fabric to make full-size dresses like them! But all of this fabric was out of my scrap box, so that's not going to happen.

These are certainly not worthy of being sold or given to anyone besides my own kids. But I put in some solid work and tried some new fabrics and tutorials, and the girls are happy with the wardrobe for their dolls to share. That's what matters.

C is for cats, cottage, crimson-trimmed rug

C is for Christmas presents that also start with C - cats, a cottage, and a crimson-trimmed rug.

CATS

The girls and I were doing a random search for patterns to make stuffed animals, and found this great round-up at Sewing Support of LOTS of stuffed animals. They wanted this, that, and the other and this cat - the Cotton Candy Kitty - was included on their list. Ultimately, what it came down to was this was the only pattern that printed out well and I was running out of time. So they all got the same cat. (SM, our oldest, got a different gift from Dad - the other 4 girls got these cats.) Fortunately, it's part of the design to use regular quilting cotton for the fronts of the ears so that's how they're all different. They're made of fleece - pink with white dots. I embroidered the faces. Cats are actually a very popular toy at our house, since the girls have been told straight out that we will never have a real cat. Dad is allergic to them.

COTTAGE

This was Adam's brainchild - he built the frame out of PVC pipe and I covered it with fabric. The roof and 4 walls are 5 separate pieces all made from regular quilting cotton and wrapped around the pipe and attached with velcro. The door is that I cut and edged a slit in the pink fabric, and then just hand-stitched a flap of green felt across the top over it. There are no windows or other details on the sides and back yet - that will be a project for the girls and I to work on together in the next few weeks. I figure we'll cut things out of felt and hand-stitch them to the pink, the same as the door.

CRIMSON-TRIMMED RUG

I got the idea of making a kitchen rug a long time ago from one of the quilting blogs I read but there was no way I was going to put all that effort into a quilting piece just to stand on it in the kitchen. This was a piece of print duck canvas (who the heck thought of naming a type of fabric "duck"???), layered with an old towel for cushioning, and then a layer of the rubberized no-skid rug mat that I got from Home Depot. The border is bias tape. This was one of my gifts to Adam.

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!

I Spy Bucket

 small plastic jar + vase filler +

twenty five small objects + item list =

a fabulous I Spy game ready to play!

 

C is for Christmas Cardigan

I completed Cupcake's Christmas skirt at Halloween, when I made her Bo Peep outfit reversible.  I'm glad I did, because I haven't been able to do as much sewing as I've wanted to in the last few weeks.  But it needed a little red sweater to go with it, and I couldn't find one anywhere.  I was given one years ago for myself, that was always just a little too small, so I didn't mind resizing it down to fit her.  I just laid a shirt on top of the sweater, traced around it, and resewed it all together.  Done.  The sleeves are a little snug, but it works for the few times she'll wear it this month.  I may add a pin or button towards the top to add some sparkle.  

quiet time here

I know it's been quiet here but I have been sewing quite a bit lately. I'm shooting for a Christmas as close to $0 as I can. We bought a real tree and I have to buy stamps for our Christmas cards, so obviously we're spending some money for our holiday ... but I'm trying to use materials we already have for making gifts. The results will be posted after Christmas, since the girls read the blog. No preview notes or photos, but I will say that C and D in the Alphabet Challenge will be covered.

In other homemaking news, we had a lovely Thanksgiving with my brother and his family visiting from Virginia. It snowed on Wednesday last week, so we had our first White Thanksgiving. The girls went sledding with their cousins in the morning before our big dinner.

Adam has figured out the secret to pie crust - he totally nailed it on every pie. The secret is - freeze the butter, then grate it with your food processor grater attachment. Don't ever touch the butter with your hands. Mix it in with the flour with a pastry cutter and handle the dough as little as possible until it's rolled out and in the pie plate. Adam has been trying for "flaky" pie crust for years, and this was fabulous.

B is for Boynton Book

When the theme "storybook" was announced for Kids Clothes Week I decided to look on the shelf and see what books Cupcake really likes to read.  One of her favorites is Blue Hat Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.  If you have not read this simple children's book, you are missing out.  (To get a general idea of what I'm talking about, go here.)  Most of the book goes something like this: "blue shirt, yellow shirt, green shirt, oops!"  And so I decided to "oops" and make her one shirt with all the colors.

For fabric, I used what I had.  The same red for all the other red projects (the first pair of pants I made and all the 4th of July skirts).  The lime green was used as lining in her St. Patrick's dress and as a second layer on her Bunny Dress.  I randomly received a whole bunch of fabric from my friend's mom which included the yellow with tiny ducks and the small blue gingham.  

I used the St. Patrick's bodice pattern as my starting point, adjusting it slightly and making a round neck instead of square.  The back is my usual loop and button closure, because I have yet to attempt button holes or zippers.  I made my own quilt of fabrics for the bottom, using strips of various widths.  (I've learned that I would not be entirely opposed to a small amount of quilting in the future, as long as things don't have to be super exact.)  The real challenge for this project was the sleeves.  I'd done flutter sleeves, and peasant tops have sleeves, but no proper sleeves.  I was nervous, but followed the first part of the tutorial here and made my own pattern.  And they turned out great!  They aren't too tight or too loose and now I won't be so scared to do them again in the future.

A is for Apron

My little Cupcake absolutely loves sheep, so it just made sense to dress her up as Little Bo Peep for Halloween.  I finished the last of it for Kids Clothes Week last week.

Hat tutorial here and I added extra lace around the brim.  I was worried that it was a waste of time because she never wanted to try it on, but she wore it the entire night of trick-or-treating!

I made the shirt months ago when I was making lots of peasant tops (basic tutorial here).

I tried to be practical with the skirt and made it a reversible circle skirt (found here).  The flip side is Christmas fabric!  Just need to find her a red sweater and her Christmas outfit is done.

Bloomers are the same basic pants pattern I use for everything (originally here).  I used the cutest white eyelet for both the pants and the apron.

And for the apron there is no tutorial because I made it up as I went along.  At first I made the elastic for around the back of the neck too long, and then I cut it and made it too short.  It worked for the night of trick-or-treating, but if I'm going to keep it for future use, I think I'll cut the elastic entirely and make it straps to tie. 

As a bonus, my friend Sherry made her a crinoline.  And Grandma had made her the cloak for her baby blessing two years ago, and it was perfect for keeping her warm without detracting from the outfit.