It doesn’t seem like Christmas would be complete here without at least one no-sew fleect blanket!  My brother is a Pittsburg Steeler’s fan and has been since he was a child.  I found some great Pittsburg Steeler fleece at the fabric store and I couldn’t pass it up.  It was no soft and cuddly and I knew that it would make a great blanket that not only he would use but I had a feeling my nieces would be using it too!

There are a couple of techniques for putting these blankets together and Pinterest has a lot of tutorial pins for completing the blankets.  One technique is to do a form of crochet to link the fringe together or you can knot the fringe.  I like to use the fringe.

I posted a tutorial here awhile ago on how I make a no-sew fleece blanket.  They are super simple to complete.  My only suggestion is to try to make the blanket when you have a couple of hours of time to devote to it and have a place where you can spread it out where it will not be disturbed.  Once I get my fleece blanket front and back properly measured out and even I like to leave it like that and not put it away until I am finished.  Otherwise, it feels like you have to start over each time with laying out the pieces and making sure they are even with each other.  If you think that you may have to put the project away part way through it then I would suggest that you only cut out a fringe and knot it one side at a time.  That way if you have to put the project away part way through it then the knots will hold everthing in place and you will not have as hard of a time lining everything back up again.

Happy Crafting!!

This was a great little project that I found on Pinterest.  Basically, you draw lines on a fabric bag to resemble a piece of lined paper.  Then you have your child draw a picture of their teacher on the bag and you embroider it.  I used that basic premise and added to it by making each of the bags instead of purchasing them.  That way I was able to use some school-themed fabric for most of the bag.  I originally saw the Pinterest Inspiration here at Come Together Kids.

Supplies:

Approximately 1/2 yard of fabric of your choice (I used a printed fabric)

1 piece of muslin or light colored fabric measuring 12″x14″ for the front of the bag

fusible interfacing to cover up embroidery, about the size of the front of the bag.

Blue Sharpie marker – fine tip

Red Sharpie marker – fine tip

Black Sharpie marker – fine tip

Black embroidery floss

Thread and sewing notions

I started out with a simple bag pattern that I like to use.  I made up the patterns in various sizes a while ago.  For this bag I used the size which starts out with a measurement of 12″ wide by 14″ high.  On each of the bottom corners I cut out a two inch square so that I could square the corners and have a flat bottomed bag.  I used fabric in my stash but I would think that you could make this with about 1/2 yard of fabric.

I cut out one piece of 12″x14″ fabric from the muslin, one from the fusible interfacing and one from the printed fabric.  This forms the bag.  I then cut out one piece of printed fabric 8″ wide for the handle.  I used my original pattern piece of 8″x34″ to start with.  That size handle makes the bag more of a tote bag and I was looking for a shorter handle to make the bag more of a lunch sack.  I took the longer strap and then just trimmed it to a size that looked good with the bag, but I kept the width at 8″.

I started out with the muslin piece first.  I cut out my two bottom corner, a 2″x2″ square.  Then I took my blue Sharpie marker and drew lines across the muslin to make it look like lined paper.  I started about 2″ or so from the top of the bag.  Please keep in mind that part of the top of the bag will be folded over to make the top finished edge of the bag.  I took a straight edge and made my lines.  I then took my red Sharpie marker and made one red line along the left side of my front bag piece about 1 1/2″-2″ in leaving room for the french seam to be formed.  If you want you can add three black circles to the left side of the red line to make it look like loose-leaf paper.  I opted to do this at the end of the project so that I didn’t run the risk of getting the black circles lost completely or partially in the seam.

Once I finished drawing the paper on the front of the bag I wrote each teacher’s name on the bag since my kid’s are still to young to do that quite yet.  I then gave each child the bag for their teacher and a pencil and asked them to draw a picture of their teacher.  They were very excited and happy to do that so that part went much more smoothly than I had anticipated.  When they were finished I took black embroidery thread and backstitched over their drawings and the teacher’s name.  I finished the front of the bag by ironing a piece of fusible interfacing to the back of each bag front.  This will offer some protection to the back of the stitching.

When I had all of the embroidery done I begain to put the bags together.  I chose to use french seams because I do not like the raw edges showing in my bags.  I think that the french seams just keep everything looking neater.  I started out by laying out the front and back piece of my bags, wrong sides together.  Now, this next step you can do either now or later.  I find it easier to do now because I prefer to iron the fabric when it is not already sewn together.  I fold over the top of the bag a 1/4″ and press.  I then fold that piece over about 3/4″ and press.  I now have the creases in my fabric for when I am ready to stitch the fold on top to finish the bag.  I then unfold my pieces of fabric (most of the crease will stay in your fabric) and then I am ready to begin sewing.

I used my 1/4″ pressing foot and made a 1/4″ seam along the two sides and bottom of each bag.  I trimmed the seams to about 1/8″.  I turned the bag inside out and pressed the bag catching the seam that I just made between the front and back pieces.  I changed my presser foot to just the regular presser foot and stitched two more side seams and a bottom seam again with almost a 5/8″ seam, catching the previous seam in the center so that there were no raw edges showing.

This is from another project but you can see how you press the seam together, catching it between the two side pieces.

To box the corners I turned my bag right side out.  With wrong sides together I used my 1/4″ presser foot, I lined up my bottom and side seams to give the bag a flat bottom and stitched at the spot where all of the layers will come together and will be caught in the seam.  I trimmed the seams, pressed the seams, turned the bag inside out and changed my presser foot back to the regular one.  I then stitched a 5/8″ seam locking the previous seam into a french seam.

To finish the bag I folded down the top of my bag along my crease lines and stitched, catching the fabric that I had ironed under 1/4″.

The final step was the handles.  I pressed my piece of fabric for the strap with the wrong side facing up.  I then folded it in half, wrong sides together, and pressed.  I opened it back up and then pressed each long raw edge to the center pressing line.  I then folded that piece in half and pressed again.  Basically, I folded the piece in half making it into two 4″ halves.  I then opened it back up and folded in the raw eges of each 4″ half and making them each a 2″ half which then made the entire strap 4″ wide.  I then folded that 4″ piece in half and ended up with a 2″ wide strap.

I folded the short end of each side of the strap up about a 1/4″ or so and pressed.  I then placed each end of the strap on each side seam of the bag and stitched it to the bag by stitching a square around edges of the strap.  Prior to attaching the second end of the strop to the bag, make sure that the handle is the length that you want it to be.  If not, trim the handle with scissors, press the edge under about 1/4″ and then sew it to the bag.

When I was finished I pressed each bag.  I was so happy with how they turned out and the teachers seemed to like them too!  I placed them each in gift bags and then attached a homemade gift tag to each bag along with a reindeer ornament.

Here is each bag all packaged up.

Happy Sewing!

I have a friend who just loves Raggedy Ann so I decided to make her one for Christmas.  I had posted about my first Raggedy Ann doll that I had made earlier this year and then I pinned it.  Technically, I think that still falls under a Pinterest Christmas!

You can find the original post on how I made the Raggedy Ann doll here.  You can find my tutorial on how to make her hair here.

I found some great Raggedy Ann and Andy fabric at Hobby Lobby and made my friend a simple tote bag.  Originally I planned on using that as the gift bag for the doll but I did not measure very well and the doll did not fit in the bag.  Oh well!  Now that I have gotten into making pillow cases I wish that I would have saved the fabric for that instead of the tote.  Maybe next time I am in Hobby Lobby I will be able to find the fabric again and make her a pillowcase for her birthday in January.

I’m happy with the way that Raggedy Ann turned out.  It’s so much fun to see the dolls develop as I sew them.  This little doll was fun to make and I am looking forward to giving it to my friend.  Maybe one of these days I can even get a few of them in my Etsy shop!

My car is a mess!  Ever since I had the boys I just cannot keep it clean.  There were extra diapers and wipes and clothes and snacks.  It seemed like everything was in there.  Now that the boys are no longer in diapers anymore the car is still full of snacks and toys and just stuff.  When I found these adorable bags on Pinterest from Tinkerfrog I just knew that I had to make them for my car.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly these bags went together.

I had some School Days themed fabric in my stash so I used that for the outside of the bag and I had some green PUL fabric in my stash for the lining of the bag.  I decided to use the PUL fabric because I wasn’t sure if we were going to be using these bags for trash or toy storage.  Either way, if the bags got dirty or sticky I would be able to simply wipe off the lining with a damp cloth.

Materials:

2 pieces of 12″x12″ fabric for the outside of the bag

2 pieces of 12″x12″ fabric, PUL or oil cloth for the lining

2 pieces of fabric 2″x18″ for the straps

I started out by sewing the bag pieces together using a 1/4″ seam.  I sewed 3 sides of the outside fabric together and then I did the same thing with the lining fabric.  I then boxed the corners of each bag by measuring the width of the bag at 4″ and marking a 4″ line with my marking chalk.  I stitched along this line and cut off the excess fabric about 1/8″ – 1/4″ from the seam.  I did this on the two corners of the outside of the bag and on the two corners of the inside bag. 

This is what the outside of the bag looked like after I boxed the corners.

Once I finished boxing the corners on the outside bag and the lining bag I turned the outside bag so that it was right side out.  I turned the lining of the bag so that it was wrong side out.

I set the bags aside at this point to make the straps.  I folded the straps in half, wrong sides together, and pressed.  I opened the strap back up and folded one of the short ends over about 1/4″ and pressed it in place and then I folded the raw lengthwise edges up to the center crease, pressed in place and then folded the entire strap in half lengthwise and pressed one more time.   I ended up with one finished edge on each strap and one raw edge.  That way, when the bag is finished, the end of each strap that will be showing will hav a finished edge.  You can finish that edge any way you would like but I just folded it in so that it was a square edge.

I took the outisde of the bag and  measured 2 1/2″ in from the left side seam and pinned one of the straps to the right side of the outside bag, lining up the raw edges.  I again measured 2 1/2″ in, this time from the right seam, and I pinned the other strap on the right side of the outside bag, lining up the raw edges.  I machine basted the straps in place.  At this point both of your straps should be on the same side of your bag since you are not making handles.  You are just making straps so that you can tie the bag to your headrest.  The raw edge of each strap should be lined up with the raw edge of the bag and the finished edge of the strap will not be sewn to anything.

Now it’s time to assemble the bag.  I inserted the outside bag (which I had turned right side out)  into the lining of the bag (which I had turned wrong side out) with the right sides together.  The straps were sandwiched inbetween the two bags.  I stitched around the top of the bag with a 1/4″ seam and left an opening for turning.  I think that my opening was about a 3″ or so.  I turned my bag right side out, pressed the opening closed and then edgstitched around the top of the bag, which also closed up the opening from turning, to finish the bag.

I pressed the bag a little bit once I was finished with it because the outside fabric was a bit wrinkled from all of the turning.  I tied the bags to each of the front headrests in my car and they looked so cute!  The boys were excited about them too.  At this point we are using them to hold some toys that they like to keep in the car along with some snacks.  I think that I will be making another one for myself so that I can use it in the front seat as a trash bag.

Happy Sewing!!

I have an old pair of capri jeans that are my favorite.  They are just so comfortable and fit where they are supposed to fit.  However, I ended up with a hole in one of the knees.  I was originally going to buy a patch for it but I just never got around to it and the hole in my knee became bigger and bigger and bigger.  It finally got to the point where I thought that I better not wear them anymore.

While looking through my Pinterest Sewing board for a bag pattern that I had pinned, I came across a pin for adding cuffs to jeans.  Perfect timing!  The tutorial can be found at Hopeful Threads and was for full lenth jeans but I figured that I might as well try it out on my jean capris.  I couldn’t wear them anymore so I had nothing to lose.

I laid my capris out on my cutting table and made sure the legs were even and I used my rotary cutter to cut the jeans just below the hole in the knee.  I was being very careful because, since they were already capris, I didn’t want them to be too short.

 Once I cut my capris I then cut my fabric.  The fabric piece that I used was 8″x16.5″.  The original tutorial suggested 8″ so that when you fold the length in half you still have 4″ of your pattern showing.  It just depends on how wide you want your cuff to be.  I arrived at the 16.5″ number by measuring the width of my jeans and multiplying by 2 and adding 1/2″ for the seam allowance.  The width of my leg on my capris was 8″ which I muliplied by 2 and added 1/2″ = 16.5″.  You then need to cut two pieces of fabric that fit your measurements.

I folded the cuffs lengthwise, wrong sides together.  I chose to press the fold so that it was nice and crisp.

I kept the fabric folded as pictured above and sewed each piece into a tube by sewing the short ends together.

I then slipped one tube/cuff over each leg of my capries with the raw edges together and right sides together.  Since both sides of the cuff are using the right side of the fabric just be sure that your side seam on the cuff is on the outside facing you.  I didn’t do this and then when I turned my cuff the seam of the cuff ended up being on the outside.  I had to rip the entire cuff off of each leg and re-sew them back on.  Once I had the cuffs slipped onto the capris I pinned them in place.  I put the seam of the cuff against the inseam of the capris.  Once pinned I sewed them in place using a 1/4″ seam.

When I had finished sewing the cuffs in place I turned the cuff down so that the seam joining the cuffs and capris was now inside the capris.

I turned the capris inside out and pressed the seam up towards the capris.  I then turned the capris back to right side out and topped stitched all the way around on the capri fabric making sure that I caught the seam in there too.

That was it!  I couldn’t believe how easy it all went together.  It took me a bit longer than it should have since I sewed the wrong side of the cuff to the capris.  If it wasn’t for having to rip out that mistake I would have had the whole project done in about 30 minutes.  I may need to take a drive out to the thrift store to find some old jeans that I can turn into capris.  This was a great project!

Happy Sewing!!

Recenty, when we were up at the Lake, I stopped in the local quilt shop.  I hadn’t been there since last year so I figured that I would stop in for a look.  One of the first things that I saw was a display of the most adorable flip flop sandals.  They had a fabric sole and a fabric bow on top.  I just had to buy that pattern.

The pattern is the Bow n Go Flip-Flops by Aunties Two Patterns and can be purchased here.  It is pattern number AT214.  Apparently there is a companion pattern, the Bow n Go Bag, but I did not see that one there.  It was very simple to make the flip flops and I’m really happy with how they turned out.  There were a few mistakes but with the black fabric you really can’t see them.  In hindsight, I should have just used some scrap fabric to practice sewing on the bias tape as that was the hardest part for me.

While I was at the quilt shop I found this great black fabric with yellow flowers on it so I ended up just purchasing all of my supplies that I needed while I was there.  I had to wait for a couple of days until we were back home so that I could start on my flip flops.  Once I started on them I just sailed right through the project.  All you basically do is to follow the pattern to make a fabric flip flop, cut the top plastic foot piece off of a pair of rubber-type flip flops and glue the fabric flip flop to the rubber sole.  I paid $1.97 for my flip flops.  It was that simple!

I now want to make more of these to match some of my other outfits.  I feel very happy wearing these flip flops.  I am proud of something that I made, they are totally adorable and they really dress up my outfit.

I posted my yarn tote here the other day.  As I had mentioned in the post I was not real happy with the size of the cover.  When I opened up the cover to reach into the tote there was just too much cover and it was in the way.

I decided to take the scissors to the cover.  I took off about 3 inches which included the finished casing.

After I trimmed down my fabric I needed to re-do my casing for my ribbon drawstring.  I ripped out and inch or so of each of the two side seams.  At that point I folded the raw edge top of the cover down 1/4″ and I pressed it.  I folded the top again so that the 1/4″ fold rested where the sewn side seam began.  Once that was all pressed I stitched it in place.

I was much happier with the second version of my yarn tote.  The cover on the first one was just too big and was in the way when I would be trying to see into the tote.  This version is much easier for me to take my yarn and knitting accessories in and out.  I’m very glad I went back and re-did the cover.  Now I need to put my new yarn and project into it but that will be a post for another day

I really liked the lunch tote that I had made a couple of weeks ago. The only problem was that I wanted to use it for a knitting tote for a larger project and it was just too small.  It will work for a smaller project such as socks are or scarf but I wanted something that would hold a larger project like a sweater or a vest.  So, I pulled the tutorial back out and enlarged the pattern.

These are the measurements that I used:

Outer Bag:  Two 15″ x 20 1/2″

Lining: Two 15″ x 20 1/2″

Cover: Two 14″ x 20 1/2″  *See note below

Rim:  Four 3 1/4″ x 20 1/2″

Outer Handle: Two 3″ x 20″

Inner handle:  Two 3″ x 20″

Fusible fleece

* I made the cover according to the measurements above.  However, the cover was too big.  When I open up the cover to reach into the tote there is just too much of the cover getting in my way.  I think this week I am going to cut down the cover and make it smaller.  If I do that I will gladly post the change.

Another change that I made to this tote was to use fusible fleece instead of Decor Bond.  The original tutorial called for Duck fabric or cotton fabric with Decor Bond.  I wanted the tote to have a bit more body to it and to hold it’s shape a bit better so I used fusible fleece.  I had quite a bit of it in my stash so I used that instead wherever the tutorial called for the Decor Bond.  I found that worked much better for what I wanted.  After just sewing the outside of the tote and fusible fleece the tote had a very nice shape.

When I went to do the lining I decided that I wanted some pockets so I added them in the same manner as I did here.  I forgot to measure the pockets that I had cut out but you can make them any size.  One thing to remember is that if you make some longer vertical pockets you have to take into account the placement of the pockets.  Since the corners on this tote are box corners the bottom of the tote and the liner will be flat.  I did not think about this in advance so now the bottom of my vertical pockets are on the bottom of the tote.  In other words, I should have placed them about two more inches closer to the top of the bag.

Other than the changes that I have listed here I followed the tutorial from the Pink Penguin just like I did for the lunch tote.

I found this great key fob tutorial on Pinterest awhile back and decided to finally give it a try.  The original tutorial can be found here at the Creative Little Daisy blog.

These are the materials that I used:

12″ length of 1″ wide webbing

1 3/4″ x 12″ piece of fabric

1″ d-ring

1 jump ring

I started out by folding the long raw edges of the fabric into the center of the fabric and pressing them in place.

I then took my fabric piece and placed it on my piece of webbing with the folded side of the fabric against the webbing.  I stitched down each lengthwise folded edge to attach the fabric to the webbing.

I slid my d-ring onto the fob at this point.  Make sure that the flat part of the d-ring is under the webbing and that the rounded side of the d-ring is on the fabric side of the fob.  Otherwise your d-ring will be on backwards once your sew your seam and turn the fob right side out.

I then folded my key fob in half and slid the d-ring over to the folded side.

I stitched the short raw edges together with about a 1/4″ seam…

…and turned it right side out.

I then slid the d-ring over to the seam that I had just sewn and I stitched another seam as close to the d-ring as I could.  I had to use my zipper foot for this step.

The last thing that I needed to do was to attach the jump ring and my key fob was all finished!

This little key fob made up so quickly that I think I will make a bunch of them up for Christmas.  They are so easy to make I may even make some up for the other Holidays and Seasons as well.  I hope you enjoy making your key fob!

Happy Sewing!!

Happy Mother’s Day!  I hope that everyone is having a great day!  We had a nice sunny day here with warmer weather so that made it very enjoyable.

On one of my many, many visits to Pinterest I saw this great tutorial for a fabric basket by the Pink Penguin and I decided to give it a try. I took pictures of each of the steps while I was making the basket but it seems that I have now lost my camera! GGRRRR! Fortunately, I took a picture of the finished project on my cell phone and sent it to my mother so I have a nice picture of the fabric box finished. However, I am missing the step-by-step pictures.  The original tutorial, though, has good pictures so if you would like to make one of these fabric boxes I would visit the Pink Penguin blog and read through her tutorial. Hopefully I will find my camera soon and can upload the pictures that I took. So, I apologize in advance for not having the step-by-step pictures.

The only materials that I needed were two pieces of fabric (one for the main color and one for the lining) which were each 13″x7″ and one piece of fusible fleece which was 14″x8″.  The original tutorial used cotton batting but I chose to use the fusible fleece because I had that in my stash.

The tutorial is very easy to follow and it did not take long at all to complete.  One thing that I did at the end of the tutorial was to top stitch my four corners.  When I just top stitched around the top of the basket it left the corners looking very round.  Once I top stitched the four corners it caused the basket to have a much better shape.

This little basket is so cute and you could use it for almost anything.  I like to drink tea so I put some tea bags in mine.  It could also be used to hold spools or bobbins of thread, scissors, pens and pencils or pretty much anything small.  I think that it would also be nice to give as a gift if you put something inside of it like tea, fancy pencils or small things like that.  It’s also a good way to use up some of that fabric in your stash.

Happy stitching!!

You can also view this project at: