Christmas Apron and Santa's Mug Rug

Getting into the Christmas spirit I decided that my sewing should as well. I also wanted some projects in which I could combine sewing and embroidery.  As for the combination of the two I think they add a lot as a team but I think I need to either sew then embroider like the apron or embroider before cutting the pieces. I failed to do that on the mug rug and that resulted in a slightly off center stitching.
The other complaint I have on the mug rug is the edging. I like the stitching showing and it also makes the edges easier to make neat. However getting the back and front to line up seems impossible.  Next time I may change the fabric behind the pocket as well. A plainer fabric would look nice.

A Coloring Caddy and A Renaissance Cell Phone Case

A close friend made a request for a bag that she had seen on etsy but made bigger. It is a bag that holds crayons and a coloring book for easy travel. I set to work making a pattern and used some fabric from the dino projects. It holds 48 crayons and a 8.5" x 11" coloring book.  I am very happy with how it turned out and really dont have complaints. I do have a nice versatile pattern to where it doesnt need to have the boarder on the outside now too. I definately need to work on better velcro placement however. 

Next I needed make a bag or pouch to carry my cell phone in at the Ren Fest. I have a nice pouch but since my new phone is huge it just wont work out (My husband inherits my old one). I started out working on drafting a pattern directly on the fabric I was using. Worked really well but I made it a bit too wide so I cut it down to size part of the way through. I had to hand sew everything mostly due to the size but also for a little more authenticity ( i know, i know. My materials are no where near being authentic). I was very excited to also make my first set of fabric buttons. I followed some instructions in a book called The Tudor Tailor, which is really helpful for details in making Renaissance garb. Turns out fabric buttons are very easy to make! So far Im very pleased with this piece but am weary about my hand stitching holding up. Time will tell.

Two Tutus

I needed a dress or something for my daughter's 2nd birthday.  After researching I decided to do a tutu instead. Since her party will be an Elmo theme I also decided to use red, pink and orange tulle. I found someone's blog which suggested 3 other blog tutorials and set to work. My first came out clumpy since I was using all of the same colors in each group.  So I decided to try using 2 different pinks and either a red or orange alternating for the second tutu. Success!
The first isnt a waste however because I put it on her under the good one to add more poof. She seems to love them and will ask for them to be put on daily. Such an easy project that I hope to put on etsy soon!

Cheshire Cat

So I decided that my daughter should get a prop for her halloween costume.  The cheshire cat!
Since there are no patterns for a stuffed Cheshire cat I found out how to make my own. I carved out a cat from foam and had to lay pieces of fabric on it to create a pattern.

Then the fun sewing began. Surprisingly most was done in the machine and it turned out nice.
Theres some issues with the ear/eye area and a bit with where the tail meets the body but otherwise I'm happy.
Lily loves it too. She carries it around :)

In Progress...

Just to show how my crazy head works, I thought I'd do an in progress post.

Currently I'm working on the front panel of next years' Renaissance dress.  Its a 'little' bit of embroidery ;)
I also sewed together the undershirt for this dress, I just need a ribbon to do the lacing in it and to hem the bottom edge. (I used a pattern but tried to make it a little more historically accurate by putting lacing in it instead of elastic).

Also there is the Nighthawks painting.  It's partially sketched out on my hand stretched canvas and ready to be painted (as soon as I get off my lazy butt and get the easel out of garage storage).

I've bought a base pattern (that was out of stock) for my dress and researched lace. Yes, I decided to change the design and am much much happier with it so far.  Let's see if that holds on when I try the muslin copy.

Quite a while ago I bought the pattern for a bath robe for my mom.  Just waiting on her to go to the store and get/pick out fabric.

Planning out my family's Halloween costumes. (Lets see if any of my friend's and family actually read my posts.  hehehehe)  My daughter will be Alice from Alice in Wonderland.  As for me and my husband.... I'm still deciding. I was thinking steampunk for me and got that all planned out (even bought some leather). But I may change it to a family theme and do Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter. Oh decisions....how I hate decisions....

So yeah. I have a 'few' projects in the works.  If only I had the money to buy all the sewing stuff then I could work on a few sewing projects instead of embroidering next years Ren Fair dress.

Last Dino Bonanza (Part 3)

Last but not least of the dino bonanza is a girls dinosaur blanket.  For a toddler its a bit larger than the last but made with the same types of pieces. The corners are done differently as I was trying to find a better way to make them and I thinkbit worked out well. Another thing I learned was that my walking foot doesnt agree with satin.  It pulled a lot of the strings and I had to smooth it back in and change feet.  Also I got the fabric from fabric.com and plan to use them again as thw prices were good, shipping was quick and the selection was way better than my joann store.  I do still love joann for it being local so I can browse and such.

Funeral Dress

Unfortunately we have a funeral to attend but fortunately this meant making a new dress for my daughter.  While she still fits it it I ran right to McCalls 6015.  I thought mostly black for the occasion but since it's on her it can be cute too so I did variation D. This was my first time doing the bow and the knot instructions weren't very clear but I think I figured them out pretty well. I made some mistakes that were fixable (like sewing the top on inside out to the skirt) but it still looks great! I'm also pretty proud of the sweet little bow. Now to get her some cute mary janes to go with it!

Dino Bonanza Part 2

A blanket and another dino makes up part 2 of this dino bonanza! This time they're made for an infant boy. 

First lets talk stuffed dino.  Made the same as the pink one from my last post except for a few changes that made a huge difference. First off I used a softer fabric for the little guy to cuddle with. Then before sewing the two halves of the body together I sewed the foot pads on.  Then I left a small hole near the tail to flip and stuff him.  Im happy with the outcome with the exception of my overstuffing him.

Secondly, the blanket. The blanket went very smoothly.  I cut all pieces to size (30" x 36") and sandwiched and stitched. The hardest part was the satin edging corners. First off they are soo slippery it was hard to get them to fold right. Then I needed to sew them down. It kinda looks messy because of this.

Comming Soon: Dino Bonanza Part 3! (A blanket to match the dino from part 1)

Dress Issues

So Im trying to create a dress for myself to wear to numerous events this fall.  Unfortunately,  this seems to be a tough order.  Not due to lacking abilities but my own self views. 
After deciding on a style (and boy did that take time!) I found a pattern to use as a base for the vest part and draped the rest.  Then I stitched together my muslin and tried it on.  All I could think was yuck! I have a bit of a belly from having a baby but Im ok with that. Well the dress wasn't.   Sure I can fix that but Im not sure I want to.  I just didn't care for the way it looked on me.  Too business-y? Too stiff? Maybe its the muslin.  I just dont know.  What I do know is that I need to stop and decide later. Hopefully time can help me figure out if I should go back to this dress or try something different.
Oh yeah...the picture shows it in progress of being draped.  It's been more refined since then and sewn.

Dino bonanza Part 1

This is a little guy I made in a few nights for a friends' little girl. After finding a tutorial online I got out some scrap fabric and got to work. Although he's cute I'm not very happy with the construction. His feet were sewn on post stuffing and he needed to be reinforced in several areas. Also the embroidered eyes are a bit misshapen. To prevent the ugliness from reoccurring to the feet I plan on sewing them on much earlier in the assembly process. Hopefully that'll help. So yes, I do plan on making another one for her little brother and hopefully I can improve upon my techniques.

Blog Catchup

It's been a while since my last post and I need to catch you up on my projects.

First off, I have been learning how to embroider. Specifically crewel embroidery as it will be used on some RenFest garb.  These are the three samplers Ive completed.

I have already started stitching the front panel of next years RenFest dress. I hope I actually finish it in time. There's a lot to work on.
Next projects were some bags for me and my daughter. These I created my own patterns for. They were "quick sews" for me and if closely studied one can tell. But oh well theyll serve their purpose. The kitty one is for my daughter and the blue one is for holding my embroidery.

I also made a little card holder wallet from leftover fabric. I used this tutorial but made some adjustments to give me more card slots.

Then I FINALLY got myself to finish a height chart for my daughter. It uses the characters from her bedding set and goes with the other paintings I did for her room.

I also did some work to finish this years RenFest dress (I'll post pictures later).

Phew. I guess I did more than I thought! 

Currently I'm working on:
-A dress for myself
-A reproduction of "Nighthawk" by Edward Hopper in Oil paints for a friend.
-A wet bag for wet swimsuits and towels

Of course there are more things planned after that too but I need to prioritize.

Spring Wreath

I almost forgot to post this one!
During the weekend I finally made something I found off of Pinterest! Well...with some changes of course.

This is my spring wreath. It was going to just be an Easter wreath but since I couldn't find anything specifically Easter for it I decided that I could keep it up longer and make it a spring theme.

Basically my supplies were:
- 12in green foam wreath form
- 2 skeins of lime green fun fur
- 3 flowers

I followed these instructions for wrapping the fun fur around the wreath form. That page used the instructions from here which has a different design. Wrapping the wreath does take over 2 hours but is well worth the awesome grassy look. Then I just pressed in the flowers.

After wrapping all the fur on I realized that I had yarn from 2 different dye lots. Yay. I knew I should've checked that before I left the store! Oh well. So I put the flowers over one place where the 2 skeins met up and will put a ribbon to hang it by over the other.

I do feel like its lacking something and will probably redo the flowers or add something. But for now I think it's a good start.  Plus I can't keep my hands off the soft "grass"!

I will be getting a thick pink ribbon to hang it by an will add a new picture then.

Lily's Easter Dress (orig. posted 4/2013)

Today I finished an Easter dress for my daughter, Lily. It went perfectly and shockingly no part of it is driving me crazy. Usually there's something that is off that will bug me until I fix it.  The thing for me to learn now is how to tie a nice bow on the back.  As you can see I'm not so great at that.

I used McCalls pattern 6015 (which I use very frequently with different amendments) with an addition of some rick rack and a band across the middle. Its even the first time I made the ties in the back and the full lining!

Im also very glad that I took the time to press every seam. It really does give it a polished look and actually made it easier to make less mistakes. As an added bonus the iron being on makes my room soo warm.

On the same trip to Joann's when I got the supplies for the dress I also got new pins, a cute sewing box (that I'll use only for my current project's supplies), and some supplies for other sewing projects and crafts.  I must say that the upgrade on my pins have really made a difference.  I used to have just metal headed pins (forgot the actual name) and they would catch in the machine on the feed dogs and even sometimes make holes in my fabric.  They were getting dull also which didn't help matters.  Now I have quilting pins which are longer and have a plastic round end.  They just slide through the fabric without trace (at least in this project) and are WAY easier to find both in the fabric and on the floor.  Being able to find them on the floor is great since my "sewing room" is my half of the master bedroom and my daughter also runs through there.  I'm looking forward to an actual sewing room (or bigger sectioned off space) in our next house.

Upcoming sewing projects...
-2 beach wrap dresses
-a cute pin cushion
-a bath robe
-a dress for a wedding in October
-dress form cover

Starting My Blog

  I've decided to start a blog of my creations.  Creations? You may wonder exactly what that entails.  Well, I do a lot of sewing and other projects around the house.  I know, I know.  There's millions of blogs about arts and crafts...why does the world need another one?  I hope that my blog can be a little different by posting links to "how to" and also because my main interest is Renaissance Festivals.  If you haven't been to one (or maybe just haven't paid attention to the costuming) there are soo many different styles, techniques, fabrics, and embellishments on each costume. By just working on these you can learn about everything you need to about sewing.  In fact, my first real sewing project was a simple wench costume for Halloween.

  Anyways, to get back on topic...This blog will not just be about Renaissance sewing but will include other projects because...well...it's my blog and I can do what I want with it! (and I hope someone will find these posts informative for their own projects.)

  Additionally, anything you see on here (well...I'm sure there will be failures or things I NEVER want to create again) I'd be happy to sell you.  Not everyone's crafty (I know, hard to believe).  Just let me know through email or visit my shop on etsy for a small selection.

  Enough of this, lets get started...