Hats!

I'm back to using this blog as another way to share what I am working on. Right now, it's a lot of crocheted hats.  I'm really loving making these (always have), but the creative juices are flowing more and more as friends and family ask me for different custom orders.  Here are a few of my recent favorites:

I used a pattern for the lamb hat. It can be found here.

Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy

A is for Alligator

One of the girls I work with has a daughter who wants to be an alligator for Halloween. First of all, that's a pretty cool costume for a 5 year old girl. Second of all, it got me thinking about how to make a cute, girly alligator costume. We already decided to go the tutu route so I got two shades of green tulle and started making a tutu (I need more tulle to finish it). Then we were figuring green long sleeved tshirt, red and white striped tights or leggings (the alligator doll she is basing the costume on wears red and white checked overalls) and some sort of alligator hat. Of course, alligator hats aren't really readily available.

So I have been thinking of options. I thought of buying an alligator stuffed animal, taking the head off and making it a hat (gruesome, right?) or making something with a baseball hat and cardboard or some foam. None of it seemed easy enough or cute enough.

And then I thought about finding a hooded towel that was an alligator and THEN I thought about just making a hood out of some green fleece I already had. And so I spent a lot of my day working out this:

That's before I fixed the eyes so they weren't so floppy and added ribbon to keep it on. Here's the finished look (please excuse my scariness, it was late and I spent the whole day sewing):




The teeth and the eyelashes are my favorite part.


And in other projects, here's a picture of my niece wearing the skirt I made her. I LOVE that fabric and I have some to make my own skirt, once all the costumes are done.

First costume done!!

Well, mostly. I need to find socks...I might go with white socks instead of yellow. What do you guys think?

Bug is going to be Charlie Brown.



Here's his shirt (front and back):



I bought fabric that didn't need to be hemmed and I also got fusing paper so I could just iron on the squiggle. I cut out the pattern and ironed it and the whole thing took 15 minutes. That's the kind of project I love!


I might make a second one to post in the shop since I bought a back up shirt (on sale at Children's Place) in case this ended up being a more difficult project.

As for the rest of the outfit, he already has a pair of brown shorts and brown shoes. So, like I said, we just need the socks.

Next up is Monkey's Snoopy costume. My plan is to make a pair of white flannel pants (an easy project) and use a white hoodie to make the Snoopy ears and body. Hopefully it works out.

After that it's two dresses for my sister and me (Sally and Lucy) and a striped red shirt for my brother-in-law (Linus). The dresses are the big question. I don't sew with a pattern very often. Cross your fingers!

October

So. I love October because it means Halloween and Halloween means costumes! Yay!

Since most of my costumes are going to be trial and error this year, I'm going to try to post more while I'm making each one.

I also had a fantastic idea that I'm super excited about for adding product to the Etsy shop....it might not come all together till August of next year, but it's exciting and fantastic all the same.

So stay tuned for more awesome posts! And cross your fingers that I don't go insane trying to make all these costumes...

Bags for Etsy

I finally got around to getting some bags sewn for Etsy (ie, bags that weren't purchased by my mom). Hopefully I will get them posted soon!

I made a skirt

I used this tutorial from Freshly Picked - next time I'll probably make it a little shorter and use less material around the waist (just a couple inches off so it feels less bulky). It's super comfortable and I even made the pockets which were so super easy.

Bag Lady

I went to the beach and it rained for two days so I stayed in and made 10 bags and a blanket and two pillows. I only have photos of 9 of the bags, the rest will follow. The first six are for my mom's coworkers and the last three are for my Aunt's friends.

Ikea fabric. LOVE it.

Dachsund fabric on the inside since the recipient loves her dachsunds.

More Ikea fabric. Love it even more!

Born on the fourth of July. Red White and Blue without being so patriotic.

Stitches

I have a project. Dishtowels. With fruit. Fruit animals. Amazing, right? Megan's friend drew this Mooberry and I sewed it onto a towel:

It's a strawberry/cow. A science experiment gone wrong. I love it, although my next, sellable version will have a few adjustments. And after the Mooberry came the Quackpear:

It's a duck/pear. I do love this one. So much.




In other news, I made these hankies for Annie's Grandma for her birthday:




It was a new thing for me, Annie helped me find the stitch for the flowers online then I put them together. I ended up browsing through free fonts for the numbers and initials since my first attempts with my own handwriting failed miserably. I really love how they turned out though, much more delicate and they look more cohesive than my first attempts. Anyway, there you go.

And yet another bag

I've been a little obsessed with nautical lately. My whole room is based on it (the blue and white is my favorite part of the nautical vibe). Well, I wanted to make a bag for my aunt who also likes blue. I walked around JoAnn's trying to find the perfect fabric. She also likes cats and cute little houses and anything that would make you think of your first grade teacher because she was a first grade teacher.

I ended up with this:
I think she will love it for the same reasons I do, first of all, it's gorgeous. I really could just stare at it all day. Second of all, the fabric (especially the liner) is reminiscent of things from my Grandparent's house. I think she'll appreciate that. That sailboat fabric could still very well match sheets they would use in their blue bedroom. They live on the water and have all sorts of ship/sailboat/water related things around their house. Third, she can use it for anything, but specifically a sewing bag or a beach bag. I would love to take this bag to the beach. I made the straps a little longer so you can fit a beach towel in the bag and still sling it over your shoulder. It's the perfect size for a towel, a book, a bottle of water and some sunglasses...and it's easily washable so if you want to stop using it as a beach bag, sand removal is totally painless.