Pillows

We have couches that are pillow-less. Nice couches, but they need some color. My white couch is down in the toy room and my old duvet cover is on a comforter that we keep down on the couch (because the toy room is always freezing). So the blanket is dark blue with different sized circles in various shades of blue and green all over it - it's an old Ikea design, and the comforter I used through college.

And then we have these curtains hanging (also from Ikea - they used to hang in the boys' bedroom back in the apartment):
The walls of the toy room are all still white, so the curtains look great down there. Well, I decided to hunt down the other things from Ikea that matched the curtains. There was a green and white hippo pillowcase, a bright green crib sheet and a striped receiving blanket. I took the pillow case and the receiving blanket and made new pillows:

The two bigger pillows are cases with pillow forms, the smaller striped pillow is stuffed. I really love how they turned out and I love that we could reuse these things - I didn't have to buy new fabric and these things match the room so everything looks like it's being done on purpose and not just "there because we have it."

Now I'm a little obsessed with how easy it was to turn that receiving blanket into a pillowcase. I just had to fold it over and stitch up the two ends then insert the pillow form. Because the edges of the blanket were already finished, I didn't have to do any hemming! I might check out what other things Ikea has that will match next time I make a trip.

Dinosaurs!

My mom made me and my siblings giant stuffed dinosaurs when we were younger. That means she made them out of crazy awesome early 80s fabric. My sister had a purple print triceratops and my brothers had a green and a brown stegosaurus. I had a giant pink paisley brontosaurus. I named it Dino ("deeno" like on The Flintstones) and it slept in the bed with me. By giant I mean it took up half of my bed. It's about as long as I am tall now (5'3").

So my mom found these dinosaurs tucked away and brought them out of hiding for my nephews to play with. My older nephew thought they were amazing and plays with them constantly when we are at Grandma's house. I found the book she got the patterns from and decided to make my nephews their own smaller versions. I tried to pick fabric that reminded me of the cool vintage patterns my mom used, but I had to use a lot of red because it's my nephew's favorite color. Here's how they turned out:

No button eyes for this bronto - didn't want the 2 year old to chew them off.

Had to off set the flower pattern with some masculine stripes. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I think the stegosaurus is my favorite. I am in love with that fabric. I would marry it if it were a man.

A patchwork bronto for Monkey. It had so much red on it. I hadn't planned on making two brontosaurus' otherwise I would have bought more fabric. They were just so much easier to sew and finish and I was on a time crunch. He could care less that it's such a jumble of fabrics (the other side is the paisley print, the under side is the stripe and the tail is the blue swirly dots). He just loves that it's his.

Mind Your Manners Hankies

I posted these items of awesomeness on Etsy:

I'm kind of in love with them myself. I made them for my brother-in-law and he already wants 12 more. haha. He's not getting 12 more, but he'll get more for sure. I already have one order in from a friend and one set to make for a giveaway winner on the blogject.

Braided Headbands

These were kind of difficult to photograph, but I'm sure you all get the idea. Braided headbands. I used scraps of leftover fabric from all my previous projects and braided them and sewed them to a small piece of wide elastic to give them stretch. They are unbelievably cute when they are on a real person and not a fuzzy fake head.

Nativity

My mom collects nativities. She has over 200...they don't all get put out every year, but seriously, that is a lot. Still, we get her more. This year I made her a new one.






It was simple, but she loved it. I had the wooden people so I just bought a couple scraps of flannel and painted and wrapped them up. Then I added a few more things to bring it all together.

Pillowcases

The nephews and niece are getting character pillowcases this year. They are always so expensive and the two youngest boys have been fighting over the one Thomas pillowcase they have so new cases were in order.

Obviously for my niece. Ariel is her favorite and she has some Ariel sheets already, though this won't match them exactly. The colors will also go nicely with her princess sheets and her HSM sheets (she's in love with Troy).

J and H share a room and there are very few character fabrics that they would both enjoy so I didn't even try to coordinate or match. Plus, this Transformers fabric was awesome and perfect for an almost 7-year-old.

The two oldest share a room and The Simpsons seemed like the safest bet. I'm sure N will say thank you then pretend it's a lame gift and then secretly enjoy using this pillow case for years to come. K may do the same thing, who knows with preteens, really?

Thomas. There's a lot of Thomas in this house. My favorite part about this fabric is that it's got that denim print as a background. That helps it blend in more with the boys' room, which is brick red and beige.

All of them folded up on the table. I was pretty happy with how they all turned out, though I had a harder time with the Thomas fabric and getting those cases to come out straight and even. As long as the pillow fits, right?

Flowers

Another unexpected project came about when I got into making fabric buttons. I made three preliminary buttons just because I was excited to make them, then I had to figure out what to do with them. I decided to try making some fabric flowers and I used the buttons for the center. Then I added ribbon so they could be used as a headband or tied around a ponytail or a little girl's waist as a belt.

Here's my first ever attempt:

(Notice my awesome fake head. She holds my hat and sits on top of my bookshelf, but she is also quite useful for this purpose...and my nephew escaped having to model the flowers.)

I was very happy with how cute it turned out (the construction is not so clean, but no one can see that so oh well).

Next, I made this one:


I got more creative with this one because I was trying to make good use of the scrap materials we had around and I wanted it to be purple. I love the mix of stripes and gingham and the blue and brown really help the purple to stand out. I'm not entirely sure I want to give this away, but I'm a little too old to pull of this particular style. haha.

I also made one out of some left over Little Mermaid fabric and some pink flannel. It turned out super cute, but I don't have a photo yet.

Bags

I got kind of addicted to making these bags.





The original idea was to make a bag sturdy enough to carry a lot of books. The two bags above went to Miri (who spends a lot of time at the library) and Megan (who is studying to become a librarian).

And since I'm 99.9% confident that my mother and sister-in-law do not frequent this blog, I also made these:

(See? Addicted. I made the same one twice. I'm in love with that fabric, though.)

And there's more, but they aren't finished yet.

Pink Purse

I made a purse for my niece. I sewed the straps incorrectly, but she won't notice the difference. I love how it turned out. It's a floppy, pleated purse with a polka dot liner.




I used this pattern.

Upcoming Projects

'Tis the season to make stuff.

I love Christmas. Mostly because I get to make a lot of gifts for friends and family. This year I am making more painted wooden people, bags, stuffed dinosaurs, hair clips, headbands, scarves (not winter, fashion), and photo calendars. I can't really take too much credit for photo calendars since those are all done online, but it takes hours (hours!) to finish, due in part to my OCD tendencies. I'm also making more than one this year since there seems to be a need for calendars in my family moreso than in the past.

I am also still crocheting blankets pretty regularly. They are a thoughtful and kind of quick (a week of nightly shows or two marathon days, depending on the size of the blanket) gift for weddings and babies and such. And since there are many weddings and new babies in my life, I get to make a lot of blankets!

One happy thing to note. I crocheted a blanket and made some other little things to donate to our local hospice to be sold at their annual Festival of Trees. Crocheted blankets and the like rarely are sold and never go for what they are truly worth. If you are ever shopping for a homemade crochet or knit blanket, remember that yarn is expensive and those blankets take a whole lot of time to finish. But my blanket (a bright varigated pink and white throw blanket) sold for $15! The yarn was stuff I already had on hand so I didn't really spend much on it and it took about 8 to 10 hours to finish. That's a great price and I was so happy it sold so well and that all of that $15 went straight to Calvert Hospice.