Birthday Banner

Finished banner

     A couple of years ago on my way up to my quilting retreat, I bought a couple of kits to make these birthday banners.  They are meant to tie on the back of the birthday guest's chair.

Kit I bought

     I got this one made for my grandson's third birthday.  It was great to have a kit with all the little things I needed.

Book with the patterns

     I did need to also buy the book that had the pattern.  The hardest part I think was all the tracing of the pieces.  Of course the stitching around the little pieces was slow work also.

Girl version

     I also bought the kit for the girl version.  I did not make it for my granddaughter's first birthday, they are a bit too messy at that one;-)

Messy granddaughter enjoying her first birthday cake

     I will work on getting it done for birthday number two for her but now I must finish a couple of things for grandson number two who was born yesterday.

Close-up of the banner

Easter Basket and Halloween Buckets

Colton's Halloween tote

     I saw these cute buckets on the Sew for Less website and decided to get them for my grandkids.  The Easter ones are gingham on the outside and the ones for Halloween are vinyl on the outside.

Maggie's Halloween Tote

     When I went to embroider the Halloween ones, I could not hoop them. I tried and tried but the vinyl was just too stiff along with the cardboard bottom.  I wound up taking apart the bucket tote so I could hoop just the vinyl outer part.  That made it a lot easier to embroider but also meant it took a lot longer to finish the project.

Colton's Easter 'basket'

   

     The Easter ones I was able to hoop the tote without any problem.  They have the same stiff bottom and vinyl inside but I think the softer fabric outside is what made the difference.

Maggie's Easter 'basket"

     I did not need to add any stabilizer as they were firm enough.  The nice thing is on the Halloween ones, no stitching shows on the inside while you can see the back side of the stitching on the Easter ones.  Not sure that the kids really care as long as there is candy inside ;-)

Hooped Easter bucket tote

     Here are the links to the Halloween designs and the Easter Designs.  These were fun and I can't wait to do another set for our soon to be born grandson.

Grandson's Pants

Pocket pants for my grandson

     For my grandson's third birthday I made him a pair of pocket pants.  Many years ago I made a couple of pairs for my nephews one year for Christmas.  They enjoyed them then so I thought my grandson would enjoy them now especially since he loves putting his cars into his pockets.

     I went through my stash of fabric and found some black fleece  and black ribbing.  I also found this sports ball flannel.  There wasn't enough to make him a pair of pajamas so I used it for the pockets.  Instead of ribbing at the top of the pocket, I cut the pocket double with a fold at the top.

     The pants fit him but are very voluminous.  Next time I think I will eliminate some of the fabric in the front and back panels to make them a little less bulky.

      My daughter told me when he put them on the next day, he immediately filled the pockets with his cars and trains.  She said he looked quite silly and the pants were threatening to fall off since they were so heavy.

Pattern used

Dorm Room Chair Covers

Front/back cut

    A client contacted me for some quick chair covers for her daughter's dorm room.  The backs of the desk chairs weren't very pretty and clashed with how the girls decorated the room.

Ties cut

 

    The mom picked up two different fabrics and gave me the chair dimensions.  I cut the back and front allowing for ease and also the depth of the chair back.  I made sure to center part of the design on each of the pieces.

Tube turner

     I created the ties by cutting 4-1/2 inch strips of the fabric.  Didn't have enough fabric to plan for placement of the design but they came out about the same anyway.  I then folded them in half, stitched the long edge and then used my tube turner to quickly turn them right side out and press then.

Boxing the corner

     I serged around three sides of the back/front pieces and then stitched them together, catching the ends of the ties in the side seams.  I turned up a double 1-1/2 hem at the bottom.  Then I boxed the corners to give the piece the depth it need to go over the chair backs.

Point press turner

     I used my point press turner to get nice neat corners when I turned the cover back right side out.

Boxed corner detail

     This is how the finished corner looked and below is the cover on one of my chairs.  I'm sure they will look much better on the proper sized chair.

Finished cover