A Fur Scarf

My faux fur scarf, final version

     I wanted a 'fur' scarf to add to my winter wardrobe.  I had seen a couple in the stores but none of them wowed me or they were too expensive.  While shopping at JoAnn Fabrics I saw this silky soft faux fur.  It was on sale so I bought a1/2 yard.

Elastic loop on the back of the scarf

     I didn't want to figure out how to do the buttonhole thing that most of the scarves I saw had.  I decided to just add an elastic loop to the back instead.

Scarf version 1

     I cut a piece of the fur, 9" x 45", and then rounded the corners.  I then cut a piece of lining the same size and sewed the two together with right sides, leaving an opening for turning.  Before sewing them together I added an elastic loop to the right side of the lining piece.  I just machine sewed the opening closed, the stitches disappeared in the pile of the faux fur.  I then spent quite a bit of time picking the pile out from the seams.

Gathering stitches near the elastic loop

     When I had finished, I put it on my mannequin and it looked great but when I put it on, it seemed to not want to lay nice and the lining kept shifting to the front around where the elastic loop was.  I solved that by taking large basting stitches to gather it up slightly and that did the trick.  Should be a fun addition to my winter wardrobe.

Sweatshirt Pillows

Sweatshirt pillows

     A client had several sweatshirts that her mom had embroidered.  No-one was going to wear the sweatshirts but she really liked the embroidery and wanted to share with other family members.

Scarecrow pillow

     She opted for pillows to be able to enjoy the embroidery.  We chose a rectangular form to go along with the more horizontal nature of the designs.  Because the designs were placed closer to the neck, I was not able to center them in the pillow.  I did cut as close as possible to the neck opening to bring the design as close as I could to the middle.

Shamrock pillow

     After cutting the front apart from the back, I applied iron-on interfacing  to the back, the same as when I do my t-shirt quilts.  I then cut the shape for the front.  With limited fabric for the back, I only did a single fold over for the opening flap.  Since it is a knit fabric, it is not going to ravel.

Snowmen pillow

     I did an overlap opening in the back to make it easy to remove the insert for washing when necessary.  What a fun way to preserve some memories.

Thanksgiving Napkins

Napkins ready to be placed on the table

     I host Thanksgiving dinner for the family on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  I have been slowly adding to my table setting items each year.  Last year I bought felt leaf placemats.  This year I bought napkins and a second table runner for the other table.

Matching thread to napkin

     I bought 24 napkins from Bed, Bath and Beyond that came with four different fall colors in a set.  I decided they needed a bit of decoration.  I bought a couple of patterns from Embroidery Library.  I stitched them out and decided on the pumpkin design.

Screen shot of the design showing placement line and pattern

     I took the design into my software and added a placement line for the corner of the napkin. I rotated the design so it would be angled to the corner.

Stitched napkin on sticky paper showing the placement line

     I then hooped sticky paper and stitched the placement line.  I then placed the napkin down on the sticky and stitched the design.

After removing the napkin

     After removing the napkin, I was left with a hole in the sticky paper.  I then added a patch of sticky to the back.

Patched sticky paper

     I then placed another napkin onto to the sticky paper, and at the machine, I just skipped the first stitching, the placement line, and stitched the pumpkin design.  I did change out the sticky paper after about 6 napkins because it was losing its stickiness.

Finished napkins showing contrasting thread used

     After choosing thread that matched each color of napkin, I then put the green on the gold and the gold on the green.  I did the same with the rust and brown.  I liked the simplicity of the design and the fact that it was just one color so the stitching went quickly.

Design detail

     I then bought some ribbon and floral picks at JoAnn Fabrics and tied the napkins up.

Place setting

     I set the table with the placemats that I bought last year, white dishes that could go into the dishwasher, my mom's silver and crystal and the new napkins.  It made for a pretty place setting at our Thanksgiving feast.

Our Thanksgiving table

    The napkins looked great but then I washed them.  I made the mistake of also throwing in the white linen tablecloth from the other table.  I washed it all in cold but the napkins bled and shrunk.  I still haven't been able to get the tablecloth white again.  At the worst part is that when the napkins shrunk, they only did so in one direction so they are no longer square.  I wasn't able to see these napkins on their site at this time so I can't warn you which ones they are.

Over half an inch in size in one direction

  Still in all I had a pretty table for our Thanksgiving celebration.  I'm thinking about what I will add to next year's table.  Maybe plate chargers or napkin rings.

Thanksgiving Meal 2017

Place settings at the main table

     We celebrated Thanksgiving with the family this past Sunday.  I don't care for turkey, so I made a couple of pork roasts instead.

Brown sugar and garlic pork loin

     For side dishes, I had butternut squash and sweet potatoes from our garden.  I found recipes on Pinterest to make lighter, more healthy dishes instead of lots of sugar.  Both turned out yummy.

Garlic herb butternut squash

Cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes

     For an appetizer, I made a turkey cheeseball.  I should say, I made the cheeseball and my daughter-in-law Kate made it into a turkey.  I think ours turned out really close.

Turkey cheeseball

My version of the turkey cheeseball

     I had lots of help from my husband, son and daughter-in-law Emily, the night before and that morning, getting everything together.  Family also supplied some Polish sausage, a pumpkin carrot can, sweet potato pie, turkey cookies and wine.  I believe everyone enjoyed the food and company.  I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

Place setting

     I also embroidered napkins using a design from Embroidery Library.  I will write more about that process next week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Kindness Ninjas

Finished Kindness Ninja

     A friend who is a teacher wanted something to give her students when they practice a random act of kindness.  She sent me a couple of pictures of something she would like.

     I played around with felt and came up with a sample one.  She liked it so I made a pattern for each piece.  To help her save some money, I had her cut out all the pieces.

Hearts glued on and drying

     When I got back all the pieces, I started working on them assembly line fashion.  First I used Rowley's fringe adhesive to glue on the hearts.  I let them dry overnight and then the next day I hand sewed on the beads, tacking the white part down.

     After that was all done, I sewed a back on, adding a little stuffing in the head and body areas as I was stitching.

All finished

     Result, twenty five kindness ninjas to be given out to her students.  I hope they enjoy them.

A Simple Dress

Completed dress

     I made this simple dress in just a few hours.  I had the piece of ponte knit in my stash.  I think I bought it a few years ago at a sewing expo but don't remember why.
     I like the idea of a dress in the summer because they are easy to wear and something plain can be worn so many ways.

Pattern used

     I looked through my patterns and found one that called for the amount of fabric I had on hand.  This one is really quick as it is just two pattern pieces, the back which is cut on the fold and the front that has a seam up the middle to accommodate the tulip hem.
     It went together quickly and fits well.  I did alter the pattern some to adjust it for my smaller top.  I can't wait for some warmer weather to wear this fun dress.

Halloween 2017

Skye, chicken and race car all ready fror trick or treat

     This year I only needed to make one Halloween costume, in fact only part of it.  My granddaughter wanted to go as Skye from Paw Patrol.

Skye from Paw Patrol

     She had the puppy costume from her brother that I made three years ago.  I needed to make a vest and a helmet for the goggles.

Vest pattern

     My daughter bought a pattern for the vest which I made up one size to fit over everything.

Puppy pattern

     For the helmet, I used the pattern from the puppy costume.

Vest

     I topstitched the front seams open to help them lay flat since you couldn't iron the fabric.  I was lucky enough to have just enough of the hot pink bias tape in my stash.  I did have to order the zipper from Wawak since we couldn't find one in the stores.  I also added a cotton fabric 'lining' to give the vest more body when sewing on the bias tape.

Gathering the wings with elastic

     For the wings, my daughter wanted a simple thing that wouldn't get in the way.  I just cut a piece of the ripstop nylon into a 'wing' shape and then gathered the center with elastic.  I added elastic loops to the ends to go over her wrists.

Adding the wings

Vest with attached wings

     I then sewed the wings onto the back of the vest, following the line of stitching from the elastic.

Skye's helmet

     For the helmet I used only 1/2" seam allowances instead of 5/8" to make it slightly larger than the puppy hood.  I also didn't sew the seam where the ears would normally go so that they could poke out through the helmet.  In addition to that I cut the hood back more from the face and also at the neck edge so that it wouldn't completely cover the puppy hood.

     I did not make the race car that my older grandson is wearing or the chicken costume the younger one is wearing.

Making Multiple Coffee Cozies

Fabric cut, ready for stacking

     Recently I was asked to make 51 coffee cozies, well actually 52 but I got blood on one that I couldn't get out.  When I make these cozies I use a template from Winner Designs.  I love this template because it makes using the rotary cutter so easy to cut the patterns quickly.

Marking the corners for cutting

     The only drawback is that you can't see thru it so if you are trying to center a design when cutting you can't see where it is.  To solve this problem, I traced the pattern onto pattern tracing paper.  I then found the center and drew that vertical line.  Since my design had a flat horizontal line I drew another line perpendicular to the first to line up with the lettering.  I then traced a couple of other reference points so I could align my pattern on the printed fabric.

Detail of marking the corners for rotary cutting

     The first thing I did was to cut the printed fabric from Spoonflower into rectangles, roughly centering the design.  I then cut the Insul-Bright and lining fabric into rectangles.  I placed the see-thru template onto each of the printed pieces and on the wrong side marked the corners with a pen.  No need to use anything special as this was going to be cut off.

Template lined up, ready to rotary cut

     I then layered a piece of the Insul-Bright, a piece of the lining fabric and then the printed piece with the right sides of the fabric together.  I placed the Winner Design template on top, lining it up with the corner marks I had drawn.  Then it was easy to just cut all three at once with the rotary cutter.

     After I got them all cut, I marked where I wanted the elastics, then I pinned the elastics in place and pinned around the rest.  After I pinned a bunch, I would sew them, leaving on opening to turn them.  After all the sewing was done, I clipped the corners, turned them right side out and pressed them.  Then I top-stitched all around and that closed up the opening.  Last was the buttons, which I sewed on my machine.

     Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.  I did find it much easier to do each step on every one rather than doing one start to finish.

Sewing a Campfire

Building a campfire with a sewing machine

     Most people build a campfire but I was asked my my son-in-law to sew one.  He teaches second grade and wanted to have a fun area for his kids to read.  He bought a tent but wanted something a little more.

Felt fire

     He found this tutorial on line and asked me to make it for his classroom.  He found the woodgrain fabric on line and bought it.  I bought the rest of the felt at JoAnn Fabrics.  I printed out the directions and pattern pieces.  The pattern pieces were a bit roughly drawn but okay.  I traced them onto pattern paper to make it easier to pin to the felt and cut out.

Woodgrain fabric logs

     The fire part went quickly.  I opted to sew the red pieces together with the seams on the outside.  That made for sharper points on the fire I felt and it was much easier to sew it closed on the machine after adding the stuffing.  The logs were easy to make also.  I sewed the long end together and left an opening in the enter of the seam.  Then I added the circle pieces to the ends.  Turned them right side out and stuffed them.  I chose a quick overhand stitch to close them up instead of the hidden ladder stitch.

Felt rocks

     The rocks were much harder as there were no directions for them.  All the directions said were to sew up some bean bag sized rocks.  There were two pattern pieces for the rocks and the supply list said to buy 5 pieces of grey felt.  I chose two different greys to add a little more interest.  After looking at the pictures in the directions and at the pattern pieces I figured you needed to sew the rectangle piece onto the smaller oval piece.

     I divided the oval into four and the rectangle also into four.  I pinned them together and then added tucks and pleats to the rectangular piece to make them fit.  I sewed three fourths of the way around.  Then I turned them right side out and stuffed them.  I slightly gathered the rectangle piece as I sewed it to the oval using the hidden ladder stitch.  I think they look like the photos in the directions so I must have guessed right.

     My son-in-law was happy to get everything.  There were also directions for marshmallows on a stick to 'roast' over the campfire.  Not sure if I will do them only because I am afraid of the sticks and second graders.