Dog Collar Tutorial

Hello!

I'm very excited to share this with you! The tutorial I'm reviewing today can be found here by Country Brook Design. The instructions were very easy to follow and it only took about 20 minutes start to finish!! I think I'm going to have to  make more...to my dog owning relatives, don't be surprised if you get one of these for Christmas :) And, did I mention they are so much cheaper (not to mention cuter) than the ones found in the store?

I made a Steeler's collar sized extra small, and a medium Iowa State collar. 

Cute huh?

Felicity and Greg didn't like it. I suppose cat collars will not be in my future.

This is definitely one to try for yourself!

Thank you, and see you next time!

Steelers Handbag - Custom Order!

I made this purse on the request of one of my coworkers who is a HUGE Steelers fan. I have some experience with making bags, but I've never done anything this extensive before - mostly totebags.

The parameters I was given for this project were to "make it like the bag I have now, but Steelers." :) Since I'm not one to (willingly) follow someone else's pattern, I made a diagram on scrap paper and set to work.

What do you think? I personally could care less for football, but apparently there are millions of fans nationwide or something like that...

After she brought it to work, I immediately had two requests for identical bags! I think that qualifies as a job well done?

36 hours later...

A baby quilt is born! I was comissioned to make this quilt for a customer whose granddaughter had recently passed away. The quilt was intended as a baby shower gift for the new baby as something to remember her sister by - very sad, but sweet...

Scraps of fabric from the girl's clothes were used to make the quilt, as well as a few favorite photos. I ordered the prints from spoonflower.com, and was pleased with the results. For privacy, I don't want to post any of those photos too close up, however. Here's a few favorite blocks:

I think (hope!) she liked it! It's probably the most complicated quilt I've made yet, and I'm proud of my work :)


Here are some in-process pics. The colors are more true in this as well...there wasn't a lot of lighting on the day I handed it off, unfortunately.

Dolls make me nervous. Especially when they're babies.

A little while ago, I was visiting at a friend's house and one of her children came to me sad-faced, doll in hand, and asked, "Do you sew??" Not one to crush the dreams of children, I said I did and examined the doll in question. It's arm was almost completely unattached, likely due to someone loving it a bit too much...kinda disturbing when you think about it ;-)

This is the doll in all it's original glory:

Super creep-tastic, right? 

To be fair, I've always hated dolls. I'm not sure why exactly; all I can say is that my family learned very quickly they could not give me a doll as a gift if they were not prepared to spend the following few hours consoling a crying child. 

I decided I'd feel better about the doll if it looked more like this:

Monkey Pajamas...Much better!

I made it completely on the fly, no patterns or tutorials were consulted. To follow this process for your own disturbing naked baby doll, take rough measurements around the body parts you intend to clothe, making sure to include seam allowance. 

It's also a good idea, if you have a cloth doll like this one, to mimic the shapes of the existing cloth when envisioning construction. This particular doll has a pretty weird shaped body, so following that logic was the only way I could pull it off. 

I thought buttons would be too difficult for the younger child (above the choking age, don't worry), so they are purely decorative and velcro was used as a closure. 

The kids were so happy to receive this! 

And, I was happy to have successfully completed another crafting challenge :) 

A few favorite old projects

I was looking through some old folders today and came across photos of some projects I've done in the past.  Since these are items I have no intention of selling in my shop, I've never posted about them before. 

This is one of my absolute favorites, and I am quite sad that I gave this away in a swap:

Can you guess what it's made from? 

It's a thrift-store skirt, recycled into a tote bag!

This is one that I made for myself, immediately following. 

(Alicia, if you ever read this - I'm sorry for my plagiarism! I just couldn't get them out of my head)

As a matter of fact, I do have a tutorial on craftster for this very bag, so you can make your own!

Next up....

ZOMBIE KITTY!

 This was made for swap on Craftster, and I'm a little sad I no longer own it. It took forever! The "scars" are hand-embroidered on linen, and the faux fur was hand-stitched on top of that. 

It gives it a really great undead look in real life. 

This was a custom order on etsy for a boxy clutch - I think it came out pretty well!

Space for cards, fully lined...

I'm think of making a tutorial on this, what do you think?

Dollar-store Frame, revamped with lace! The cat picture is just a placeholder....

It's gold underneath, so it looks really pretty in the light :)

I hope you enjoyed these projects, feel free to ask questions if you 

want more details on how they were done!

Scrap Happy Patchwork Swap on Craftster - Completion!

I've sent to and received from my partner, Abbeyrd83 on Craftster for this swap. I was definitely spoiled :)

Here's a couple pics of what I sent. First, I sent one of my wallets made using the scrappy patchwork technique I posted earlier. 

 Next, I saw a box pouch on her wists and used scrap fabrics to make this one:

I love the blue zipper! 

For extras, I sent some Beatles themed magnets since Abbeyrd83 is a huge fan.

I also sent some chocolate-drizzled Sour Patch Kids (amazing btw), but they didn't photograph well.  I hope my partner enjoyed everything!

Stitchin' Mission - Completion and Send off

This has taken me a bit to post, but I thought since I was on vacation from work I'd take a vacation from blogging too....Or at least that's my excuse ;-)

Here it is in total, I think I did a pretty decent job at getting the squares to line up accurately. I used a scrappy binding made from the scraps from the center. 

Yay cacti! I machine quilted around the 'stair steps,' and accented the middle black strips by filling it in with more quilting. I don't know if I'm describing that right, but hopefully you'll understand what I mean in the next couple of pictures.

Here's the backside, I got all of that for $2 on sale at Hancock Fabrics! It doesn't have a good hand, but it's shiny and matches the patterns on the front really well I think. While I wasn't able to make a perfect quilt sandwich this time either, there was definite improvement. It's not as wrinkly as it looks in this picture; the shiny fabric just makes it look that way around the stitches. 

Here's a close up of that middle strip from the backside, see what I mean? It looks really cool in person but it was hard to photograph well.

You can see pictures of all of the quilts together at the Stichin' Mission blog here. You can see my 'lovely' self on the right side of the group photo. 

Hawkeye Quilt

I made a baby quilt a few months ago for one of my managers. It was only the second quilt I've ever made, and technically the only 'real' one - the t-shirt quilt I made previously can only be loosely defined as a quilt :) 


Anyway, she is a huge Hawkeyes fan and not very 'girly' so I thought this theme was appropriate. 

I tried a traditional pinwheel pattern I'd seen online, but from what I know now about quilting there's many things I could have done more efficiently.

I used my regular sewing machine with it's regular do-everything foot to machine quilt a basic diamond shape.

You can see in some of the photos that there is some puckering, but overall I'm satisfied with the results. 

Did I mention I made this in under two weeks start to finish? They asked if I'd known about the baby shower beforehand when I delivered it, but nope, I started thinking about it once I received the invitation!

Overall, it was good practice and the gift was well-received. What more can I ask for? 

Quick and Easy Wall Art

I've had a pack of matching frames sitting around for quite some time now because I could never decide which photos to fill them with.

So, while I was going through my stash of 'reclaimed' fabric, I came up with this:

Beautiful, right? Sorry if I'm smug, but I'm really pleased with how this turned out. And it was probably one of the easiest projects I've ever done! 

You know those paper inserts they always have in store-bought frames? I just used that as a template by placing it on the fabrics and using a metal yardstick to use as an edge for my rotary cutter. A quilting square would work just as well, but getting it from the other room was much more difficult than making do with the yardstick... :) 

The background fabric is from various recycled sources (old shirt, pillowcase, pajama pants) and the lace is from an old curtain.  

I'd make a tutorial, but it's really that simple. No glue, sewing, nothing. Just cut, place and hang. 

Feel free to ask questions if you need me to elaborate more!