Shirring, and April Musings

As I mentioned in my last post, this week's craft was the Shirt Skirt from the blog Sew Like My Mom...an opportunity for me to try out elastic thread and shirring.  I read a few tutorials first, so luckily I knew this was going to be a bit of a pain-- from winding the elastic thread on a bobbin by hand, to holding the material flat as I sewed so that it would come out right and not too bunched up.  It worked ok, but this was the first of the things that I've made this year that I've been unhappy about-- I don't know if I'll use this skirt.  Here are some mistakes I made, that made this a little unlikely to make it into the wardrobe rotation:
1.  the T-shirt I chose at Goodwill was new (leftovers from Target), soft, and a good color of grey...but not very thick, or well made.  I ripped a tiny hole in it when I started sewing and had to stop, cut off half an inch, and start again.  I should have been as much concerned with the quality of the T-shirt as the color.
2.  there is a ruffley bit at the top because I left a good 1/4 inch edge when I began, fearful of going any closer to the top.  The directions said 1/8 inch, but I forgot that until I sewed all the way around and saw the ruffle appear.
3.  the directions said to do 12-15 rows of shirring but I got bored/worried about running out of elastic thread and having to wind another bobbin (I was already on my second one, that was all I prepped ahead of time) and stopped at 11.  After steaming the elastic it shrunk down and got a little stretchy, but it doesn't grip me tightly and I'd be worried this skirt would fall down if I wore it in public.  Maybe it would have been more grippy if I had gone for a few more rows of shirring.






This one I *won't* be modeling for the blog!  Above you can barely see the dots of green and purple on this light heathered grey skirt, it's hard to see from this picture why the material of the t-shirt tempted me in the first place.




This close-up gives a better idea of the material and the shirring-- I'm glad I tried it anyway, and I would try another one with a better t-shirt (maybe extra long, but not men's XL?) and maybe better quality elastic thread too.  I had to buy Dritz as that was all they had at my local store, and only afterward read in the comments of a tutorial on shirring that Dritz is the worst for this use.  Oh well.

In other news, we're almost halfway through our month-long 'break' from homeschooling-- although it's not a complete break, as things like Debate class and piano lessons are still going on, as well as physics experiments with the 4-H club which the boys just joined and some lessons with our 'tiny co-op' on Fridays with our good friends. This month off has gotten me thinking again (this crops up every couple of years) about doing a home-based baking business, selling cookies through local stores.  I'm not sure if I can really manage it on top of the homeschooling (not just the lessons, but the driving all over for activities) and keeping up with a toddler.  This month I feel like it would be possible, but I might just be thinking so because right now we're on break and my days are not over-full.  Then again, I recently read an article in a magazine (maybe Redbook? I can't remember) about having a bunch of mini jobs, less than part time, instead of a full time job or even two part-time jobs.  It felt like a revelation when I read that, because I tend to do things "all or nothing' in some ways, and it never occurred to me before that I could work a little of this and a little of that, and make money and keep myself occupied without having to compromise what I'm doing with the boys.  So, instead of imagining that I could either have a huge, busy, thriving home-based business, or not do it at all-- what if I only sold to one or two outlets, and didn't have to spend too many hours a week on the business?  The big boys are five years older than they were when I started looking into having a food business (I took a class about it in 2009)...they could be genuinely helpful (not in the cooking, but advertising, delivering, accounting) rather than just cute little sidekicks.  They're actually really excited about me starting a baking business, it motivates me to try because I don't want to disappoint them.  My family is so touchingly invested in seeing me do something besides just be the mom, it's nice.  Or insulting, wait-- are they trying to get rid of me?

April Update

We are on our 'April Break' from lessons right now, and I think I agree with Radish that this is the best of our three annual breaks, because it falls in the spring.  The idea of taking a break in changeable April is that we can pick up and run out the door whenever the sun comes out, instead of having to finish math or some such.


So, you might think that since we're on break, my craft challenge projects must be humming along.  Um, no.  Last week I did *nothing*-- just couldn't get inspired to make anything.  This week was in danger of being more of the same, and derailing my challenge, until I had a conversation with Lovely Mother about crafting and inspiration, and remembered that 'when in doubt', I can always work on Snorzy's rainbow sweater.  I was stuck on that one, once again, this time just because it was time to switch from the trim color to the main color.



 

Once I worked a little on the sweater (and I mean a *little*, I picked it up near the end of nap time so I had about 5 minutes before I heard Snorzy crying), I got out of my rut and the next thing I knew, I had two ideas for sewing projects.  I can thank my friend Jen F. for the first one: she repinned one of my Pinterest pins, from my Sewing board, and I realized this is what I want to make, next week!  It's a 'shirt skirt', made from a men's XL t-shirt, from the blog Sew Like My Mom (I feel like I've made something from her blog before, but I can't think of what).  This skirt involves shirring and elastic thread, two things I've never done/used.  Here's my sweet spot for sewing projects: things from tutorials that don't require paper patterns, about which the writer of the tutorial says something along the lines of "this can be made in an hour!", yet which also involve techniques or materials that I've never used.  This project hits that spot.

 

Also, I was reading the free magazine from Hannaford supermarket, Fresh, this morning while on hold with the phone company about our lack of dial tone, and found inspiration there, too (it comes from the weirdest places, and at the unlikeliest times)!  I haven't looked up a tutorial yet, but I know I've seen them-- for a cloth bag to hold plastic bags from the store until we can take them to be recycled.  Dull, tiny, simple, yet useful and will reduce the clutter in the house rather than adding to it-- fits the bill for my craft challenge.

 

In other news, the Big Homeschool Buy is done and delivered-- I had to move books around to different bookshelves to clear out a shelf in the dining room for all of this coming year's homeschooling materials.  I'm excited about some, intimidated by others, and realizing I need to take some time this month while we're on break to read, and write some lesson plans.  The best part was that the boys spontaneously picked up a few of the books each, read a little, and declared them good.  The one I'm currently the most intimidated by/excited about (yes, both) is a unit study called Microscope Adventure.  It's like nothing we've used before.

 

Happy Spring Chef's Apron

For my craft project this week, I made a chef's apron with the happy spring fabric that was included in the box of fabric my mom sent recently.  I had thought about using this piece for the oven mitt, but concluded at the last minute before cutting it out that it would be a waste because a) this piece was too big for such a little project and b) the charming print would have been obscured by the quilting.




After wracking my brains for an outdoor use for this (somehow that would have seemed more spring-y to me, to actually use the 'sunshine and blue skies' fabric while outdoors), I gave up and decided to make the simplest big, wearable thing I could come up with-- an apron.

One of these days I'd like to make a pretty little frou-frou apron, or one of those tricky ones that looks kind of like a dress.  But for my first one, I went simple-- a chef's apron.  I consulted some blogs, but couldn't find an example of one that was adjustable using jump rings, like the one I had hanging in my kitchen-- a nice manly apron that my lovely mother had sewn for Sweet Hubby.  So, after gleaning as much info as I could from these tutorials: Once Apron A Time and Kathy's Cottage Easy Apron , I went ahead and got started, and when I got to the bit about the top I just reverse-engineered Sweet Hubby's apron and figured out how Lovely Mother made it with the rings for adjusting.

The whole project, start to finish, took only three nap times: one for cutting the big pieces and the pockets, one for cutting the strips for the ties, making the ties and sewing on the pockets, and one more for sewing together the two sides, pressing and topstitching.  (I love topstitching-- I didn't even know what it was, before the Bunny Lovey project, and now it's my favorite part of sewing)  Several parts of this project were new and adventuresome for me: cutting out the pieces using my rotary cutter (even the big bits, even the curves), making pockets (I was trying for rounded ones on the yellow 'B side', but they looked funny once I sewed them on so I folded down the tops and pressed them, making them look like envelopes rather than half circles), the aforementioned reverse-engineering (so proud of myself for figuring something out without explicit instructions! and I didn't even break down and call Lovely Mother or Ariel for advice, like I usually do!).

I wish I had taken more photos while this was in progress, but I every time I work on a craft project I feel like I'm racing the clock, one ear cocked to hear if baby is done with his nap.

Here are the pockets and ties:



Look what came in handy, as I sewed around the whole edge of the two layers!





Here is the 'A side', just before pressing and topstitching:



And here I am, modeling the 'A side', then 'B side', then the ties in the back (which were not as long as I wanted them, but I ran out of fabric and couldn't make them longer)





I had thought I would like a big pocket on the chest (not down lower, I don't want to look like a kangaroo), but now I wish I had made it smaller, or made little hip pockets like the ones on the 'B side' instead.  Oh well!  I was completely improvising all the pockets, I'm lucky they didn't come out even more wildly wrong than this.  Also, if you look closely you can see where I had to fold up a little bit of the fabric before tying, to make this fit.  I used my Sweet Hubby's big apron as a pattern, and I was afraid if I tried to guess how to make it smaller, I would make it too small.  That's okay, I'd rather a big, voluminous apron that needs a little fold to fit, than a titchy apron that I'd never use.

One last photo: here's my new pretty apron hung up on the kitchen coat rack, next to Sweet Hubby's old manly apron.  Aw, aprons in love!



What next?  I have no idea!

Oven Mitt Part Two

Well, I almost loved this oven mitt project.  At the last minute it turned into a bit of hand sewing, to attach the 'cuff' that hides the cut edges at the bottom.  The tutorial didn't specify hand sewing, but in the comments section several people said they couldn't do it with their machines (nor could I-- it just didn't fit on there)-- so at least I wasn't alone!  I don't like hand sewing, I'm not very good at it and my stitches look like they were done by a child.  Now I'm debating whether I'll make another of these, knowing that it will end in hand sewing.

Oven Mitt Part One

I was determined to make something this week, other than excuses.  I'm still trying to keep this craft challenge from filling my house up with worthless (though pretty) mess, so I settled on something that I needed anyway-- a new oven mitt (I have only one pair, which were ugly to begin with and now are also burnt and worn through in places, they have begun to let heat through-- ouch).  I found a 'hot pad and oven mitt' round-up on Pinterest (see here) and chose a simple glove style mitt, tutorial here. 
Another sub-goal of my challenge is to use up the craft supplies I have lying around, whenever possible, instead of buying more.  I went through my fabric stash and found some pretty-enough cotton to use as the main fabric and liner.  All I had to buy was some Insul-Brite insulated batting, and heavy duty needles to sew through all these layers!



Cutting the layers was quick and fun-- using the rotary cutter reminds me of quilting, which I love the best of all sewing (if only quilts didn't take so much of everything-- fabric, time, money, space).  I didn't bother cutting out exactly 9 x 15 as the directions say, my fabric scraps were already around 11 x 18 and I didn't waste time cutting off the little bit extra.



Above are the layers, with the lining fabric face up (only after I started this project did I fall in love with that fabric a little and wish that it wasn't about to disappear inside an oven mitt).  The darker pink is for the bottom edge.  Next I quilted one half (so, one whole sandwich of outer, cotton batting, insulated batting and lining) with diagonals of whatever thread happened to be in my machine.  I thought this step would go faster than it did, and that I could finish the project today, but instead I think I'll just get around to quilting the other half. 



More to follow when I get this finished up.  When I started this project I chose a different fabric for the outer, but while ironing it I realized I had quite a big piece, and I didn't want to waste it on a tiny little quilted thing like this oven mitt.  In fact, I wish I could think of something easy to make that we would use outdoors, because the print is so happy and evocative of spring.  I'm stumped though-- what can I sew with this piece of fabric, not sure the size but I think less than a yard, which I can then use outside in the spring?  Help me with this if you have an idea, otherwise I've got next week's project decided already-- an apron.
Here's the fabric, my current crush:

Pyramid Bean Bags

I'm feeling a little more inspired around the craft challenge this week, since my lovely mother sent me a big box chock full of colorful, patterned fabric remnants from her stash, as well as a bunch of spools of colorful thread.  This week I used some of that bounty and made these pyramid bean bags, as a birthday present for Snorzy (I made a second set at the same time for a little friend, so each set has 5 bean bags in two different fabrics).  I found these on Pinterest as 'pattern weights', which would also be useful next time I sew something with a pattern since I hate pinning.



The very clear and easy tutorial is here, on a blog called Five Green Acres.  In order to close these up with the beans (I used split peas) inside, I had to use a blind stitch.  I have tried to do a blind stitch before, but this time I found a good tutorial here, at Positively Splendid (the directions are for a pillow, this was the same idea but in miniature), and really managed to do it well.  Next time we finish a box of tissues I'm going to convert the box into a little storage case/bean bag toss game to go with these.  Then I'll be all set with a handmade gift for Snorzy's birthday!  I hope he'll like them, I think he will if Radish's reaction is any indication-- he couldn't stop fooling around with these until I put them away.

Wipes Box Toy

For my first project of my 2014 craft challenge, from this blog post, as seen on Pinterest: I made a baby wipes box ‘toy’ for Snorzy, with fabric squares that he can remove again and again.  Maybe making this was a little bit stupid, since none of my three kids ever did the ‘pull every baby wipe out of the box’ thing, maybe I’m just encouraging bad behavior.  He drives me so crazy anyway, though, in that he hardly plays with toys but instead looks around for anything he can get his hands on that he *shouldn’t* play with.  I think I wouldn’t even mind so much if he pulled real wipes out of a current box of wipes, if it would keep him sitting still for five minutes and not pulling on electrical cords or knocking over my things. 
I cut out about twenty squares of fabric in a variety of colors and textures, using pinking shears to get a hard-to-ravel edge without having to do any sewing.  I opted not to do applique letters or numbers on the squares yet, but if he ends up liking this toy a lot I’ll add them later.  To decorate the box and hide the brand labels, I covered it in bright blue duct tape (left over from Primo’s Tron costume from a few Halloweens ago).  So far he likes the box itself more than the fabric, and it’s a little hard to get him to take the fabric squares out (we have to pull one out halfway and then show it to him).  He likes opening and closing the box, though, and if we take the fabric pieces out of the box for him and throw them around, he plays with them.  Yesterday he stood there and carefully handed me one after another, while I said, “Thank You” for each one.  Time will tell if this turns into a favorite toy, but it was free and he’s played with it a little, so I’m satisfied.

Bunny Lovey 1

Lessons learned from my first attempt at sewing a lovey:

1. using my blue Mark-B-Gone pen on the 'wrong side' of the ivory swirl fur fabric was a bad idea.  Little did I know that the blue marks would show right through.  And I have a sinking feeling that they will not B-Gone when I wash the finished lovey.  I'm not sure what I could have used instead-- disappearing ink would have disappeared from one naptime to the next, before I finished the project.  And chalk would have wiped off.
2. the ears needed to be super-sized compared to the pattern in Moebes' book-- I traced around her pattern on separate paper to make ears that were probably more than 50% bigger, giving me the 'voluptuous flop' that I crave in a bunny
3. the part that I thought would be the hardest, sewing the curved seams on the head, was actually not bad at all. 
4. sewing the straight seams on the triangles to form the square blanket was where I made my biggest error, probably because I thought I was on the 'easy part' and got careless.  To my horror, as I was topstitching the blanket after sewing on the lining I found that along one of the blanket seams, for several inches, the seam had come apart because I had actually sewn into the fur at the edge and not the fabric backing at all, which leads me to:
5. when the directions said to sew a 'generous 3/8" seam', I needed to be more generous for sure-- I was too worried about the whole thing coming out too small when I should have been thinking more about making all the seams *strong* to withstand baby boy manhandling.  I fixed it in a kind of 'Frankenstein's monster' fashion by sewing by hand with ivory colored thread.  My hand sewing technique not being up to snuff, this is not an invisible seam of hidden stitches but a big hard ridge of sloppy stitches forcing the seam back together.
6. I stuffed the head firmly using little pinches of fluff as suggested by Moebes, I think I would have liked it better a little understuffed and floppy, to match the general floppiness of the ears and the blanket.
7. in the future, I'll have to find a way to mark out the circle around the base of his head for sewing last of all-- mine was a funny little lopsided spiral rather than a perfect circle, and it shows when using a solid colored lining as I did here.

Overall, I am over the moon about how easy this was to sew, and how cute it turned out even with all my errors-- this one will be under the tree for Snorzy's first Christmas, and hopefully Lovey's bunny charms will lure S away from his horrible, tacky store bought 'Taggies' bear that I got him just for 'second best' and that he ended up falling in love with and needing in order to sleep, every day and night.  I plan to make more of these bunnies, which I will continue to customize away from the original pattern (the head and neck are a little too skinny and weird for my liking).  I managed to make this, despite my inexperience, in 2 1/2 naptimes-- one for cutting and sewing the ears, another for sewing the head (very quick), and one more to do everything else but the embroidery (which I whipped through while watching t.v. the evening after finished the rest).  I don't know what I'll do with more bunnies but I do know that I won't be able to resist making at least one more of these, I think I have enough fabric left over from this one if I cut carefully!

Bunny Ears

I guess I mean this to be mostly a homeschooling blog, if only because that is the main thing that I am doing with my life right now—homeschooling my older two boys.  However, as I explained in my last post we are on a one-month hiatus from formal ‘lessons’, so even though I probably should be planning lessons for next month or searching for new materials to use when we get back to it, instead I’m ‘obsessively obsessing’ about my latest craft crush, the Lovey Blanket project from Deborah Moebes’ Stitch Savvy.  I first encountered this project while searching ‘Lovey Blanket’ on Pinterest (because lovies in general are my favorite thing for babies).  I was thrilled that her book was available from the interlibrary loan system, and when it arrived at my local library I happily dove right in.

Well.  It’s a beautiful project but the written instructions, the step-by-step photos and the pattern all leave much to be desired.  I love the final result so much, though, that I’m determined to make do and push through, and figure it out on my own with the hints I can manage to glean from her instructions.  So far I cut out the fabric and made the ears.  As it turns out, when I cut the fabric according to the pattern and sewed the ears using a 3/8” seam as the instructions told me to, I got ugly little skinny ears with no voluptuous ‘flop’ to them.  I’m going to try again, and now I wonder if I should cut all the pieces for the head bigger so that he doesn’t come out with a skinny, ugly little head. 

Here are the ears, my first attempt: