Mercury Wing Stitched Hat: 30 Days of Creativity: Day 25

30 Days of Creativity: Day 25

Mercury Wing Stitched Hat

Here's how the hat began.  A fine hat.  Bought at a store with purposeful yet not useful patches and other silly elements.

I was not as happy as I thought I would be with this hat.

Then, on Saturday, I went to the garden.  Between rows of asparagus and potatoes, I looked down.  There in the dirt lay a full bird's wing.  The rest of the bird was gone, but the full wing lay before me.  It was so beautiful I couldn't take my eyes off it.  I felt such a connection to this wing.

The more I examined it, the more I felt drawn to it.

And I realized that was just what I needed.

I needed a connection to the birds, some strength from Mercury.

I decided to stitch a wing onto my hat to bring me speed and the freedom of wind.

You know I need it in my running endeavors.

First, I took off a band around the front and some little patches, including a plaid patch.  Plaid, is not for me, unless we're talking about my flannel pajamas, age 10.

I began my stitching by outlining the wing.  I used my free-motion stitch foot to go all directions and follow the  marked outlines I had drawn.

Then, I stitched in the feathers on the far side of the wing.  Again, I used my free motion foot.

I outlined all the feathers on three sections of the wing.

Then, I set my machine to a zig-zag stitch and using my regular food began zig-zagging to create some heavier shadows on the wing.

Here is my finished wing.  I am bound to run faster now that I have Mercury on my side!

Number Napkins: 30 Days of Creativity: Day 6

30 Days of Creativity: Day 6

Number Napkins

I am inspired by Mid Century Modern numbers.  

I would love to have address numbers like these on my house.

In the meantime, however, I will settle for these numbers on my napkins.

This way the napkins we use for breakfast can be used again for lunch.  You just have to remember your number.

To make these, I printed out some Mid Century Modern numbers from an image on line.  Then I traced them onto freezer paper and cut them out with an x-acto knife.  I ironed them onto my handmade napkins and painted them with fabric paint.

(If you want to make your own napkins, just cut out fabric 21" x 21".  Fold, iron and sew hems on all four sides.  Easy peasy.  That's your mini tutorial.  Or buy some plain napkins at the store on which to paint.)

Set your table.  

These are plates and bowls by Alleghany Meadows.

Now, love wiping the corners of your mouth with your number napkins.

Fabric Cards: 30 Days of Creativity: Day 4

30 Days of Creativity: Day Four

Fabric Cards

I'm going to two high school graduations today.

I made some simple fabric cards for my former students.
I taught 18 children at the Waldorf School here, for seventh and eighth grade.
Now, they are graduating high school.
Congrats to the 16 amazing seniors who graduate this week and the 2 who graduated a year early.  I am so proud of you all!
Here are a few of the cards...

Camera Strap: 30 Days of Creativity: Day 2

30 Days of Creativity
Day 2

Fun camera strap with pockets!

I used the tutorial at Simply Modern Mom.

It was really easy.  You need to make your own measurements based on your own camera strap and lens.  

Then your camera is transformed and you have a place to stow your lens when you're taking photos.

If your camera is still swinging from a boring black strap, go over to Simply Modern Mom and learn how to whip up a fun little dress for it.

What are you waiting for?

So glad I found a use for this awesome Joel Dewberry fabric.  

Two days down.  Twenty-eight to go.

Upcycled skirt

Two pair of wool (and lycra) pants

+

One men's wool suitcoat

=

One awesome winter skirt, from all recycled thrift store materials.

The upcycled winter skirt:

 My favorite colors are grey, charcoal, black, and taupe.  So, this works quite well with my palette.  :)

It has enough heaviness to hold its shape and enough lycra to flow.  Forgive the lack of proper ironing, please.

Here is the pattern I used.  Kwik Sew 3195, style A.

Frankly, I like my skirt so much better than the example on the pattern cover.  

But, maybe that's just me.  I'm not really a candy cane striped kind of gal.

Since it uses smaller pieces of fabric, it's perfect for upcycling old clothes.

The pattern was simple, definitely for a beginner.  There is no zipper, but only an elastic waist.  At first I thought I wouldn't like this, but it feels good.  I ended up making my elastic waist band a bit larger than they suggested in the pattern because I don't like the feeling of something tight on my waist.  Other than that, I followed the instructions exactly.

Using all recycled material presented one challenge.  The pattern marked the direction of stripes.  Some of the pieces were shaped a bit like the letter "L".  It became tricky to fit all the pieces on my recycled pants with the correct striped direction.  I ended up using two pair of pants and one large wool suitcoat to accommodate for all the pieces.  

Conclusion: go get more clothes at the thrift store and make skirts with used fabric!

Single Girl Quilt Take 2

Finally got all my circles sewn together.  31 x 12 = 372.  Again, I was very systematic, sewing all A pieces to the B pieces, then the Cs to the Ds, until I finished.  Atta girl!

I had to end my systematic ways because I desperately wanted to see one square complete...

Then, I wanted to make two.

But I did go back to the methodical ways, cutting out all my brown inner and outer pieces and sewing the inner pieces on first.  These curves are much more time consuming than squares.  My goal is to finish piecing it together in the next seven days.  Goals are much easier to achieve when you set them!  

Thank you to all of you in blogland who help me keep working.  

Where was I this last month?  Why no blogs for a whole month?  I even missed Ten on Ten, which was so sad for me.  Was it because...

A) I spent a week in DC visiting family
B) Three family members came to stay with us for a week
C) Both of my sons got sick and spent time vomiting ON ME
D) My car broke down on the side of the road with a blown head gasket
E) Therefore, I spent a weekend in Grand Junction trying to find a new car
F) One of my students' father passed away
G) We decided to sell our house and began cleaning, photographing and packing
H) All of the above

Oh yes, standardized test fans, the answer is H) All of the above!  Crazy few weeks.  I have still been crafting, no doubt.  I could not live without.  But, somehow I wasn't able to actually get all those adventures on this blog.  April will hopefully be a more balanced month.  Here's hoping!

Pieces cut for Single Girl Quilt

Hooray, the Single Girl Quilt is happening!

Finally my pattern came in the mail.

Here are my cut pieces--with wine glass and lip gloss in the corner of the pic--essential. :)

It took me two days to cut out all the pieces for the rings.

31 templates for 31 pieces.  12 of each.

That's 403 pieces total.

A good Bruce Willis movie and This American Life helped me to finish.

Bruce Willis is great for quilting by the way.  When he speaks, you know what facial expression he is using and have no need to look at the screen.  Not a dis, just saying it works with quilting. :)

Now all my ring pieces are organized in labeled envelopes.  

My mother has got to be so proud of this organization!

She is a woman who has all her stuff in boxes in the attic...

The boxes are numbered...

She has a chart showing where each box is in the attic...
 and another chart showing all the contents of each box.
Seriously, that woman knows what she's doing.

Me on the other hand...sure I have boxes.  They are full of stuff.  I'm not even sure what's there.
And my last quilt was made completely and wonderfully haphazardly, one unique square at a time.  I decided when I was finished by being done. 

So, this is a new thing.  Thank you to all the ladies helping me along in the Single Girl Quilt Along (check out button on the side bar)!  And thanks to my mother.

I'm on my way to DC tomorrow for a vacation and plan on getting even more behind on this quilt.

But, I'm so happy it's started and organized.

All is well in Quilt Land.

Single Girl Quilt Along

I am super excited and just have to share with you.  I am going to join 200 amazing ladies (how could they not be) in quilting Denyse Schmidt's Single Girl Quilt.  The Single Girl quilt along begins now!

Step-by-step instructions, help and enthusiasm is found here

 http://acuppaandacatchup.com/

and here

http://imagingermonkey.blogspot.com/

I love how humorous this quilt is, playing off the traditional double wedding ring quilt.  

And since mine is going to be for my son Solomon, I'm calling it a Single Boy Quilt.  It will have a brown background with rings of blues and whites.

I have to admit, it took me a bit to sign up for this because honestly (don't laugh...ok, you can), when I read about the Single Girl Quilt Along, I thought it was for single girls.  Doh!  Then I looked carefully and realized this was just the right project for me!

So, I'm still waiting for my pattern in the mail, making me a wee bit behind.  But I catch up fast. 

This will be my first twin quilt.  I've only made crib sized ones until now.  

Wheeeeee!

If you want to see the 200 quilts in process, follow the links above or click the button on my side bar.

Octohotpad

My husband said we need more fun stuff in our house.  

Not so serious.

Thus, an octopus made his way over to our kitchen.

Octohotpads...

Freezer paper stencil of an octopus.

Waves with a free-motion foot.

Fabric Cards

Making Valentine's Day cards was so fun that I decided to make more fabric cards.

I got this fun set of stamps from my mother-in-law for Christmas.

After using them on paper, I got out some fabric and started printing little trees, houses and bicycles.

I folded up some cardstock and then cut my printed fabric to sizes just larger than the front of the cardstock.

With the fabric the right side down, and the inside of the card facing up, sew around the edge of the card.  The fabric stays pretty flat just from the weight of the card.  However, if you want it to look really nice and neat, with no slack at all, spray a fabric adhesive on to the back side of your fabric to adhere it to your card.  

I plan on making a little vellum tag with a message on it for this card, but I'll wait until I know who I'm giving it to and what I want to say.

Here too I'm hoping to add a little message just above the lowest blue strip.  

I let my three-year-old play with the stamps too.  This is the creation I made from his work.

Valentine Cards

After Christmas, I must admit that I often feel a desire for even more traditions, more celebration, more crafts.  Thankfully, Valentine's Day is here shortly.  So, I started making some fabric Valentine's Day Cards.  I had so much fun.  I love quick projects where I can have freedom and flexibility and creativity.  I like making it up as I go along. 

Fabric cards are so easy.  They do dull your needle quickly, punching through cardstock.  So, if you decide to make your own fabric cards, change your needle when you're done.  All you need is a pile of scrap fabric, some cardstock and a sewing machine.  You can use a straight stitch or zig zag.  I wanted to do some loops, so I got out my free motion foot for a little extra embellishment.  I also used vellum paper to write little messages with a sharpie.  Then I stitched the vellum paper onto the fabric and card.

Happy early Valentine's Day to you!

Knight's Tunic Tutorial

Make a Knight's Tunic for a Child

Make a knight's tunic costume for your child.  This tutorial depends on the materials you have and the size and age of your child.  I give you a lot of guidelines so you can see what to do, but not exact measurements.  You can use this as an inspiration, a guide.  

Make it out of what you have.  Make it for who you love.  Make it the way you want.

What you will need:

a sweater that fits your child to use as a template

a solid color recycled wool sweater, felted in the washer (more instructions below)

leather, canvas, pieces of sweater (from the sleeves) or other strong fabric for shoulder straps

fabric for an applique embellishment on the front

fusible webbing (for the applique)

fabric pencil or marker

matching or contrasting thread

sewing machine

Instructions:

1. Go to your local thrift store or your closet and find a used wool sweater in an adult size.  For this project, cotton and acrylic will NOT work.  Wool can be felted in the washing machine to a thick, dense material, suitable for a knight.  I recommend a gray sweater, but use what you like.

2. Put your wool sweater in the washing machine on HOT with a bit of laundry soap.  

3. Put your sweater in the dryer on HOT.

4. Take it out and see how it "felted" down.  It should be fairly stiff and thick.  If not, send it through this process again (double checking to make sure it is wool and not another material).

5. After it has been washed to a thick felt, you will want to cut off the sleeves.  If your sweater has a normal neckline, you could leave it as it is.  If it is a turtleneck, or if you would like to make shoulder straps like I make, cut out the neck also (look at pictures for a more detailed example).  Lay down a sweater that fits your child and follow the sleeve lines and neck lines.

6.  Cut two pieces of fabric for the shoulder straps.  I cut mine out of recycled leather from a skirt I bought at the thrift store.  You could use the sleeves of your sweater if you'd like, or any other sturdy fabric you have laying around.  I cut mine 2 inches wide and about 10 inches long. Since I cut mine out of leather, I didn't have to hem them; they won't unravel.  Felted wool also won't unravel.  If you choose to use canvas or another material, you will need to make your straps about five inches wide, sew the long sides right-sides together, turn them right sides out and press them.  However, I recommend using a fabric that you won't need to hem, such as leather or felted wool.

7. Pin the two shoulder straps onto the front and back of the tunic, leaving plenty of room upon which to sew them.  Make sure the left and right strap are sewn on evenly so that they hang the same on each shoulder.

8. Sew a square around the edges of the shoulder strap, with an X in the middle.  

9. Cut a design out of paper for the embellishment on the front of your knight's tunic.  A cross, a dragon or a fleur de le are some good ideas.  My cross is not exactly symmetrical, since I drew it by hand, but I like it.  Feel free to do a google image search to find exactly what you want.  Print the image you find and trace it onto your paper.

10. Cut out your image and use it as a template.  Use a fabric pencil or marker to trace your stencil onto your other fabric.  I used a bright red leather jacket I found at the thrift store.

11.  Use a fusible webbing or steam-a-seam or other fusible applique backing.  Follow the manufacturer's instructions to apply this backing to your applique design.  (Ok, I am going to admit something for you here.  I tried steam-a-seam, my trusty side-kick--picture above.  Then I tried a fusible webbing.  Neither worked since I was trying to adhere leather to felted wool.  So, in the end, I resulted to using double-sided sticky tape.  I'm quite sure this is a major, major no-no.  But I did it anyway, out of desperation.  And...it worked.  I don't plan on washing this outfit, but rather relying on simple spot cleaning, so I think I'm ok.  Thanks for listening to my confession.)

12. Set your sewing machine to a satin stitch (get out your instruction booklet if you've never done this before).  Stitch carefully around your design using a satin stitch.

Let your knight begin training.