Sew What You Love: The Easiest, Prettiest Projects Ever

Tanya at Grand Revival Designs has a book available for pre-order at Barnes&andNoble and at Amazon .  Go check out the book then go to Tanya's blog to find out how to receive a free down-loadable bag pattern.  Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is a skirt I whipped up for Grace to wear to school today.  It was made based on a tutorial I found on the internet. Sorry I can't remember whose Tut is was.  The skirt is made out of a size xl T-shirt that I got at Hobby Lobby using a 40% coupon, so it was very cheap.  For something that  took very little effort and  about 30 minutes to make, I think it came out very cute - or maybe its the model that makes it cute? ;)

What I made today...

Crochet Christmas tree ornaments. They turned out ok, with more practice I think I can make better ones. The instructions were found here at Attic24.

The red and while ones are for a friend who does a red and white tree.
Hope she likes them!

Happiness is...

finding 5 Cashmere sweaters at Goodwill and one really fuzzy Angora sweater all for $3.99 each! Three of these babies were size 3x; the Holy Grail of sizes for sweater felting if you ask me. I will be making wool mittens and the Cashmere will make such a soft, luxurious lining for them. The angora sweater is going to be made into one of these for my daughter for Christmas. The one I am making will just be a really fuzzy version of the bunny and I'm going to do the lining of the ears with a small holiday print fabric and give it a holiday bow around the neck.

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Granny Square Love

It took me all winter and most of the summer to make this blanket. I don't really crochet that slow but I only worked on this blanket while waiting in the car to pick up my daughter from kindergarten for a total of 15-20 minutes each day. It's all wool and very heavy. Not too bad for my first try. Some squares turned out somewhat larger than others so I just sprayed water on the larger squares and threw the blanket in the dryer to shrink up a little bit. Worked like a charm! Gotta love wool.

Teachers Gifts

I made these little zippered pouches to give to the kids teachers at the end of the year. I'm going to put a gift card for a book store in each one. The pouches are great to keep in your bag to hold small things. I made one for myself and I love it. You can find the directions Here at: Skip To My Lou.

The pouches are super easy to make and the directions are very clear.

A Small Needle Felting Project

I made this little Tissure holder today, mainly because I wanted to try my hand at needle felting. This is the first time I have ever needle felted and I think it came out pretty good even though I can see some spots where the wool is not completely felted in. I think with practice I will get much better at this - I'm definitely hooked on it!
I found the instructions for the tissue holder HERE. The background is cream wool and I used some roving and some felted wool for the needlefelting. I'm planning on making more to give as presents

Fabric Pinwheels

My big bare teal wall in my guest room finally has something on it! I found a free pattern/instructions HERE and made them today. The hardest part of making them was deciding what fabric combo to use. Instead of glueing down the corners to the center I punched a hole in the corners that would be glued down and I punched a hole in the center of the pinwheel and then I put a brad through all the layers of the corners that get turned in to the center and then but that same brad through the hole in the center of the pinwheel. Once I find some cool buttons I will hot glue them over the brad in the center. To attach the pinwheels to the wall, I took clear push pins and put them under each folded sections of the pinwheel and stuck it to the wall. Clear as mud? The largest pinwheel is 18 inches, the next size down is 12 inches the two bottom ones are 9 inches and the smallest is 6 inches.

I also made the throw pillows on the bed - but not today, I'm fast but not THAT fast! lol

I Spy With My Little Eye...

A tutorial! I found a tutorial to make I Spy bags at "Craftiness is Not Optional" . I have made two so far and they are very easy to make. I would suggest looking at places like Oriental Trading Company for the little goodies to put in the bags. I used left over toys from around the house and a few things I found at Hobby Lobby and Big Lots.

My machine had a hard time sewing the vinyl and the fleece until I figured out that when sewing with the vinyl facing up was making it stick to the sewing foot. So i sewed the 2nd one with the vinyl down and the fleece facing up and it sewed like a dream. Click HERE to go to her blog.

Meet Helga

Helga - she enjoys Monster Truck Rallys and home improvement shows. Don't let her physique fool you, she is all woman and if you doubt it she will wrestle you to the ground and give you a wedgie.

Can you say Ugly?

I have been wanting to make my daughter a pajama bag. I searched patterns at the fabric store and the internet and came to the conclusion that there just is not much out there. There were several rather scary looking clown bags. I found this vintage cat on Etsy.com and ordered it. The pattern was hard to put together and the cat came out really UGLY! I'm just stubborn enough to try it again but I need to think about how I can change it so the pieces fit together better and so it's actually cute. My daughter liked it or else she was just too kind to say anything negative - lol.

Hoot!

As part of De-stashing (is that a word?) my craft stuff I made this little owl. The original idea used scrapbook paper but I wanted to make it out of some felted wool and other cotton material that I had on hands. The owl fits perfectly on 12x12 scrapbook paper. I plan on framing it and hanging it on the wall. The original idea and pattern can be found HERE.

Flower Loom

I bought a vintage flower loom last week and the instructions basically suck! So I have been searching the web for better instructions and ran across this video on UTube. The back ground is noisy but the instructions are great. Go HERE to see the video. Since I am blogger incompetent I can't figure out how to put the actual video on my blog.

The blue flower with white center was my first attempt. On the other two I used some fuzzy-ish yarn I like how the last two turned out. They have more texture and are just more interesting to look at.

Angels and Package Bow

Just a few more items made from the class by Betz White . I haven't made all all the projects and probably won't before Christmas - just not enough hours in the day.

A Bag - A Tale of Calluses, pricked fingers and frustration

Ok, so I decided to knit some wool and felt (or full it if you want the correct term) and make a pattern and make a fall bag for myself. Sounds pretty straight forward - right? Wrong! It took 6 balls of wool to knit up enough to make the bag. (Not Cheap even with a 40% coupon to Hobby Lobby) Then I over felted it and it came out of the washer really thick. I cut out the pattern and sewed it up and it STRETCHED while I was sewing it *cry*. I cut a strap off an old bag and sewed it on. My stitches are crooked on it and I just don't care. I found some cotton in my stash of fabric that had the right colors for the lining. I whipped up the lining which came out ok. I shoulda put a zippered pocket in the lining but I'm afraid of putting in zippers. The thought of putting in a zipper makes me want to run screaming from the room. I'm sure I hear my mom laughing at me over this silly little fear. I poked my fingers with the needle and pins many times while sewing the lining into the bag. Oh, and I have a huge calluss on my middle finger from hours and hours of knitting. In the end I kind of like the bag. Tell me does it look ok or is it really ugly and I am just in denial? If you got any tips on doing something like this I want to hear them!

From regular old wool sweaters to fabulous felted wool sweaters all in one day!
Now, what to make with them?








I also got some nice buttons off the sweaters and I felted the seams to see how they would turn ou. I think I might be able to find a use for the seams because they felted up pretty tight.

More sightings of Indiana Jones

I have been finding Indiana Jones is strange places sround my house, so I have started taking pictures every time I find him.



I finally got this throw done. It turned out quite nice. I'm thinking some for Christmas presents but only to those I know appreciate this kind of thing. Nothing is more annoying/frustraiting that to spend hours making something for someone only to have them toss it aside like yesterdays garbage. The backing to this throw is some heavy weight material I had on hand, I think it needs ot be tacked down to the front of the throw but I don't want to quilt it. Anyone got ideas on what would work? I went a little heavy on the leave applique, I tend to do that when I like something.

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