Month: March 2011

This adorable bear/doll carrier will soon be on its way to my friend’s 4-year-old daughter, whose birthday was last week. (I like to extend the celebration by sending gifts late, ha ha). This is a project from a review copy of  “Oliver + S: Little Things to Sew” that I recently received. The instructions were very clear, and this was an easy project. Keeping the three layers together (front, lining and batting) together was a bit tricky when sewing around all the curves,  and if I make it again, I might just pin rectangles of fabric and batting together, trace the pattern (minus the seam allowance) on the top layer with an erasable pen and then sew on the line. But overall it was not difficult. And I was able to make it using fabric and supplies I already had. The front and lining fabric actually were leftover from a quilt I made for the birthday girl when she was born, and the straps are from some ticking fabric I cut from an old body pillow cover my mother-in-law made and we used to have in our guestroom maybe 10 years ago. I knew I’d use it someday!

The carrier attaches on the top with buttons (I used two sets to make it adjustable) and on the sides with Velcro. I added three strips of Velcro because I wasn’t sure how big or little either the recipient or her favorite dolls are. I had my son try it on. His first reaction was “People will laugh at me, it’s pink!” (even though no one could see us except our cats). But that was quickly followed by a request that I make him one as well for his stuffed animals, in a different color.

While I still believe that I’m the only person with a Silhouette machine who does not absolutely adore it, I can’t blame the poor results for this project on the machine. Instead, I’ll blame my six-year-old. OK, to be fair, I’m not sure these eggs would have turned out THAT much better had I been working alone, but that’s what I’m going to tell myself.

Once I decided to try using the Silhouette to cut some vinyl letters and shapes to use on my eggs, I also decided to blow out the eggs, because if I was going to create gorgeous, fancy eggs, I wanted to be able to keep them. The blowing out part was fine. I followed Martha Stewart’s directions, except I used a large needle to make the holes instead of an X-acto knife. (Though this method does leave you with noticeable holes in the eggs… not sure what you’re supposed to do about that? Cover them with bits of paper?)

Parker and I then dyed the eggs in various pale shades, which was a bit tricky because the hollow eggs want to bob on the surface of the dye.  This was also the first time I tried Martha’s idea for a drying rack, which would have worked great had I put my pins just a bit closer together. After a while I noticed that the eggs were REALLY drippy. That’s when I realized that because of the holes in the eggs, a lot of the dye had gotten into them, so I had to blow out some of the water and dye again.

I then used the Silhouette to cut out various letters and shapes out of vinyl. For once, I was impressed with the Silhouette. It cut the vinyl beautifully, and because you don’t have to use the carrier sheet —  you just feed the vinyl into the machine — I didn’t feel like I had to hover over the machine worrying that the cut pieces would be sliding around and getting mangled while it was cutting.

I did realize that some shapes weren’t ideal. As thin as the vinyl is, you still can’t wrap larger shapes around the curved surface of the egg without it getting wrinkled. For the scalloped border, I had to cut off two little scallops and make it more of an oval shape instead of the circle I started with. I could have re-cut the vinyl into a better shape but I was already sensing at that point that these were not going to be the family heirlooms I envisioned.

Once the vinyl was stuck to the eggs, we dyed them again. I think our big problem here was not letting them sit long enough in the dye. Some came out great _ the “S” in spring is nice and crisp _ but others were too light so there wasn’t enough contrast. And on some, the vinyl must not have been stuck as tight because the dye seeped under it.

So,  while these aren’t horrible, they’re also not something that you’d stop and exclaim over how amazing they look either. IF I did it again, I think maybe I would use the vinyl as a stencil to paint the eggs instead of dyeing them. Or maybe use white vinyl and just use them as stickers. Or maybe we’ll just go back to dyeing hard-boiled eggs and leave it at that.

My parents took a trip last fall to Prince Edward Island, which made me quite jealous because I adore “Anne of Green Gables” and have always wanted to visit L.M. Montgomery’s home. In addition to bringing me a pretty mug and coaster with Anne’s picture on it (it makes me feel slightly fancy when I use it at work), my mother bough a large bag of curly wool roving at a farm they visited. “I figured you could do something with this,” my mother told me. So, I decided to not stray too far from the wool’s original form and turned some of it back into sheep, skiing sheep, to be precise.

My inspiration was the ski sheep kit by Wool Pets. Since I already had the materials, I decided to buy the Wool Pets book instead of the kit. The instructions there were for the sheep standing on all-fours, but it was easy enough to adapt to an upright position.

I didn’t have any mini popsicle sticks to use for skis, so I made mine out of shrink plastic. Ever wondered how to make tiny skis out of shrink plastic? No? Well, someday you might, so here’s how I did it.

I cut two pieces of shrink plastic that were 7/8″ wide and 6 inches long, then cut a point at one end (the point is about an inch long). This resulted in the blue skis that are about 3/8″ wide and 2.5″ long after shrinking. I happened to have shrink plastic that you can run through an ink jet printer (so I suppose I could have added fancy logos!) but any shrink plastic would work since I ended up painting it anyway.
I used an old heat embossing tool I bought years ago for stamping projects, but you can also use an oven. After the ski had shrunk and flattened, I squashed all but the tip under a heavy tile, then curled the tip upward before it totally cooled off.
I painted the skis with acrylic craft paint, then brushed them with white glue and sprinkled on some clear glitter.

I’m going to put these guys away until Christmas, and try not to feel smug about finishing a holiday project in March. Do you think I should make them ornaments by adding loops of embroidery thread at the top?

I’m also going to add them to my dormant holiday blog, just in case anyone’s still subscribed over there. Obviously, these won’t be a surprise, but future projects will be stashed there so any friends and family who read this blog won’t see them. If you need the address for that, just leave me a comment.

I just stumbled upon “Once Upon a Thread” at “No Big Dill,” a month of sewing projects inspired by children’s books. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I often make gifts for birthdays and Christmas that go along with books, so I can’t wait for even more inspiration! I went a bit overboard and added a bunch of my projects to the Flickr group that goes along with the project.

At first glance, this picture may appear out of place on a sewing and crafts blog, but I did make the skirt I’m wearing!  This is me, my husband and my son… and Jamie Oliver. We spent the weekend at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival. My husband covered the festival for AP. He did video interviews with about 15 food celebrities over two days, and I wrote stories to go along with them. My mom came with us to watch Parker, who stopped by at one point and decided he wanted to “help” so we let him interview Jamie Oliver before the real interview. He did a great job writing out a little script. (Parker: “Food keeps us healthy and strong. What do your kids eat?” Jamie: “Anything with pasta. Or chocolate.”)

AP posted the first five minutes of each interview on YouTube. You can also find them all on my husband’s blog here. Of all the stories I wrote, I think the one in which Jamie Oliver called Sarah Palin a “froot loop” got the most attention:)

(Editing to add a few links to the stories in addition to the videos. We wrote 10 total, so I won’t list them all! But I found Melissa d’Arabian’s ideas for getting kids involved in “cooking” behind actual cooking very interesting, particularly her comments about treating cooking like an arts and crafts project. If you’re interested in reading more, just Google my name, Holly Ramer, and “Wine and Food Festival”)

Jamie Oliver: food for kids a civil rights issue

Ted Allen: food fights shouldn’t be political

DiSpirito: ditch the calories, keep the sin

d’Arabian stretches definition of kids’ cooking