Tag: sewing

Stuffed Robot

I made this plush robot for my 5-year-old son, who is getting his tonsils and adenoids out tomorrow in hopes of solving sleep apnea and other related problems. He has been crazy about robots lately, and loves to make his own with cardboard boxes and various craft supplies. My father-in-law, an electrical engineer, has promised to help him make a “real” robot, but in the meantime, this one will be better for post-surgery snuggling.

The pattern is the Retro Robot Plushie by Gulf Coast Cottage, who sells patterns for the most adorable felt food and other playthings. I didn’t have quite enough gray felt, so I used fleece on the front (didn’t have enough to do the whole thing in fleece of course). The instructions were super easy to follow. I detoured from them a bit by sewing it with the seams on the inside because I was using fleece instead of all felt, so I added the arms and legs after sewing the body together (leaving an opening for stuffing). That resulted in the body being a bit more rounded instead of squared off, but I still liked the result. I also made the arms and legs striped by sewing strips of felt together before tracing the pattern.

I can’t decide whether to give it to him before surgery or wait until he wakes up. Wish us luck!

March 17, 2010
Origami Organizer

I bought my friend and fellow-crafter One-Yard Wonders for Christmas, and she has been gracious enough to share it with me when we get together to sew! I think I might have picked the most complicated project in the book to start, the Origami Organizer, but 1) it just leaped out at me as a cool project and 2) it was written by Katherine of One Inch World, who was very helpful to me when I had no idea what I was doing setting up this blog!

I used some leftover fabric that I wasn’t crazy about for my first attempt, just in case I messed up. I found some of the diagrams a bit confusing, but once I figured it out, it was pretty amazing to see the boxes come together all at once.

I gave the organizer to my son, who is forever sorting little treasures he picks up and putting them in various boxes.

March 3, 2010
Last-minute Valentine

I decided at the last minute to enter the True Love Valentine Contest at Sew, Mama, Sew! and make this little fabric card and envelope for my son. I used the same technique that I recently used to make my husband a notebook cover, but this time, I used a smaller paintbrush and painted before embroidering, which worked better than trying to paint right up to the stitching. (and I used a picture he drew of me and him instead of Daddy and the cat).

I’m sure he won’t be terribly excited by it, but it will make a nice keepsake. And I know he’ll at least like the envelope, since he’s always writing letters to friends and relatives.

February 13, 2010
Be My Valentine (but keep your germs to yourself)

I have no idea what we’ll do this year yet, but last year I made 20 tissue cozies for my son’s preschool classmates. I’m sure the kids would’ve preferred candy but figured the parents would appreciate the tissues during cold and flu season.

Depending on how far you want to carry the theme, attach a card with the following message:

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Ah-choo!”

“Ah-choo who?”

“Ah-choose YOU for my Valentine!”

Grown-ups may gag at the punny sentiment, but at least a tissue will be close at hand.

You can click here to read the how-to article I wrote for AP. This really is a very easy project, but the written instructions make it sound more confusing than it is, so here’s my attempt at illustration via Photoshop.

I’m hoping to find an idea for this year here:

January 24, 2010
Gifts for far-flung friends

I just spent three days with my best friend who lives much, much too far away. In addition to the good company and good food, I also got a chance to see her family and inspect whether they REALLY liked the Christmas gifts I sent them. Though I’m sure it’s possible they only took them out for display purposes before I arrived, they did seem to genuinely like everything I sent.

Here’s the Mommy & baby Black Apple dolls I made for my friend’s adorable daughter, featuring pigtails heavily inspired/directly copied from Larissa at mmmcrafts. If I was smart, I would’ve made the baby doll using the full size pattern and then enlarged the pattern to make the Mommy doll, but I didn’t decide to make the baby until after I made the Mommy. It was pretty tricky to make such a small version, and I ended up leaving the entire bottom edge of the body open to stuff it. (but here’s one smart thing: if you’re adding pigtails, leave the opening in the head where one of the pigtails will be, so when you turn the doll right-side-out, you can cover up your messy hand-stitching with a bow)

And here’s the recipient with an armful of babies:

I made my friend’s 6-year-old son a personalized space-themed pillowcase using my tutorial, and tooth pillow using Larissa’s darling pattern. It’s the same pattern I used to make my son’s tooth pillow, but this time I also made a little hat.

January 20, 2010
Dinosaur Play Mat

An article I wrote last year for CRAFT magazine has now been posted online! Click below to check out the step-by-step instructions, and downloadable templates:

How to: Make a Dinosaur Play Mat

October 14, 2009
Reversible 4-in-1 Cape

Surprisingly, my son has yet to waver from his desire to be an astronaut for Halloween this year, but here’s something I made him last year in an attempt to cover his ever-changing alter-egos: a reversible, 4-in-1 cape. With two colors to choose from plus button-on embellishments and a button-on hood, he can quickly transform himself from knight to dragon to super hero to king. I also made a red and pink superhero/princess/butterfly/Little Red Riding hood cape for my niece. For the butterfly, I added loops of ribbon at the front corners of the cape that she can slip over her wrists, and a large loop of ribbon with velcro at either end to gather up the middle of the back of the cape and turn it into wings.
I can’t post the material from the article and audio slideshow tutorial I did for The Associated Press last year because of copyright restrictions, but the links below will get you there. Or you can click on the links in my tutorial page.
Reversible Cape AP Article & Tutorial

Reversible Cape AP Audio Slideshow

October 5, 2009
A Busytown Birthday

(It appears that clicking on the image above no longer brings you to a gallery of images, so I’ve posted them below)

My son has been smitten with Richard Scarry’s Busytown characters since June, when he picked up two of his books while we were on vacation. They were in Italian, but that didn’t matter. He poured over them for hours, including about half of our plane ride home from Rome. So we decided to make Busytown the theme of his 5th birthday party earlier this month.

The amazing Huckle Cat cake is entirely the work of my food-editor husband. It was a super-moist, dense yellow cake (FOUR DOZEN EGGS), covered in buttercream and decorated with fondant.

Meanwhile, the stuffed Huckle was my project. I started with a pattern for a baby doll, added the ears, tail and nose and lengthened the feet. The pattern included a little shirt, which I altered a bit to look more like Huckle’s. The pants are a modified version of an American Girl doll clothing pattern!

I bought a used but perfect copy of the out-of-print “Richard Scarry’s Biggest Make-It Book Ever” on eBay and scanned various pages to make the invitations and decorations. It also included the pattern for the Lowly Worm dolls I made as favors, though I came up with my own construction method to streamline the process since I was making so many. Rather than cut and sew 10 bodies, 10 pants and 10 shoes, I sewed long pieces of tan, green and grey felt together, traced the pattern 10 times, cut in between and then sewed on the drawn line. That part went quickly but I admit that by the time I got to all those buttons and bow-ties I was pretty sick of the whole project.

I had grand visions of sewing a cute bunting but ended up just cutting triangles from leftover scrapbooking paper and some more images from the “Make-It” book. I strung them together by sewing a piece of ribbon across the top of the triangles.

Parker’s main present, other than the stuffed Huckle, was another eBay find: a 1976 “Puzzletown” set so he can build his own Busytown. We came up with what we thought was a great idea: scanning more pages from the “Make-It” book (which included cutout images of various Busytown buildings) and attaching them to fiberboard to make extra pieces. My husband used a jigsaw to cut out all the pieces, but the fiberboard (actually a piece of paneling) was just a hair too wide to fit in slots on the Puzzletown base. Had we realized that earlier, we probably could’ve sanded the edges, but since I already had glued the pictures on, we stuck plastic stands (cut from cabinet child-proofing devices) to the back so they could be free-standing. I think this idea would be great to do with other books, or even using a child’s own drawings. You could cut a notch at the bottom of the pieces and use another little piece of fiberboard for a stand.

Here’s a picture of the 1976 “Puzzletown”

And here are the new pieces we made:

All in all, it was a great success! Huckle has bumped all other stuffed animals from their usual spot at bedtime, and even has been going to kindergarten this week.

UPDATE: Please do not ask me to share the Lowly worm pattern. As mentioned above, I found it in a book and am not comfortable sharing it. But I am sure if you look at a picture of Lowly, and my picture of how I traced the pattern, you can figure out that he is basically a long rectangle shape, with a rounded top for a head and an oval-ish shape at the bottom for his foot.

September 25, 2009
Reversible, buttonless wrap dress

Here’s one of my two tutorials that were chosen as “Best of 2008” by Craftster.org. I know summer is almost over, but this little dress also could be made in heavier fabric and worn as a jumper.

My goal here was a dress for a friend’s daughter that 1) was reversible 2) didn’t include buttons on both sides because I thought that might be uncomfortable against baby skin 3) didn’t require binding because I stink at that.

1) Start with a basic A-line dress shape. I used McCall’s 2213 and made the neck a bit rounder. I then drew a line to mark the shape of the cross-over panel. (I think you also could make the big piece the front of the dress and draw use a slightly different shape to make straps that cross over each other at the back of the dress)

2) Here’s the two pieces you should have (you’ll have to trace the back panel twice b/c you’ll ruin it when you cut the cross-over panel piece)

3) Lay the side pieces of fabric A right sides together on the back panel and sew the side seams. Do the same for your second fabric.

4) Lay the pieces out flat, here’s what you should have:

5) Pin the two pieces right sides together, with your ties sandwiched between the two layers on one side. Sew around the whole thing except for the top of the shoulders, stopping about 1.5 inches from the end of the shoulders where marked and leaving an opening on one side for turning later. (if you were making cris-crossed straps, I think you’d stop at the opposite edge on the two outside edges but I’m not sure)

6) Turn right side out and press. Line up the shoulder seam by folding back the outer fabric and pin the inner fabric.

7) This part is hard to describe: sew along that edge, then keep going, matching the edges of the second fabric, so you’re sewing along the other fabric as well. Basically you’re sewing the shoulder seams and then tucking them in.

8)Tuck the shoulder seams in, press and slipstitch the opening closed. Also, close up the opening you used for turning.

9) Figure out where you want the bow to end up and make two button holes, so you can thread one of the ties through to the inside and then back up to make the bow.
(I didn’t do this right for my first example so here’s another dress showing it)

I don’t have any pictures of the recipient of the purple dress, but here’s adorable Miss Bridie wearing the yellow floral/blue check version. This picture was taken about a year after I sent it to her, and as you can see, it works well as a cute little top as well as a dress. And though I originally envisioned it with the tie in the front, it’s cute either way!

September 4, 2009
His & Her quillow playmats

My son has two friends whose parents met in childbirth class, so their birthdays are quite close together. When they turned five recently, I made them each a playmat quillow: a quilt that folds up into a pillow. For the girl version, I designed it to look like the floor plan of a house, with a bed, tables and chairs. For the boy version, I went with a street scene.

I used the same basic block for both (I think it is called a framed 1-patch) and just altered the colors for the various blocks. I didn’t use batting or binding, just backed them with fleece, top-stitched around the edge and machine quilted around the squares. I used gray fleece for the pockets because I ran out of green.

I made my son a slightly larger train track version earlier this summer to take on vacation. It was perfect to keep him cozy on the plane, as a pillow in the car and a playmat in the hotel.

They were really easy to make, but of course I had some help.

August 12, 2009