A New Year, A New Project!

I decided that 2014 is going to be a relaxing year. I'm going to make that happen. Because I'm in complete control of my universe and when I say I'm taking it easy this year, it's set in stone. SO. I'm lining up a soothing, easy project that may well carry me all the way to December... are you laughing? If you know me, probably! 'Cause you know, the taking it easy thing really isn't me.

Ok, no more fooling, let me tell you what I'm really up to! In 1999, I made a set of four stockings and a count-down-to-Christmas calendar for my family. Each stocking is navy blue cotton with faux applique scenes depicted out of scraps of fabric that I used some sort of iron on adhesive to affix, and then I used silver glitter fabric paint to go around the edges. When the subsequent children were born in '06 and '07, I made them new ones to match.

 

To be perfectly honest, I hated these stockings almost immediately after I made them. They're garish and ugly and at this point, I can do WAY better! I'm almost embarrassed year after year to pull these out of storage and hang them up. Of course, my husband who has a very strange idea of sentiment and gets attached to all of the wrong things fights each year to keep them. Right now, a week after Christmas, he could give two shits about them or the calendar or anything related to holidays. I'm starting new stockings and a calendar now, so when the Thanksgiving turkey is slowly churning in our bellies in November, I will a have a stronger argument than his for retiring these atrocious things to the attic forever. I mean, babe, I've worked ALL year on these new stockings! We'll see how well that goes...

Here's my plan for the new calendar. I'm really big into celebrating the origins of Christmas (aka Yule), particularly focusing on the pagan aspect, in December. Odin was only one of the forbearers to modern Santa. There's also St. Nick (he was a real saint), Sinter Klaus... Ok Google that shit because I don't really feel up to explaining it all.

Odin, who in MY portrayal is modeled after Gandalf (because Gandalf is f'ing awesome and needs to be hung in every home for Christmas!), is set among a moon lit sky on a tree lined mountain slope. The moonlit sky is very important as it is indicative of the winter hunt. It's all relevant in pagan/Yule lore.

So I photoshopped Gandalf from a scene in the movie "Lord of the Rings" into two separate images I found that had the sky and ground backgrounds I wanted. When I had everything jiving just the right way, I opened the image in Window's paint and saved it as 256 bitmap. That degrades the colors to give me an easy to follow map.

 

 



 

 

 

At this point, it was pretty simple to trace this out onto paper and then onto a piece of white cotton muslin. I put the fabric into an embroidery hoop, took the image to the sewing shop to buy the appropriate colors of embroidery floss, and am filling in the entire image with tiny stitches as if I'm doing a paint by number. This technique works extremely well for making heirloom products (such as family portraits onto pillows), or making custom patches or badges, as I show you HERE.

 

 

I have been wanting to do a large tapestry in this medium for a very long time, and now I have a great reason! So, here is the start:

 

 

 

The finished tapestry will be 11" x 14" and will be sewn as a panel onto a new count-down-to-Christmas calendar. If you're wondering what I mean by that, picture a piece of fabric with pockets numbered 1 to 25 and an object that is moved from one pocket to the next, each day in December. The numbered pockets will also be embroidered and I'm planning to use high-end fabrics for this project as I'm expecting these to last my family for another 15 years, if not longer. They may last until I'm an old lady. My family may fight over my dead body for them... or maybe not! It's going to be a fun project though and it will give me a reason to sit on my ass and watch trashy television, which I'm expecting to do a whole lot of this year.

Oh! And I'll keep you posted on progress. If you have any questions, shoot 'em in the comments. 



Hand Embroidered Candles and Holly - Holiday Ornaments 2013

 Last year, I made and shared tutorials for 7 different holiday ornament designs:

Knitted Cat
Knitted Dog
Knitted Bear
Knitted Mouse
Glitter Kitty
Denim Stars
Wooden Snowmen

And the year before, I shared:

Cereal Box Painted Faux Metal Stars



This year, I have already begun my tree ornaments and I will surely have another design or two to share. :)

Before continuing with this tutorial, take a look at this one, which explains the technique for this embroidery technique. I used the Long and Short Stitch to fill in the blocks of color of the design below.

Materials:

• Blocks of fabric with embroidered design on the front
• Scissors, needle and thread
• Crushed velvet fabric
• Lace trim
• Poster board or sturdy card stock
• Strips of brown paper bag

Print the pattern to the left, so that the printed version is approximately 2" tall. Place a 4" x 4" swatch of white cotton fabric on top of the pattern and trace it. If necessary, use a window or a light box to see through the fabric.

Using the Long and Short stitch, fill in the blocks of color with embroidery floss. I filled in the holly with 3 shades of green; the candle with 3 shades of tan/cream; the flame with both yellow and orange and the ribbon with two shades of red.

Using a round object, approximately 3 inches wide (like a pasta sauce lid), trace a circle onto the card stock.

Cut a piece of velvet (or your chosen backing material) to a 4" inch wide circle. Use a needle and thread to loosely sew a basting stitch around the edge of your velvet.

Place your round cardstock on top of the wrong side of your velvet swatch and pull the thread to cinch it up around the cardboard and tie it off.

You could use twine, yard or any tie material of your choice, I decided to use a strip of brown paper sack and twisted it tightly to make a small rope. I sewed the flat ends into the ornament.

I sewed the lace trim around the edge of the ornament.

I pinned the embroidered block of fabric to the front of the ornament, and sewed it in place using small, even stitches.

Custom Badges and Patches

As my regular readers know, I'm not one for throwing something away if I can mend it. When Little Miss got a dime sized hole in her otherwise new and unblemished coat, it didn't occur to me to toss it. I wanted to make a nice patch for it to cover it up!
You can buy patches and badges at most craft stores and even big box stores like Target and Walmart, but they can be pricey. They can be generic. They can be... mundane. And perhaps you want something unique, or something you can't find at a store? Badges, decals, patches, whatever you want to call them, are extremely simple to make, actually!
Please consider my heartfelt apology for these awful photos. My camera is missing and I'm not sure if a child made off with it or if I'm just too scatter-brained these days to remember where I left it... so my phone camera made due.

• First things first, get some supplies and make your design. A plain cotton muslin makes a fine base. You want something that won't be too thick to trace an image through or too rigid to easily sew into.
• A 4” embroidery hoop.
• Small sharps (needles) with small eyes, better to use those specific for needlepoint.
• Cotton embroidery floss in all of the colors you'll likely use.

If you can't freehand your image, you're perfectly fine to trace it. You can look for an image to use on any search engine or even a childs coloring book. My girl wanted Cinderella for her patch and it was easy enough to find a suitable image to draw from.
Next, you simply fill in the lines with your thread. Separate the floss and use two strands of it at a time. Beginning at the top of the section you're filling in, begin making vertical stitches, about half a centimeter apart. You'll want to stagger the length and do one short and one long. Keep all of your stitches parallel to each other. You will get an evenly filled section by keeping your stitches going in the same direction. Once you have finished the top row, leaving small gaps between stitches, go back and fill those ones in. Again, be sure to stagger the length of your stitches.

This technique is called long and short stitch and Satin Stitch embroidery and it has so many uses!















Here is an excellent tutorial to show you how to do the Long and Short stitch.



Once you've completed one row, you go into that row ever so slightly to begin your next row. You'll not only be staggering the length of your stitches now, you'll be going into that upper row at varying heights so as to keep the entire section free from ridges.

A few tips:

• You want to keep your stitches taught, but don't pull them so tightly that they pull and pucker the fabric. Don't use too much force.
• Pack your stitches in to fill in any holes, but be careful not to bulk them up too much that they are laying on top of one another.
• Try not to rub the stitches to fray them. 
• Don't use damp or wet thread. If your thread gets wet, replace it.
• Don't use bulky knots. When starting a new thread, pull the thread most of the way through the fabric and sew a couple of little sideways stitches, one on top of the other to secure it and then cut off the tail. These two little stitches will be covered over by your fill-in stitches.

After the badge was complete, I cut around the edges and tucked them under. I then loosely hand sewed the badge to the front of the coat. Using the color I selected for my edging (pink) I used a button hole stitch going from inside to outside, to cover the entire edge of the patch and secure it to the coat.

Here are some other badges and embroidered items I have made recently. They're good not only for covering up a blemish on an otherwise fine article of clothing, but you can make them in any genre or theme. You see I like the Kansas City Chiefs! And I've also made one for the New Orleans Saints, though I haven't finished the sweatband I'm knitting to put it on. I am also making some Christmas Tree Ornaments for some friends which use a satin stitch design on the front.

Here are some older examples of what I've done with satin stitch embroidery. I sewed my daughter a dress and embroidered a beautiful butterfly motif on it.

I've even embroidered my grandparents portraits into a pillow as a gift for my father.

There you have it! It looks time consuming, but it goes more quickly than you'd think. It's not difficult, but it takes a bit of practice getting those stitches to look uniform. You can do some beautiful work though! I've had it in my head for a while to do a large long and short and satin stitch design for a wall hanging, but I just don't seem to have the time these days. I'll set that on the idea shelf and one of these days I hope I get to it!

Turn a T-shirt into Short Workout Pants

"I really am enjoying my new job. In my first training session, they said that they call us "industrial athletes." This is no joke! My job is to load packages into the back of a truck. The boxes are often heavy and they want you to move them as quickly as you can.

It's extremely physical. Squatting, lunging, lifting, reaching and placing heavy packages at a rapid (aerobic) pace for approximately three hours solid per shift, is quite an enviable workout and had a lot to do with why I chose to apply for this job.

My first night on the dock, I wore a tank top and a pair of jeans. I quickly wished I hadn't! The denim is too hot, too constricting and every time I squatted or lunged, I mooned everyone behind me. My second night on the dock, I wore a pair of running capris and was so thankful that I did. I decided to get a whole wardrobe of workout capris and T-shirts.

The thrift store had a few workout/yoga pants that were in my size, but I had to modify the length. Otherwise, I realized I could make new running capris out of large T-shirts!

Here's what you need:
T-shirt, at least a size large
Sewing machine (hand stitching won't cut it with this project).
Elastic (you can recycle from old clothing)
Thread
Pins
Scissors

To begin with, choose the appropriate sized shirt. The size of the shirt you'll need is determined by the size of your hips and backside. Consider the length. Consider what you want to do about a waste band.
My median size is a 10, and a mens size large is enough to make a basic pant for me. The red shirt pictured was a 2XL and there was enough leftover fabric on each side too make a waste band if I wanted. I'll describe that later.

Fold your T-shirt in half down the middle, with the sleeves together.

Take a fair amount of care to smooth it out with your hand as much as possible. Working with knit can be a little tricky, as it stretches and pulls out of shape easily. When we're talking about pre-worn T-shirts, it should be expected that there will be some wonkiness right off the bat. Just go with it and gently hand press it, moving the bulky places out of the way.

You can take your measurements and draw up a pattern if you like, but I just grabbed a pair of knit work out pants that fit me the way I like.

Lay your workout pants (or similar pattern) on top of the T-shirt as this picture shows. It is really important that the portion that is the outside of the legs lines up with the folded side of the T-shirt. That is because you are going to have only one inner seam on the leg of your pants. No need to waste time and thread by adding unnecessary seams! Besides, if you have a logo or design on the front of your shirt, this will simply be placed on the side of your pant and not look too weird. You may notice also as this picture shows, that the bottom of the pant lines up with the bottom of the T-shirt. This means your pants are pre-hemmed! Cool, right? I know!

When you cut, you want to account for your seam allowance. I only wanted a quarter inch seam, so I made sure I cut that far from the outside edge of my (pattern) pants.

You're cutting through four layers of T-shirt, and therefore you are cutting both pieces you need to make your pants. Sewing goes pretty quickly.

Each piece that you have is a pant leg. Fold each one in half vertically, with right sides together. Make sure you match the sides evenly. They should be symmetrical.

Pin up the leg, stopping right when you get to the point that is the crotch.

These pants are meant to fit snuggly, and your seams will take a lot of pulling - especially if you're using them for working out.

The last thing you want is your seam to rip open while you're jogging down the street, in the middle of a yoga session or working the leg press at the gym. I know I don't want to have my co-workers laughing at me endlessly because my pants split open in front of everyone!

Each and every seam is doubled and tripled. Two straight seams, about a millimeter apart, and a zig-zag stitch that is evenly straddling the outside straight stitch. I then very carefully trimmed away the excess fabric, to within two millimeters of the seam.

Once you have your pant legs sewn and threads trimmed, you'll want to turn them right side out. This photo is an error, I started pinning with the pant legs inside out and realized that If I had sewn them that way, the seam that joins them would have been on the outside.

Once the pant legs are inside out, match up the seams at what will become the crotch (I hate that word!)

Pin the two pieces together and just as you did when you sewed the pant legs closed, sew a quarter inch seam using a straight stitch. Sew a second parallel stitch a millimeter apart and then zig-zag down the middle of the outer stitch. Trim off the excess fabric.

After you have the two halves of your pants joined, you want to try them on. If they are too loose, you can take them in. If they don't come up high enough, you can add an extra long waste band.

I recycled elastic from old clothing. On the gray pants that have the logo, I chose to do a waste band because they seemed to be to short and would pull down in the back during squatting. I could have used the scraps leftover from the red shirt, and this would have looked quite nice. However there was an ugly old gray sweatshirt that has been sitting in the recycle pile for a while and I chose to take the waste band off of it because it matched so well. I cut the elastic to the length that I needed, enfolded it into the waste band and sewed it together. I then pinned this band, with right sides together, to my pants and sewed it with a double straight stitch and a zig-zag. Trimming off the excess thread, these pants were done!

The red pants were plenty high in the waste, and I decided that I wouldn't bother with a waste band. I didn't care to have a hem, either. I know that having the elastic showing makes them look like ridiculously long underwear, but I don't mind. My shirt will cover the elastic.

I did want to make the point, however, that they may well function as long underwear! You can have them as leggings in the colder months, wear them under skirts, whatever you like.



These pants were so easy to make, I can see making many of them in the future! Whenever I find myself running short on work-out pants, I can just grab a few big T-shirts from the thrift store or my husbands dresser and whip a few up!

Easy DIY Clothespin Bag

 
 
This bag was made using materials I had on hand, and took less than 20 minutes.

Materials:

1 child's ruined T-shirt, size 5 or close to.

1 metal coat hanger, or arm length piece of wire of similar gauge and width.

Needle and thread or sewing machine.

Pair of pliers.

My daughter was so sad when she ruined this T-shirt. I was too, it was the first time she wore it. We don't throw away fabric if it is in decent condition, because we know that we can always make something from it.

I've been in need of a new clothes pin holder and decided to use the shirt for that.

You can use a child's T-shirt, trim down an old pillow case, or make yourself a pouch from scratch. Whatever works for you!

I have made a few of these over the years and prefer the child's T-shirt because we usually always have one around to serve the cause - and because they are the correct width so as not to need to sew the sides or hem the opening.

It may be difficult to tell in this picture, but I flipped the T-shirt inside out and then sewed alongside the seams of the sleeves and across the top, just beneath the collar.

I straight stitched it, and then zigzagged on what would be the outside edge to prevent fraying. If you cannot zigzag, I would at least double stitch it as the bulk of the clothespins will be hard on the seam.

Trim away the sleeves and neck opening after sewing.

Using a pair of pliers, open up your coat hanger and stretch it out. You want the length of wire to be approximately 2 to 3 feet - or an arms length.

Fold the wire in half and pinch it with the pliers.

Three and a half inches from the bend, begin twisting the two sides together as you see in the photo. Give it a couple of twists.

Now take your doubled over end and shape it into a hook. Make sure your hook comes down low, and nearly meets the twist. There may be times when your bag is swaying in the wind and you don't want it to fly off of your clothesline!

You now have a bag instead of a T-shirt. The opening of your bag is already hemmed for you! On the inside of this hem, pop two little holes, about half an inch apart to feed the ends of your wires through the hem.

Make sure that you feed both wires through the hem simultaneously, and pop them out of the other side of the bag.

After you've popped the wires out of the other side of the hem, use the pliers to loop them around each other as shown.

Bend the wires as needed to form a hoop at the opening of your bag.

You may now fill the bag with clothespins and hang it on your clothesline. There, it can slide along the line with you and you won't have to bend over to pick them up!

Hand Sewn Knitted Wallet

I don't toot my own horn very often, but I do want to say that this wallet is probably one of the coolest things I've ever made. I can't stop taking it out and looking at it.
I wanted a wallet that functioned like my husbands, but I also liked the wallet I had bought for myself. Namely because it had a change purse and the photo ID slot was More easily accessible. I also wanted a wallet to match my new purse I made earlier this week.

I was also able to make this wallet using scrap yarn and scrap fabric, so that the cost for me was free.

To make this wallet, you will need:

Pattern (provided below)
Knitted outer shell (pattern provided below) 8" x 4"
1/2 yard of fabric
1 sheet of thin sturdy cardboard or plastic
Masking tape
Clear Plastic piece for the photo ID pocket
Needle and Thread
Decorative Button
4.5" zipper

The pattern for the knitted shell of your wallet is thus:
On size 3 needles, using bulky yarn *(I used Homespun by Lion Brand) -
Cast On 35 stitches
Odd rows: P2, K33, P2
Even rows: P
Knit approximately 24 rows, or until you have a swatch that is 8 inches wide and 4 inches tall.


Here is the pattern for the sewn portion. It is in PNG, you need to click on the thumbnails and bring up the larger image. Right click on them and save them to your PC. There, you can print them through any drawing program, like Window's Paint. Make sure that you configure your page set-up to print portrait style, not landscape, and that you have the image stretched to fill up the page, and your paper size is Letter 8.5" x 11".
Once printed, measure the red brackets to see that they are indeed an inch. I have also placed the dimensions of the pattern pieces on them, you can draw them yourself with a ruler if you cannot print these off.

*****

 

 

Now that you have your outside of the wallet knitted and your fabric pieces cut to size, it's time to assemble. I apologize for the crummy pictures. I was working quickly.

 

1.

 

Fold the raw edges of your back lining piece (4.5" x 8.5" under, and pin them to the back side of your knitted fabric. Sew this in place.

 

2.

 

Take another piece of fabric that you cut 8.5" x 4.5" and fold the raw edges in on the long sides. Use one of your cardboard/plastic squares that you cut as a guide for this, as you will be folding this up inside of your fabric. Once you have pressed the raw edges in, fold the fabric in half as shown in the second photo and use your needle and thread to hand stitch along the top and bottom of this piece. This is going to be the flap that will eventually hold your photo ID and other cards.

 

3.

 

Sandwich your flap in between the two pieces that are written "front of billfold" (4.5" x 5") with right sides together, and sew along the raw edge. You want to sew this very securely with a machine or small close stitches as this will take a lot of wear.

 

4.

 

 

On each of your six 4.5" x 3" card slot pieces, press the top edge down by a quarter inch. You may wish to sew but because I was hand stitching, I cheated and used a bit of masking tape.

 

5.

 

Assemble your card slots, by stacking 3 of them together with approximately 1/4" staggering. Fold the sides of these assemblies in and the bottom of them up. Press them with an iron and then pin them to the inside of your assembled wallet pieces. I chose to have one on the back "page" of my wallet and one on the back side of the flap. Sew these into place.

 

6.

 Fold the edges of your 1.5" x 4" piece under and press them down.

I sew them onto your clear plastic piece (I took mine from an old wallet) by first sewing on the bottom and top pieces - then the two sides.

The side strips are sewn on last, so that the edges can be folded under the top and bottom pieces. When you sew this assembly onto the flap of your wallet, only sew along the top and bottom of it.

 

 

7.

 

 Fold the bottom/top edges of your two change purse sections under, press them.

 

Pin them to your closed zipper and sew them down.

 

Fold the outer raw edges under, press them with an iron and pin then sew them to the remaining "page" of your wallet assembly.

It is helpful to undo the zipper partially and sew the zipper together near the end with a couple of stitches. You will cut these stitches after the piece is sewn on so that the zipper can fully close.

 

 

8.

 

 Lay your final 8.5" x 4.5" piece of fabric face
down on top of your wallet assembly and sew along the top of it, keeping your seam parallel with the card slots, flap and top of the change purse and not sewing over them.

Open up the seam and place your two remaining cardboard/plastic supports inside of them. Fold the top section down and press with an iron. Top stitch down the center of your assembly right between the gap of the two support cards. This will:
a. bind the two pieces of fabric together more securely.
b. prevent the cards from shifting and overlapping.
c. You will sew down the back side seam of your ID slot.

 

9.





 

Fold the raw edges of your wallet assembly under and press them flat. Pin this to the lining of your knitted shell, and sew it along the two sides and the bottom. Your support pieces should be pressed upwards into that top seam as firmly as you can so that they will be completely snug as you sew along the bottom.

 

10.

 

You're nearly done now! Knit or Crochet a loop to one side of your wallet, and sew your decorative button onto the other side so that your handy new wallet will stay closed inside your purse or handbag.

 

 

 

 

 

Add all of your stuff to it and you're ready to go!