fabric beach balls!

fabric beach ball purl soho

These are great balls for playing indoors. I’ve made one for my daughter and a few for her friends. Everyone seems to love them. This one was a bit of a challenge when I realized that I didn’t have a lot of eight-year-old-boy-ish fabric in my stash. I grabbed a few men’s shirt sleeves that I had in my upcycle bin and I really like how the colors and patterns work together.

fabric beach ball purl bee

recycle: Remember all of the pillows I was making with men’s shirts? This was a great way to use the sleeves! Pattern is from the Purl Bee.

finished: granny square scarf

granny square scarf

Yay for pictures! I was so excited that the sun was out today, as we were expecting more rain. It’s still kind of chilly — perfect scarf weather.

lion brand wool ease scarf

Some squares were a little smaller than others. I’m not sure if it was daily life that messed with my tension or my learning curve. I arranged them smallest to largest for seaming and you really can’t tell.

woolease granny square scarf

I got 7 squares out of each skein for a total of 14. It blocked nicely considering it’s only 20% wool. I can’t wait to wear it tomorrow!

project details: here and here.

i have this little sister lola…

Actually, I have this little “niece” in Florida. She just turned eight and I know she used to like Charlie and Lola when she was younger. We’ve just recently discovered Charlie and Lola. I checked out some paperbacks from the library, but my daughter’s favorite is this pop-up book from her “Aunt Lisa.”

I made a Formula One t-shirt for my “nephew” last spring and wanted to do something similar for his sister. I absolutely adore Lauren Child’s illustration style, but was worried that it might be too young for a grown up eight-year-old. I decided to create my own applique flower and add two small Lola-like butterflies.

charlie and lola applique t-shirt

I really love how this turned out. I hope she does, too.

refashion: Scrap fabric and heat-n-bond is from my stash. You can download a pdf file of my flower pattern here.

cupcake with chocolate icing, please

Last Friday my daughter noticed that the cork stopper on our sugar jar was shaped like a cupcake. (It looks like this.) She carried it around all day and wanted to take it to bed with her (so Puppy and Mickey could have a midnight snack, perhaps?). I asked her, “if you could have a cupcake with icing, what kind of icing would you like?” “Chocolate!”

amigurumi crochet cupcake

I whipped up this little thing before I went to bed and left it on the kitchen table for her. I love doing that! It’s so fun to watch her find it in the morning. It’s already starting to look well loved, isn’t it?

stash: Thrifted yarn and beads from my stash. Free cupcake pattern from BitterSweet.

how to sew a remote control pillow in five easy steps

I’m not sure why I’ve had pillows on my mind. Maybe because the sun has been hiding behind the clouds for too many days to count? Maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling under the weather? Maybe it’s because the holidays are fast approaching and I need some gift ideas for the guys in my life? Whatever the reason, I’ve been having fun. These are really easy. I know you’ll have fun, too.

remote control pillow

Notes

  • Remote Control Pillow v 2.0 is for those who only have one tv remote or are using a universal remote for all of their equipment. If you need a multi-pocket pillow, check out my Remote Control Pillow v 1.0 pattern.
  • Most likely, your pocket will have to be flipped and moved to accommodate a remote control. If your shirt doesn’t have a pocket, you can easily make one out of the sleeve or a contrasting scrap fabric. Be creative! Try a denim pocket from a pair of jeans.
  • Some men’s shirts don’t have buttons past the belt line. You can take one from the collar or cuff and stitch it on the band.
  • If you are using a smaller shirt, simply use a smaller pillow form. I usually sew the cover 1″ smaller than the pillow form size so the final pillow will be nice and firm.

denim pocket men's shirt pillow

Materials
1 – large men’s button shirt with pocket
1 – 18″ pillowform
seam ripper
matching thread

Step 1
With the shirt buttoned, cut a 17 1/2″ square out of the front of the shirt. Cut another 17 1/2″ square out of the back of the shirt.

Step 2
Carefully remove the pocket using a seam ripper. Spritz shirt with water and steam press to close up any holes. Reposition the pocket and topstitch in place.

Optional Step 3
If your holes don’t close, if you accidentally rip your fabric, or you are using a shirt like corduroy and the nap won’t fluff back up, you’ll need a patch. Just cut a square from the sleeve and topstitch it over the original area.

Step 4
Lay the pieces together right sides together and sew around the whole square with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Make sure to undo one or two buttons before sewing so you can turn it right side out afterward.

Step 4
Clip your corners, turn right side out and press.

Step 5
Insert your pillow form and button it up!

affordable decorative pillow button down shirt

This is an easy way to make decorative pillows, too. If you go to Goodwill on 99 cent day, this becomes a really affordable project. Plus, they organize their clothes by color, which makes it easy to find shirts that match your fabric. I used a little less than a fat quarter of fabric for the decorative pillow.

home decor pillow on a budget

recycle: Before you head out to the thrift store, check your own closet. All three of these shirts came from my husband. In fact, I have him trained now to ask me first before donating any of his clothes!

handmade gift bag that’s also a gift

Yesterday we went to John Deere-themed birthday party for a four-year-old boy. My husband asked, “could we just buy a gift? Does everything have to be handmade? Can’t we get something from the store?” I agreed, as long as we didn’t buy him an actual tractor toy. I figured every four-year-old boy must have at least some kind of tractor, right? How would we know what to get? What if someone gets him the same tractor? Let’s get him some books about tractors instead. And maybe some tractor stickers, too. As my husband bought into my reasoning, I was secretly planning a handmade, tractor-themed, re-usable gift bag.

reusable gift bag

I admit I was planning to buy some John Deer fabric to make this. Just before I left the house, I decided to dig through my stash and I found two fat quarters of tractor-green fabric! I think it’s a polyester blend and it feels way more durable than quilting cotton. I figured I could make my own tractor-themed artwork with my new hobby.

tractor embroidery

In the end, my husband and I were both happy with our gift. I hope my daughter’s friend will be, too.

recycle: I bought a big stack of colored cloth napkins at a garage sale awhile ago. I think they were napkins. They kind of feel like the fabric used to make restaurant napkins, except they were every color of the rainbow and only a few matched. Whatever they used to be, they are nice and sturdy. I think they’ll be great for storing all kinds of tractors and trucks.

handmade birthday gifts: embroidered
tea towels

Back in June I tried my hand at cross stitch. It didn’t turn out very well. I had a really hard time getting all of those little x’s lined up. In hindsight, I think I needed to use different fabric—something with more of a grid-like structure. I really loved the idea of a customizable tea towel so I didn’t give up!

embroidered tea towels

These are birthday gifts for my brother- and sister-in-law. They have very diverse interests: he’s a city guy who loves playing his guitar and she’s a country gal who loves riding her horse.

Embroidery is so cool! It lets me make matching gifts for two people with completely different favorite things. Seriously. Where can you find matching music/horse anything?

Here’s a close up of the guitar. The artwork is from Sublime Stitching. All of Jenny Hart’s stuff is so cute!

sublime stitching jenny hart guitar teatowel

Here’s a close up of the horseshoe. The artwork is from some clipart on my computer. I had to simplify it a bit before I could use it for stitching.

sublime stitching jenny hart guitar teatowel

Aren’t those french knots cute? Now I am totally in love with stitching and I can’t wait to try something else!

project notes: Tea towel pattern from Linen, Wool, Cotton. Guitar from Sublime Stitching. Linen fabric and embroidery thread from my stash.

my new laptop bag…and all the details

laptop bag

During the past week, this bag has carried my laptop through the airport, been my purse to a wedding, and toted stuff to the beach. That’s a lot of jobs for one bag. I’m happy to say it performed all of its required duties wonderfully. And it looked pretty darn cute, too. Here’s how I planned the design:

Size
Most importantly, this bag needed to be large enough to fit my laptop, but small enough to meet airline carry-on luggage guidelines. I checked the FAA and NWA website and both set my limit at 45 linear inches. Mine turned out to be 13.5 x 16.5 x 4 inches, or 34 linear inches. Part of me wished I had made it a little bigger, but there’s less room for your bag under an aisle seat, so in the end, this size worked great.

laptop bag

Inside
I wanted a separate sections for my laptop and my other things. I created two pockets and added a tie to the laptop side. When I used this as a purse, the laptop side was filled with fun things for distracting my daughter, like coloring books, story books, stickers, etc. At the beach, it held my book and knitting project.

laptop bag

Outside
A zipper closure was essential. I didn’t want anything to fall out during airport screening and I didn’t want any sand getting inside. Durability was important, also. The outside is an upholstery fabric and the inside is a cotton canvas.

How-to
This bag is basically an oversized zipper pouch with handles and two inside large pockets. It seems silly to write up a tutorial when there are so many great ones already out there. For this project, I referenced the following:

Adding the handles was easy. I just sandwiched them between the outside fabric and zipper when I was sewing it all together. I reinforced the handles with a few rows of extra stitching.

stash: Fabric came from this remnant sale. Zipper was thrifted.

my new laptop sleeve

I knew I’d have to do some work on our trip to the beach and I had given my Timbuk2 bag to my husband when he got his new computer. He has made it clear that my Timbuk2 belongs to him now, so I had to come up with something else. I decided to sew my own laptop sleeve and bag. First, I started with the sleeve:

quilted laptop case

The fabric was an upholstery remnant that was already striped and quilted. I used some bias tape to enclose the raw edges before I sewed on the zipper and I serged the inside seams.

quilted laptop case

I love fabric that comes with the hard stuff already finished. No patchwork or quilting was needed for this project, but it looks kind of fancy, don’t you think?

stash: The remnant came from the east campus textile sale. Zipper and bias tape from the thrift store.