Martha Stewart vs. Amy Sedaris

After writing this post, I was looking around found this video. It's very funny and illustrates my ideas exactly!

Yarn Bobbins

I used to give kids little balls of yarn, but they always get knotted up and end up rolling away.  So, the yarn bobbin is a perfect solution.  They are similar to the craft thread bobbin.

If you use yarn with kids, try making some.  You'll like it.

All you need is corrugated cardboard.  I used the flaps from a box.

 Cut the cardboard piece into a spool shape.

 Tape the end of yarn to the middle of the spool.  This way, the end won't get loose.

 Wind, wind, wind the yarn around the spool.  Cut a small slit in one end of the spool and slip the end of the yarn into the slit.

Yarn bobbins in action at the tapestry table.  The kids love them and they are easy to use.  Go make your kids some!

an interview and some links

Check out my interview and stay to browse the MakeShift Revolution blog. I am right there with Mary Allison and her mission to combine the idea of being a great mom and wife with the reality of, well, life. I was honored to be included as a "Mother of Invention" however, as we all know, it's a work in progress.

I thought I'd also share some things I'm loving such as this recipe for caramel bacon popcorn. Bacon and caramel together? Sounds yummy to me! Phoebe and Frankie would go crazy for this DIY harmonica. I need to make this cute kid's sewing box. And, if you haven't seen it yet, take a peek at The Black Apple's Paper Doll book. I am smitten and can't wait for it to come out - for me (and Phoebe!)

Parachutes!

The Paratroopers Softie Tutorial at Chez Beeper Babe brings back so many memories!

When I was a kid, we called these "poopatroopers." They cost two for a dime, and when we were visiting our grandmother's apartment, provided hours of entertainment for me and my brother. We'd toss 'em off the third floor bannister, watch 'em waft gently to the floor, and race down to do it again. In hindsight, my grandma was probably thrilled to see us wear ourselves out...

Grab an old scarf, and start sewing. I see a paratrooper invasion in your future!

Lacy Valentines Gifts

How sweet would it be to sew up this doily pillow for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day?

Rachel Denbow has a tutorial right here, on her blog Smile and Wave. All you need are some old doilies, a few pieces of plain fabric, a pillow form, and a needle and thread.

On the Design*Sponge Guest Blog this month, Sarah, Amy and Anna Blessing of BBBcraft have some great ideas for homemade Valentine's cards.

And good ol' Martha Stewart has lots of non-sew lacy craft ideas: votive holders created with lace and fabric stiffener, doily stencils, and pretty lace-print stationery.

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Just One More Halloween Post

Last night, for the first time in years, I really "committed" to a costume -- without spending a dime! Hours before the holiday, and with three parties looming, I decided to dress up as a scarecrow. I pulled an old cotton blouse out of the closet, and paired it with a pair of baggy khakis that I seldom wear. Went through my scrap fabric for various patches, which I tacked onto my clothes with cotton thread. Attached a crow from Halloweens past onto a kid-sized cowboy hat that I just happened to have on hand, and, for the final details, I drew on freckles and made bands of pine needles for my wrists and legs. I have to thank Amie for that one -- she gave me a quick phone tutorial on "nature bracelets" held together with packing tape! Anyways, the costume was a big hit. Hope you had a happy Halloween too!

Useful Sewing

One thing Amie and I like to emphasize when we're coaching young sewers is how useful their projects can be around the house: Hot pads, cloth bags and eyeglasses cases always seem to be in short supply, especially in my home.

Over the last few weeks, I've been on an organizational rampage -- which, of course, means taking a break from cleaning every hour or so to whip up one project after another on the sewing machine.

I modified Amie's Treat Bag Tutorial to make a drawstring bag, which I filled with rags (i.e. cut up scraps from stained dishtowels, worn-out t-shirts and threadbare pajama bottoms) and hung from the pegboard in my laundry room. I paired two strips of Kerchief Girl fabric, imported from Japan (I purchased mine from ReproDepot, but they seem to be out of stock) with larger pieces of cotton ticking, and used a foot of blue rik-rak to create the drawstring. Using a machine, the entire project took less than 10 minutes, and I smile every time I see my rag bag hanging in the laundry room.



Next, I whipped up a series of baskets using a pattern Amie discovered earlier this summer: Orange Flower Sketchbook's Fabric Basket Tutorial. I put square plates in the bottom of several baskets so I can use them to store farmer's market bounty, such as onions, garlic, cucumbers, and dried peppers, in the pantry and in the fridge. I even made a few more baskets to organize the samples of face and hair products I hoard from Sephora.



What I really love about both these projects is that they require just a little bit of fabric, so I can delve into my favorite yardages without feeling too guilty. They also make great gifts for friends, and it's easy to make several at once.

Handmade Hellos

I love this book:



And I love the items created by Laura Normandin, the artist behind Wren Handmade.

So last Friday, when I discovered that Laura had posted a D-I-Y birthday card project on Design*Sponge, I was ecstatic.

It was just in the nick of time -- okay, it was a few weeks late -- my brother, my sister-in-law and my niece all celebrate July birthdays. I wasn't in a hurry to mail their cards, because they were on vacation for part of the month. Then I procrastinated, and, well, all of a sudden it was August.

Here's a close look at Laura's originals:



And here's a not-so-close look at my copies:



Whenever I use my stamp pad, I tend to get inky fingerprints all over the cardstock. Oops!

Pom Pom Inchworm

This was the craft of the day over at MarthaStewart.com a few weeks back, and it brought back a flood of memories of school craft sessions where we'd make inchworm barrettes and fuzzy monster pencil tops complete with antennae and felt feet. According to these instructions, Martha uses a styrene rod to bring her inchworms to life, but i bet you could get by with items already on hand in your craft bin!

Another fun idea from her site: the Dog Cleanup Bag, created by fusing parchment paper to plastic shopping bags. My dog Cassius is pretty good about using his own backyard, but I might have to try this...

Craft Fail

Sometimes, a project looks so easy. You think, I could make this. You start to compile mental lists of all the people you're going to send gifts to, neat little packages of handcrafted goodies so cute that when they call to thank you, they'll dub you the next Martha Stewart. You get even more carried away, and buy too many supplies or cut out too many intricate shapes, or even start to brag to your best friend about what you're about to make.

And then, when you sit down to actually do it, everything goes wrong. You mis-cut the pattern. You sew the fabric right-side out. You get paint everywhere except where you need it, or you realize, way after you've made your filling, that there isn't a single pie crust anywhere in the freezer.

Those paper hearts hanging above the Obama poster look pretty cute, don't they?

Look a little closer. Study the detailed picture below, and you'll see what Christian Siriano, no slouch of a seamstress, would describe as a "hot mess."

I got the idea for these heart garlands from the ever-lovely maya*made last February.

A few friends came over, we opened a bottle of wine, cut out some hearts, and started painting. A few more glasses of Pinot Noir, and we were ready to sew. I hauled out my trusty Singer, threaded the bobbin with white thread, and bright red for the needle. According to Maya, the two colors would twist together into a candy cane strand that looks like baker's twine.

Mine didn't -- the thread snarled, and broke off again and again. I had the machine set on the wrong sized stitch, and the needle perforated the hearts until they broke in two. I cursed, and my friends' eyes widened, and they moved my glass of wine out of reach.

Granted, I learned from my mistakes. When the other girls handed me their stacks of paper hearts, I sewed more carefully, and their garlands looked pretty darn cute in the end. Mine, not so much -- and all my plans, my dreams of surprising my niece and my mama and my friends with their own garlands, were dashed. I was over the whole project, kind of like when you have one forkful of cake too much, and you push yourself away from the table and vow that you're never going to eat chocolate again.



A few weeks later, after Valentine's Day had passed, I found my garland on a corner of my work table. I grabbed it and hovered, for just a minute, over the recycling bin. Then I glanced at my office door, which is adorned with that gorgeous Obama poster, and I zeroed in on the two little nails, which formerly supported a bulletin board, positioned above it. I pulled over a chair, stood on it, and carefully would the red and white threads around each nail, and, finally, smiled at my craftsmanship.

Then, last week, one of the girls who was in attendance that cold February night, who made a lovely garland with un-perforated hearts and perfectly entwined thread, sent me a link to Craft Fail.

At least I'm in good company...

When We're Not Blogging About Sewing...

We're blogging about eating! Check out the details about our weekly supper club, OSOME (Our Summer Of Magical Eating), here. Basically, it's a weekly potluck that focuses on local ingredients. We have extended an open invitation to about 40 people (Amie and her family are on the list, of course), and every Thursday night, anywhere between 12 and 20 of 'em show up for dinner on my back patio. It's a lovely way to learn new recipes, eat healthily, and socialize!

Welcome To My Pillow Factory

Like so many of the kids who attend our Sewing School camp at GSL, I love to make pillows. They're easy to whip up, they totally change the decor, and they're a great way to showcase favorite fabrics or seasonal decor. And, as the kids like to say, they're so fun to hug!

Although nowadays, I prefer to make removable pillowcases, a lot of the older pillow I have around the house are covered in layers and layers of fabric. Maybe someday some outer space archeologists are gonna land on my street and excavate my belongings -- if that scenario ever happens, they're gonna hit pay dirt with the pillows. Like the rings of a tree, the fabric choices both document and inform different stages of my life. There are the cowboy prints and 1950s barkcloth that I gravitated to in my mid-20s, the bird prints and Japanese kitsch that I loved in my 30s...



These days, I'm obsessed with ticking. I bought some bona fide heavy-duty ticking fabric at Hancock's a few months ago, and covered every bed pillow in the house in it. Most of the pillows were covered in the traditional way, but then, inspired by the decorative selvedge details on the West Elm quilt shown below, I decided to make a pillow with the selvedge on the outside. Cassius, in the picture at top, thinks it turned out great! Don't let his sweet face fool you -- he's a pillow-destroyer, as evidenced by the mountains of geese feathers I've been picking up in the backyard after he decided to rip apart a down pillow. Fortunately for both of us, he carefully removed the pillowcase first.


And lucky for me, there's a West Elm outlet just a few miles from my house, along with Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma outlets too. I scored this twin-sized quilt -- which serves as a summer-time coverlet for my denim chaise lounge (seen above, in the far left corner of my living room), for under $20. Last week, my mama was in town, and we went back and bought a king-size ticking quilt for under $40. Gotta love the silkscreened keys!

Recycled Sewing Projects

In this photo, the New Orleans Craft Mafia takes their mission to the streets -- well, actually to a festival on Bayou St. John!

According to this article from New Orleans' daily newspaper, the Times-Picayune, a team of crafters used three solar powered sewing machines to transform donated t-shirts into halter tops, patchwork skirts, and handy tote bags.

"By 3 p.m., the crafters had sewn at least 100 new creations from the donated shirts, and the line wasn't slacking," wrote the T-P's fashion editor, Susan Langenhennig. "The program had elements of both Project Runway and Molly Ringwald's homespun prom dress from the movie, Pretty In Pink."

For more recycled sewing ideas, check out the New Orleans Craft Mafia.

Pillowcase Dresses

There was a story in today's Commercial Appeal newspaper about a "sewing machine revival."

According to my fellow reporter, Sally Walker Davies, it's all because of the plummeting economy and the rise of the D-I-Y ethos. Lauren Keras, one of the Memphis sewers Davies interviewed, made these pillowcase dresses for her twin 14-month olds, Nellie and Jane. Keras used a pair of vintage pillowcases, embellished with crocheted trim, that she found at a local antique mall for $8. Go here for the full story.

Using an old -- or new -- pillowcase as the starting point for a dress or skirt is fun and easy, because most of the work is already done for you. All you have to do is trim the fabric to the desired length, fold over the material to make a casing, then sew. (If you're making a dress, you'll also need to cut armholes.) Add a drawstring or a pretty ribbon, and you have a new outfit in no time! So that's what prêt-à-porter means...

It's A Bird... A Plane... It's A Super Hero Cape!

Fittingly, Martha Stewart, the Super Hero of crafters everywhere, came up with this simple template and easy-to-follow directions for a Super Hero Cape, constructed, MacGuyver-like, from an old beach towel, a washcloth, and some reflective fabric.

Thanks, Martha! What with all the pools scheduled to open on Memorial Day weekend, the timing couldn't be more perfect.

What would your Super Hero Cape be emblazoned with? I suppose mine would have a needle and thread -- Super Sewer to the rescue!

Hold: A Felt Camera Case

I am always amazed by the level of creativity out there. For instance, I was just finishing my lunch (a bowl of cereal topped with yogurt and blueberries, if you're wondering) and browsing Modish, one of my favorite blogs, when I dropped my spoon at the sight of this post.

Apparently, Hine, a Canadian sewer who has her own Estsy storefront, hand-stitches these lovely digital camera cases, using thick Japanese wool felt, colorful cotton fabrics, and new and vintage buttons. Right now, they're going fast.

Hine's stop-motion animated video about the creative process is below. It features a sewing snail!

Oh, Matyroshka!

I have had the longest love affair with Russian nesting dolls, or Matyroshkas. I have found several different types of Matyroshka-printed fabric (look at this fabulous Heather Ross design). I like to cut out the dolls and individually sew and stuff them (last Christmas, I made Matyroshka ornaments for my favorite girls), or use the patterned material as an accent for different sewing projects.

I just discovered this super-sweet Matyroshka tooth fairy pillow. It's a project from the sewing blog goody-goody. Won't you make one for me?

And, if Matyroshkas aren't your thing, goody-goody has a free pattern for a Robot tooth fairy pillow too.

Could you sew a house?

Image from Modish; houses are purchasable via Etsy shop Wunderlust.

Could you sew a portrait?

Check out Collin, an English bloke, who I found over at Modish.

More Valentine's Day Projects

Over at Martha Stewart, there's a "Felted Heart Scarf" that can be made from discarded wool sweaters, felt, or fleece. It's a great "Wear" project for beginning sewers, who can get lots of practice with the scissors (cutting out all those hearts!) and sewing simple "x's" with embroidery thread.

The Crafty Crow has links to several great Valentine's Day projects up already, including these "Woven Hearts" (courtesy of Maya Made), which could be made from fabric or paper. Instead of gluing, you can make a treat bag by whipstitch 2 finished hearts together, leaving an opening at the top.

If you've got a younger brother or sister, you could make them a Valentine's Day Busy Book (courtesy of Lavender and Limes), which mainly involves sewing on lots and lots of buttons, and cutting out felt shapes.