Snappy Bag/Measuring Tape Bag

These bags are awesome! You can find the tutorial here. I made one for Brandon's cars to keep in our church bag. It's awesome. Then I made a whole bunch more! You can make them any size and can keep all kinds of stuff in them. Chapstick, keys, change, tampons, bobby pins and a comb, sunglasses, sewing stuff, etc.

Christmas Stockings....again

So, last time I made Christmas stockings was before I had Pinterest. The more cute pins I saw of Christmas stockings and the more times we've used our stockings the more I wanted to re-do them. If you know me at all, you know that I research and research and research before I do anything. I want to make sure I've been exposed to all of my options before making a decision. It's so hard being a Type 2.

I found the perfect shaped and sized stocking I wanted. (Find here) Our old ones were just too small to hold anything. I know, I know. The bigger the stocking the more stuff you have to fill it with. Whatever. This turned out being harder than I was expecting. Not because they were hard to make but because of my own doing. At first I felt that the stockings would be too big. So I trimmed them down 1/4 inch. Got them sewn together and it looked weird and they ended up being too small. I'm so dumb. Back to the fabric store. But it ended up working out just fine because after doing the first set I knew more of what I wanted. It's so hard being a Type 2.

So here they are. *12/24/13 I just finished putting the names on. When you're using Heat 'n Bond, make sure you turn the steam off on your iron. I had not been doing that and it was making me so frustrated that it wasn't cutting well on my Cricut. I love how they turned out! It feels like Christmas now!

A few tips:
1. I found that felt worked as a good, cheap batting.
2. I made my accent piece 1.5" wide instead of 2".
3. The inner lining doesn't get turned right side out and was too big to slip inside the stocking. I sewed a 1/2" seam instead of 1/4" and trimmed off the excess.

Cheesecloth Ghost

Such a fun project! Halloween isn't my favorite holiday but I can still decorate my house with cute stuff, right? I remember my mom having a ghost decoration that she would hang from the ceiling. So fun and cute. I remembered that ghost when I saw this tutorial for a cheesecloth ghost.

It was simple enough. She uses cornstarch mixture to make them but you can also buy liquid starch. I feel like the cornstarch mixture was great for making just the 2 ghosts that I did BUT it got really chunky and so there are chunks of dried cornstarch all over my ghosts. The liquid starch would have made them look prettier but I would never use the rest of that huge bottle for anything else.

I found the cheese cloth in the fabric section. I got 4 yards and used two pieces for each ghost. I have a little bit left over.

I used a tall cup and a small balloon as my mold for these ghosts. The balloon was great because when they were dry I just popped the balloon and it peeled away from the cheesecloth. My ghosts took 2 days to dry and then I glued on two felt eyes on each of them.

So, here ya go!

Dolly Diapers, Wipes and Diaper Bag

Katy's birthday is coming up and we want her to have her own girly toys. She's been sharing Brandon's boy toys and, while she can have fun with anything, her feminine nature is coming through and she needs girl stuff.

I decided to make her pretend diapers and wipes for her babies. And a little diaper bag to keep it all in.

I found a few tutorials that were all great. This one has the diaper pattern. This one has the wipes tutorial. And this one has directions for a tote bag.

I will do my best to put it all in one place here.

First of all, I bought 1/8 yard of fabric. (5 pieces of fabric for about $3) Cut it in half and sew the two pieces together, lengthwise. Press open.

 Using the diaper pattern, I made it a full sized pattern instead of the half that you cut out on a fold. I traced it onto an old sheet, nice and soft.

Pin right sides together and sew directly on the line.

Cut out, leaving a 1/4 inch edge trim corners and clip curves.

Turn right side out and press.

Top stitch. I sewed as close the edge as possible.

Sew on velcro and put that cute little diaper on a doll!

 Wipes
The same blog had a tutorial for dolly wipes. I used some left over felt and it took less than an hour to do this one. I used hot glue to attach the hearts. Oh, with this one I felt like the flap was a little small so I made it the same size as the wipes and it works great.

Diaper Bag
I found a super simple tutorial  for a little tote bag. My bag is 12"x9." She had a great little tip for making perfect square corners. So smart!!

I used some scrap pieces of curtains from Katy's room. Nice and sturdy. And pink!

 

 I added a little pocket on the side for a bottle.

Everything fits in perfectly! Yay!!

This was such a fun project and I can't wait for her to play with it!!

Felt Board Stories

I finally finished my felt board stories! It was a bit more work than I was expecting. They turned out so great though! Totally worth it.

Where would I be without Pinterest? Things are so easy to find and I just love it. I found a blog called Chocolate on my Cranium that had all the LDS felt/flannel board stories all in one place. Her stories, though, are all colored, which would have been great to just print and be done but I didn't want to use up all our printer ink. So, when you open up each story there should be a reference for which issue of Friend it came from. I found them all the black and white versions on the church website here. Yes, I had to color them all with crayons. But I liked having more control over what color all the images were. I printed everything on white cardstock.

After that, I had to cut them all out and laminate them. This is what I used to laminate. You can get it at Wal Mart.

Then cut them out again and hot glue them to felt....and cut them out again. Lots of cutting!

I keep all the pieces and the story together in a big envelope.

 
Here's a couple others I've done.

 
 I labeled all the big envelopes so they're easy to find. I haven't figured out where to store these yet .

Binding

I've always wanted to know how to make binding. Bias tape is great but they're only in plain colors and sometimes you want a little something extra for the binding. Thanks to my mom for helping me put this blanket together for Brandon!

I found two tutorials that were very helpful here and here. Now that I've given them credit, I'm going to combine the two tutorials here for my own sake.

Making the binding
First, I cut my fabric into 2.25" strips. (I wish I had a rotary cutter!!)

Take one end of each strip and cut it at a 45 degree angle. (I did this by measuring 2.25" from the end and drawing a line from there to the top corner.)

Line the ends up, right sides facing, allowing for a 1/4" overlap.  Note the asterisk markings for your beginning and ending stitch line.

Using a short stitch length of 2 or less, stitch 1/4" seam.  

 Clip excess.

 Press open

Continue until you have attached them all (or as many as needed).
Then you need to press then entire strip evenly in half like this:

Attaching the binding: 
It's helpful to lay the binding all around the perimeter of the quilt, ensuring that no binding seams fall where you will be mitering corners.  It's not the end of the world if that happens, but avoiding it will make smooth even binding.
Leaving an 8" tail, line up the binding's raw edge with the outer raw edge of the quilt using a 1/4 inch seam\

Stop 1/4" from the corner. be precise here.. mark it if you have to... it'll make things perfect.

Fold binding over itself 90 degrees...

basically opposite of where you want to sew it to next.

Then fold it back to look like this.

 

Then turn the quilt and stitch again at a 1/4 inch seam from the top edge, all the way down until you are 1/4 inch shy of the next end.  Repeat.  You just mitered your binding.  EASY.

 

Joining Binding:
When you are about 12 inches away from where you started, stitch off.  You should have 2 tails like this.

You cut off tail 1 not any shorter than the half way point between the two tails (6 inches)

Now lay tail 1 on top of tail 2 and mark tail 2 with a pin or marking device right where tail 1 ends.

Mark a vertical line exactly two inches (or the width of your open binding strip) longer, to the left of the pin on tail 2.  Cut vertically there.  This will create an overlap identical to the width of the actual strips when they are open. 

 In order to connect the tail ends, you will need to bunch up the quilt for ease. With right sides facing, match up the front corner of tail 1 with the back corner of tail 2.  The asterisk in the diagram marks the matched corner.  Pin.

Draw a diagonal line as your guide, from unmatched corner to unmatched corner.  Stitch along this line with the pin to the right.

 Clip off the pinned corner, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Press seam open.

Now you can continue stitching the binding on at 1/4 inch seam.  Just overlap from where you left off.

The binding should lay perfectly flat on the quilt.

Now look what happens when you press all the binding back!

  

Both of these tutorials used handstitching to attach the binding to the other side of the quilt. I always feel like machine stiching is so much more secure, but the stitching does show through on the other side. So, it's up to you. I chose to use my machine. But to make the corners after folding the binding over, just do a little tucking and folding to make it look right.

So there ya go! Hope it helps. I will be referring to this for my next blanket project!