Unfinished No More

I decided a few weeks ago that our back bedroom/my craft room would be Peter's new bedroom when Baby Girl comes. I also decided that since I had a bunch of leftover paint from painting Peter's room that his new room would be the same color. That means that I have moved my craft room into our office and now just have a craft area. I found a desk on craigslist for a good price that was perfect for the new craft area. Since I have move my craft supplies to a more central area I am more inclined to do something with them. 

For the past few days I have been completing previously started projects. So far I have completed: a pair of Christmas pajama pants for Peter (intended for last Christmas, they fit him perfectly right now), burp cloths, a St. Patrick's day sign, a cube pillow, a set of large wooden dice, a basket liner, a shopping cart cover, I hung my FHE board and I have started working on a Christmas present. 

There are quite a few more projects on my list to be completed including: refinishing a dining table and 6 chairs and painting 4 other chairs, two aprons, some mending, a pocket bag, a t-shirt quilt, a nap time roll with Peter's name on it, a nursing cover, decorating Peter's new room and the nursery, painting some wooden signs and frames and make and hang curtains and valance boxes (I can't think of the proper name for them right now) in the kitchen and living room.

Peter's PJ's

Modeling his PJ's and playing with his new pool at the same time

All I had to do was sew the elastic and close it up and finish the leg holes

I have two baskets exactly the same and I finished the cover for one AGES ago and cut the pieces out for the second one and never put it together.

Peter's showing what baskets are really made for

We did these at our last craft night and as an afterthought I decided to do some for Peter, he LOVES them!

The lighting is a bit weird in this picture. All I had to do to finish this was to glue the shamrock on, put the wire on and seal the paint.

A cube pillow for Andrew to watch TV on

I made a TON of these before Peter was born and got tired of sewing them with only 5 left. 

Doesn't it look so nice in our living room?

Canning

This year has really been a year of canning for me. It started back in January when the food co-op I participate in offered a case of pickling cucumbers. I thought that since I had done it with my mom when I was young I could do it by myself now. :) I did some research online and decided my course of action. The cucumbers were not as small as I would have liked but I canned them anyway. On average I was able to get 4-5 cucumbers per jar.

All my pickles minus 2 jars

The next thing I canned was salsa in February again I decided to can salsa because the food co-op offered a 20 pound box of tomatoes. I bought some roma tomatoes at the same time to supplement just in case. So I ended up making 3 varieties of salsa from the co-op tomatoes, I think they were beefsteaks, and a different variety from the romas. I got all my salsa recipes from the USDA guide to canning. Ironically the recipe made from the roma tomatoes was our favorite. 

All my salsa

Aren't they pretty?

All set up for the salsa tasting open house

Sometime in February I made blueberry lime jam with my friends Amanda and Jenelle at Amanda's house. I didn't get pictures of that but I do have my canning on display in my kitchen below and you can see the little jars of jam. I totally stole the idea of putting my canning above my cupboards from Amanda and I love how it looks and we're more likely to use it since we can see it.

So in March the co-op offered cases of apples, of course I was on a role by then I got an entire case of apples to can. I was originally going to make applesauce but the apples turned out to be granny smiths, so instead I decided to make apple pie filling. My friend Jenelle had also bought a case of apples and so together we made the apple pie filling. It turned out delicious! So far I haven't made a pie with it, but I have made many apple crisps. 

Together the two pictures below are two cases of apples turned into pie filling

Since I had done the blueberry lime jam in a group I discovered the fun of canning with people but also the advantages of multiple people canning. It's so much easier to have each person responsible for certain things in the canning process and it makes it go faster. Strawberries came on sale and Amanda and I got together and made strawberry jam and also a few batches of strawberry freezer jam. Then there was a lull in can-able produce available from the co-op. 

Then in May my friend Megan really wanted to make salsa. She had tried my salsa that I made back in February and loved it. So we got together and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning making salsa. 

So in June my friends Megan and Melony wanted to learn how to can and specifically wanted to make more salsa. Luck was on our side and the roma tomatoes were on sale again but there were also lots of berries on sale too. The week we were planning on canning the co-op offered cases of peaches for sale, so I got two. We got the peaches the Saturday we were planning on canning but they weren't quite ready so we just did salsa and strawberry jam with plans to come back on Thursday and can the peaches. 

I had bought blueberries, blackberries and strawberries and decided that since I already had blueberry jam and strawberry jam I wanted to make syrup with my berries. So Tuesday I took my blueberries and blackberries over to Amanda's house and we made my syrup. 

Thursday we got down to the business of peaches and we canned some peaches, and made pie filling, jam and syrup with the rest of the peaches. Again I forgot to take pictures of everything on the counter but all of my canning is now on display above my cupboards in my kitchen. 

I have decided that since all my cupboard space is taken up with canning, we have to eat a bunch before I'm ready to can again. Although we do want to do canned chicken next and I may have to make an exception to the space issue if we end up doing it soon. :)

Christmas Presents

I'm seriously late in posting this, but oh well. :) 

I made a spa basket for my mom for Christmas and I think that it turned out really well. I included a nail/pumice brush and a couple chocolate face masques. 

I made the basket, eye mask and the wash mitt using the tutorials from here.

The therapeutic neck wraps also came from the above tutorial. Although I used feed corn instead of rice; it's supposed to stay fresher longer and also stay hotter longer. The brown one is for my dad and the purple one is for my mom.

I had my sister McKenzie for Christmas and I made her some curlers and a shower cap but I forgot to take pictures before I sent them off. 

Old Dress is New Again!

I had asked my friend Kim for suggestions on how to fix my dress disaster and after I decided to go to Washington for my cousin's wedding I figured that I would just take the dress with me and have her help me in person. That's exactly what I did!

After the middle picture was taken I took the collar off and took the dress in in the sleeves and on the sides. So it looked better but not as good as it does in the bottom picture.

I still need to make a 2" sash to be the belt but otherwise it's done.

Before

After & Before

Semi-Final After
(Just imagine the white around the waist 1" wider)

Peter's Dragon Costume

Weeks before Halloween I decided that I was going to make Peter's costume and he was going to be a dragon. I used a sleeper pajama pattern and modified it to make it a dragon. At first I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do it so I mailed the fleece and the pattern to WA so I could work on it with my Mom while I was up there. We actually finished it just in time to go trick or treating with my friend Kim. The glue on the googly eyes was still drying so they actually came off while we were trick or treating luckily Kim had super glue at her house so I was able to glue the eyes back on before we headed over to my Mom's church Halloween party.

I used green, brown and white anti-pill fleece. The green was bought specifically for the dragon costume and the brown was a remnant @ JoAnn's and the white was scraps from a previous project. My friend Kim had some spare bumpy fabric for the bottom of the feet and it still needs snaps over the zipper and the base of the hood. My mom had this spool of stay stiff fabric stuff that we sandwiched inside the toes and the spines on the back.

There was very little modification needed to make the dragon. I left out the elastic around the ankle and added the hood, the spines, the tail and the toes and that's it. We did have some major brain farts when it came to sewing the spines on though. We sewed the spines on first and then sewed the pieces together and we had issues remembering which way they needed to go to poke out when turned right side out. :)

I think that it would have been finished faster if I had just sat down and done it but there were multiple interruptions including a day of me and an awful sinus headache. Otherwise it was quick and easy.

I need to put it back on him and take some better pictures; I'm thinking some of him standing on his own and also crawling around in it.

Front

Back with hood

My ferocious dragon

Check out that awesome tail!

Peter's Pumpkin Bag

A few months ago I went searching for craft ideas that use orange fleece. I have extra from a previous halloween costume that I want to use up. I found this pattern/tutorial for a pumpkin bag online, but the link doesn't work anymore. Thank goodness I printed it out. :)


Basically it said to find a picture of a pumpkin that you like and blow it up to get your pattern. I printed out half of the pumpkin onto a regular piece of paper and jut put it on the fold to cut the fabric.

I used the shape of this pumpkin.

And I used the mouth of this pumpkin.

The bag is the orange fleece and the lining is halloween cotton fabric. The tutorial said that you needed cotton batting but wasn't specific on where it went so I sandwiched it between the fleece and the cotton. I also lined the cotton with interfacing so that it would be stiffer and stand up & stay open on its own. The eyes and mouth are felt and I used some craft spray adhesive to put them on and then I used a satin stitch to keep them in place. I also used a satin stitch to make the pumpkin lines.

The handle is one strand of fleece braided together with two strands of cotton. I used large grommets to reinforce around the holes for the handle.

The original tutorial made a bag that was just a front & back but no bottom. I made my own "pattern" for the bottom & just winged it. It also had bats & leaves and such decorating the top of the bag, but I'm not sure I'm going to add those.

Here's the finished product.




There are a few things that I would do differently:

• I would choose a rounder pumpkin picture.
  
• I would attach the interfacing to the fleece and leave out the batting.
• I would sew on the pumpkin lines on just the fleece.
  
• I would sew on the face BEFORE I sew the bag together.
  
• I would try not to break 3 needles.

Old Dress, New Dress

I made this dress in high school and I decided that since it doesn't fit anymore, I would take the fabric and make a new dress out of it... So I did. :)

The original dress.

Me wearing the dress at EFY

Again me wearing the dress at EFY

I followed this pattern and this is how it turned out:

It looks better on the hanger.

It's doing a weird bubble thing at the neckline and it has a bit of a moo moo feel to it.

It still needs some work/tailoring but otherwise it's done. I'm not totally happy with the way it looks on me but in general I think it looks alright. I am happy with the length and the way the sleeves look. The neckline is higher than I was expecting so I'm going to do some adjusting there which should also fix the bubble that's going on. I need more definition in the waist but I'm not sure how I'm going to do that. I'm thinking of some sort of a white band or a scarf that ties to cinch it in at the waist. A scarf would be easier but I'm not sure how it would look. The skirt has too much volume so I'm going to take it in at the sides to fix that.

So what do you think? Any suggestions? Kim?

Lauren's Baby Stuff

My friend Lauren commissioned me to sew some baby paraphernalia for her because she liked what I did for Peter's nursery. She has a blanket that her husband's grandmother crocheted for them for their wedding and she wanted the colors of the blanket to be the colors for her nursery. We went up to JoAnn's and found fabric and all the bits and bobs for the two quilts and two nursing pillow covers. She actually asked me a few months ago and then I went on two vacations and it took me a bit of time to get back into the swing of sewing again. And then I got the invitation to her baby shower and decided that that was going to be my personal deadline. The shower was held on September 19th and I made my deadline. Hurray!!!

I used this picture as a status report to Lauren when I got home from my first trip

1st nursing pillow cover on my pillow.

2nd nursing pillow cover on my pillow.

Unfinished layout of quilt #1. I did finish the quilt I just forgot to take a picture of the finished product.

After seeing the above design Lauren questioned what happened to the blue fabric. I said all that white you see is actually blue. I ended up going back to JoAnn's on my own and found the new blue fabric. It looks much better.

This picture was used to determine white or gray yarn to tie the quilt (white it is). I used pictures on facebook a lot to get opinions and decisions made about the quilts.

Finished quilt #2.

A view of the back against the front. The same backing fleece was used for both quilts.

Punk Nursing Covers

My friend Lauren is expecting a girl in November and she had her baby shower on Saturday. I made her these punk nursing covers. A while back she mentioned that there aren't enough punk baby clothes and so I decided that I would look for some punk fabric to make something for the baby. I saw these two patterns and I just knew that they were perfect for her. The funny thing is she's not a pink kind of girl but I saw the pink skulls and crossbones figured she would be okay with this pink. :) I used this awesome tutorial to make these.