A couple of projects

My son came home after school on Monday with the request that we get his teacher a birthday gift. Her birthday was that day so he was feeling urgency to get it done.

He wanted initially to go purchase something and I didn't really feel like wandering around the store looking for an appropriate gift. So since I knew she liked tea, (as in really really likes tea and makes it during class all the time) I thought I could whip together a mug rug and send that. I let my son pick out some charms to use. Then he left for scouts and I sewed it up. I didn't bind it, just quilted one side to the batting, sewed the 2 sides right sides together and turned them right side out. I quilted the other side in a couple of places to secure it. It is a little cockeyed because while I sewed the seams straight, I had cut the fabric crooked. :) Oh well.

 We ended up at the store anyway, to supplement the mug rug with some tea and a stirring spoon and my son bought her a chocolate bar with his allowance.
He picked a card from my stash and wrote her a note and I packaged it up in a cello bag with a topper that matched the card.
He was very pleased with it, although he nearly left without it the next morning, which would have been slightly annoying after the rush rush rush to get it done.
And she seemed to like it.


I have also been itching to get a case made for my tablet. It is hard to find cases for the Nexus 7, which is what I have. I perused tutorials for a few days and decided to just create my own using bits and parts of other people's tutes. It fit the tablet perfectly, just needs a couple of tweaks to make it just right. is I meant to make a long strap to close it that wold also hold it open and upright. But I totally forgot and just attached Velcro to the overlap. There is not enough Velcro and the overlap needs to be about an  inch bigger so it won't pop up. Also, there's pocket where I inserted cardboard to make it stiff for standing up and also for holding it like a book. Well that pocket is just about 1/8 inch too big and too close to the other pocket. It gets folded up when it is closed. You can kind of see where it gets pinched in the photo. Also, 2 of the elastics need to be a smidge shorter. They cover the power button and if it is turned the other way, it covers part of the screen that I need to be able to touch.

That said, for a project with no real pattern, the fact that I got that close to what I intended amazes me. I'm not so hot with math. :)

Fun and Easy Gift: Pop Top Surprise!

I have made these cans many times for many reasons and they make fun Christmas gifts for teachers, neighbors, and friends. I made these last year, but wanted to share again. The tutorial is here. Just change the papers and embellishments to suit the occasion.

Enjoy!

A few more scarves

Here is the latest round of infinity scarves (*update* the tutorial blog is now private) that I am making for Christmas gifts. There are actually 6 - 2 of each fabric, since that is how many I can get out of 1 1/2 - 2 yards of fabric. The greenish blue is Odds and Ends by Julie Comstock of Cosmo Cricket from Moda, the stripe is Amy  Butler's Midwest Modern, and the coral pink is Silent Cinema by Jenean Morrison from Free Spirit

 These fabrics were approved by the mom of the recipients. I took photos of potential fabrics at the Fat Quarters Quilt Shop (thanks to them for their allowing me to do that) and emailed them to her. She picked ones the girls would like and that is what I bought. I am going to give the second set to my kids' teachers for Christmas. I have a couple more to make for Christmas gifts with some more Little Black Dress (in taupe) yardage I got from Burgundy Buttons during their sale. Then I think I am done with scarves.

A little of this and that

I have been working on a few things here and there and also had a couple of things I have been meaning to post, but have not gotten around to it, so this is a catch-all/catch-up post.

First was a little clarification on the part that I broke on my sewing machine. This is the spool pin. The one on the left is the new one. Obviously the one on the right is the old (broken) one. The new one is very tight in the hole and I am afraid of breaking it again when I pull it out to put the machine away.

This is how the spool pin sits in the machine.

A little sewing tip from my smarty mother in law. Put those empty tissue boxes to work as your sewing space trash can!

Last week a friend agreed to come sew with me, if I would teach her something to make. I decided to make another skirt like this one.

The night before I thought I had better refresh my memory on how to make them, so I made one using my husband's dress shirt that got a hole in the pocket. Silly me did not photograph the process, but I just buttoned up the shirt, cut across it (I cut off the shirttails and under the pocket) to make a tube, and sewed the button strip shut. Then I measured to get the right length, did a little trim, and then did the hem and waistband as directed in the tutorial. So easy!
Littlest Miss saw it the next morning and said "Mommy! You make me a pretty skirt!!". Of course, she had to wear it so I had to go get the butterfly skirt to use for our reference sample.

Just a pretty flower. :)

I have a couple of friends who need a baby gift from me, so yesterday this is what I worked on. I was all set to use my new gathering foot and it would not attach to my machine. I guess the shop picked out the wrong one for me. One of these days I will go exchange it. I did the ribbon the old fashioned way, with basting and gathering. I was going to put a ribbon rose on it, but after thinking about how much I take mine in and out of my bag, decided not to. It probably wouldn't stay on long.

Diaper & wipes clutch: Sew Mama Sew

This week, supposedly, is teacher appreciation week. The kids' schools/PTAs gave no indication of such an event, so I took it upon myself to say thanks. Another blogger posted this idea (http://ourlifeinaclick.blogspot.com/2010/06/teacher-gifts-part-1.html) so I ran with it. The tags were printed from anther blog (http://lisastorms.typepad.com/lisa-storms/2011/05/teacher-appreciation-week-part-3.html) where she used no spill cups, but the only ones I could find were $12-$15 each, which seemed a little crazy to me.  So we went with the $7 drink jugs and some Crystal Light lemonade mix and a shaped ice cube tray. Less than $10 each. Yay! The tags said "Thank you for quenching my thirst for knowledge."  I just hope they don't get a bunch of them. Pinterest is a wonderful place but everyone seems to hit the same popular ideas. I got them off blogs, but you know they had to have been pinned a bunch. :P
Anyway, the feedback from 2 of 3 teachers was good, so it works.

And last, is the gift that I gave my mom and sisters, that I think I have forgotten to post since February. I have a friend who made me this super cool and beautiful book mark for my birthday last year. She agreed to make 3 for me for a very reasonable price and I gave them to the girls in my family for their birthdays this year.

 

WIP Wednesday

Edit: I am un-linking from the WIP Wed, cause I didn't really follow the rules. I will do better next week! But still go see what everyone else is doing!

While I haven't actually worked on my usual WIPs I got a fair amount of sewing done. Most of it I have already talked about.

Teacher gifts: tote bags filled with teacher-y goodies. I made 3. Two green and one red.

Hats/Vests: look how much "hair" those things left on my workspace (and me). This was after 2 cleanups and this is from just one hat.

A baby quilt for shower # 1. This is a quilt as you go strip quilt.  A fairly quick project if you need a gift in hurry as I did. I think I figured out, when all was said and done it was about 9-10 hours of work, from cutting to photo shoot.

These I made yesterday for Shower #2. The matching diaper clutch and changing pad. There is still a burp cloth or two in the works, but if they don't get done, I won't come empty handed. :) (Click here for tute).
I really enjoy making these. They are so useful! I use my clutch all the time, now that I don't need to carry a diaper bag. I need to make one to keep in the car. The only thing is that this time I did ties instead of elastic and as you can see the 12 inches called for in the tute was not enough. I can barely tie them. So next time, at least 16 inches I think, then I can cut them shorter if needed.

 This is one of my regular WIPs. The poor Supernova. Yes, it is still mostly fat quarters and things are even beginning to get put on top of it. It makes me so sad to see it like this, but I just have not had time to work on it.



This is not really a WIP, just a funny thing my daughter was doing while I sewed yesterday.  I have a bucket of markers on the half wall that separates my dining room and living room. She climbed up on the storage bin and would take the markers out, dump them on the bin and then put them back in. She lasted 15 minutes, until she heard me turn on the iPhone video camera. :)

click photo to enlarge

And completely and utterly unrelated to WIPs...

This morning, while writing this post, my 6 year old son helped himself to some ketchup on his scrambled eggs. About a cup of ketchup. On 2 eggs. I was a little ticked at first and scolded him pretty good, which made him cry, which made me think, okay self, it's only ketchup. So I apologized.
I scraped some of it into a cup for him to use tomorrow. YUCK.