Woodland Animal Fabric Basket

I made this basket for the Crafty Detective Swap on Craftster, and I have to say that I had a hard time letting it go! I love the owl and deer fabric! I might be making another one for myself.

With some Laura Gunn (my fave designer!) Painter's Canvas on the inside, it's a fun stash builder since it's a bit more interesting than a solid and comes in great colors.

I like the quilting I did on this one, I stitched on each side of the patchwork lines at the top (one walking foot-width away from the line) and then through the middle section. I like the additional quilting lines through the solid color at the bottom, I think it adds some nice visual interest and texture.

The wonderful tutorial is found here:

http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html

She says to use "fleece batting" but I just use my normal low-loft quilt batting. I do recommend actually also using a layer of medium to heavy weight interfacing with the lining, I normally do and I did not in this instance and it was a tad flimsier than I would like. I also top stitch around the top of the basket after pressing the lining to the inside to get a nice line (make sure the handles are up!) as a very last step. (I guess she does have you do this, but it's kind of easy to miss in the tutorial).

When I previously made this I made larger sizes also, and recorded the measurements in this post if you want to do the same:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=381759.0#axzz2OxSOPPDj

Christmas Tree Advent Calendar

This is an Advent Calendar I made last year in a Craftster Swap I organized.

I made this Advent Calendar for my partner in the 2011 Advent Calendar Swap! (If you click "show images only," you can quickly see all the great advent calendars and gifts made in this swap!) My partner said her color scheme for her tree is purple, pink, light blue, and bright green so those are the colors I used for the ornaments.

Here is the base of the tree. I made a half tree template out of poster board and then cut out two on the fold of the green fabric (which was a new Ikea sheet that I had used part of in a different project). I cut the bottom so that there was a 6 inch piece in the middle that jutted out 1/4 inch so I could sew the tree trunk onto it. I had the awesome faux wood fabric from kittykill that I've used in  a few projects. After sewing the trunk onto each side I sandwiched it inside out with a piece of batting in the middle and stitched around. I put a hanging loop in the top of it before I stitched.

After turning the tree right side out I top stitched (edge stitched?) all the way around the outside, including the turning hole. I placed my ornaments on the tree and marked an x where I wanted to put the velcro. Then I stitched the rough side of the velcro on and was done with that part!

For the ornaments I cut out one circle with my pinking shears from felt and one circle with pinking shears from patterned cotton material. I stitched the loopy side of the velcro onto the back of the felt and then folded the cotton circle, wrong sides together, and placed it at the bottom of the felt circle. I zigzag stitched around just the bottom half of the circle, so the folded part of the circle became a pocket. Then I stitched a bit of twill tape onto the top to look like an ornament hanger and wrote the day on it.

Oh yeah, I had only put a hanger on the top to begin with, so I added hangers onto each point of the tree because they were flip-flopping around. But I did it with a dumb color of thread so I ended up covering the stitching from that on the front with cute buttons!

Hopefully it's fun to decorate the tree a little bit more each day!

Ouch Pouch

 I recently made this Ouch Pouch for a secret santa swap after seeing this one on my friend's Pinterest.

I made a basic pouch using the Straight Sided Triangular Cosmetic Bag Tutorial from Craftster and just made it a bit wider and taller.

Before stitching in the zipper, I quilted the outside pieces to pieces of batting in a square spiral pattern. Then I made some templates for my letters, cut them out, and used some Wonder Under to attach them. Then I stitched around the raw edges and completed the bag.


I had to stuff it with some goodies to be a good Ouch Pouch, right? My friend does martial arts and her pin mentioned that she would like one of these to take with her to her classes.


I put in lip balm, hand cream, aloe vera gel, bandaids, alcohol wipes, antibacterial cream, hand sanitizer gel, tissues, ibuprofen, and lip balm.

Crafting and Dieting!

My mom and I are eating healthy via the Flat Belly Diet! After an initial 4 day "Jump Start" of 1200 calorie days to de-bloat and get the salt out of our system, we're both down 4 pounds. Even though that's probably mostly water weight, that's ok!

Besides being low-salt, this way of eating is kind of Mediteranean based. The focus is having a MUFA (mono-unsaturated fatty acid) with every meal or snack to get a healthy fat in that provides a feeling of fullness. Yummy things like avocadoes, nuts, seeds, olive and canola oil, and olives are all required!

I realized that I need to get my crafting into high gear. I have a swap to go out Oct 30th that I have, oops, two different partners for! Today I think I just finalized what I am sending. Luckily each one is only 2 mediums and a small, so I should be able to take care of that, as long as I get started soon. Some of the projects are crochet, so if I meet up with the Portland Crafty Vixens tomorrow I will have a portable project to take along! No details yet since I don't want to spoil the surprise if my swap partners are stalking me!

My friend Kim shared some awesome patterns with me for toddler pants, so Sandora and I whipped up 3 pairs the other day for the boys. We have a bunch more fabric to make into pajama pants but wanted to get it right before we cut out too many of them. They turned out really well except Dane and Aidan's are a wee bit low rise! Oops. Oh well, I already adjust my home made pattern pieces for next time! Although when I saw Dane last night he looked inches taller than the last time I had seen him (a week ago!) He can now reach on top of the tv, as demonstrated by his ability to bring the remote to grandma! I'm going to measure him carefully before I finish any more pants for him, don't want to dress the poor kid in high waters!

Serger Breakthrough

Today I had a breakthrough~I finally got my serger threaded! I have only had it for like 6years, but every time I tried to thread it I wanted to cry, it was so frustrating!

I have been doing a little sewing lately, a few pouches for swaps, and I need to sew a big U shaped pillow for the boys' bunk bed.

After a 4 month swapping hiatus I am back on with several, two of which I am ready to send out and another that I am organizing. Sometimes it seems like a lot of pressure, but other times it is good to have something to work on and keep me going.

I'd like to take a beginning quilting class, but the dates aren't jibing up for me this month. Also this is a bad time, money-wise.

Projects:

Ninja Turtle Outfits (started)

U Pillow (materials bought)

____ for Friends Swap )1/3 done

Soap for upcoming IYP swap--2 partners (need coconut oil)

Curtains for birthday swap (need material)

Sex-ay Wallets and other swaps

Well I finished the garden scarf and the one skein scarf for the following month. I still haven't completed the crochet hook roll (well I finished it, but it is messed up, I need to re-do it) or the clutch. I've been doing a lot of sewing lately. I made these wallets out of paperback novel covers, I found a tutorial on Craftster and modified it slightly.




Also I made a purse and goodies for a purse swap on craftster. I had quite a bit of trouble with it, I hadn't sewed from a pattern in years, and now I remember that I hate Butterick patterns. It's lined in a green/brown silky fabric and closes with a magnetic snap. I also did a crocheted journal cover with room to hold a pen on the spine area with vintage ribbon to hold it closed, a crocheted roller skate key chain that I made up the pattern for (my partner liked roller derby), and a crocheted bookmark.