Ready, Set, Go! Pillow Cover!!!
A few years ago, we purchased three triangle pillows for a few different sleep issues. Then we had kids, and well these things are so popular. The kids love rolling on them, falling on them and just laying on them. We now have two in our bedroom and the third one is for the kids to play on. Back when we bought them, the pillow covers that came with them were not terribly attractive, a light blue, ill fitting and just not a very good quality fabric. These covers were $10 each too. I remember being pretty upset that I needed to spend an additional $30 on these awful covers but it was better then nothing.
I really needed to do something about the covers. Last year I received some wonderful fabric from the line Ready, Set, Go! designed by Ann Kelle. I wasn’t exactly sure what I would want to do with it, but finally decided to use it for covering the pillow.
I didn’t have quite enough fabric to do the entire pillow in it, so I paired it with some Kona Cotton in Chocolate and Palm.
The side view really shows how nicely the colors go together.
The original cover had a zipper on the backside. Instead of doing any kind of closure I just overlaped the fabric and serged the edges. It will be easy to take on and off for washings. I like the way the serged edge looks on this as well. I debated finishing it but I think it leaves a playful look to it.
I really love the way the cover turned out and better yet, it’s one thing crossed off my to do list. That’s pretty darn satisfying! Thanks to my husband who has been working really hard on an upcoming deadline for work, for giving me the time tonight to make the cover. Sometimes a Mama needs some creative time. Thanks babe!
Valentine’s Wreath and Christmas Wreath
Happy Valentine’s Day all!
Long time no post eh? Well it turns out, my son turned about 10.5 months in November and my time to sew went straight downhill. That seems to be the magic number for this gal. Now that my daughter is 3 and my son is now 13 months, I hope and hope and hope and hope that I will get more time to sew, but my priority and my choice is family. That’s okay too. There’s always time.
Just so you all know who’s been causing my sewing wows… Here he is. Ben at 13 months. When he’s in the mood, he knows he’s got me. Love him.
Anyway, I have managed to make two wreaths in the last few months. I credit the fact that I bought everything to make them when I did my Halloween Wreath back in September. You may remember it. If not here it is again in all of it’s glory.
For Christmas I made a Green, Red and White wreath. I was afraid it would look to Italian but it turned out quite nice. I picked up the sign for $1.99 at our local party supply store Everything Party. Personally my favorite party supply store ever. The ribbon was on a package last year and I saved it. It really does look like it was made for it. UPDATE: I realize now after uploading the picture, that the bow is missing from this wreath. I must have taken this picture prior to adding it and now it’s put away. If I get a chance to take it out, I’ll repost with the correct picture.
Next up, I made a Valentine’s Day wreath. My daughter’s princess party was a few weeks ago so having a pink wreath up to decorate was an extra bonus to this wreath. The baubles decorating it are from Ben Franklin. They were 80% off in the Christmas Clearance section and just perfect for it. I then found the hanging heart at Target. I can’t believe I found it. I had just about given up on finding a heart I could hang when I passed by it in the dollar section. It’s originally red, but I just covered it with glue and pretty pink glitter and it works perfectly!
Remember to check out the original post and instructions by Kindred Spirit Mommy if you’d like to make one of your own. She also lists the supplier that I also used for the tulle.
I couldn’t possibly put a picture of my son up without one of my daughter. Here she is painting Valentine’s Day Cookies for her school party last week.
Check out the concentration at 3 years old too! I think I have a crafter on my hands!!!
Thanks for visiting Anne Made!
214 Balloons Later
I have a balloon wreath. Just in time for my daughter’s pink birthday.
Or two and a half months early. Is it really ever to early?
My daughter, Tesla, turns 3 at the end of January. She has been talking about her birthday for the last two months. It doesn’t help that we have a birthday party to go to almost every weekend. Every time we have any cake at all or cupcakes in the house we sing happy birthday. It’s getting a bit infectious. I have been pinning away on Pinterest for ideas. You can check out my party ideas here. The balloon wreath above was found on Pinterest.
You can find the tutorial on how to make this awesome wreath on the How Does She blog.
The one that inspired mine can be found here.
I still need to get a T to hang in the middle, but I think I have time. You are going to be hearing a bit about Tesla’s upcoming party, it’s going to be pink and have chocolate cake with icing according to Tesla. It’s been really fun to think about, I love having a little girl to do all the girly things that I love doing.
The Love of Sewing Retreat with Martha Pullen
Last week I went to the Love of Sewing Retreat with Martha Pullen. It was hosted by BabyLock and our local Quality Sewing and Vaccuum. There was the typical heavy selling of the sewing machines and sergers, but it was also a lot of fun and I learned a lot of great techniques. If you’re going to buy one of these high end machines this is definitely the place to go for it. I really wish I was in the market for one but it’s just out of our price range right now.
The machines we used were the:
- BabyLock Ellisimo Gold
- BabyLock Evolution
- BabyLock Symphony
- BabyLock Sashiko
They were all fantastic machines. If I had endless amounts of money or $12,000 I would have everyone but the Sashiko right now. The Sashiko is meant to create the look of hand done stitches without actually having to do them by hand. To me, that’s just sloppy. (To be fair it wasn’t actually sloppy, every stitch was even but it’s just not what I am into. I like the look of machine sewing, I like the perfection.
The projects:
We made this beautiful Heirloom pillow using the Evolution. It was such a smooth machine to work on. We were able to so easily switch threads and settings. I love the pintucks that were created with it to make those three pink lines on either side. We also used Wondertape to apply the ruffle with the serger. That was such an awesome thing to learn. I always had wondered how you serged something that needed to be pinned. It’s great that I can just tape it down and it’ll just wash away!
This evening bag was made with the Symphony and the Sashiko. This was made with a Silk Dupioni.
The side below is sewn with the Sashiko. It’s basically free hand stitching but in a circular motion or a smily face as they kept referring to it.
The side below is made with the Symphony. The Symphony was a wonderful machine so smooth and easy to use. It worked really nicely with this thicker thread. I can’t seem to find what the “stabilizer” we used was called but, basically we sewed cross hatches then steamed it to make the material on the back shrink which caused it to make this texture. I’ll keep searching for what it’s actually called.
Here are pictures of the bag all cinched up.
We also made this pincushion using the Ellisimo. What a beautiful machine. We used the circular attachment to sew in a circle and attach the spaghetti piping and trim. So easy! It was also really nice that we could just leave the embroidery arm on while we sewed. How nice is that.
After the pincushion was complete we made a this pouch completely in the hoop. I had done this before in the Anita Gooddesign retreat I went to. I actually think I like it the way I do it better but this was fine.
We also made this thread catcher. This is so pretty, I really like it. The part with the pockets hang off the table while the flat part sits under the machine. This sits perfectly under my serger and will be nice to have all the tools sitting in it’s pockets. We made this using the Evolution and the Sofia. (I didn’t mention the Sofia earlier it’s just a basic sewing machine. Worked well but unremarkable.)
I really enjoyed the retreat. I met some lovely ladies. Holly, a new friend, and I had a real blast. She and I seemed to be the fastest sewers so we were competing with each other a bit. She was a hoot. She owns a company by the name of Beer Belly Embroidery. How funny is that? Hopefully she’ll go to Sew Expo with me, I think we’d really have fun. I also met Nikki who lives up in Darrington. She was also super nice and I got her contact info. There was one lady there Cindy that I didn’t get her contact info, but I also really liked her. By the end of the retreat I was so ready to go spend time with my family that I left a bit early.
It was also so nice to meet Martha Pullen. I had not realized she was the Martha from Sewing with Martha. The first day, Holly and I sat down with her and her husband for lunch and we’re chatting away. She’s from Alabama and just so friendly. Anyway we’re sitting there talking to her and she mentions something about being on the show and then all of a sudden I realized she’s Martha from Sewing with Martha, then I realized all the teachers are on that show too. Man, I am such an idiot sometimes. I just never had the chance to really look everything up before. It’s okay though, I probably would have been really star struck and instead it was just so pleasant.
Well that’s it for now.I had a great time. I’d recommend everything from the Martha Pullen company. Beautiful fabrics, lace and materials. The BabyLocks’s are obviously wonderful machines but I’d still probably get the Brother Quattro. I just love that one.
Thanks for visiting Anne Made. Leave me a comment, I love everything you say!
Bootilicious!
I am so excited. I finally made a pair of baby booties. Just in time for the winter. Let me back up a bit. A friend had asked me to make some booties back in the summer. I attempted to make them and I just could not get the construction correct. Well this time something clicked and I finally got it right. I had been looking for a tutorial online but couldn’t find booties that were what I wanted. I really wanted a snap closure and it seemed all the tutorials were for booties that were tight around the ankle just with elastic. Well I don’t know about you but it seemed like if it were my feet the tops of my ankle would get cold. So I tried again tonight. The first time I made them they didn’t close and when my son wore them they feel off his feet. I blame it on the lack of snap closure. I thought about it a few hours more and figured it out, voila a snap closure. Of course he’s already in bed so there’s no way I can try them on him, but I thought, I’ll write a blog post and share it with all of you! (Don’t you feel special?)
Here they are in all their bootiliciousness. I could have taken better pictures and brushed off the lint but then I can’t turn back time.
I used a blue minky dot and a the Circles by Bliss flannel. The inside sole is also lined with the flannel.
Cute right? I’ll try to update with a picture of my Mister Man wearing them.
LTTSA: An Apron For Tesla
Sigh… I finished the apron. Man sometimes it is just exhausting trying to do one thing. Well this is the third installment of the Little Things to Sew Along hosted by A Little Gray. Luckily the apron was a simple sew so I managed to finish it today around 5pm, just in time to make dinner. I just knew that Miss Tesla was not going to be willing to model it well for me so I took some pictures of it without her in it first then some lovely pouty pictures after. (She had just woken from a nap.
I use a 100% Duck Cotton from Fabric.com. I love this fabric. I’ve used it a few times to make stash baskets. I used it for the apron because everything seems to fall right off of it. Although the instructions are to hang dry it, it does wash well. I did use pre-made bias tape because I needed easy, and that was easy. Funny story though. I went to a local quilt shop to check them out and get bias tape. I found some adorable fabric that I bought for a future quilt for Tesla and when I asked if they had bias tape, the woman was like “uh, premade? I don’t think so, let’s go look….” And it turns out they only had two packages of red. Which is what I needed. Score!
I used green snaps on the back. My husband got me my fancy schmancy snap maker about 6 months ago and I love it! No more trying to get everything to line up.
Here is Miss Tesla being forced to have a picture taken. Papa helped by posing with, not sure she would have gone over to the wall otherwise and of course Benny had to get in on the action.
Here is Papa trying to make Tesla smile, with a silly face. (Seriously she’s been doing this face to everyone and now, NOW she won’t do it.) Of course Mister Ben is looking happy as can be with his 9 teeth at almost 10 months!
I just have to include one all alone. She obviously loves it obviously. When Grandma came over later she screamed when she tried to put it on her. Obviously loved it.
So since this clearly was not such a happy afternoon. I just have to share with you another day this past month when we were at Disneyland!!! WHERE you ask?? That’s right we went to Disneyland. The night we arrived they had Mickey’s Halloween Trick or Treat Party and Tesla got to dress up in her costume as Jessie from Toy Story. Then we got to meet her. It was a pretty awesome experience.
Tesla pretty much feel right into her arms and hugged and hugged and hugged her. I totally teared up. She must have hugged her for minutes and minutes. Then she posed so nicely for the camera. It was great. Afterwards she kept saying Jessie was her friend. It was great, did I see that? Great!
Thanks so much for checking out Anne Made! Be sure to go check out the rest of the aprons at A Little Gray. Jessica’s in particular are wonderful and this one from Ava Craft is so cute with it’s balloons.
More Stash Baskets
My friend asked me to make some more stash baskets for her daughters rooms. I thought I had blogged about the ones I had made previously for her but I guess I didn’t. Anyway, she is expecting a second little girl and asked me to make three like these:
Then she filled those right up and needed some more. She chose the cutest Elephant and Giraffe fabric using the same Duck Cotton.
On top of it she wanted some for her other daughters room in a Dora The Explorer fabric. Now I have to tell you, when she asked me to make them, I was not a fan of Dora. I just feel like Dora yells at you the entire show and I don’t love the message that it sends. But between ordering the fabric and getting it, my husband introduced Dora to my daughter and well… it’s not so bad. After making the stash baskets for her I actually kind of love it. It’s the fabric that did it for me.
This character fabric is not the best fabric. I feel like they charge a premium price then don’t use the best quality fabric. So for things like clothes or pillows I think it would just be to rough. But for the stash basket I think it’s perfect. Because it’s a light weight cotton I ended up interfacing it twice. It’s a costly move but I feel like it’s worth it because the basket holds it’s shape much better. I have quite a few baskets around the house that are a quilting cotton weight and they do tend to fall quite a bit when nothing is in them. What can you expect from a cotton basket though?
The inside of the all the stash baskets is a Kona Cotton. I love the feel of the Kona and I think it’s the best solid out there. I hope she likes them as much as she liked the others!
Glittery Pumpkins
I like to do lots of arts and crafts with my daughter. Some days are low craft days and we just color or do water color. Other days we finger painting. Last week one day we managed to paint, play with playdoh and stamp all in one day. It was a good day!
Today we glittered pumpkins.
First I set everything up.
Next I quickly tried to explain to Tesla that she couldn’t throw the glitter.
Then I let her pick what ever colors she wanted for her pumpkin. At first I tried to stear her toward the colors that I would choose. But then decided it really was up to her.
I think she did a nice job. I painted the glue on but she chose the colors and put the glitter on with help from me only after emptying out the containers.
Here’s mine.
To me honest, I kind of like hers better. Funny that at 2.5 she has such great color concept. I kind of expected it to be more rainbowesque, but the colors go together nicely.
Great job, honey.
Thanks for visiting Anne Made! Please feel free to leave a comment.
A Fall Wreath
This weekend my friend Lisa and I got together and crafted! It’s becoming an annual tradition. We had planned for what felt like months to have our day. My husband’s best friend flew in just for the day… Okay not really, he made his arrangements to fly in and I made our crafting day plans! We scowled pinterest for some fun Halloween or Fall crafts. Even though I’ve been a member of Pinterest for longer then Lisa, she’s got tons of pins and lots of great ideas.
One of the ideas was this wreath by Kindred Spirit Mommy.
Isn’t it beautiful? We agreed that it was the project. (Of course I was delusional and thought we’d get a bunch more stuff done, but we completed our wreaths just in time to go home.)
All the directions for the wreath are on Kindred Spirit Mommy’s blog. We ordered the tulle from BBCrafts just as she suggested. I got all other supplies from Michaels. One thing that she doesn’t mention in the directions is how much tulle to buy. We used 4 rolls of tulle per wreath. One black, one chocolate brown, one red and one orange.
Here is mine all hung up.
This is the full front view of the wreath. The owl is looking to the right. I’d like to say that he’s looking that way on purpose because that’s where the door is, but the reality is he was really difficult to get on. I glued and glued and glued.
Turns out the side looking owl works out. Because he looks at you as you walk through the door.
That’s the start of the Halloween decorating at our house.
I really love this wreath. It’s so pretty and both Lisa and I felt great after completing them. I bought other tulle to make a Christmas or one that will look more like an Italian pride wreath. Still not sure how to make it look all Christmasy and not so Italian. I also would like to make a Valentine’s Day one. That one is more important to me so I’ll probably get it done first.
Thanks to Kindred Spirit Mommy for the idea and thanks to Lisa for initially pinning it! Totally love it!
Check out Lisa’s Pins on Pinterest here or mine here.
Thanks for visiting Anne Made! Love your comments please feel free to leave one!
LTTSA: Penguin Backpack Completed!
I finished the second project of the Little Things to Sew Along hosted by A Little Gray. The Sew Along is when we each do a monthly project and share our creations. The Little Things To Sew Sew-Along is using projects from the Little Things To Sew book. Check out the Oliver + S website too, to see all of the lovely things you could make. September’s project was the Penguin Backpack. You could choose a more traditional backpack or a Penguin version.
As soon as I saw the book and the backpack I knew I had to make the Penguin version. My daughter, Tesla, loves the cartoon Pingu and I just knew she’d love it. If you haven’t seen the cartoon, I’d highly recommend it. It’s available on Netflix to stream instantly. It’s about a Penguin named Pingu and his daily adventures. There’s no actual words used in the whole show and Pingu makes a honking noise to communicate. It’s a nicely paced show. After watching it Tesla started honking down to us when she’s ready to get up in the morning. She’s so cute.
Anyway, back to the backpack. It came together very nicely. The hardest part was tracing and cutting out the pattern and really that wasn’t so hard, just time consuming. I didn’t understand that the side panel was one long piece. I’m still not clear as to why there is a solid line down the middle of that pattern piece. I would love it if someone could enlighten me. I also hadn’t realized that there was a fabric layout in the back of the book, if I had noticed that I would have realized it was just one piece. I sent a desperate message to Jessica at A Little Gray asking if that side panel was one or two pieces before I found it. Luckily I had enough of both the lining and the outer fabric to cut two new pieces. Phew!
I also found Jessica’s tutorial on how to put the zipper on very helpful to read and follow. It really was very easy to do. I also did the double interfacing on the zipper panel to make it extra sturdy. I noticed that in a lot of pictures the backpack was a bit squishy so I also used fusible interfacing on all of the black canvas, which made it a little stiffer. I am glad I did because it only made it a little stiffer.
The fabric I used was a light weight black canvas, for the outer pieces. A Westminster pink dot for the tummy, a yellow Kona Cotton for the beak and feet and then a Back To School Ruler Fabric by Timeless Treasures that I picked up on clearance at Pacific Fabrics for the lining.
There are a few extras to the backpack. Notice that nose? Does it look a bit bulky? When I first saw it, I said “That nose just has to squeak!” So I added a squeaker. I think it adds an extra element of cuteness to it. The squeaker also helps with the whole Pingu connection I was going for with my daughter. She just likes to hold the nose and squeak it so I would say it’s a success. I tried to upload a video to the post but can’t seem to figure it out so you can follow the link below to the Youtube video of it, to get the full effect.
The other extra is a little zipper pull, since I used a small tooth zipper with a smaller zipper pull I added an extra pull so Tesla could easily find the black on black zipper. It’s just a few beads on an earring wire with a sterling silver penguin at the end and a clasp attaching it to the zipper.
I really enjoyed making this backpack. The directions were really clear and it came together so easily once I had time to do it. Next month we’ll be working on the Bias Trimmed Apron and the following month is a Puppet Theater. The Puppet Theater will be so fun to make and give to Tesla as a Christmas gift! She loves her new backpack.
Thanks so much for visiting Anne Made! I love your comments so please feel free to leave one!
