Little Debbie's Cupcake

Made from one skein of Debbie Bliss's Baby Cashmerino in white - this little cap is just too cute.

The pattern is Cupcake by Wooly Wormhead. I made the 6-12 month size for Miss. Debra - it's still a little big, but I'm confident that she'll grow into it.

I used Jeny Staimen's Super Stretchy Cast On.



The pattern designer warns that because of the cables this cap doesn't have as much stretch, so I thought that maybe this cast on would give it plenty of stretch around her head without cutting off the circulation to her head. Hey, with a developing head/brain you can't be too careful!

The first couple of rows of stitching are slightly dingy looking, mainly because it took me about 8 tries to get past the first 4 rows. I'm sure that a good soak in the washer will take care of that.


And how about that bobble on the top? It's not an actual bobble, but rather a circle that is filled with stuffing and then closed around the stuffing.



Tell me this kid ain't cute! Ignore the un-made bed please - it's Saturday and I like to take naps on the weekends. Kind of makes up for the lost sleep during the rest of the week.





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Next up? A dress for Rachael copied from RTW and two little knit purses.

Gallop Pony

Named for a piece of music that Rachael has been learning to play.

Made from Rowan Big Wool, this bag took 3.9 skeins (339.3 yds.) of the brown and .7 (61 yds.) of the bone that I bought several months ago. Only 3 skeins of the brown and 1 of the bone left to find a project for!

The original pattern is the Giddy-Up Bag by Amy-lynne Mitchell. Amy's pattern calls for you to knit the bottom, pick up the stitches all the way around and then knit in stockinette stitch except for where the horse is. The horse is done in purl stitches. Because I like to make my life complicated, I decided to make the horse in a different color and then felt the finished bag. I really wished that I had thought to take measurements before putting this in the washer.



The bag after felting, measuring 9.5"h x 11.5"w x 5"d. This picture also shows the fabric I picked out for lining, a wonderful piece with covered wagons, cowboys, stagecoaches, horses, and buffalo.


The lining was fairly easy to do. Let me go off on a tangent for a moment - I can remember taking Geometry in high school and wanting to know what good this math was going to do for me later on in life. My teacher told me that geometry helps you to reason, to use logic for math problems. She was right.

The lining is a directional print, so I ended up cutting 2 pieces 15.5" x 11.25" of the lining and 2 pieces of a fusible craft fleece. On the fleece I cut out 2 2.75" squares.




I debated with myself about how many pockets to make for this purse, and finally decided on just making a cell phone pocket. I cut the pockets 4.5" x 5". The only interfacing that I had in the house was a very lightweight fusible, so I fused two pieces onto the back of both pocket pieces. Sewed those right sides together and then flipped them outwards. I then sewed the sides down.



For the bottom of the pocket, I folded the excess material towards the side seams, and stitched across.


As you can see my phone sticks out of the pocket about an inch, but Hannah's is almost completely inside.


The next step was to sew the side and bottom seams of the lining. You can see that I have already ironed down the seam allowance around the top of the bag. After sewing the lining pieces together, open up the lining and it should sit up like this. See those little triangles at the bottom?


Sew across them. If you want (and I do) cut off the triangle leaving about 1/2" seam.

Checking the fit.


For the handles, I cut four pieces of brown ribbon 3.5" long. Folded them in half through the loops and then sewed them to the lining. Put in a magnetic snap and then hand sewed the lining to the inside of the bag.


Looking good?


I think so!

How To: Fixing Skirt Waistbands

This weekend, the girls and I went shopping for denim skirts. I was thrilled to find several long skirts for Rachael at Cato's. The only problem with the skirts was that they were too big in the waist. So, I'm going to show y'all what I do to fix this:

I rip open the inside of the waistband (being careful not to cut open the outside) along where the side seam is at. I measure Rachael's back waist and then cut a piece of 1/2" elastic about 3" shorter. Insert it through the opening.


I catch the elastic and the raw edges of the opening with a wide zig-zag stitch. Here you can see that I couldn't be bothered to change out my bobbin thread. I then cut off any excess elastic. Do the same to the other side.



I usually use an invisible thread on the top. Can't hardly see it, can you?



The is what the finished back waistband looks like. It smooths out (mostly) when she puts the skirt on.



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I'm fairly proud of myself. Not exactly sure how long this urge to sew will last, but I'm going with the flow and getting some items off of my "To Do" list.

The next thing on my list is to get this purse made up. It's the second of the bags that I've made with the Rowan Big Wool that I bought from AnnieAmelia's.

How To: Making a Shopping Cart Seat Cover

The pattern is Simplicity 4636.

Gather your materials:
for the seat portion - 1.5 yds. of 45" fabric of your choice (I don't recommend using Minky... unless you aren't going to use the batting); 7/8 yd of 45" batting

for the top gathered portion - 1 5/8 yds. each of two 45" fabrics or 3 1/4 yds. of one 45" fabric; 60" of 1/2" elastic; 1 5/8 yds. of 1.25" or wider ribbon; 1 yd. of 1/2" ribbon; 4 - size 14 snaps

and of course the usual - seam ripper, thread, etc.

Make the seat portion according to pattern instructions, find the center back and measure to the left 3.5", mark with pin, measure another 1 3/4" and mark. Now do this to the right. Set the seat bottom to the side.




The pattern calls for two strips to make the contrast casing (this is what goes around the top of the buggy), since I wanted mine lined I cut out 4. I sewed the lining and the fashion fabric (FF) right sides together, flipped them so that the wrong sides faced each other, sewed a 5/8" seam from the top and then inserted 60" of elastic. For some reason the pattern calls for 63" of elastic - I kind of think that's an odd amount to ask for.


I gathered the bottom portion of the casing, matching the center front, center back and the sides. I pinned the lining side of the casing to the outside of the seat bottom, leaving the 1 3/4" area between the two pins ungathered. That gap creates the hole necessary for using the buggy straps. I cut the seam allowance on each side of the hole and ripped out the gathering stitches.





Folded the seam allowances in.



Edge stitched, making sure not to catch the seat bottom.



To cover up the exposed seam, I placed the top of the wider ribbon along the stitching line, sewed all the way around to the just outside the leg opening. I placed 15" of the 1/2" ribbon underneath the wider ribbon and continued sewing, until I got to the other side of the leg opening. Once again, I placed 15" of the 1/2" ribbon underneath the wider ribbon and then finished sewing the rest of the way around the top. I then sewed along the bottom of the ribbon. On the Texas A&M version, I sewed a narrower ribbon in the center of the wider ribbon.



I used two size 14 snaps on the 1/2" ribbons to make toy holders.







Clear as mud? Or does it make sense?

Testing

Testing - this will eventually be a cap for Miss. D.



-Amy on my IPhone

Wordless Wednesday

Little Coco Bag

Well, I've finished the bag. I had to hand-sew the lining and the handles were inserted with a minimum of frustration. It's not a very big bag, so I didn't add a snap or magnetic closure. It's only now that I have it finished that I'm thinking a 3" wide flap would have looked nice. Oh well, live and learn!




Rachael is modeling with her baby doll inside the purse to give perspective on the bag's size.

The yarn is Rowan's Big Wool, a 100% wool super bulky yarn in color #41 (bone) and #48 (brown). I'm still working out why I like spending my time knitting a bag, running it through the washing machine to felt it and then putting in a lining. This is really weird when I consider that I hate to sew a bag from start to finish. Strange.

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Hopefully, I'll get that promised tutorial up later this evening or tomorrow morning, but for now others are wanting to use the computer.

Baby's Got a New Ride

It looks a bit like a pretty floral blob, doesn't it?

It actually is (long OOP) Simplicity 4636. If you can find it and you plan to do any kind of sewing for a baby, yours or a friends', I would recommend buying it. I can see this done in so many different ways. Done in patchwork, leftover fabric from nursery decor, college football team fabric (I have two cut out in LSU and Texas A&M fabric), or to match a diaper bag.




Okay, for the mods. I didn't like that the pattern calls for the gathered part to be a single layer. The back side doesn't show, but I felt that it truly needed to have a lining. I also made two holes for the buggy straps. There are two ribbons with snaps for holding toys. Those are for that wonderful little game that babies like to play called, "I'll throw this down and get Mommy to pick it up upteen million times."

I'll be working on another of these today (after schoolwork) and I'll post a brief tutorial on how I threw this together. I would show you now, but Windows did an update yesterday and my computer no longer recognizes the external hard-drive that I store all of my pictures (and ITunes) on. Who knew that I would need a back-up to my back-up?

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I'm also currently working on a set of bags. I originally was going to make Hannah a felted laptop cover and then decided not to. The problem was that I now had 8 balls of brown super-bulky yarn and 3 balls of a bone color. What to do? Well, make a bag and felt it! This is The Coco Bag (free pattern) by the Felted Handbag Workshop. This bag used up 1.6 skeins (139 yds.)of the bone and 1.2 skeins (104 yds.) of the brown.



I tried to make "random stripes" and we won't even go into a hard it is to make something "random." Okay? Here it is after felting. I really wish that I had taken measurements before putting it in the washing machine, but it now measures 8"h x 8"w x 4.5"d. I over felted it and it shrank more than I wanted it to. That brown dread-lock thing you see will eventually become the handles.



The lining: an ivory colored cotton with brown dots. I did a superficial measurement of my bag and cut out my first lining. Sewed that lining up and realized that it was about 4" too small. Back to the cutting mat and now, you can see that the lining fits beautifully inside the bag.



I stopped at this point because Miss Debra needed to be fed and put to bed. I'll work on this later today also.

I Thought I'd Show You.....

why I'm not getting any sewing done.


Kind of hard to get to the machine isn't it?

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Actually, taking this picture shamed me into cleaning up this area and sitting down to do a little sewing. Not much got done, but hey, it's a start.

Well, There Went All My Money

myPantone

Have an IPhone? Always wanted a set of those handy Pantone Fan Decks with the bagillions of colors on them? Now you can for only $9.99! Get it from ITunes and have fun.

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My mojo has taken a really long walk off of a short pier. Sooner or later it will remember how to swim to shore.