Kanzashi Flowers

I've seen the templates for the Kanzashi Flowers on different sewing websites, so when I saw them in Beverly's when we were in Modesto, I knew I needed to have them. They said they were easy to use, and they weren't kidding.
You pretty much place a piece of material on the template, then close it. Cut around the template, then with a needle and thread, you follow the numbers. Easy peasy. Once you get to the last spot, you'll undo the template, and pull on the thread. This gathers the material into a petal.
Mine are all the smaller templates. I should have bought them all, but I thought that of course I'd not use them. Boy, was I wrong. I can see using these with some machine embroidery to make different gifts.

We'll see what types of things we can create from these!!

Winter Banners...

So before we decided on moving, oh so many months ago, I signed up for a Winter Banner Swap hosted by my friend Debi. What you were to do was to make a 5x7 triangle banner flag out of cloth for each participant so that we all can have a piece of each other's artwork. Turns out the final number was 20 flags.

It's the first time I've ever made a banner flag, and it was a lot of fun. I tried doing it out of this heavy brocade material, but it unraveled too much for me to have unfinished edges. And so I decided on making it out of a cotton material with a heavy stabilizer backing.

I saw the circle felt snowflakes in an issue of CK. So I scraplifted the idea. I just love doing hand embroidery, so I was able to incorporate a teeny bit into the banner.

Then I found this really great mesh material that had glittery snowflakes on it, you can't see it very well cause, it's kind of washed out. But I took a bit of that material, and sewed it to the top half of the banner for a bit of texture.

Then after all was said and done, I sewed on sequins with beads to each banner. I love a bit of sparkly!

I'll take a better picture of it when I get it back. Everyone is doing such beautiful work! I can't wait to see what all the banners will look like. :)

Blanket making with Ashley

Every once in awhile, Ashley decides she needs to make a blanket. So while we were in Walmart she saw some fleece material and decided that she needed to make a blanket. The clerk at Walmart told us that she sews the blanket first, then cuts it and ties the edges. She does it for stability. So, we brought the material home, I laid it out on the floor and cut all the edges so they would match. Then I sewed a straight line about 3.5" from the edge all around the edges. And Ashley and Alex cut and tied all the edges of the blanket.

Alex didn't want us taking pictures of him making the blanket, so of course, I had to take one of him, this was right before he pulled the blanket up to hide. I cracked up cause it looks like he's waving HI and he's enjoying himself. LOL A little bit after I took the picture, I guess Alex cut into the back of the blanket by accident. So he was taken off blanket duty. (I think he didn't mind that at all). LOL

Here's Ashley with her finished blanket. The thing is HUGE!! I think it turned out really well, good job!! Now she wants to take the scraps and make some cat toys. Will let you know what they look like when they're done. LOL

Felt Ornaments

I love working with felt. It's just so much fun to sew and make different things. I made these ornaments for a boutique. I've made the gingerbread ones before, but used paint on them this time and beads.
The snowmen are really fun to do, and really easy.

My new one for this year is the cat. I just love kitties. And at some point I'll make different colors, but just doing the white ones for the boutique.

Nerf Rocket Bandolier

Philip requested that I make him a Nerf Rocket Bandolier. I guess he uses the Nerf Rockets in his paintball scenario games. So he wanted something to put them on when he's in battle.

We came up with the bandolier. I took 1.5" webbing and made the bandolier. And used 1" webbing to make the tabs to hold the rockets.

I have Philip's done, and now am on to his friend's one. And we have enough to make a spare.

If anyone is interested I can make a tutorial.

Nice weekend...

Hope that everyone had a nice weekend. I got a few projects started and finished. One that I've been working on was the pillows for the front room. Phil's always wanted to use the window as a window seat. So I've been making pillows for it. There was some material from the bags we didn't make cause they were too thick, so I made them into pillows. I actually reused some pillows that we had in the house that were pretty flat. You just open them up and refluff the stuffing and you have pillows. :)
All weekend I've been working on the computer or in the sewing room. So the cats have been following me everywhere. This is the closest they've been to sitting next to each other in a long time. Velcro (the grey one) doesn't like Oreo very much. So this was a treat to see them so close to each other.


And of course, you can't do laundry without the cat sleeping in the laundry basket. I guess you can't leave the laundry alone for too long, or Velcro will sleep in it.

I'll post some other projects I've started when I'm finished with them. :) A bunch of embroidery stuff is coming up for me, so I'll keep you posted when I'm done.

Reuse Jeans skirt

Today I spent the morning making a Skirt from an old pair of Ashley's jeans. They were hand-me-downs (or since she's younger, hand-me-ups?). Anyway, Debi G. told me that Alex needed a skirt, and she is just about my size. So I thought I'd make a skirt for her out of the pair of jeans. Above is the front of the skirt, below is the back.
I found the idea from a book called "Sew Subversive: Down and Dirty DIY for the Fabulous Fashionista" by Rannels, Alvarado, & Meng. It's a really cool book with lots of ideas on how to make your old clothes into something new and fashionable.

There's supposed to be a ruffle on the bottom, but since Alex is totally not a girlie girl, I thought I'd leave it off unless she decides she wants it on there.

What you would do is to cut the skirt to whatever length you wish, rip the inside seams open and sew down the flaps on the front. This pair of jeans had a hole in the front, so I didn't have much of a flap. Then you pretty much cut a piece of material to fit in the middle section, and sew it up.

You'd then sew a ruffle on the bottom. And the book has more detailed instructions than I am giving you. and I wanted to do more embellishing on the front. But I think I'll find another pair of jeans and do that to those.

Old Pattern in Japanese...

In my parents' basement, we found a bunch of old books. And there was this one notebook that had drawings of clothes with numbers. So I'm guessing it's patterns for clothes or aprons. I don't know exactly because I can't read Japanese. It's sad that I can't read it, I tried learning Japanese in high school, but after so many years of Spanish, everytime I was supposed to translate something, I could think of it in Spanish, not Japanese. LOL

Anyway, I thought I'd post a couple of the drawings, I'm going to scan all the pages just because I don't want to lose them. Maybe someone could use the measurements??

This week

This week, with the help of Jenny's Sewing Studio, I was able to figure out how to do basic embroidery design with our Palette software. I'm so glad they had lessons online because I was very clueless as to how to use the design center part of the software. Now I don't feel helpless, and I actually re-created a logo for Pacific Water Trucks. They're the broker for Phil's nephew.

Once I fix it, I'll post a picture of their logo.

I've also sewed 14 patches on a vest for Philip. He chose a thick quilted jacket that of course, I didn't feel comfortable in using our machine to do, cause the material is so thick. So I sewed them all on by hand. And man, are my fingers sore. LOL The sewing actually took 2 days! And as I was sewing, I thought, "OMG, the flag was sewn this way originally." I thought 14 patches were hard, can you imagine sewing a whole flag by hand? ;)


I also have been sewing hearts for Valentine's Day. I don't know why, I just saw some online and thought they were really cute. :) I'll post a photo when I make a few more of them. :)

I would really like to figure out how to make patches. Will have to do some research soon.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Things that I've been sewing...

I've been busy sewing a few things for a slumber party this weekend. My scrapping girlfriends and I are going to be at a slumber party, and one of the things we're doing is bringing a bag of stuff that we have around our house that we don't use anymore and then we'll do a white elephant giveaway. Well, I am in between crafts right now, and I'm not sure what I want to keep and what I want to give away. So I decided to make a few things to go with some things I could find to give away.
I found a pattern for a purse organizer on the internet. I thought it would be cool to make it a little bigger for the different tools you take with you when you scrap. So I adjusted it to be 26" x 11.25" instead of 26" x 8" I think I might make it a little taller though, maybe 13" x 26".
And I also made this little pouch from this tutorial. I did a bit of embroidery on it, but think I messed up the corners a bit. Will do better the next time. :) It works really well, and looks cute. I think I'll try more next week. It's the first time I've ever sewn a zipper. :)

Domo's Done!

Domo is finished! I have his other arm sewn on, stuffed his feet with Walnut shells so he's weighted down a bit. He can stand on his own and his arms move! :)



So of course I had to do what every person with a domo does with their domo. Take a picture of him terrorizing something. Although Oreo wasn't very afraid. LOL

The funny thing, while I was sewing up the hole in domo's bottom, Oreo decided that Domo would make a really great cat pillow. LOL So Philip had better make sure it's not lying around anywhere. He's gonna use it as a cat bed. LOL

Jolt Flag

The past few days I've been working on a Flag for the boys. Their paintball team is called Jolt, and they wanted a flag with a lightning bolt on it (for whatever reason).

Of course it had to be done for Saturday's last game at the place they normally go to play. And of course they gave the assignment to me on Sunday. Cause we need to work under pressure. LOL

What I did was cut a lightning bolt out of yellow material. Sewed it onto the red material, using a satin stitch. Then on the back, cut out part of the red so that the yellow would show through.

I then made the flag out of black cotton material, it's about 3' x 5'. I made sure to quadruple stitch the short ends, and double stitched the long ends.

Then we figured out where the lightning bolt would go, satin stitched it onto the black flag. And then I cut out part of the black so the lightning bolt would show through. I'll put fray check on it tomorrow, and also the grommets so they can hang it from the pole.

I'll have them take a photo however they use the flag. LOL Boy, I'm getting a lot of experience on sewing so many different things that I never thought I'd do. It's a ton of fun!

Jeans purses

I've been spending the past few days trying to come up with ideas to decorate the jeans purses that I made from old recycled jeans. These ones aren't lined cause my sewing machine couldn't sew in the lining. But I think they're awfully cute and a great way to recycle jeans.

This pair is from a tan/taupe pair of jeans. I had these appliqué butterflies in my stash, and decided that they would look really cool on this pair:

I then cut out a kawaii skull from felt and sewed that on a pair of khaki pants that I made into a purse. I found the checkered belt with the skull from that cool second-hand store in San Mateo. Thought it would go well together.

I then figured that I could embroider on the jeans before sewing them up. So I embroidered a bunch of these little pink flowers that were already in the machine. I thought the middles of the flowers would look really cute filled in, so I found my fabric paint and painted them in.

I made the belt out of this fun material my friend gave to me to use for different projects.


Those are what I have done so far. I'll get more stuff done during the week. I'll post as I create. My creative juices are flowing again...YAY!

Tote bag

Here is one of the tote bags that I made. I actually gave it to my mom. It was really fun to make and so super easy! I wanted to do a bit of extra sewing, so I sewed black to the bottom. Made the top colors kind of pop.

More Coffee Sleeves

I spent today making more coffee sleeves. This is what I have so far. I figure it's a little bit of stuff for everyone. I have to make a couple more 49er ones for my cousin and sister, but for the flea market this might be a good start.

I'll be onto Webkinz Sleeping bags now!

Reusable Coffee Cup Sleeve

I saw this on a sewing website, and I just had to make one. It's a reusable coffee cup sleeve. Since we're all trying to be green, and not consume a lot of paper products, this is a great idea for people who go to coffee shops and get coffee.

The material is this really fun cat material I've had forever.
Ok, so I don't go to Starbucks much. So I thought I'd try it on one of our drinking glasses, it's a pub-sized beer glass. And it fit! I'm so excited, I think I need one for around the house to keep my drink cool.

I used that fleece inside that you use on potholders, so it should insulate your hand well. I'll have to try it out tomorrow. :)

I'll post more when I make more! :)

New Items I've sewn!

I made a few tissue holders and little pouches, but thought they looked kind of plain. So I decided to put felt flowers and hearts on them! :) Here are my first attempts at appliqueing.

My favorite is this one, cause the flowers look like plumerias. And I love plumerias! :)

I made some fun pointsettias, so we'll see how they will look on Christmas ones!

Gameboard table cover

Years ago Phil built this game board for his WW2 game, Axis and Allies. He cut everything out of wood, and I painted and decopaged the flags and numbers on for him. It's 8 foot by 5 foot. So, it's HUGE!

And while cleaning out the garage, I thought it needed a cover. So here's what it looks like now with the cover on it! It's the largest sewing project I've worked on. And I just love it! Isn't it beautiful?? LOL Not perfect, but I think it's beautiful! LOL
While I was sewing it, Oreo decided that he needed to hide in the material.
So, I call the material, Oreo Camo now! LOL I don't know why he decided he needed to be in it, but everytime I needed to sew on it, he was wrapping himself up inside of it. Good thing it was only for me, and not for a gift or anything!

Tissue cozy

I found a pattern to make these tissue cozies. These are for the pocket tissues that have the plastic wrap around it. They were so fun to make I made a bunch of them! I had some sample fabrics too, so I made some with those too. I'll have to carry tissues in my bag now just so I can use one of these! LOL

My first Quilting project

This is my first quilting project! It's kinda crooked, and things didn't line up perfectly, but I think it's so darn CUTE! LOL. I found the project here.

I had a lot of the material in my material bin. Yes, I had a ton of material even though I've never sewn before. LOL I used to do iron on appliques before, cause heck, I didn't want to sew.

Now I just can't get enough of sewing! I'll post my other tries, I just wanted to see how easy it was. It took a long time for me because I didn't know what I was doing, and I was trying to watch Majide (I survived a Japanese Game Show). But I hope that the more I do it, the easier it will get!