Kubb Messenger Bag

Remember this post last fall about the Kubb set?  Not long after, I set about making a bag for the Kubb set.  I sewed, I took pictures, and then I needed Velcro. This project has been sitting in my sewing room waiting for Velcro  for months, but I finished this in five minutes the other morning.

To figure out the sizing of the bag I did a little measuring of my Kubb pieces to figure out how big I wanted the bag to be.  This might look like scribbling to you, but it helped me cut my pieces.

• One piece 22″ by 10″ for the bottom
• Two pieces 10″ by 16″ for the sides
• One pieces 22″ by 16″ for the front
• One piece 22″ by 29″ for the back, and flap
• One piece 4″ by 40″ for the handle

While wondering around the suburbs of Eagan my friend Johnna and I stumbled up on a garage sale with yards and yards of  upholstery for sale- many of it in smaller pieces in bags for $1 and other larger pieces for $1 or $2 per yard.   Most of these came from those big bags for $1!  First I laid out the pieces to know how they would go together with right sides facing in. I began by pinning them, then sewing together the back, bottom and front pieces. To reinforce the seams I sewed a tight zig-zag stitch.

I then carefully pinned the sides into the front, bottom, and back piece as seen above.

This is what the corners looked like when it was sewn together.

This is what it looked like right side out.  I had nice square corners that the Kubb pieces would fit into nicely.

This is the bag sewn together before I turned the edges over.  Because this will be used for yard games I wasn’t too worried about having the most perfect edges. I turned them over once along all the edges not yet hemmed- if you wanted a cleaner edge you could line this bag or double turn the edges so the rough edge was no longer visible.

Now to create the shoulder strap.  I opted for one long strap that could go over the shoulder or across the body. Taking the long piece of fabric, I folded it in half lengthwise with the right side facing in.  I then pinned the long two edges together and stitched them together with a straight seam. To flip the fabric rights side out, I used a scissor as seen above to push the fabric back through onto itself.

When this was complete I turned in the fabric on the other end of fabric that was left opened and stitched across the end.

I tacked both ends on the inside of the bag and reinforced it by sewing across the end several times. If you look closely you can see this above.

For the last step I added a piece of velcro.  I first sewed the velcro onto the top flap, then filled the bag and measured to see where the second piece should appear. I pinned it in place, emptied the bag and sewed a small square to keep it in place.

I had an extra piece of fabric I quickly sewed into a bag to hold the dowel throwing pieces. This way they wouldn’t easily fall out of the bag.

Here is a close up of the bag.

Here is the full view of our new Kubb bag. I think it will transport easily to parks, camping excursions or in and out of the garage for a backyard game of Kubb. I plan on making a few more to fit the Kubb sets we have already gifted others!

Happy Friday everyone!

Mittens in March?

Last year at this time the trees were in bloom and the temperatures were in the 70s and 80s over St. Patty’s Day.  This week we woke up to dustings of snow and frigid temperatures once again.  Perfect time to finish a new pair of mittens I’ve been meaning to make for months!

These mittens are made from a pattern used by a family friend- McCall’s M4683. Isn’t that pattern photo a riot? I’ve been blessed to have a few pairs made by her hand, but I thought they looked like a simple and easy gift- I was right.  Made with fleece they are easy to sew and super soft and cuddly warm.  They also go together quite quickly.  The pattern is doubled so that they have twice the coziness and wicked winter wind blocking factor. I cut these pieces out back in Thanksgiving while others watched a football game and I sewed them together in under a half hour one morning before work this week.  We added an extra two inches to the original pattern so the mittens went a bit further up the arm.

Each mitten has six pieces at I laid out first to make sure I liked the looks with my coordinating fabrics.  These mittens are doubled, but if you wanted to leave them a little thinner you could make two pairs out of each group.

First you stitch the seam that goes around the thumb and across the palm-fleece should be facing each other right side in.

This piece is then opened up and matched with the back side of the mitten.

I then pinned the pieces together and stitched all but the short flat end which will be the opening for the mitten.

Once all four of the mittens were sewn together I flipped one of the two pairs so that the fabric is right side out.  Then, one of the  mittens with the seams on the outside was then inserted into the mitten with the seems on the inside.  Before you insert the mitten be sure to trip extra fabric away. This will cut down on how big the seams feel on the inside of the mitten.   See above.

Using your hands make sure the thumbs are lined up correctly inside.  Then turn the rough edges into each other along the opening to the mitten and pin.  Sew along this edge for a nice finished seam as seen above.

I love these mittens! I think they’ll make nice gifts for a silent auction I have coming up.  They are also affordable.  Check the remnant bin at JoAnn Fabrics for pieces of fleece-especially during fleece sales. Often times you will be able to purchase this material for 60 to 75% off .   My intent is to try this pattern with a few old sweaters I rescued from the trash and goodwill pile recently. I’ll post photos when I make that happen!

Recovered Glider

We have a hand me down glider for our nursery that is super comfy, but the cushion fabric is beyond worn out.  So I embarked on a cushion recovering adventure.  I have to preface this post with the fact that I’m not a sewing expert – so please don’t judge my get-it-done techniques!  But I did enlist the supervision of my mom for this project, which gains me some decent credibility.

Here is the Before & After, followed by the nitty gritty:

Before

After

I wanted to keep the cushions fairly neutral since I’m incorporating lots of color and pattern into other pieces in the room.  I found some grey polka dotted fabric and decided to go for it. I picked up some white piping to offset the white polka dots, as well as some zippers for all three cushions, so I could wash the covers going forward.

I started by using a seam ripper to pull the existing fabric off the cushions, and marked the pleating on each piece.

I then pinned each piece like a pattern to the new fabric and cut them out.

I transferred the pleat markings onto the new fabric with a fabric pen.  

To set the pleats, I pinned them in, and tacked them down by stitching the top to hold them in place for when I complete the cushion seams.

After setting the pleats, I began each piece with installing the zipper.  I’ve never sewn in a zipper before, so my mom showed me the ropes.

Installing Zippers:

1.  Prepare the seam where the zipper will be placed by pinning the fabric together with right sides facing in towards  each other.
2. Plan out the placement of the zipper by laying it down on the fabric, and mark each end of the zipper onto the fabric. This will tell you where the seam will be open for the zipper.
3. Start to stitch the seam as normal, when you reach the first mark for the zipper start, backstitch to reinforce the seam, and then change your stitch setting to create a longer basting stitch. (This will allow for you to easily remove the seam for the zipper opening.)  Continue the longer basting stitch until you reach the zipper end mark.  Switch back to your normal length straight stitch, backstitch again like you would when you start a seam, and complete the rest of the seam. In the picture below, you can see that the stitches are much shorter on the right side, and the longer basting stitch begins where the zipper starts and follows to the left:
   
4. Next, you’ll press the seam open, and line up the zipper onto the seam as you pin it into place.
5. Install the  zipper foot onto your machine.  With your fabric facing right side up, line up the edge of the zipper to the foot.  (It seemed odd and a bit “blind” to stitch with the fabric right side up, but I learned that it does work better this way, since the “zipper hump” under the seam will guide you against the zipper foot.)Stitch along the edge of the zipper.  When you get to the end, you can turn your stitch and stitch across the end mark of the zipper, making sure you  have plenty of room for the zipper head to lie down at the top.  I backstitched a couple of rounds across the end to reinforce it.
6. Repeat step 5 on the other side and end of the zipper.
7. Now that the zipper is sewn in, use a seam ripper to remove the long basting stitch to reveal your newly installed zipper!

Piping:

Since the existing cushion fabric had about a 1/4 inch allowance, it was pretty simple to pin the piping into place, since it too had about a 1/4″  allowance.  I pinned the piping onto one side of the cushion fabric, with the right side of  the fabric facing out, and stitched it into place by again using the zipper foot to line up against the piping.

Next, I pinned the other side of the cushion fabric to the piped piece, with the right sides of the fabric facing in, and the piping sandwiched in between.  With the first piping seam facing up, I again used the zipper foot to follow along the piping, using the first piping seam as my guide.

Once I completed the seam, my cushion cover was ready to be turned inside out (through the zipper opening), and have the cushion inserted into place!  Once in place, I used some fiber fill to smooth out any loose edges in the cushion.

Creating a Cushion from Scratch:

Because the back cushion had seaming in the cushion, I decided it would be best to create a completely new cushion.  I figured it would be too much to try and sew the seaming into the cushion, so I picked up a piece of foam, and then traced and cut out the new cushion piece. Because the foam was about half as thick as the existing cushion, I cut two pieces to double up the thickness.

With my other two cushions, I used the existing fabric to pattern the fabric and pleats, but in this case, I needed to measure and plan out the pleats onto my newly created cushion.  I started by marking the edge of the single layer cushion onto the fabric, and then added another 1/3″ seam allowance, knowing that the seam would run along the center of the two foam pieces, and this would give me a little extra allowance for the doubled up cushion and 1/4″ piping allowance.  I marked these measurements a number of times around the cushion and then cut the fabric freehand with markings as my guide.

Next, I pinned the  fabric up along the edges of the cushion to plan out where I would need pleats to accommodate the curves in the cushion.

 Once pinned into place, I marked the pleat folds with my fabric pen, and then pinned and tacked the pleats into place like I did with the previous cushions and followed the same zipper and piping steps to finish.

I’m considering tufting the back cushion with some fabric buttons. I’ll certainly let you know if I do!

Breastfeeding Cover

I’m always on the hunt for fun projects to make for gifts for friends and family.  A week or two ago I saw this breastfeeding cover on the blog Freshly Picked and thought it would be fun to try.

I followed the directions step-by-step and it really was quite simple to make. I skipped the pocket and the terry cloth figuring most moms will use a burp cloth to wipe up spit-up or milk vs. the cover.

It was hard to get a sense of what it looked like hanging on the wall, but Fred and my stuffed animal friend Froggy stepped in to play the role of mom and baby for me for this photo!

How I love my fiance who is man enough to pretend to be a woman nursing a baby all so his fiance can snag a photo for her blog!

Although I think he might have said yes to this photo just to brag to Gina’s husband that he made the blog again. 🙂

What is it?

It only goes to show when you have several blogs ready you will forget to schedule them!  I was at it again last week making onesies for some friends expecting a little one. Do you know what this is? I’m curious to see if you can discern what I was attempting to create in a flannel applique on a onesie!

And just for fun I’ll show you the booty (as my niece calls it) and a clue. It’s a famous landmark where they met. Does that help?  Let me know if you figure it out (and if you needed my clue).

You can read the original post on my applique onesies here. Next week I PROMISE a new project!

Five minute Jersey Scarf

For a while now I’ve been loving the look of jersey scarves on my friends and coworkers.  This past weekend- in a search for Alencon lace for my wedding gown(another post for another day)- I made it to four fabric stores.  While I didn’t find Alencon lace, I did manage to pick something up at each store!  But I digress, on Saturday my mom and friend Kara and I made the trek to the mecca of fabric stores in the Twin Cities:  S.R. Harris fabric outlet.  This place is HUGE! As in 30,000 square feet huge. This is just one quick shot I took of one aisle (they had four or five) of cotton alone.

Crazy. Overwhelming. Wonderful.  Yes, it can be described as all three.  Everything is always half off of the bolt price.  The selection is crazy big and I’ve found amazing fabrics for my napkin project there.  On this particular visit I found a wonderful grey patterned jersey to make my long sought after scarf.  At $4.50 a yard it was a cheap scarf!

I simply folded the fabric in half- right side in.  Then took the edges and folded them both over together.  I wanted a little cleaner seam on the inside and given the texture of this fabric it hides the salvage edge quite well. The beauty of Jersey is that I don’t have to finish the edges as it won’t fray.

Here is the finished project.  Folding and sewing the seam took all of five minutes. (ignore the not-so-flattering 10:30 p.m. photo) I love the scarf!

Debi’s Baby Shower

Since we hand crafted a few pieces of the baby shower I thought we could share that with you as well. Here is radiant mama-to-be Debi sitting below another round of pennants I made for this baby shower.  In last minute haste I crafted this one with scraps of extra fabric, paper and a marker. It shows a matching pennant with the simple words printed “congratulations.”

Gina picked up a bundle of fresh flowers and had them so lovingly decorated around her house.  Here you can see them with the cds Krista, our other co-host, put together. We requested that each of the Park Girls suggest their favorite children’s song or lullabye. We made cds of each song.  Fred, the microsoft word wizard used an image from a t-shirt we had made WAY back in college for the front of our Park Girls Lullabies cd. Cute, huh?

Gina had more flowers in  the kitchen where first feasted on a delicious taco bar and then wandered over towards dessert.

You can see in the background some great pinwheels that Gina made with paper and scraps of fabric I had leftover from the pennants. The pinwheels also hid the pennant ends in the living room where we hung them with blue painters tape!

The dessert you see above is this amazing pumpkin fluff with gingersnaps and graham crackers to dip!

I was definitely feeling fall. In addition to pumpkin fluff I made this Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake. Along with the cheery mints, I think this looked quite festive!

Now that Gina is expecting it is good to review this as we plan to throw her a shower in a few short months! Do you have any favorite baby shower activities or foods you like to serve?

Lunchbox Dollhouse

This was one of those projects that took weeks to come together, but was fun nearly every step along the way.  As the daughter of a high-school coach, my three year old niece gets brought along to games weekly for which she shows little to no interest at this age.  She plays with her “babies” for hours on end and I thought this might be a simpler way for her to bring babies and play house than dragging a bag full of dolls with her.

I started with a small purple metal lunchbox I found at my favorite Salvation Army store for  just a few dollars.  I went through my stash of scrap-booking paper and found a wood grained piece for the floor and bright colorful stripe for the wallpaper on the walls.  I traced the paper and cut out pieces so that it fit for the floor, and for the walls.  To adhere it to walls I laid a piece of cardboard in the snow, just outside the back door. On these I laid the pieces of paper upside down (one at a time) and gave them a quick spray with 3M Super 77 adhesive. I then quickly brought each piece and the super 77 in and adhered them to the lunchbox. Here in frosty MN when you don’t have a heated garage space, using aerosol adhesives can get tricky. The spray worked better than I expected. You can see the floor and the walls in the photo below.

Since it was the holidays, I wanted to give the dollhouse some festive decorations.  I found the holiday lights in the scrapbooking section on sale for about $2.00.   I then found an old magnet and applied some of the left over wall paper to the magnet with super 77.  I cut it into small pieces then used a piece of tape to adhere the lights every few inches to the magnets.  They will now stick to the wallpaper and ceiling allowing holiday lights to hang, but also blend in to the paper. I also cut out the shape of Christmas tree on a piece of felt and attached the lights to the front and the magnets to the back with a dab of hot glue.

Every house needs some family photos framed and hanging on the walls, right?  I took photos of my nieces family, minimized them, put a black frame around them and then printed them in color. For fun I also found an image of a television, Candyland, some books and images of plates of food.  I then used the super 77 to adhere them to an old magnet (reuse!) and cut them out with a scissor.

I also found a table and bed at the Dollar Tree for $1.00 each along with some small figurines that could call the doll house home.

I removed the existing bedding on the bed and painted them both with an acrylic paint in a bright pink sure to impress my niece.  I took fabric and made a small pillow, sheet and blanket. In fact the fabric was the extra hem left over from my bridesmaids dress I wore in my niece’s parents’ wedding nearly ten years ago!

In the photo below you have a clearer view of the floor, and the dollhouse decorated.

For the finishing touch I used my Cricut and cut out my niece’s name with Vinyl to adhere to the outside.  I also gave her extra magnets if she’d like to decorate the lunch box herself.

Here is another view of the inside with the books and food and game on the table.

It was definitely a hit!  I hear she has used it quite a few times already!

I’m linking up to:

Wine Gift Bag

This is a quick way to dress up that host gift you bring along for the holidays (or any time of year).  It is also a great way to use of some scraps of fabric you have lying around.  You’ll need one piece of fabric 20 x 12 inches.  I’ve found cotton works well and there are so many options to get you into the festive holiday spirit.  No fabric lying about? Visit the salvage bins at your craft stores.  You can typically find fabric here for 50 to 75% off.  You’ll also need a piece of ribbon 30 inches long.  I keep some spools of the narrow $1.00 ribbon lying about for projects like this one.

Fold the piece of fabric in half the long direction- right sides facing in towards each other. Fold the piece of ribbon in half. Measure 13 inches from one end along the two edged side.  At the thirteen inch mark, pin the ribbon inside the fabric so that all but the fold of theribbon istucked inside between the two pieces of fabric.

Pin the two pieces together along the edge where the two sides of fabric meet.  Sew along this edge making sure that you only sew across the ribbon at the 13 inch mark where the ribbon is folded. When you have completed this side seam, fold the fabric on the end closest to the ribbon down four inches. Sew along the seam once more where the fabric is doubled over.

Now open the sleeve and refold the fabric so that it is inside out one portion of the sleeve and right side side out for the four inches you resewed.  You should be able to see two ribbons loose within the sleeve as well.

Turn the sleeve  and refold it so that the seam faces you and  runs right down the middle.  On the opposite end of the sleeve that the ribbon is closest to,  fold in the fabric to the center approximately one inch on each side and pin.

Sew across the folds (being careful to not stitch across the ribbons inside)

Now invert the sleeve and the bottom of your wine gift bag should like this below.

Simply add your favorite bottle of wine, champagne or liter of beer and you have a lovely hostess gift!

As you can see we are ready for Christmas at this house!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and Happy Solstice and Happy Hanukkah to others of you in this holiday season.

Double Layer Receiving Blanket

As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, many of my friends have babies.  This double sided receiving blanket has become my go-to gift along with the personalized onesies I wrote about in this post.  In those photos you could see this baby blanket project accompanying the onesies.

What I love about this project is that it allows you to play with color and find the right fabric for the friends or baby at hand.  And I absolutely love that for one of my friend’s kiddos the blanket he received from me is HIS BLANKET. As in that blanket goes to bed with him every night and is dragged here there and everywhere and has apparently has had many a repair.  That particular flannel blanket had a crazy mix of puzzle pieces and baseballs on it- perfect for this particular baby’s baseball loving parents.

Sometimes I make the blankets square, but most often I buy two yards of corresponding fabric and go with it. Sometimes I’ll buy an extra quarter yard to make matching burp rags or an appliqued onesie, but for the blanket alone I purchase two, one yard pieces of flannel.  Flannel typically costs (at regular price) between $6 and $12 a yard.  I wait for sales at Jo-Ann Fabrics to buy the majority of my flannel.  For those of you looking a head a few weeks, the mega flannel sale at Jo-Ann fabrics is the day after Thanksgiving. This is when the price drops to $2 to $3 a yard.  Last year I spent TWO  AND A HALF HOURS waiting for them to cut my fabric. So long that I found a nice little corner and settled in to work on a one of the pumpkin hats I make mentioned in this post.  Yes, my cart was so full of flannel I stacked it on the bottom.

Let’s get to the details. Using a cutting matte and rotary cutter, I make sure that the fabric is cut as square as possible and that both pieces match up.  Despite the fact that I have purchased a yard of both they might be different widths of fabric so I’ll make sure to square them up and make them the same size-depending on what the width of the fabric was 36″ by 45″ or 36″ by 54″, etc.

I then pin them together with the RIGHT side of the fabric facing in and towards each other.  I leave an opening twelve to eighteen inches where I don’t pin.  At the last pin I double pin it to remind myself that I’ll need to stop at this point.

I then sew around the perimeter of the blanket save the eighteen inches mentioned above.  I typically sew a 1/2 seam along the edge to make sure I’ve caught both sides of fabric in my seam.  At the corners I put my needle down then turn for a tight 90 degree turn.

When I’ve sewn 3 and 3/4 sides of the blanket I then trim the corners and turn the blanket using a scissor to carefully poke the corners out.

It is easiest then, to lightly press the edges of your seams down making sure that the fabric isn’t folded over too far and the seam is at the edge.  Turn in the remaining 12 to 18 inches of fabric that is not sewn and carefully press down and pin so that this section appears to have the same size seam as the other that was previously sewn. I use this opportunity to add a little personalized “Made by Tashia” tag to the blankets.

I then stitch around the entire blanket, beginning with the area that is pinned.  I keep this stitch fairly close to the edge leaving only the distance between the needle and the edge of the foot as the distance from the edge.

These blankets are great gifts on their own or paired with the applique onesie found in this post.

What about you? Have you braved the Black Friday sales at Jo-Ann to score some flannel?  Despite having a stash from last Thanksgiving I did go to Jo-Ann this week to buy specific flannel for a friend whose baby-shower I’m hosting this weekend and paid FULL PRICE on most of it because it was absolutely perfect for them.  If you follow The Craftery MN on facebook, I’ll try to post an updated photo of those blankets when I finish them. Happy November!