April 25, 2011
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Guinea Pig Pattern: Revised
So you may remember this post about making my bro a guinea pig, and then I posted again with a bit of a tweak here. Well, one of my readers, Marja, has added her own revisions to the pattern and I think you will like them! I would like to point out again that the original design is posted at KidsDomain.
Click here to view Marja’s revised Guinea Pig Pattern.
Her primary language is Dutch, but you can still check out photos of her cute crafts at In de Molshoop :)
Thank you Marja, this is a great revision!
July 23, 2010
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Crafternoon!
A while back I discovered the idea of a Crafternoon. Unfortunately I dont remember where the idea came from, but when you google it, you can see different takes on the theme. The general idea is to get together and make projects while you hang out. Since a lot of the people I know either have kids or young people in their lives, I thought a Tooth Fairy Pillow was in order.
I printed out the pattern from
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May 8, 2010
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Pril and Ay
For my niece – I am a bit late with the April gift, so its two for one this round! The pattern came from FutureGirl, out of the Sasha the Seahorse pattern. Thanks again Alice!
One day Ill get to play with beads and sequins but she is still far too little so nothing but french knots and other embroidery for now. I love love love the shape of sea horses, dont ask me why. I had fun making them, but I will warn you that the adult is just a tad bit more difficult than the baby to make, since you need to combine two pre-stuffed parts (the body to the head). But if I can do it, you can too! :)
April 8, 2010
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living and craft room
So I had bought a papasan rocking chair from Pier 1 for my living room, but the layout just wasnt working for me. After meddling with ideas for a few days, i finally decided to put it in the craft room. In order to do so, I had to swap it with my loveseat and coffee table. It took me a while but I finally got the living room comfortable. I have the matching loveseats in the same room for once, and set up for conversation, with the tv in the background (i couldnt even tell you the last time i have turned it on).
Putting the giant papasan chair in
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April 5, 2010
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weekend crafts
In addition to finalizing everything in the newly organized craft room, I got some headway on a few things. The first bag is complete and the problem I had when I first tried to make it was what I had thought. I learned that when the lining doesnt want to match up with the outter fabric, I need to be more patient and really work at it because it will indeed align itself if I keep playing with it. Having said that, there was a small catch in this one, which made a wrinkle next to the pleat. Its okay though – the more i make, the better Ill be and I know that.
March 31, 2010
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WIPs
Here are some sneak peeks of current projects. All of these will be bags and the fabric was (mostly) chosen by the future bag owners. The patterns are cut out, but I need to start sewing the pieces together. I had a bit of a crafting lull for a while when the last bag i made just didnt turn out right. But the good news is that (i think) I know what i did wrong so hopefully it wont happen again.
March 13, 2010
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crafty catch-up
One of the projects I made since losing my usb cable is Ruar, the Starfish. I used some gifted fabric and felt, did a little embroidery with french knots and fern stitching, and sewed and stuffed. My neice loved it, as it was small and fit in her hands and mouth:) I got the pattern from futuregirl, from her super cute sea creatures set. Since i committed myself to one toy a month for the year, you can expect to see other creatures from her set here in the future.
February 3, 2010
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Janu the whale
There is this cute little kid that I had promised a slew of toys for, and she is now a whole year old! Man, how time flies. I will attempt to make her a gift every month for the year, as long as I can rack up enough sea themed goodies. It will be fun to see how much better Ill become after all the practices.
Since this is the littlest she will ever be on her birthday, I started with the largest of the sea creatures – a whale. I found the pattern over at Small Dream Factory. Its not the whale I had envisioned originally, but in the end, making a humpback whale was pretty cool. I only wish that I had enlarged the pattern a bit (the whale is only as long as my hand).
Arent you proud that I was oh so clever enough to think to stick some yarn out the top for the water spout? :)
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May 25, 2009
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and then the bird landed
This is a project i have been working on for a bit. I got the bird pattern from Spool Sewing.
It was very easy to piece together by hand although I altered where the opening was for the stuffing because i had chosen very thick felt to use as the fabric so i needed something larger to turn it out.
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May 3, 2009
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stingray Feyd
Feyd is from a pattern by the Shishi Girl. And yes, I named him after Stings character in Dune.
I loved the simplicity – just cut two pieces and sew together! As my first attempt to try out the pattern before making my neice Kaia some toys, i am pretty gosh darn proud of it. Its so cute:)
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April 29, 2009
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Kupcake the kitten
Boys cousin Ella turned 6 and we didnt know what to get her. I had a pattern from Wee Wonderfuls that I had been wanting to try out, but i was waiting for a sewing machine. I decided not to wait, and just whip it together by hand (i need that practice anywho). Its called Pointy Kitty. Jennifer at Rawe Material pointed Wee Wonderfuls out to me, and I like a lot of their stuff. Oh, and the baby clothes quilt idea? Love.
I only had time the day of the party to make it, so no shopping for fabric. I used some left over from another project that I am working on and originally i have to say i kinda sorta hated it.
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March 9, 2009
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circa 2000, cont.
To continue my last posting…
Project D: Shell Frame
My best friend in highschool had invited me to go with her family to Costa Rica. My worldly tour would start there. I collected shells and sand, which is illegal probably to bring back to the States, but i was a kid at the time. At one of my sit-around-and-do-nothing-but-get-paid jobs, I created this frame out of cardboard. It was a fun experiement to make the shape fold how I needed it to and glue it all together. I gave it to my boyfriend as a gift with a photo of my trip in it.
February 25, 2009
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a brother's Story: sequel
Now that I know a little more about making the pattern for the guinea pig, I decided to make my brother’s a different way. Same idea, but instead of having a spacing piece along the top of the body, I made one for the bottom. I wasn’t exactly sure of the shape to use, so I sewed it on before I cut it. It bows out a little on the bottom, but since I didn’t stuff it completely full, I can manipulate the stuffing enough to make it sit well. The front legs aren’t separated as much as I envisioned, but its way better than the one foot-look of the original.
One small difference I made was that I sewed the bottom of the ears together and then reversed them so that only the outside of the ear, not where it attached to the face, had a rough edge of white. It also gave the ears the appearance that they were stuffed, because of the felt seam allowance left inside.
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February 15, 2009
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a brother's Story
So I am still looking up little patterns to help me learn sewing skills and inspire new ideas. Since most of the patterns I find for free ask not to be used on products for sale, I really need to get a grasp of how patterns are created so I can make my own. If I ever get that good, and keep the hobby up, that is.
So my bro’s birthday was coming up and I thought it would be yet another good excuse to try something. Rather prematurely (and by no fault of my own – the pattern just doesn’t exist where I can find it!) I tried to create my own pattern, loosely based on the guinea pig here. See, he had a guinea pig named Story, but she passed away long ago, so why not give him a cuddly squishy piggie in memory of her?
My first attempt worked well as far as getting the white and tan body sections, but when I pieced them together, I realized I would need a spacer for the body to make it fatter. In addition, I wanted the legs to stick out but wasn’t sure how, so I just went in with guns blazing, cut along the leg line, sewed it back shut, and was very unimpressed with the results altogether.
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February 10, 2009
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Nick the alpaca
I do not actually know how I found the alpaca pattern, but it sure was an exciting find! Shishi Girl has the pattern up for free download. Although I have a ton of projects that I need to be working on, this one flew to the top of the list. It was perfect for my friend’s birthday. I met her during my bioarchaeology field school in Peru in 2007 and not only did we eat alpacas (a taste for me, no more!) but she has one as a pet. (If you are curious, it reminded me of steak flavor but with pork chop texture.)
Itwas my very first attempt at a “Softie”. But considering my large project for my niece Kaia (who incidentally was born on 1/30, yay!), I need to practice. People my age would set softies up on a shelf but little miss Kaia might find it appropriate to chew and squish and who knows what else with them so they need to be made very well.
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