Pink Christmas Stockings

I made a bundle of little Christmas stockings out of fabric printed with breast cancer pink ribbons and sayings.  I also used some other pink prints to make enough stockings.  I am making these for my new "cancer club" friends. The ladies in my breast cancer support group have been really great and we are having a group meeting in mid-December; these will be fun to bring along and show my gratitude to them for becoming such a source of information, strength and friendship to me.

I made the stockings by freehand drawing a stocking shape and cutting out several. No big deal there, pretty simple. I tried to keep it small, yet big enough. They aren't too large.

Then I added a cuff made of a small pink gingham print. It's cute. I embroidered names on the cuffs before I cut them and added them to the stockings. They aren't perfect, but they are good enough. I then folded the cuffs over and attached them to the tops of the stockings.

I see that I have stockings going in each direction. Whoops. Oh well. Since they won't be hung together (each lady will take one home with her) it shouldn't matter.

I made them completely on the serger. This was a good project if you want to practice serging curves because the stocking has the heel, toe, and ankle curves.

When you get to this point in the stocking:

 You need to curve around the ankle but you can't because the knife will cut the fabric. This is how I do it and I get a great seam every time!

I pull the fabric so that it is straight. It will come out just fine when you lay it flat again.

When I go around the toe and heel, the curve is the opposite way, so I just serge slowly and lift the presser foot to adjust if needed. Those are easier.

I showed the top picture to a breast cancer support group on facebook and the ladies there went crazy for it! There were at least 50 requests for me to make them and sell or give them to the ladies on that forum. Amazing response!  Because of the positive response, I went out to search for more pink ribbon fabric. I purchased this fabric at a quilting shop that went out of business last summer. I checked every store that sells fabric, and couldn't find any. I did find some online, but by the time I order fabric online, get the stockings made and shipped out to buyers, it would be after Christmas already. So, I will keep this project in mind for next Christmas and get ready earlier!

In the meantime, the ladies in my breast cancer support group are going to get these cute little stockings. They are quick and easy to make and come from the heart. I'm sure they will really like them! (hoping anyway!)

Little Makeup Bag

My husband invited me to tag along to an overnight conference. I could hang out in the hotel and just relax while he and his cohorts went to meetings. I thought that was a grand idea! I quickly threw together an overnight bag, but I didn't have a makeup bag that I wanted to take. I had one that was too big, another that was too big, and another that is too dark inside and I can never find anything in it. Hmmm.

What else would I do in a situation like this? I made one!

First thing I did was look through my zipper stash and I found a 7" plastic pink zipper.  Great!  Then I looked through my PUL fabrics and found something that matched up. I cut two rectangles of the PUL so that the zipper edge was 8" giving me plenty of room to secure the zipper on the corners.

I sewed the zipper on each piece, one on each side, and then I sewed up the sides and bottom of the bag.  When I finished, I boxed the corners on the bottom edge to give it a little volume and a base to stand on. Worked great!

My little makeup bag was cut and sewn in about 20 minutes. It was the perfect size, not too heavy and a nice bright color. Love it!

Opened my Etsy Shop!

I'm so excited! I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and I finally got it put together this past month. I opened an online store on Etsy!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/MaryMadeIt853?ref=hdr_shop_menu

I actually opened it a few weeks ago and so far, I've sold two hats. I'm super excited about that! I've been sewing and building up a bit of an inventory for the Etsy shop.

I'm mostly selling items that I've given as gifts and people just love them. Those are the wet bags and twirly skirts. I'm also selling the duplicate items. Sometimes, I make two or more of something and give the best one as a gift and save the others to give as gifts later. This way, if I screw up a project, I have a backup. A good example of this is the Charlie Brown dress. I was asked to make one for a little girl who loves the Peanuts gang, but the mom wanted it sleeveless and I really thought it would look better with puff sleeves. I made both and they both looked good. I made four fox scarves too. In fact, I like those so much that I'm going to make more!

My daughters are outgrowing their deep desire for princess dresses. They used to beg for every dress from every movie and now they just don't want to play dress-up like they used to. I haven't outgrown it though! I still love to sew princess dresses and costumes, and so I will!  Someone out there will enjoy them if my girls won't.  I'm also going to sew more for boys.

Anyway, I'm happy to have my little shop open. My serger needs to go in for its annual servicing soon and I need more thread and supplies, so I'm hoping my sales will help support my hobby. I don't expect to get rich or anything, but why not make a buck?

In progress right now are child sized aprons, alligator scarves and reusable baby wipes (eww!).

I'm already looking forward to making a bunch of Christmas things. I think some stockings with names embroidered will be perfect!

Go check out my little shop and stop back periodically to see what's new. Thanks!

Pirate Costume

Ahoy, Matey!

What do you do when your grandson has Pirate Day at preschool the very next morning? Well, this is what I do!

I ran to Walmart just to grab up some plain black fabric for a pair of pirate shorts, I had the skeleton fabric left over from several Halloweens ago and I didn't think of the candy stripes until I went shopping. This is my pirate fabric collection now! I picked up the skull and crossbones (with glitter), the candy stripes and the solid black at Walmart.

Walmart isn't my favorite place to buy fabric because the quality is so cheap, but this is for a 3 hour preschool day so I don't need to spend much or drive further for higher quality fabric. Walmart fabric is just fine. As you can see, I scored.  

It didn't take long and I had a pair of shorts done!  I used a pajama pattern to make the shorts; I just adjusted the length and made them pointy. I didn't use a pattern for the hem, winging it worked just fine.  I did a small rolled hem on the bottom instead of leaving it to fray. I didn't know if leaving the bottom unhemmed would cause a problem with unraveling the fabric, so I hemmed it. Hemming a chevron is a bit of a challenge, but it can be done.  The waist is a simple elastic waistband. 

I also cut out a little skull and sewed it to the knee of the shorts to bring it all together. From far away it just looks like  a smudge, but it's pretty cute close up. 

The belt sash was easy. I just guessed on width and length and it came out just fine. I decided to make pointy tips rather than blunt ends.   I'm sure pirates had some of each. The candy stripe sash really added to the fun of the costume! Glad I thought of it.

The vest is the best part of the costume if you ask me.  I used a tank top pattern and just cut the front down the middle instead of cutting it along the fold of the fabric as instructed. I also tapered the neckline straight down to the middle instead of doing a scoop neck. I cut out two, one of the skull fabric and one of solid black so that the vest is lined and has a bit of a heavier vest weight to it instead of a light vest. I didn't think it would hang well if I just  hemmed it up.

I topped it off with a headband made of the skeleton fabric. They're just too cute to leave out of the costume.

As you can see, he is wearing a store-bought Tshirt. I was in a time crunch and we wanted him to be comfortable, so an old Tshirt did the trick to finish off the costume. The color was just right, but white or black or stripes would have been good too. 

Since this is a sewing blog, here is the obligatory back view photo of the costume:  Just as cute as the front!

My grandson wore it all day! He didn't take it off until pajama time and guess what he wanted to wear the next morning?  Yup! You guessed it!  His new Pirate Costume!

Birthday Twirly Skirt

A friend of mine, a really sweet generous lady, posted on Facebook that it was her daughter's 6th birthday that day.  I had a hankering to do some sewing and I'm sort of stuck on my current big project, so I thought "what a great opportunity to sew up something quick and cute!"  So, I sewed!

I quickly cut out a Redondo skirt from some Little Mermaid printed fabric and I serged the pieces together.  Next thing you know, the skirt was done!   I set a new personal speed record!  A Redondo skirt in 45 minutes!  Including cutting the 12 pieces, pressing them, and sewing them together. Also put in the elastic waistband in that time!  I hoped it would fit since I just eyeballed the size of it. 

Luckily, any length is in fashion these days, so I never really worry if it's too long or too short, but it must fit in the waist. Elastic waistbands have plenty of sizing wiggle room, but still, it can't be too big or too tight. I don't see my friend and her kids often enough, but her daughter is in between the sizes of my daughters so it wasn't too hard to guess.

This Redondo pattern is from Studio Tantrum.  Totally cute pattern!  It twirls great too!  I don't know how little girls can twirl and twirl all day long, but they do. I'd puke.

We ran the skirt over to the birthday girl and she was thrilled! She loves to twirl, she loves skirts, she loves the Little Mermaid, she loves pink and she loves glitter too! This skirt had it all!  I didn't realize I was scoring on all counts, but hey, cool! 

I have an Idea!

A couple of years ago, my mom came to visit me and she brought with her two lovely old dresses from her friend Gladys. Gladys is in her 90s now and she made these dresses for her daughter's prom. I'm going to guess that the dresses are aproximately 50 years old.

Gladys wants me to make something pretty and fun for the girls to wear out of the old dresses. They are special to her and she wants to see them revived and made into something new. They are definatly out of style, but the fabric is good and still pretty. 

One dress is white and has a white lace piece that may be a veil or a shawl or something, and the other dress is a light green with pink flowers printed in stripes. The green one is just the right shade of green for Tinkerbell or Tiana, but the floral print isn't right for them. I can't think of another princess who wears green.

I put the dresses in the back of the closet and waited for inspiration to strike, and then I sort of forgot about them. I'm a visual person, if I can't see it I tend to forget.

My mom recently reminded me that Gladys was waiting for me to sew those old dresses into something fabulous.  So, I looked in all the closets until I found where I had stashed them, and drug them out.  Hmmm...

And then it hit me!  The green dress is perfect!  I'll make a Princess Anna dress!  Anna's coronation dress is the perfect costume to make!  I'm excited now!

Wet Beach Bags

I'm going to call these Beach Bags, all though you could use them for whatever wet stuff you end up with. Me? I need a wet bag at the beach, or any mall fountain.  My kids like to "stick their toes in".  Yup. Toes. Toes to head!

I've outgrown the need for a diaper bag, but do you ever outgrow the need for a wet bag? They're great for muddy little shoes, restaurant spilled on clothes, potty accidents, and so much more. I keep one in the trunk of my car and I'm really surprised at how often I use it.

I've even used mine as a temporary trash container.  Fast food wrappers and ketchup packets and straws and cookie wrappers and all of that sort of thing has to go somewhere. The best is when my kid bursts into a bloody nose mess and she needs a bag to toss in the used kleenex. Like I really want to pick those things up off the car floor! Yuck!

Good thing they are easy to launder! Stinky wet stuff and all can just be tossed into the washer and dryer. Presto! Mama's work is easier than ever now!

These are made from Polyurethane Laminate fabric. It's BPA free, same thing that I use for the sandwich and snack bags.  Since they have a bigger purpose, they are 16" x 14".  Nice and roomy.