More Wrist Cuffs

We have been making more reversible wrist cuffs.

This was my first one and it's the one that I wear. Made from a scrap of Moda Wonderland fabric.

These are two kiddo ones.

Sock Monkey on the outside and rainbow on the inside for my daughter.

This one was for one of Soph's friends who is kinda girly so I tried to add a ruffle to the edges. It's a little hard to see in this photo how it looks on, but in the above photo of Soph wearing them both you can see how it turned out. Kinda cute and girly.

I think there will be more of these made in the near future.

Graffiti Cuff

Sophia's kindergarten class each had a 5th grade buddy that would come to their classroom once a month to help them do an art project, play games etc... Last week was the last time they were coming and we wanted to make a gift for Jesse, our fifth grade buddy. Now, I don't know too much much about 5th grades boys anymore, but we have been testing out some wrist cuffs and thought we could make a boyish one for Jesse.

So we cut up an old pair of my hubby's jeans and stitched it up, on one side we wrote all over it with a pen and on the other side I stitched a "manly" pattern so it can be reversible.

The teacher said it was very sweet when she gave it to him and he put it on right away and wore it the whole time!

Colin Bag

Why does Blogger flip my photos? I have no idea, please turn your head :) thnx!

So a couple of weeks ago we went to a 4th birthday party for my friend's son. I asked her what he might like for a present this year. She is very crafty and makes the kids handmade things all of the time so they love handmade and don't need store bought gifts, which is fun.

Last year we made his brother an art bag, I made it out of black vinyl, added some "real" pencils and drawing paper etc. Danielle thought Colin would love his own bag because he is always trying to get into his older brother's stuff.

This is what I whipped(haha) up a couple of hours before his party.

A kid sized messenger bag with a letter "C" on it!
I had this cool modern upholstery fabric on hand and thought it might be stable enough, since I don't have any interfacing on hand.

I even decided to add an inside pocket to hold the stencils that I found. We also included a sketch book, pencil box with twistable colored pencils, eraser and his own box of fruit leather because he loves that stuff.

It looked a lot better in person, really it did.

Sandi Henderson

Alyson and I went and met Sandi Henderson last night! Everyone is in town and it is so fun to get out and meet them.

She was so nice and normal too! We actually got to talk with her and her husband for while and at the end of the night they had a giveaway. We didn't win, but it was fun to be there anyway.

You can find out more about Sandi and the things she designs on her blog at Porta Bello Pixie . Sandi was wearing the sweater that she made and is also on the cover of her book. So cute.

Amy Butler in person!

Tonight we ran over to Crafty Planet (which is a local fabric/yarn shop) to meet THE Amy Butler!!

There will be a lot of people from the fabric industry in town this week and through the weekend because this years annual Quilt Market is here in Minneapolis.

When we heard that she would be here in town, we figured we better go and get a photo with her :) I brought her one of my Scrabble Tile Necklaces that I have been making that used a piece of her paper on it(and some glitter). She seemed almost humbled and grateful that I gave it to her. I also had to wear my crazy pants that I made with Alyson out of Amy's fabric. My lucky kiddo got to come with and meet her too because the hubs was working late tonight.

She was just so sweet and "normal" and I will be happy to continue to support her in the future. In fact we bought a new pattern and a couple yards of her fabric when we were there tonight!

Tomorrow night Sandi Henderson will be at Quilted Treasures in Rogers and on Saturday night Anna Marie Horner will be at Treadle Yard Goods in St Paul.

Carnival of Fictional Amusement

You can find Mr. Nine(and many others) at Pirate Gallery in Denver. The Opening is February 19th and the show runs until the 28th. You can purchase the riders and have Corn Dogs and Jelly Beans!! You should really check it out if you are in the area. Matt and his Wife Shawnna are the nicest people I have ever met, you will feel like you have known them forever!

More info: Pirate Gallery

You can read a review in the Westword: Here

Mr. Nine

I am still doing the HATI RELIEFFUNDRAISER, click Here to find it

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My friend Matt is having a Gallery show this coming weekend over at Pirate Contemporary Art in Colorado. They are having a "Carnival of Fictional Amusement" and invited some people to create a "rider"

Mr. Nine is what we came up with.

He is made out of upholstery fabrics and has vintage Ric Rac for his mouth.

We also made him a "9" necklace(one of the fundraiser ones) that matched the color of his arms.

Sophia drew a picture of him on the outside of the box so Matt knew he was coming. She was really quite sad to put him in a box and ship him away.

New Phone Holder

I'm not even sure how I came across this tutorial, but when I saw it, I just knew I had to make it.

My husband went out to get me a new phone the other day & it's one of those really nice touch screen phones. I have to say that I really do enjoy having a phone that works, plus has talking GPS, Internet, email, Pandora, Facebook etc... Then he(and other family members) decided that I really needed a Bluetooth for talking and driving. Only now I needed a place to put them both together in one place so that I didn't misplace that crazy small earpiece.

Then I found this tutorial and directions for making a phone/camera holder & decided I needed to make it! I found it over at Sew Mama Sew's website: Sew Mama Sew Tutorial

It is really quite simple and you can even use scraps! The fabric I used(by Alexander Henry) was leftover from the other project I am still working on. I even improvised because I didn't have any batting to use for the lining but I did have a scrap of fleece I found in my "Pile of Scraps That I Will Use One Day".

The photo is turned for some reason but you get the idea. I just sewed along the edge of the fleece instead of trimming it afterwards. Now, I come from an upholstery background and we just make it up as we go & then steam the heck out it at the end :) haha
Here is the final product! I also have an industrial sewing machine that really doesn't do too well on light weight fabrics and it's nearly impossible to sew along the very edge of something because the machine will "eat" the edge. But this is for my own personal use & not to give or sell and I am pleased with how it turned out. My fancy phone peaking out. Perfect fit.

How to hem Jeans

I have not tried this yet, but it looked like it could be great help & I thought someone might be able to use it. It is a tutorial on how to hem jeans in 3 easy steps. Who couldn't use those skills?

This comes with a warning - This is mainly for short people- You can find it here: How to hem jeans

Coming Soon

I found this awesome pillow at a thrift store the other day. My friend Karen used to make one just like this. I found some cool fabric and I am going to try to make my own version of it. I dug out a home sewing machine in the basement that needs a tune up so once that's done I can start sewing on lighter weight fabrics.

My daughter has been wanting her own "crazy pants" because I told her I would make her a pair a while ago. We found this awesome Yoda fabric and made a pillow for my husband as a surprise one day. Now she wants her crazy pants out of the remaining fabric, so hopefully that will be coming soon too.

Bag Crazy

Right now I have a bag obsession for some reason! Last year at the MN State Fair we picked up a few of those lightweight re-usable bags with some crazy college logo, the same kind you can buy at the grocery store for around a buck. I keep buying more because I have so many plastic bags and I keep thinking I will bring them and use them. Most of the time I forget to bring them and just get more plastic bags that I save and intend to recycle at some point. Right now they are spilling out of my cupboard door because I have way too many.

I don't always bring those re-usable bags I intend to use because, frankly I don't always want to bring some cheesy bag to some "cool" place. haha. I want to bring a fun bag with me.

I found this AWESOME pattern over at Film in the Fridge, she has some great tutorials! You can find this one here: to-market-to-market-a-market-bag-tutorial . Please don't make these and sell them for profit, these are for your own personal use.

I have an industrial sewing machine that doesn't always work so great on lightweight fabric so don't look too close at the sewing skills. The fabric is a remnant of Michael Miller fabric on the outside and Amy Butler on the inside. The brown on the strap is something I just picked up the other day for another project I want to try(the Pillowcase dress).

I am pretty happy with how it turned out and I WILL be bringing this cool bag with me whenever I can :)

Java Jacket

My sister-in-law is a crazy quilter lately & we have seen pictures of these & had to make one for ourselves! We used some scrap fabric that she had laying around and just made up our own pattern, so the first one is a little rough but I love it!

Now I can save the planet a little bit more everytime I go to Starbucks....