sewing

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Winter in Maine means months of sweaters and snowpants, hot chocolate and mittens. For Christmas, the girl received a beautiful puzzle inspired by Disney’s Snow White with artwork painted by Tim Rogerson in a style subtly reminiscent of Picasso. I know that sounds like a strange combination but click through to see the original artwork, the artist really makes it work. Apparently the artist’s style made quite an impression on the girl because a few days after we worked on the puzzle she created this mitten picture beginning with a tracing of her own hands.

child's drawing of mittens

Later, the boy saw her picture and got an idea. He very carefully explained how we could sew mittens by putting our hands down on fabric instead of paper, tracing and cutting. He went on to describe how he would sew the mittens all around the hand and thumb. He even had some ideas about how to add details such as the hearts in the girl’s picture. I wish I could say we carried out his plan but he lost interest at that point. Sigh.

I did however incorporate his plan into mittens for myself with a little help from the kids. We traced my hand and cut out the pattern. I decided to use the fair isle decorated sleeves of a felted sweater to make my mittens. This lovely wool sweater was sent to me by my sweet friend Amy who thought that I could do something with it. Here’s what we did Amy!

cutting felted fair isle sweater into mittens
partially sewn mitten upcycle recycle refashion wool sweater sleeve

Although I kept the part of the seam that was already sewn, I decided not to sew a standard seam around the thumb and hand. Instead I overlapped the fabric, basted across the overlap and then used my needle felting tool to felt the overlap. My intention was to eliminate a hard seam on the inside, especially at the fingertips. This worked with some success. The sides of the mittens and thumb felted together well leaving almost no visible seam. The fingertip area, unfortunately, did not hold together so well. In fact I’ve been wearing them with the basting stitch holding the ends together which sort of negates the point of wool mittens. But despite the little draftiness at the ends they are still the warmest, softest mittens I have. I do intend to take a minute to work some more on the fingertips and thumbtips to close them up. If I can stop wearing them long enough.

mitten sewn from felted recycled upcycled refashioned wool sweater

P.S. Just in case you want to make your own sewn mittens, I highly recommend sewing in a diamond shaped gusset between the thumb and first finger. If you pin your mitten together and try it on, leaving that spot open, you’ll see why you need just a bit of extra fabric in there.

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No, not that kind.

This is for wearing when you are taking care of bunnies. My parents now have three angora rabbits and my mother was wanting some sort of apron/smock to protect her clothes. I’m pretty sure she wanted it to be long sleeved somehow and long enough to cover her lap but not too hot to wear in the summer and easy to go on over a jacket in the winter. The space where the bunnies live is only somewhat climate-controlled.

The fabric needed to be something tough but slick, something that could stand up to the occasional clawed foot but slick enough to shed or at least not attract stray fur. I also thought it would be easiest if there was no hardware—no buttons or snaps, etc. So I used some leftover nylon or acetate lining material that is extremely lightweight but tightly woven and not likely to attract fur. I cut the collar and cuffs off an old knit shirt to re-use. I cut the long sleeves loose and gathered them into the knit cuff. I made the neckhole in a similar fashion. The threaded elastic through the cutaway back allows for arm movement but helps to keep the long front from flying away. Or at least that was the intent. That part still needs work. It could probably use some pockets as well. I have some alternate ideas but I was at a point where I needed to make a full-size draft to see how it actually worked. Here’s my mother trying out the bunny suit . . . bunny smock?

angora rabbit

high no back smock

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The boy is a bit picky about jeans—he prefers them soft and on the thinner side. He usually wears every other pants in his closet before jeans but this pair he didn’t seem to mind. Unfortunately he tore through the knees and they were getting short but still fit amply in the waist as is usually the case with storebought pants for him. I grabbed the leftover pieces cut off a pair of khaki pants that had already been turned into shorts. I used the already hemmed bottoms to lengthen the jeans and then used a double layer of the khakis to cut patches for the knees of the jeans. A fast fix and it turned out rather cute. The mom of one of his friends thought I had bought them that way. I’ll take that as a complement.

jeans patched and lengthened with contrast fabric

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. . . especially in wool felt. The kids have fallen into ridiculously giggling mushy love with a cute little video game called Sushi Cat. They’ve been playing it on Rich’s iPhone. The game is very simple, sort of like pinball or pachinko. You drop the cat from the top of the screen and he eats any sushi in his way as he rolls and bounces to the bottom. I was already contemplating making the kids a Sushi Cat stuffie when I came across these sushi shaped erasers in the dollar aisle. Who knew? That sealed the deal and I sat up late one night stitching to get a pair of these done. You never see the cat’s tail in the game so I had to make that up myself. I decided it needed to be bouncy and springy!

handmade hand sewn wool felt sushi cat sushi erasers

I’m still hoping that their interest in things Japanese lately will eventually lead to eating more Japanese foods besides Ramen noodles.

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I have to say that the men in the house pulled off the best handmade presents this year. I helped a little but the ideas and much of the execution was theirs. The boy made his sister a monogrammed purse which she adores.

hand sewn felt and leather purse for little girl flowers monogram

We traced and cut an oval from some stiff pink felt left over from another project. The boy used a fabric marker to draw a curly “S” in the middle of the oval and then arranged and sewed on felt flowers all around. I cut a very simple pattern out for a curvy purse with a large front flap, reminiscent of styles from the ’70s. I cut the pieces from some scrap leather I had. (I’m pretty sure it’s bi-cast or laminated but it looks surprisingly nice and I think it will hold up fine to loving use by a little girl.) The boy helped me machine sew the oval onto the front flap. He then used a fabric marker to stencil a sweet message on the inside to his sister. Later I hand-sewed the pieces of the purse together and attached the strap to rings at the sides. It looks great, the boy was quite proud of himself and his sister was over the moon! See the photos below for the play-by-play action.

Oo! Pretty!

Oo! Pretty!

SWAK!

SWAK!

Oh, man, she kissed me!

Oh, man, she kissed me!

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wool felt ball eyeball toy

I admit that I shamelessly copied this oogly eyeball from a picture on the internet. Unfortunately I cannot find the original source now to give credit but I see it’s not as unique as I first thought. I did make my own pattern and chose my own colors and my version is likely smaller than the picture that I looked at but it’s pretty much identical. I rarely if ever do that. Mostly because I’m not good at copying when I want to and moreso because I always have my own ideas on what and how I want to do things. The boy had wanted to make some monster stuffies and knowing how popular those are I thought we’d look around on the internet for images that we liked and then combine our favorite features into our own monster stuffie pattern. Along the way we saw these fabric eye balls that were just perfect the way they were. So we made wool felt eyeballs. This was the first and unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the second which the boy did most of the sewing on because he wrapped it up and gave it away about as fast we got it finished. Made with wool and rayon felt and a little embroidery, and filled with wool stuffing and poly pellets. I still want to make the monsters but these were more fun than I would have guessed. Sewing a sphere is never an easy proposition but felt makes it fairly painless.

pouch style baby carrier for doll

Here’s the girl carrying a baby doll in a pouch style baby carrier that I made for her cousin. Don’t worry, I made the girl one too. Now I’ve made so many baby pouches I could practically cut one out without a pattern and that’s exactly what I did here. But the style that came to mind as particularly appropriate for a doll carrier, was inspired by a real pouch style baby carrier idea from my friend Jen. I traced the finished pouch so that I’d have the pattern for keeps. I may post the pattern here after I try it out on a few more kids and different sized baby dolls/stuffies. I’m also going to “stick a pin” here to remind myself to tell you a little trick I thought up regarding handmade presents.

groovy girl doll and handknit doll sweater

Just last week my neighbor shared with me several bags of yarn she’d received from someone else. The girl had seized on a small ball of pink and white novelty yarn which I decided to turn into a sweater for her favorite doll. (Don’t ask about the “dress” she has on.) My first top-down raglan sweater, ha ha. Maybe I’ll feel better about starting on a person-sized sweater now. I accidentally left the little sweater out and the girl saw it. I thought the surprise was ruined because of course she asked who it was for. But I answered with the name of her doll. The girl replied very seriously that she would wrap it up so that said doll would not see it before Christmas!

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I am so proud of the girl. She has been making a list of all her favorite people and making gifts for them. Some of her choices have been interesting but I’ve done my best to help her carry out her plans. This faux leather wallet is for one of her boy friend/heroes. Though he is nearly 6 years older, he has always been kind to her and she looks up to him like another brother.

pleather faux leather wallet with contrast stitching hand made

I was a bit dismayed when she said that she wanted to make him a wallet but after a bit of thought I pulled out this remnant of black vinyl. She sat on my lap at the sewing machine and chose one of his favorite colors, red, for the thread. We then turned the dials of my simple machine through the different stitch patterns and sewed parallel lines of red stitching against the black. I folded the rectangle wrong side out and sewed; her eyes danced as we turned it right side back out revealing the simple pouch shape. She chose a matching red resin snap to close the wallet.

hand sewn pleather vinyl snap wallet pouch

It didn’t photograph so well, and it’s a bit on the bold side, but I think he will actually like it. She seemed matter-of-factly pleased with the finished project and immediately wrapped it and wrote the label. I had to retrieve it after she went to bed and carefully unwrap it to photograph it!

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I’ve had in mind to make some balsam sachets for a while. I saved the needles from last year’s wreath and they still smell wonderful. My first step was to haphazardly cut up a scrap of muslin, quickly sew two sides through the serger and then stuff with the fir needles and leisurely sew up the last side by hand. I tried sewing up the last side with a straight stitch on the machine but it was more trouble than it was worth. There are some instances where I can handstitch neater and faster than the machine can.

I’ve had lots of different ideas on how to decorate the outer covers for these but this one popped up at the last minute. I paired up these toasty squares of wool felt and pulled out some embroidery floss. I then looked at pictures of balsam branches, drew some and forced myself to simplify until I had a pleasingly spare design. I then traced the final pattern onto tissue paper, labeled each dot with a letter and wrote down letter pairs in order of sewing. I borrowed this method from the boy’s second grade math homework. It worked a treat and the girl was pleased as punch to be able to follow the letters much like a dot-to-dot puzzle. The hardest part for her was sticking the needle up through the back.

wool felt embroidered with cotton DMC floss balsam fir and snowflake design balsam needle sachet

The snowflake ended up being more complicated so I decided to try working out the stitching pattern before writing it up. Halfway through the boy wanted to help and I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was he able to accurately stick the needle up through the back side of the work, but he was also able to figure out a thread conserving stitching pattern with very little guidance. Both were suitably impressed when we gently tore away the tissue paper to reveal the design. I finished the sachets by blanket stitching round the squares, stuffing the balsam filled muslin bags in between before closing up the last side. You can see we have a few more to finish. I will let the kids decide who to gift these to. We used to have one in the back of our car and the warmth of the heater in the winter or the summer sun would give the car just a hint of balsam fir fragrance.

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The boy (and his sister) decided they wanted to dress up as ninjas for Halloween. This sounded like a good plan to me so I heartily endorsed it. Covered head to toe in something that should be easy to buy or make and could be worn later as pajamas.

Black tee shirts and leggings were purchased. I sewed the balaclavas and belts from material I already had, they will get thrown into the dress-up shelves. I already had two pairs of long black dress gloves that worked perfectly. I made the balaclava pattern a year or two ago for a Batman costume so all I had to do was find it and sew some more. Very fast and easy on the serger in a knit fabric. Men’s black tube socks worn over their shoes and pulled up to the knees provided an extra layer of warmth and silent ninja feet. Because of course, nothing else about the evening was ninja quiet.
Halloween dress-up ninja costumes

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I can’t stand to waste anything, especially a favorite piece of clothing. Here are two cases where I have quickly transformed something old into something “new”.

First rescue:

two tee shirts ready for refashioning tee shirt refashion in progress

finished tee shirt refashion layered look

I took a favorite tee shirt of the boy’s and winterized it by cutting up an old long sleeve tee shirt of mine in a coordinating color. I cut the sleeves and a few inches of the hem off the long sleeve tee shirt and sewed them onto the boy’s tee shirt with contrast thread using a double needle on the regular sewing machine. The double needle creates a stretchy seam that works well with the knit fabric and contrast thread adds to the purposeful look of the additions. And in this case, I still have enough of the second tee shirt left to make something else.

Second rescue:

yoga pants embellished with hand stitched felt flowers to cover hole in knee detail of purchased felt flowers handstitched to cover darned hole

These were some cute hand-me-down pants that actually fit the girl’s long legs. Unfortunately they had a hole in the knee. She doesn’t care much for pants but since she liked these I decided it was worth a little work to make them more presentable. On an impulse, I purchased a package of pressed felt flowers. After darning the hole in the knee I hand stitched one flower over the hole. I then added some more flowers to the ankle of the other pants leg for visual balance.

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These projects barely qualify but since I haven’t done much else with a needle and thread lately you get to see them. Please excuse my lack of grammatically compete sentences. Strange mood tonight.

Water bottle holder. Yummy coffee/cocoa swirly fabric from Robert Kaufman. Self-lined with thermal-reflective fabric enclosed. Normally used to make potholders but should insulate cold as well as warm drinks. We’ll see how it performs.

water bottle holder with thermal lining

Mario Galaxy luma stars. At the request of the boy and his copycat sister. Green, his current favorite color and dark pink, her perennial favorite color. Highlights and eyes sewn on by hand, outline sewn by machine on felt. The boy named his Starfy and the girl named hers Perla but subsequently calls hers Starfy as well. The inspiration is thanks to “Uncle” Chad who brought his Wii game with him when he came to visit. (The jury is still out on whether or not we should press charges.)

hand sewn handmade felt luma stars from Mario Galaxy

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And this is where random meets charming. Or something like that.

handmade sou'wester hat on bobble head doll

Cute huh? So here’s the story. Because you know I didn’t do this project completely for the fun of it. It’s Clam Festival weekend here in Yarmouth and a friend of mine was somehow involved in obtaining the prizes for one of the clam shucking events. So she ordered these cute bobble head trophies. The style reminds me of Precious Moments or Joan Walsh Anglund. I don’t know who’s idea it was to put sou’wester hats on them but I got the call to make it happen.

bobble head trophy with hand sewn yellow fisherman hat

Making the pattern took some doing. I had hoped to find a pattern online that I could shrink down but I could find no such animal so I ended up looking at pictures of sou’wester hats (thanks to google images) and drafting the pattern myself. I also couldn’t find the fabric I wanted to use but this yellow nylon served fairly well. Luckily I’ve discovered the use of freezer paper which served as both a pattern for cutting and a guide for stitching around. I ended up making four of these little fisherman rain hats, so we have an extra one which happened to fit one of the dolls. I suppose now she needs a rain slicker to go with it. Sigh.

I think I’ll size this pattern up and make a sunhat or two for the kids in canvas or twill. It ended up being a fairly easy construction.

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These shorts began life as standard storebought khaki pants for the boy, at some point got cut off into shorts and today got a little girlifying with some graphic pink floral print scraps and some rather scratchy polyester “lace”. I’m fairly certain the fabric is a Jane Sassaman design but I couldn’t identify it positively. I also switched out the old plain buttons for covered buttons using the same pink print.

boys khaki shorts trimmed in pink fabric and lace for a girl

After I did the first side I decided to take pictures so here’s a quick tutorial. For the fabric trim you can use purchased bias trim, or handcut bias or straight grain fabric as I did. I cut mine about one inch wide and a little longer than the distance around the hem of the shorts leg. Cut the lace to the same length. First turn your shorts inside out so you can work on the right side of the fabric more easily. I prefer to offset the seam of the trim a little towards the rear to eliminate extra bulk at the inseam.

Step 1: Lay the fabric strip face down with the top edge of the lace overlapping the width of your zigzag stitch. Pin as desired. Skipping the first centimeter, zigzag down the overlap until you are nearly back around to the beginning. Trim your fabric and lace to fit under the beginning with a little extra to fold over. Fold the fabric end up but underneath the beginning flap. Fold the lace ends at a right angle with the short ends underneath or towards the right side of the shorts, trimming if necessary. Finish zigzagging.

shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 1/9 shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 2/9 shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 3/9

Step 2:
Fold the left edge of the fabric to meet the edge of the trim and finger press. (Or iron if you prefer.) Then finger press again to conceal the zigzag stitching. (I finger press a little at a time as I stitch.) Topstitch the open edge slowly. When you get to the end you will reach the folded end of the fabric trim. You can sew that little space shut if you choose but I didn’t bother. Your fabric and lace trim is now secure. You may add a decorative line of topstitching to the top edge of the fabric trim if you like.

shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 4/9 shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 5/9 shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 6/9

shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 7/9 shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 8/9 shorts trim tutorial by random-charm 9/9

And the finished shorts modeled rather reluctantly by the girl. Don’t let the grin fool you, her contrariness is barely concealed by her choice of the most unpink shirt she owns. After I took the picture she insisted on wearing the shorts backwards for the rest of the day.

IMG_8083

P.S. Isn’t she getting tall?? I’m telling myself it’s just the picture but . . . the camera doesn’t lie, does it?

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The girl has had this doll stroller or “rolly stroller” as she calls it for quite a while but has only recently started using it. Unfortunately the fabric cover did not survive long and developed a tear I could not mend nicely. Since I’d already had to repair an errant strap I decided it was time to just make a new cover. Okay, I admit I never liked how the pastel bears fabric clashed with the aqua stroller frame. Some Michael Miller daisies, brown grosgrain ribbon and an odd hot pink remnant to the rescue!

torn doll stroller cover

I used the old cover as a pattern but used two layers of cotton with flannel in between for a sturdier cover. Elastic encased in grosgrain ribbon rather than the typical buckle for the seatbelt is easy to use. I added a pocket that hangs down the back for the girl’s water bottle or other belongings. I meant to edge the little matching blanket with some nice vintage baby ric rac but I was already topstitching before I remembered so that didn’t happen. Oh well.

back pocket for doll stroller cover

handmade hand sewn doll stroller cover with matching doll blanket

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I think the babies like their updated ride quite a lot.

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Look! I sewed something! The girl saw a pair of baby slippers that have been hanging around and asked again for slippers of her own. (Even though she doesn’t wear the ones she has.) So I dug through the drawer that has my baby slipper supplies. I used to make quite a few of them, even drafted my own patterns in sizes from newborn to 4/5. I found this colorful butterfly print all cut out and ready to sew. I cut out the suede soles, (normally I would use leather for toddlers with bare floors) and sewed the uppers together. I had to rip and resew about three times because I’ve forgotten how to assemble these, as simple as they are. But she’s happy with them and has actually been wearing them yesterday and today. Usually I make these in heavier fabrics for winter use or line them in fleece but since it’s summer I decided to leave the extra layer out.

handmade butterfly slippers

suede bottom butterfly slippers for toddler

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