Handmade Christmas

During the month of December, our boys turned into little elves for each other, as we followed the tradition found last year here. This is such a fun tradition, and one that I can see us doing for years to come because the planning, the making and the giving is so much fun for Jeff and me and the kids. I love the one-on-one time and the secrets we keep as we come up with ideas and go about making them together. The kids open these gifts from each other on Christmas Eve, and they are just thrilled to see what the other one has made for them. I look forward to when the two littles are older, and can participate as well.

James's handmade gifts:
For Owen: decoupaged a box, where he stores all his special "stuff" (pokemon cards, lego sets, gum, silly bands, you get the idea),
For Henry: made an elmo bank from a peanut butter bottle.
For Thomas: sewed this cute little snowman stuffed animal.

Owen's handmade gifts:
For James: freezer-paper stenciled him an Oregon Ducks t-shirt
For Henry: Using this fun technique, made him a bag to take to the library

Henry, being a little craft challenged at age 2, picked out new toothbrushes for his older brothers and was thrilled about it.

I also love to wrap a handmade item for the boys and put it under the tree. This year, James got a new bag for his piano books, and Owen got a bag to hold the loose legos that usually end up all over the floor anytime they get used. This is a pretty great tutorial, if you have legos or any small toys that need a home. Next year I hope to make the little boys something as well. I just ran out of time.

I also did a little post-Christmas sewing for some things that Santa brought. My boys love to do lego sets, and they love to keep them together, but ziploc bags and boxes just haven't been working. So I made a few of these bags for the sets and the instructions, and a padded bag for their new ipods.

 We stayed home for Christmas this year, and had my oldest sister, Alisa, to visit. Although we missed all the family we normally see, it was very relaxing and pleasant to be on our own schedule and not have to make that LONG drive to Utah.

Happy New Year!

End-of-the-year teacher gifts

Like many, I always like to give a small gift of appreciation to my children's teachers at the end of the school year. I prefer a handmade gift, and bookmarked this tutorial last year as an idea for something to give. I loved it for two reasons:

1) It can be made up entirely of fabric scraps

2) The embroidered name written in the student's handwriting includes the child in this gift in a special way

Just wanted to share in case someone else is looking for something simple, handmade and special for a teacher gift this year.

Custom order love

After a three-month hiatus from sewing, I reopened my shop at the beginning of February, and the orders coming in, along with my regular sewing for classichound, have kept me very busy these last six weeks.

I wanted to share a few of the custom orders I have made, as I always appreciate the challenge it is to meet the specific needs of a customer who has something special in mind.

A customer sent me this fun fabric, some of which were cloth napkins, and requested sandwich wraps with muslin as the lining instead of nylon. It is actually a great idea, as muslin is very breathable and it is something I will probably add to the shop at a later date.

This is a diaper bag made for my SIL's cousin, and I am mostly thrilled with how the adjustable strap turned out. I am thinking of making one for Jeff in this messenger style, with more manly colors and fabrics.

These brown canvas lunch bags, (which were actually originally added to the shop as a result of a custom order), have been a top seller at limabeanhome these last six weeks. A couple of teenage sisters in Canada wanted to change the closure of the lunch bag from a velcro to snaps, which was a fun challenge.

And the newest permanent addition is this cherry oilcloth lunchbag. Oilcloth is something I have been eyeing as a medium for many months and I was thrilled to see it arrive in my local fabric store so that I didn't have to pay for shipping.

Happy Sewing days!

Project diaper bag: complete

It occurred to me that I never did report back about making myself a new diaper bag.

Now that it is made and I've been carrying it for some months now, I would definitely change a few things, but mostly I like it and it has some fun and useful features.

These pictures are not great, but bags are difficult to photograph, I've found.

My favorite things include:

• handle is made of seat belt fabric and is my first attempt at an adjustable strap. Turns out adjustable straps aren't difficult at all, and this one makes this bag able to be a shoulder bag or crossed over my body
• also my first attempt at doing the zipper pocket on the back, which i love to stow books away from the main pocket of the bag
• cup holders--didn't have them in my other diaper bag and one for me and one for henry are used everyday
• cell phone pocket sewn into the side--because i finally entered the 20th century and got my first cell phone. and i'm kind of loving it

Things I would do differently next time:

• i made a special pocket just for a diaper/wipe clutch, which I like, but next time i would put it on the opposite side of the bag from the back zipper pocket, as it makes that side heavier and very unbalanced.
• the plum quilted fabric was a spontaneous purchase and coordinating fabrics were purchased (floral) and repurposed (green) to match. But I'm losing the love for the plum.

Probably too much analysis of a bag for many of you readers, but I like to document these things for my own sake.

And finally, here is the bag in action at the roundhouse at the Train Museum in NC on a very hot day.

From the stash

If you sew, chances are you have a fabric stash. Oh, how I love my stash.

However, when you live in a very small house, as I do, the stash tends to take up too much of the already precious square footage. I often wonder why I keep certain pieces that don't seem like they're the right size or pattern for anything good.

And then one day, a project like this comes along:

and instead of rushing off to the fabric store and go crazy trying to find just the perfect thing, we raid the stash to find whatever needs to be used up.

This project was inspired by my friend Amy, who doesn't have a blog, but should, just to show off her creativity and the fun things she has made for her little daughter, Ahna, like these book holders that hang off her bunk bed. Because she's too humble to post about her things on the internet, I made something just like what we saw at her house the other day and will brag on her behalf.

Add in a couple of clip-on lights that were collecting dust in the closet, and each boy has his own cozy reading nook, like every boy, and girl, should.

All out of a bunch of fabric scraps that seemed like they were good for nothing.

**and Owen really isn't picking his nose in that picture, it just looks like it =)

Nativity Tunic/Costume Tutorial

Occasionally, being able to sew is a very useful skill.

I love all the free sewing tutorials that are all over the internet. People are so generous with their instructions and pictures and I have benefited many times.

So last week when I was looking for a tutorial for a basic Mary & Joseph nativity costume, I was surprised to find that there wasn't much available. The only thing I found were some very basic instructions on blurtit.com. The woman that posted those proved to be my lifesaver, though, as I was trying to put something together to help out a friend desperate for a costume for our church christmas program the next night.

Her instructions said this:

This is the method I used:

2- 2/3 yards (8 feet) x 2 ½ feet (30) inches for gown. Cut a 8 inch circle in center.

22 inches x 22 inches square for sleeve. Fold in half.

Cut a slit down front and bind edges. Hem around neck

pin center of sleeve to gown length center. Sew side and sleeve seams.

In hoping to give back a little to all who have shared a tutorial with me, I wanted to expand those basic instructions with some pictures, and perhaps someone else will be able to make a very simple tunic-style gown that is useful for many costumes.

Woman size: uses about 3 yards of fabric (I used 45" wide muslin)

Man size: uses about 4 yds fabric

1) For a woman's size tunic, cut fabric 28" x 3 yards (108") For a man's size tunic cut fabric 30" x 3 yds. 14 inches (122") Fold in half and cut out a half circle on the fold for the neck hole. 6" diameter circle for a woman 7" diameter circle for a man

2) Cut a 3-4" slit starting at the center of the circle you just cut

3) Hem the slit

4) With the remaining scraps of fabric, first cut two pieces for sleeves.

16" x 22" for women,

22" x 22" for men.

Set these two sleeve pieces aside.

5) With what is left, cut bias strips 3" wide and stitch together to make a bias strip about 30-35" long. Press this bias strip in half and then each half to the inside to make bias tape, pressing one raw end also to the inside.

6) Sew the bias tape around the neck, starting with the finished end of the bias tape.When you get to the other side of the neck you will need to trim the excess tape and turn under the end before you finish sewing.

7) Fold the two sleeves in half. For the woman sleeve, fold along the 16" side. Pin the center of the sleeve to the gown length center. Serge (or sew and then zigzag) around this sleeve seam.

8) Match and pin the insides of the sleeve right at the armpit, then serge (or sew and then zigzag) along the inside of the sleeve continuing all the way down to the bottom of the tunic.

9) Press all seams, then hem sleeves and bottom to desired length.

It is a very, very basic gown/tunic, but I was able to quickly sew four of them--two for my friends who played Mary and Joseph and two for me and Jeff. I also made a couple of vests for the men to wear over their tunics using the same basic pattern, by cutting and hemming the neck slit all the way down the bottom of the tunic, and leaving off the sleeves.

At one point in the evening, Jeff had to remove his brown vest and be the Angel Gabriel for someone who didn't show up.

I hope this tutorial is helpful--If you use it and find it confusing, please comment with any questions or suggestions and I'll try to help.

Handmade birthday

Yesterday my sweet little Owen turned four.

I really wanted to make a something special birthday gift to give him, inspired, as usual, by soulemama, whose little girl also turned four this month and received a handmade quilt from her mama. Since a quilt was a bit ambitious for my skills and the little time I had to sew, I settled for something quicker and smaller.

I actually give the credit for this idea to Jeff, who thought it up during an evening brainstorming session with me four nights before the actual birthday.

You see, our Owen is a lover of all things Thomas the Train, which, at first I hated, and now I love because during the past two years of his collecting, I have seen the genius in this wooden train set that began in 1945 as a series of stories written by Rev. Awdry for his grandson, Christopher.

Anyone familiar with Thomas will know that all the useful engines rest at night in a sort of roundhouse called Tidmouth Shed. Jeff's idea was to construct a version of Tidmouth shed in which Owen's engines could rest for the night.

Here is the plastic version that is for sale:

And here is my version:

The best thing about sewing this little project is that Owen helped me choose the fabric and then promptly forgot about it, which made the opening of the birthday gift that much more fun when he saw his fabric choice sewn into something which hopefully will turn out to be, as Sir Topham Hatt would say"very useful indeed."

A new item

Last week a faithful customer asked me to make her a couple of lunch bags out of plain canvas with a velcro top. I added a piece of vinyl to the bottom inside to catch any spills and after they were done, I thought they would be a great addition to my shop.

And so, here is the official unveiling of a new permanent item to limabeanhome.

Evening alone

Last week Jeff was out of town for a couple of days, so I had my first taste of parenting three little boys all alone. It was a mildly crazy, chaotic day, but I survived. When at last I had two boys asleep for the night and one settled and asleep for his standard 2 hours or so, I found myself in a quiet house surrounded by the messes of the day. Instead of taking the time to straighten up or fold laundry, I made myself a big bowl of ice cream--and by bowl I mean the carton (um, yeah, losing that baby weight is going to start tomorrow), and sat down to sew.

With Joshua Radin playing on the ipod (thx Lis!), and the cool Oregon breeze coming through the window, I was in a little bit of heaven. But I think that's what should happen at the end of a day like that. Kids are where they should be--resting up to start all over tomorrow, and mamas are where they should be--doing something that makes them happy.

Here is what was started in that session (and finished in the days to follow):

• Hats for my friend Amy who is going through chemotherapy right now. (thanks for asking me to make them, Amy!)
• A new laptop cover for me like the one I made for Jeff
• Striped sling made of a lighter, more breathable fabric than my other one for the hot days when all Henry and I do is sweat all over each other

New projects and such

Sometimes I start surfing around the internet and get to looking at people's various sewing projects and then I want to make new things. I've never been great at making clothes, but ever since I traded all my maternity tops for all the others that have been in a bin for months, I made a sad realization. They are the same, tragic, plain, frumpy mostly v-neck shirts I put away those many months ago. I guess I was kind of hoping they would morph into some stylish, new awesomeness out in the shed in that rubbermaid bin.

So now I'm thinking I want to try my hand at making a couple of tops. Maybe some peasant-y style kind with some cute print fabric. How hard can it be? (for twenty bucks, name the Food Network star who owns that quote).

Here's where I answer my own question: I'm sure it's much harder than it seems. This is one particular blog post that has given me the motivation to maybe try it. The tricky thing seems to be making it actually fit and flatter your body. I'll keep you posted if I really decide to attempt it.

On another sewing note, I did find this tutorial and made one of these as a Father's Day gift for Jeff. I think the fusible fleece gives it just the right amount of padding without being bulky and also I love the soft flannel lining. I want to make one for my laptop now too.

It's definitely an easy, 1-2 hour project if your laptop needs some protecting.

Baby Items: part 2

As promised, more items and baby tutorials

Boppy Cover

Tutorial and pattern found here. If you make one of these, I would definitely recommend fitting it onto your boppy and pinning it around to make sure it is a snug fit before sewing.

WetbagVery useful for cloth diapering. I just used the wristlet pattern found here, made it a little larger, eliminated the handle and used ripstop nylon as the lining. (Thanks Tara for motivating me to figure it out)

Sling I bought a maya wrap ring sling when James was born, but I never really liked it because I always felt like he was never very secure, so I ended up selling it on Ebay and mostly used a baby bjorn carrier with him and Owen.

With this baby I still plan on using my bjorn, but wanted to also try a hotsling, since the main thing I didn't like about the maya wrap was the rings, and hotslings don't have rings. Free Pattern and tutorial found here. Can't wait to see how it fits a real baby, instead of a doll.(thanks to Clara, who asked me to help her make one of these for her little guy over a year ago)

Baby Items: part 1

These days there are so many great items that simplify your life with a baby. Lately I have been in the mood to make some of these items (call it nesting) and found free tutorials online for each one. I thought I'd share what I've made, and how you can make your own. These all make such great, inexpensive baby shower gifts. Most of these I'm keeping for myself, though.

It's amazing how much money you can save by making things yourself with clearance and thrifted fabrics.

Diaper Bag The pattern for this bag was developed in my head, but I got the idea for the all the inside pockets (minus the elastic) from this tutorial. I ended up having enough of this to make two of these, so the other one is listed in my shop.

Nursing CoverI have made these as gifts for so many people, so I was excited to make one for myself. Tutorial found here.

Diaper ClutchI found a tutorial here, but I actually prefer this style better. Here is one I just made for a work friend of Jeff's who is having a baby. The green one is mine--I made it last year and has been well-used already, so isn't as cute. But it's still very useful.

There are three more items to show--a boppy cover, a sling and a wetbag, they will be in a separate post.