I made this little rocket wallet for one of Kristopher’s friends. I hope he likes it. Fabric is from Sarah Jane’s Children at Play line for Michael Miller. Tutorial can be found here.

The inside has 4 slots for cards and a large cash pocket like a regular wallet. The card slots on mine are almost too small, so I would say when sewing the double lines in the center to put them slightly closer than 3/4″ apart. This wallet was pretty easy and my mother in law was impressed with how quickly it went together. She was hanging out while I made it and playing with the kids, which was so very helpful!

When I showed it to Kristopher he wanted to know why I didn’t make him one, so I may be making another this week for his birthday. It’s funny to me how I think it will make a great gift, but I don’t really see Kristopher as the wallet carrying type. Guess I still think he should be a little boy and he’s growing up so fast. We all know if he asks for a handmade wallet he’ll get one, so that’s what I’ll be working on. I love to make things for my family and friends!

Many headbands and a couple of rosette clips:

A fleece UK blanket for my dad:

Kameron’s robot quilt for his toddler bed:

This was a simple square patch quilt, backed with white flannel, quilted with simple lines. It is nice and cozy and was to go with the robot blanket I made him last year. It looks cute on his bed!

A pennant bunting for my niece’s wall:

A little hat for Kyler:

Cute reversible pants for Kyler:

These pants are the “quick change trousers” from Handmade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner. I love this book! These pants took me awhile with 4 little ones to take care of, but the pattern is easy to follow and they are the most adorable things ever! I have plans to make more of these for Kyler. One side is Car fabric from Riley Blake with brown flannel on the behind. This reverses to Brown flannel with owls on the behind. The whole time I was working on these Taylor offered her two cents. She thought they looked huge and would not fit and made that known. However, they fit perfectly!

A house pouch for a little girl:

I made several of these in the summer of 2010 and when looking for a quick easy gift for a little girl I remembered them. I stuck some paper dolls in it for fun. The roof fabric and the paper dolls are by Sarah Jane Wright, my fave designer/illustrator. If you haven’t seen her work please go check it out. Fabulous!

I have made 5 so far and have two more notebooks that I can cover if I think of someone to give them to. Or they might turn into birthday gifts…several of those coming up! As you can see, Taylor loved hers. Everyone else who received one seemed to like it too!

I wanted to write a little update on the Christmas gift crafting. As you can see from the title I have more than 7 completed gifts. I finished Kyler’s blue hat. In the photos you can see a little sneak peek of some of the other finished things. I can’t tell you all the details now since I’m not sure who actually reads my blog. ;) I will take more pictures and give details closer to or after Christmas. I know I have one other gift done that isn’t pictured and I have a few little things in my box that I keep on hand for little gifts. Not sure if any of those will work for anyone just yet, so that’s the +.

Still to go are quite a few of the larger things. Tomorrow, I think, I will work on some pants for Kyler and possibly try to finish up a few more of the unfinished projects I found when I was cleaning up the sunroom and organizing my sewing stuff today. One of those things is a fun pennant banner out of Christmas fabric that I started last year. All that I have to do is sew it together and I want to be able to decorate with it this year. I’m actually enjoying making all of these gifts (not always the case with my holiday sewing) and I’m not even feeling rushed or stressed out about it yet. I’m thrilled with how things are turning out too, and I hope that each person who gets a handmade gift from me likes what they get!

Here are some pictures of it while it’s nice and neat:

This is the chalkboard I redid last summer. I bought it at a thrift store in town. I try to keep my list updated with what I want to make most, but it sometimes stays the same for a long period of time…

The top drawer on my sewing desk holds lots of binding for blankets and small quilting projects. It also holds a few zippers and other trims.

The second drawer holds my cutting mats, sewing machine needles and thread bobbins and scissors.

This bottom drawer holds all my little metal items and magnets. I have lots of buttons to cover and keychains and hair barretts to make someday!

Large pieces of fabric organized by color – what’s my favorite color?

Flannel, Fleece and other miscellaneous fabrics. The top shelf in this picture holds my largish scraps out of the box, my small scraps in the pink box and a couple of projects on the other side.

The top shelf holds my knits and felt and then the baskets on top of the cabinet hold some long forgotten knitting projects and all of my ribbon.

I moved all my yarn out of the sewing cabinet, to make more room, and I like it better. Now my yarn is in the living room cabinets where it will be much more accessible for actual knitting. I will probably eventually clean out the knitting basket for another sewing room related item, but am not sure if I want to rip all those things out or knit on them. To tell the truth I’m kind of tired of knitting.

I also want to show you my “teacher” desk while it is nice and clean. Hopefully it will actually stay this way. This is where I keep all my office supplies in our office/classroom. We just got a fancy new printer and by putting it on my desk I can maybe keep the piles off it. Don’t be fooled too much, right now they’ve just moved to the floor. I need to get them sorted and put away…once again, the motivation is not there!

Hopefully now that I’ve gotten my fabric and yarn sorted I will feel more compelled to make some things. The children need some new fun things and I definitely need to be making baby items, for our baby and for all the baby showers coming up. Time to get to work!

I wanted to finish a toddler bed quilt for Kameron that I had cut pieces for several months ago, but that didn’t happen. It has a robot theme. I was in Walmart and they had some cute new robot fleece. So I made a quick blanket for his bed by binding it with blanket satin.

Then I was sad that I didn’t get to make the doll for Taylor that I wanted to (the topsy turvy doll, with a head on each end), so I looked through my doll book, Wee Wonderfuls, again. I decided that since she likes her sticker book dolls so much that a “paper doll” type thing would be fun. The book had the perfect project and she loves it! It is a pillow with a felt doll shape on the front and a pocket on the back to hold the clothes. I had so much fun making this and all the clothes are adorable. I worked on it while she was around and she thought the whole time that it was for me to play with, so she was very surprised on Christmas morning when she opened it! It will match her room perfectly, so I can’t believe she didn’t figure it out sooner!

Last, I had such a hard time figuring out what to do for my in-laws this year. I make them something every year and I was out of ideas. Finally I saw these cute notebooks on the Crafting Chicks blog. I decided to do something like that. I went to Hobby Lobby and found a nice note/sketchbook and some small alphabet stamps. I had the rest of the supplies I wanted to use. It was a fun little project and I think they liked it. :) I hope they will use it! (sorry for the bad pictures, you can’t see the stamped words with the flash on)

And, I would have liked to make so much more, but there just wasn’t enough time. I never even finished my little wreath I was making for the inside of the house or my card wreath… I have found something else now that I’d rather have to hold Christmas cards though. Here’s a link: Christmas Tree Card Holder . Think I can finish it before next Christmas?

Have a wonderful day!

First, I finished these slippers for Kristopher. He had a pair just like this in a smaller size and wore them all the time. He requested another pair, but wanted blue and green stripes. Well, I didn’t have yarn that would work and was trying not to buy new supplies for these gifts if possible. I did have more Malabrigo worsted in a dark and light blue variegated and his favorite color right now is dark blue, so I hope he likes these just as well. In the picture they still need to be felted – they are going in the machine today!

Next I finished this hat for him, also requested and I did buy the yarn he wanted for this. He told me he wanted a hat just like Kameron’s, which was kind of funny to me, but I thought I’d try. I only bought 1 skein of yarn and didn’t want to go get more, so his is a lot shorter, but I think it will be okay. It’s very thick, which would bug me, but hopefully he will wear it! It is knit from Lion Brand Hometown USA in the color Washington Denim. I did not enjoy knitting with this acrylic after the nice soft Malabrigo, but at least it was a quick knit in the chunky yarn!

This morning I finished a boy doll. It is for Kameron, since he has taken to playing with Taylor’s dolls a lot. He likes to carry them around and love on them. Worry not, he still loves his cars and boy things too! Anyway, I bought the book Wee Wonderfuls about a month ago and all the dolls are so cute, and this boy doll, Eddie is in there. In the book he is such a little cutie and I’m very dissapointed that my version is not quite so cute. I was working with what I had available to me and I had an ivory flannel for the body. He looks very pale and Kristopher remarked that it looks like a scary ghost. I think he looks slightly better with his clothes on and I looked at the flickr group and many of the dolls on there are made with lighter bodies and are still cute, so I’m going to give him the doll. I have considered trying to dye him with tea or something though. My fake fur for the hair is also a little wild. I loved the curls in the book and I’m not digging my fluffy hair so much! Anyway, here he is. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions about giving him a good tan!

I have finished decorating for Christmas, it took a sweet forever this year, and I will post pictures soon. I love what I decided to do with the top of the tree this year – I was tired of having an angel on top. It appears I have a burnt out piece of lights on there now, already. That’s dissapointing!

Have a great day! Time for me to start getting ready for a couple weeks of Christmas parties – I love being invited to parties! :)

I went through Kameron’s clothes for fall/winter and found him in need of pants- he’s a little shortie. So I made him two pair. One is from an old sweatshirt from highschool and the other is from a gap sweater that was mine and became holey. I loved that sweater and can’t wait for him to wear the pants this winter!

I started a shawl:

I made 3 baby taggy blankets (12×12) for an order and to keep on hand for gifts. I just couldn’t decide on one, so 3 it was.

I still didn’t finish one apron…sadly the pieces are all cut and on my sewing room floor in a stack. Maybe next week? Have a great weekend!

I’m sure you’re tired of seeing these little housess…but I made myself one this morning. I couldn’t resist the cuteness and had to have one for my bag! I used the same polkadots as I did for Taylor’s roof, but my lining is different. I have been saving this blue with black and white bird print for a few years now. then I bought the polkadots earlier this year and when I saw the two together I could not imagine not using them together in a project. I still want to make something else with them together, but this satisfied a little of that craving. Blue is my favorite color and right now I love birds and polkadots and houses – I could not be more happy about this little thing. Joy comes from strange places sometimes! I don’t know what it will hold yet, but it’s going with me wherever I go.

Once again the pattern/tutorial can be found here at The Long Thread.
Polkadot fabric is: Naomi’s Rose by Helen Weinman for Timeless Treasures, from: The Murray Sewing Center
Bird fabric is: Floragraphix III by Jason Yenter for In the Beginning Fabrics, from: Hancock’s of Paducah
Tree fabric is: Apple Tree (Tiemless Treasures), from: Hancock’s of Paducah
The outside of the house is made from canvas just as the other two were.

So, the maybe is because now that I’ve made these two blue houses, I’m not liking the pink anymore. I guess what I’m really not liking about the pink one is the lining and window/door fabric choices. The solid fabric looks better to me – what do you think? Should I redo the gift pouch? I’d feel better giving a gift that I like better than I do that one I think. So maybe one more house on this kick and then I’ll move on. I did get almost all of 4 aprons cut out this week too and one of them is actually pinned. So if you are looking for an apron stay tuned and I’ll hopefully have some of the them up here next week:)

For any of you out there that think I must not make mistakes and that everything I make is cute (I really doubt that there are any of you, but just in case) this post is for you!

I have been wanting to make a cute little layered tulle skirt ever since I saw one of our cousin’s daughter wearing one at her first birthday party. i am pretty sure it was from ribbon chix* and it was the most adorable thing ever. I had some tulle leftover from the tutus I was making so I decided to try tonight. Let me just tell you this: I HATE WORKING WITH TULLE! The tutus that I tie are fine enough, but trying to lay it out and sew it – fugghetaboutit.

Problems I have with my version:

1. You can see through it. That’s 6 layers of tulle and still you can see what’s underneath. Not going to work for what I wanted.
2. The waistband looks like yuck.
3. It is near impossible to see what you’re sewing with that many layers of tulle and be able to tell what tier they go to. I messed up and didn’t realize it until I had cut off the extra.
4. It’s just not the one I saw and what I want.

So, in my opinion, if you make these cute skirts you are awesome and whatever you charge is totally worth it. I guess if I want one for Taylor bad enough I’ll have to break down and buy one. We’ll see. She’s almost too old for a cutesy birthday party outfit isn’t she?

* If you are on facebook, look up ribbon chix and check out their profile pictures. They have a lot of different tulle skirts, but there is a purple one that has a shirt with it that says big sis. That is similar to the one Bella had. So cute!