Woodland Animals Ornament kit by Heidi Boyd Crafts

Merry Christmas! I bought the Woodland Animals Ornament kit by Heidi Boyd Crafts just for the fox, but I wound up stitching them all....all the animals and the fungus (the mushroom) too.  :)  If you follow me on Instagram, you saw I started the fox right before Thanksgiving and finished the last ornament this week.

The kit came with the felt, twine, beads, pins, a needle, floss, and pre-cut flowers and 2 circles for the owl's eyes (you have to cut out the rest of the felt pieces yourself, using a separate PDF pattern).  I did wind up switching up some of the background colors for felt I bought at Stitch Lab in Austin earlier this month.   And there's not enough felt with the kit if you want to cut a second background layer to hide your stitching--which the perfectionist in me totally wants.

I got into a rhythm with them--cut out the pieces, arrange and stitch.  By the fourth ornament, I decided to stitch directly onto a rough cut piece of felt, and then cut around it, instead of cutting the background out before stitching.  That way if my animal shifted, I could cut it to still have a nice border around the animal.


stitch onto rough cut felt

Cut around it with pinking shears (I hadn't used pinking shears in forever!)

Layer it on a second layer of felt.
I used tape to temporarily join the two layers so they wouldn't shift too much as I cut the second layer, trying to get the pinking to be in exactly the same location as the front.

Then I removed the tape and used the running stitch to stitch the two layers together along the perimeter, stitching the twine hanger to the ornament at the appropriate position. This second layer hides the stitching on the first layer (except for the running stitches of course!)

Close-up pic of the 7 ornaments in the kit, but the sewing machine is from a Betz White PDF (stitched/glued this year), a handstitched Mollie Makes "deer head on bauble" from last year, and an A. Paulson red coat ornament, also handstitched this year.

The full effect, after I opened presents this morning...should have taken this long range view before opening presents!

The Betz White Christmas cactus ornament, stitched/glued this weekend, hanging from my Christmas cactus. My note to self is that craft glue only dries clear in the places where it wasn't overly used. If I used a lot of it, it dried white and then I spent a lot of time trying to peel it off, ultimately taking part of the felt with it.

Red berries

Holly!
Merry Christmas y'all!
And a reminder, if you'd like to win a Vacuuming the Lawn 2017 bag calendar, enter here.  You have until Tuesday morning at 7am EST to enter.

Be well!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas my blogging friends!

I started this Mollie Makes issue 47 kit late yesterday afternoon and stitched the whole thing by hand. I finished it this morning.  I'm really trying to fight my perfectionistic tendencies to not fix how the top of the bauble is somewhat angled and how the 2015 is not centered.  I have to start cooking very soon, as my Dad is coming over at noon, so I'll see how I feel later on today after taking a break from it.  I have a feeling I'll take that part off and do that part again.
Updated:  I redid the top part of the bauble tonight and replaced the picture above with its current state which is much better than it was this morning!


Do you want to play spot the differences?

I think my favorite part is how the "blush" on the deer is a red crayon.  I don't have any standard issue crayons but I do have red tailor's wax, which is what I used instead.  I think that was a clever detail. All deer obviously blush, right? :)

Here is what the kit looked like at the start.

There was no "nose" template included so I used the eye template as the nose.  I had cut the actual eye smaller for better scale. That's one of the differences; there are at least 4 others!

Have a fun, low-stress day and be well!

Merry Christmas!

One of Mom's favorite Christmas decorations:  Santa kissing Mrs Claus

Hello Darlings!  Hope Santa brought you everything you wanted!

My Christmas cactus bloomed at the appropriate time this year.  Well done, cactus.  Great job!

Be well!

What I sewed mom for Christmas

Thanks for all your comments on my Christmas post. I love that cat fabric too!  Hope you all had a great holiday!

So I did a little last-minute Christmas sewing for my mom: two aprons and a zipper pouch.


Here are the supplies:


Turquoise upholstery fabric: from stash.  I love this fabric as it has great texture and color and weight.
Heart lining fabric: remnant from Joann's, rediscovered during the stash clean out.
Interfacing: medium weight iron-on from Fashion Sewing Supply
9" zipper: SIL Thread in NYC
Iron on heart patches: Pacific Trimming.  As soon as I saw those heart patches I knew they were destined to be on a zipper pouch.
Pattern: McCall's 6256, which I made a few times this year.

I started cutting out this pouch at 8pm on Monday night and had it finished ~2 hours later.   I impressed myself as I am such a slow sewist and the first time I made it (with laminated fabric, in the larger size) took about 7 hours.  I loved all the little notes I wrote to myself in the pattern instructions, in particular the one about sewing on the fabric tabs to the zipper:  "Remember, you can't sew over a metal zipper".  Bwah ha ha!


I love the interior.  It's like a heart explosion.  Mom loves hearts and turquoise, so this was a great match.

Zipper tab

The back

The view from the top


Makin' the tabs. Wonder tape is definitely my friend when making zipper tabs.

I think it's totes adorbs.

I originally wanted the two hearts to overlap so I did a test sample (I had purchased a few of those heart iron-on patches) but you could see the heart in the background through the heart in the foreground so I just put them side by side.

Here are the aprons.  Mom likes her aprons to be a big rectangle with two ties.  It's a very simple thing to sew.


This particular piece of cat fabric (left) was the original 3/4 yd piece I bought in Hawaii that was intended for this very apron!  The one on the right is fabric from the City Quilter, bought in either May or June, in their clearance section.

Here is how mom wears her aprons:

and
 
I *love* this particular cat on the Christmas apron:


A cat wearing Santa slippers! Love it!
Mom wore both aprons on Christmas Day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so I think they were a hit.

I realize in my last post, the pix all had my apron with the ties tied in front (which is how I like to wear them) but here is one with the ties tied in the back to show maximum streamlined cat cuteness.



So, what have I learned from making 3 aprons and 1 zipper pouch in 2 days?  It is really, really nice to be able to sew tried and true items and not worry about fit!

In my next post, I will write about what I got for Christmas from my parents (spoiler alert: it's an Elna Press!)

Be well!

From My Stash to Yours, Merry Christmas

From my stash to yours, Merry Christmas!

Thanks everyone for your comments on my last post.  Two great things happened:  I found a fellow sewist to trade fabric (Andrea of Needle Nose Apparel--she makes dog collars and dog pajamas for greyhounds!) AND the donation service came and took away 12 bags of clothes and fabric. 

And a third great thing happened:  I am now off for a week--my first week off at Christmas since 1998--and it is pretty fabulous!

I bought myself two things for Christmas:


I had been wanting a sewing machine necklace for a while now.  Elizabeth had one and I coveted it.  I bought mine on etsy from this seller.  I used the $50 gift card from the McCall's focus group (plus a little bit of my cash) to buy it.  I promise to write about the focus group soon.

I saw the labels on Lladybird's blog a while back, but they were out of stock at the time.  Now they are back at the Sublime Stitching shop.  I got them 25% off with a holiday sale.

I made myself an apron as a Christmas present to myself.  There was much fretting about placement of cats for maximum cuteness.  See the hot pink cats on the straps?  See how symmetrical they are?  See how the hot pink cat is in the middle?  Yes, yes, yes!


Yes!

I learned how to get this curve to come out flat instead of puckery:

 I have always had trouble with that curve which is a narrow, double turned, 5/8" seam. This time I serged the edge first, then turned it once and ironed it flat.





And then I turned it under again and ironed again.

And then I stitched from the right side.


Hurrah! No puckers!
Who knew the iron could be such a friend?

I did that for finishing the other edges as well.

The fabric is Kobayashi Quiet Cats in the pink/green colorway (it comes in three colorways).

I bought my first length of it in Hawaii in May with MushyWear and bought more on Maigo Cute.


The reflection of the chair in the window makes it look like there's still snow outside.  After an unusual weekend of temps in the upper 60's F, the snow is all gone.  Now it's 40-something.

So, Merry Christmas y'all.  Have a great holiday!!
Be well!

McCalls 3422: Santa Hat 50 years in the making

It snowed today.  It's the perfect weather for my new Santa hat.



I have been wanting a santa hat lately.

So on Sunday night I sewed up McCalls 3422 (A pattern dated 2001, which somehow survived many pattern cleanouts, somehow).  I used red furry fabric from my crafty grandmother.  My mom estimates this fabric to be at least 50 years old.


I loved how I could see a semicircle was cut out of this fabric with pinking shears. I imagine that my grandmother cut an entire tree skirt out of this fabric.

I even muslined it, which felt on one hand like going too far, on the other, if it was too small...there goes the fabric!

After measuring my head and muslining for fit (I took the largest hat size, 23"...which is what the circumference of my head is, ha ha). I sewed it up and tried it on, but the underside of that furry fabric was pretty itchy on my forehead so I took it apart and lined it with very soft Snoopy Christmas pj fabric I estimate to have owned since college.  I don't know how to describe this fabric other than it's the kind of fabric kids pjs is made out of.  Very synthetic feeling but also soft.


I don't know where the white furry fabric is from, but there it was in my stash. The pattern calls for a 2" wide trim but I cut mine 3". Next time I would cut it 4" as the turn of cloth on fabric this thick is quite a lot, and the thicker the trim, the more luxe (there's that word again!) it looks.

The "pompom" is actually a 5" square where I brought the corners together and sewed, then sewed again...

 and then


and then
 
and then
 
and then it looks like this:

Close enough to a pompom!!!

There's a cat that lives in the parking garage at work. He has a bobtail, so I call him Bob. Today, my coworker and I made a snowcat in Bob's likeness. It was the best lunch hour!

Greetings from Princeton, NJ!
Be well!