DIY Bunting

Bunting. It's everywhere these days. All over the internet like cats. I don't allow myself to get onto Pintrest (we all know I'd be sucked in and disappear for weeks) but I'm sure it's on there. It's cute, it's fun, and it's super easy (and cheap!) to make. I made miles of it for my wedding:

Today as I was swapping out my V-day heart with my St. Patty's Day clovers outside our door I realized outside of that we have zero St. Patty's day decor! It's a brief holiday but still, I love holidays, big and small. Celebrations in general are awesome in my book. So I decided to make some green bunting to hang around the house. And I thought I'd share how to make it. Because it's stupid easy and if you're ever in need of some cute quick decor, bunting is a great solution.

All you need is some sort of card-stock/sturdy paper, a ruler (or if you're good at eyeballing, forget the ruler), scissors, sewing machine/needle and thread, and fabric. I happen to have a plethora of scrap fabric so I just grabbed all my greens. You can buy your own if you're not sitting on a cache of scraps, remnants would be a good and cheap place to start. Any color is cool! Matching is not necessary! I ended up not using that green polka dot print fabric since it was a print and not double sided. Something to consider if your bunting will be seen from both sides.

Make yourself a triangle! My sturdy paper was a flyer we got in the mail, recycle y'all! This will be your pattern. Mine was 6 inches across and 7 inches down, but you can make them whatever size you'd like! Long and skinny triangles or short and fat, you're the boss.

Trace your pattern on your fabric! I folded my fabric in half a whole bunch so when I cut it I was cutting multiples. Don't worry if they're not perfect, perfection is totally overrated in this instance. And in most.

Kick your cat off your stuff and continue with the rest of your fabric until you've got a whole bunch of triangles!

Now sew those suckers together! You can sew them in a pattern or just grab random colors, as I did here. A sewing machine surely speeds things up, but you can totally do this by hand. You just need the corners to be sewn together. If you do have a sewing machine, you can just run a stitch along the top of all of them.

And before you know it, you've got a big ol' strand of bunting! It took me maybe 10 minutes to sew them all together.

I ended up going back and finishing the edge with a wide zig-zag stitch for a little more stability. You could totally sew the whole thing together like this from the start, if I had thought of it earlier I would have. Have a serger? Lucky you, serge them all together!

You could also connect the triangles together with one long ribbon across the top. Perhaps in a contrasting color? I think that would be super cute. Plus, you could leave a long bit of ribbon at each in to tie your bunting to things. Ribbons = bows, y'all.

Hang that nonsense up and get festive! I made a loooong strand. This actually goes a bit farther off to the right. It makes me happy! Our little home is ready for St. Patty's day!

Make some y'all! Or don't, I will never know. But like I said, it's SO easy and incredibly cheap. You could probably throw this together for under five bucks if you had to buy all the materials. And it looks great and is so fun. Baby showers? Birthdays? Christmas (I am shocked I don't have this in christmas colors, obv going down this year)? Or just have some up year round! Why not? The options are endless! Get crafty!

Kennedy's blanket

This blanket took me forever. Like months! It was meant as a birthday present for Kennedy, and her birthday was in April. Life got in the way unfortunately, but better late than never I finished it up and when we visited this weekend I was finally able to give it to her!

Slumber party!

I used the same method (aka, making it up as I go) as I did to make my Weasley style blanket last year. I just picked prettier colors. I forgot how long sewing all those squares together takes. And then hand sewing the all the intersections through the batting and back... phew! I'm happy with it though. I hope Kennedy is too. It's not perfect, but it's got character!

I may or may not have stood on my coffee table to get this shot. 

Sophie was a little attached to this blanket, she thought I was making it for her. She was with it through all it's many stages; she sat on the squares as I cut them and sewed them together, sat on the backing, in the batting, rolled all over the blanket while it was spread out in my living room, and her favorite part was attacking the thread while I hand sewed it at the end. Of course when it was finished, she promptly laid on it. Sorry for all the grey hairs Kennedy, I tried to get most of them off. Sophie sends her love to you and your new blanket.

I'm not sure if Kennedy was really that stoked about it (I mean what kid would be hyped about a blanket?), but I thought it would be a cool thing to grow up with. So she can remember her Auntie Marie who made way too much stuff in her free time.

Step by Step Sewing Part 3 - Construction

Alrighty, finally the next installment of the sewing project! I've named this dress the "candy striper" dress, for obvious reasons. Check out Part 1 and Part 2. Now let's tackle putting this thing together!

First things first we'll make the bodice. Really what you're making here is a kind of vest that eventually will be attached to the skirt. I ironed the interfacing onto the fabric, giving the fabric some stiffness and strength in places you'll need it. Most importantly here, where we'll be putting the buttons and button holes.

Next up, we sew in some darts onto the bodice pieces as well as the bodice lining. You basically have two mirrored copies of the bodice, one in your good fabric and one in lining. You'll sew them together so that on the inside of the bodice there are no exposed seams.

That up there is the lining. There are bust and waist line darts in the two front pieces (left and right sides) and then two waist line darts in the back piece. Darts are super easy, you basically are sewing out a wedge in your fabric, creating some definition/three dimensionality to your fabric. It makes your garment more fitted and tailored to your body. It also creates space to put your lovely boobs. Yes I just said boobs.

So I sewed in all my darts to all the bodice pieces and lining, then I sewed the front pieces to the back piece at the shoulder seam. Then I sewed the fabric and lining versions of the bodice together, good sides facing, so when you flip it right side out you can't see the seams on the inside or outside. Secrets of the trade here y'all. Just kidding, if you've sewn a pillow, you can do this.

Inside out:



Right side out:

Next up, the skirt! I pleated the top edge following the pattern guide. The nice thing about this pattern is that the pleats are intentionally uneven and random, so if they're not perfect, no worries! I love pleating. The other option is usually gathering, which I am not a fan of. More on that another time.

The pleated front and back skirt pieces:

Here come the pockets! Each pocket is half lining, half good fabric sewn together.The side with the lining goes on the front side of the skirt and the fabric side goes on the back. This is because when you've got your hands in the pockets or they're partially open, you'll see more of the back of the pocket than the front. Ideally, I guess this is saving you on fabric, but since the pocket pieces are so small it would be easy and just fine to make both sides of them out of your good fabric.

The right pocket is super easy. You sew the pocket made of lining to the front half of the skirt and the one made of good fabric to the back half. Then you basically sew the sides of the skirt and the pocket pieces together at the same time in one long stitch, leaving an opening for the pocket.

Finished right pocket:

The left pocket is a little different, and was easily the most challenging part of the dress. Since there is a zipper along the left side seam of the dress, you have to sew that side differently. The pattern calls for an invisible zipper, but since that requires an invisible zipper sewing foot (and way more steps), I just got a regular zipper. I might actually have an invisible zipper foot, but I lost my machine's manual years ago so I'm pretty clueless as to what a lot of my machine's accessories do. I need to buy a new manual online.

So anyway, I sewed the zipper and the left pocket in on the same seam line, leaving the pocket open. It was way more complicated than that sentence, but I don't think it's worth explaining. And I took no pictures of that part because it was stressful haha.

After sewing the skirt sides together, you attach the bodice to the skirt. Super easy, just a straight seam. Here's the dress, inside out, with the pockets sewn in:

Adding the buttons and button holes is up next! Using the button hole guide the pattern came with, I marked out where the holes would be sewn in.

I love sewing in button holes. Mostly because the machine does all the work, and they look so fancy! You just use a button foot on your machine, use the button hole settings to make stitches that reinforce the area around the hole, use a seam ripper to cut open the area between stitches and BOOM, button holes.

Then use the guide again on the other side and sew on your buttons. Sophie is helping me out here, by sitting exactly where I need to sew. She's awesome like that.

The bodice is all done! 

All that's left is to hem the skirt:

And we're done son! Obviously this is a highly simplified version of what took a few days. But as far as sewing projects go, this dress was fairly simple. And it would be a super easy pattern to alter.

I'll save pictures of the whole finished dress for later. I want to build suspense! But mostly I look terrible and there's no way I'm taking any pictures of myself today. But soon y'all!

Step by Step Sewing Part 2 - Pattern and Fabric Cutting

Okay so I am finally getting to the rest of this little sewing project tutorial thing. Check out the first part here. My apologies for it taking forever, life has been busy lately! Also cutting the patterns and fabric is easily the lamest part of all this, and I always drag my feet when it comes to getting around to it.

We looked a little bit at the pattern sheets last time, but here's what they look like unfolded:

There are usually two of these giant tissue paper style pattern sheets with a bunch of patterns on each. Also, if you're lucky, your pattern comes with a free cat.

Each pattern piece is made to be cut into different sizes, you just follow the line with your size number on it. There are tons of pattern pieces on these sheets and unless you are making every piece that the pattern includes (in this case, a shirt, dress, and skirt), you wont need them all. Each piece is numbered and each number goes to a different part (shirt, dress, skirt).

For the dress, I only needed pattern pieces 1-8 (there are 18 pieces total). I cut all the other patterns out as well, although I don't cut them to a certain size yet (in case my judgement on my size proves wrong). I set the pieces I wont need aside, fold them up, and put them back in the envelope so they're ready to roll whenever I decide to use them.

Above are the pieces I will need in order by number, top to bottom, left to right; 1-bodice front, 2-bodice back, 3-front interfacing, 4-back interfacing, 5-skirt front, 6-skirt back, 7-pocket, and 8-buttonhole guide. The last piece is not actually anything you cut out of fabric, just a placement guide for your button holes. As far as patterns go, this is a pretty small amount of pieces for a dress.

Next up, cutting the fabric! I washed both my fabric and lining so I wouldn't have to worry about my dress shrinking post-construction.

You have a cutting layout guide in your instructions that tells you how to lay out the patterns on the fabric. Some pieces are cut on folded fabric (so you get two pieces), some on the fold (so it opens up as one big mirrored piece), and some on single thicknesses. This is a "guide", I often find a more efficient way to cut my fabric, leaving me with a bit of extra. However, sometimes, you have to do it their way or it wont all fit.

These are my last two pieces, the front and back of the skirt, and as you can see I have quite a bit of extra left. This is almost always the case, but extra fabric is not a bad thing. I save everything for projects later on and in case you have a little sewing mishap and need to re-cut a pattern piece.

I also cut out fabric for the lining of the bodice and pockets:

And for the interfacing:

I thought I might explain what interfacing is. Interfacing is a kind of gauzy material that stiffens/backs your fabric in places you might need more weight. In this case I believe it is around the neckline and where the button holes will be. There are all kinds of interfacing, both fusible and not, in various thicknesses. This is lightweight fusible interfacing, usually if you're sewing clothing this is what you'll use. It's "fusible" meaning that you just press it (iron it) on to your fabric. Super easy and it works wonders.

And we're done! I pin everything together for each piece (pattern, fabric, lining) to try to stay organized. There are all kinds of guides on these patterns that you can either mark with a pencil onto your fabric or mark with pins. For example, dart or pleating lines. I pencil in the circles that mark the dart lines, but I use pins to mark my pleat guides. It's all up to you really, whatever works well for you. Just remember if you're working on fabric that's lighter in color, you probably want to make very light marks. Darker fabric is different, I either use a felt tipped marker or a white pencil.

So that's it for cutting patterns and fabric! Woohoo, we survived the lamest part. Next up is the fun part, we sew this bad boy together. I'm still debating on how to document that. Obviously I can't do every step, or your eyes would fall and you'd die of boredom. We'll see. I have a busy weekend ahead of me (yay for friends visiting!), so we will continue this project next week.

Also, totally unrelated but I must vent: how can I be breaking out and finding grey hairs at the same time? That's just unfair.

Hello March, and Step by Step Sewing Part 1!

Can you believe it? It is March already. Two months of this new year already gone. Jeeze!

March is always a good month. The weather is usually awesome (time to turn the ac back on, I woke up sweating this morning), there are birthdays to celebrate, and spring break! Oh wait I'm not in school. But spring break for Brendon! And after a little schedule switcheroo last month, Kristy is coming to visit next weekend! And maybe Z too! I have high hopes for this lovely month.

Alrighty, so I've had a couple questions about how exactly I make these things I sew so I thought I'd document my next sewing project to show you how I roll. Or sew.

First and foremost, I use patterns. I wish I was talented enough to just make things on my own, however I am not. Eventually I'd love to be able to just whip something together out of an idea in my head, but until then, patterns are my bread and butter. So I guess the first step in sewing anything, my way anyway, is to pick out a pattern. I'm using this Simplicity pattern I got a while back.

Every pattern usually comes with multiple pieces or variations. In this pattern's case it comes with a skirt, dress, and shirt pattern with a variation on each. Each piece gets a letter. I am doing A, which is just the dress pattern with no variation, the grey dress in the top left corner. I plan on eventually making the shirt (D) and maybe the skirt (C) as well.

The back of the pattern tells you all the info on what kind of fabric to get, how much, and what kind of notions (thread, zippers, buttons, etc) you'll need depending on what part or version you're making:

I apologize for the terrible quality of these photos, I was rushing, bad blogger! There is always usually a pdf of the back of the pattern envelope online, for example here. I suggest checking that out (click the link!), it's way easier to read. Sometimes I'll print that out to take with me to the fabric store instead of the whole pattern. Deciphering these things takes practice and even then it still gets confusing. They break it down for you by parts of the pattern by letter and then by size. I usually highlight or circle the parts I need and in what size.

Sizing for patterns is different than your usual dress/pant size. I am usually a 2 at most stores, but when sewing I use a size 8 or 10. They give you body measurements to help you figure out your size, as well as finished garment measurements, but even then it's weird. Some patterns run big, some small. It's good to just eye it and try it on as you go. And it's always better to err on a size bigger, you can take things in but it's usually impossible to make things bigger.

The pattern gives you lengths of fabric for both 45" and 60" widths. Most fabrics, unless you're at a fancy specialty store or are buying home decor fabric, are sold in 45" widths. So, for this particular dress I needed 2 and 1/8 yards of fabric, 1 yard of lining, 3/4 of lightweight fusible interfacing, thread, a 12" inch zipper (it calls for an invisible zipper, but long story short, I just got a regular one), and four 7/8" buttons. They always give you suggestions for good fabrics to use at the top of the list. Very helpful, it gives you an idea of the texture/weight of fabric you're looking for. I chose to get some pink seersucker for my dress, which is made of cotton. You should always wash your fabrics if you're using something like cotton or a knit that might shrink. I am extra guilty of not doing this, but post-sewing-shrinkage can seriously ruin a dress (I found out the hard way) so I'm making an effort to do so from here on out.

Here are my materials for this little dress: I've got my seersucker fabric, some broadcloth lining (I always just get extra cheap stuff for lining), buttons, matching thread, and a zipper. I got all this stuff today at Hancock Fabrics for under $20, a pretty good deal. The seersucker was the bulk of the price. Not pictured is my interfacing, I always keep a few yards on hand because you use it for everything.

Here's a little peek into what's inside that little envelope:

On the left are the actual patterns that you will cut out. They're printed on super thin tissue-like paper, there are A LOT of them. There are usually at least 2-3 sheets folded up that unfold to be about 5'x5'. On the right are your cutting and sewing instructions. These tell you how to lay out the patterns on the fabric when cutting them. Crucial info. Also, of course, it tells you how to put the whole thing together.

So next up, after washing and drying my fabric and lining, I'll show you the pattern and fabric cutting process. Really exciting stuff! Hopefully this info is helpful. Feel free to ask any questions if I wasn't clear about something or didn't cover something you'd like to know. Sew on y'all!

DIY Pincushion

For a while now I've been keeping my pins in the little plastic box they came in. It works out fine except I knock it over and spill them all the time. On the floor, on my desk, all over the place. Pins everywhere constantly. And then I poke myself ten thousand times picking them all up. I knew a pincushion was the answer. And I finally made one!

I used these instructions from the Purl Bee. This site is full of all kinds of adorable crafty things to make, plus pretty things to drool over, it's awesome. They make me want to go knit something right now. I taught myself to knit my freshman year of college, but of course I've forgotten. I need to refresh my memory!

This is the stuff you'll need for your pincushion, super easy, stuff you probably have around already (if you're a sewer):
- Sewing needle
- Embroidery needle
- Scissors
- Thread
- Embroidery thread
- A little bit of felt
- A little bit of fabric
- Some stuffing
- Something to trace a circle (I used a salad plate, it was about 9" in diameter)

The rest of the directions are on the site, I'm too lazy to type it all out. It's easy peasy, I made mine in about 20 minutes. It doesn't even have to match. I did mine all matchy-matchy, but it would be super cute with contrasting colors. Whatever you've got lying around.

Mine came out a little wonky, but that's how I roll so I like it. It has character. These would make sweet little gifts for a crafty person in your life. Or handy things to keep you from scattering pins everywhere.

The candle experiment

I made candles! It was an interesting experience for sure, and luckily for you guys I documented it all in case you're ever in the mood to make your own. I briefly googled making candles but for the most part I just guessed and hoped for the best. I think I was fairly successful!

 This is the stuff I used: white wax crystals, assorted jars that I had (you probably have great ones in your fridge! We have an awesome pickle jar I was eying, but it's currently occupied by pickles), crayons to dye the wax (I was going for a warmer color scheme), scented oil if you'd like (I used "gingerbread and maple syrup" yummy!), and wicks with the metal things on the bottom. I got the wax, oil, and wicks from Hobby Lobby.

 You'll also need a double boiler set up. This is my ghetto arrangement. Pot on top of pot and it was definitely not level but it worked... until it came to pouring the wax. At Hobby Lobby they have little canisters with a spout/pouring thing made for making candles. If I ever got serious I'd get one because the wax went everywhere when I tried to pour it out of the pan. But messy is a lifestyle, and I'm living it, so no biggie for me. Oh! DEFINITELY put some wax paper down to catch the drips, spills, etc. And then you can peel off the extra wax to use again later!

At this point I was like, "omg they lied, this is clear wax!" because it becomes literally colorless as it melts, but it definitely cools white. I would have rather used colorless wax because this it gave my candles as pastel-milky look which is fine, but I was going for something brighter.

Here's the wax after I added the crayons. It looks like tomato soup! I used half a red orange crayon, half a yellow, and half a violet red. Then I added the scent, I used about 60 drops of oil. Not sure how much you're supposed to add but I'm all about fragrance, so I loaded up.

Unfortunately there is no documentation of me pouring the wax because that was a hot mess, wax everywhere. These are the candles after pouring the wax in. They go through a few color changes; at first the wax is brighter when it's liquid, then white-ish, then it darkens a bit as it cools. I used straws to help hold the wicks in place. Originally I had the wicks in first before pouring the wax in but I found it was easier to just add them after the wax is in the candle. With one bag of the white crystals I got these two candles. It didn't go quite as far as I thought.

 This was my next round, I used the left over spilled wax from the first round, half a yellow crayon and a whole dandelion crayon. Don't you love crayon names! Remember robin's egg blue?? I love crayons.

 This big candle used up the whole batch. Hopefully it burns slowly. You can really see the color change here!

All finished! They did the weirdest thing as they cooled, they kind of sunk in around the wick. I'm guessing it's from air in the wax or something. I don't know how you'd avoid that problem, I'm sure candle making pros have a solution.

All in all I'd call it a learning experience, it was fun but messy. It cost me $12 for the supplies from Hobby Lobby, so I'm not sure if it was worth it cost-wise since I only got three candles out of it and two of them are small. I'm sure you can buy wax in bulk for a better deal though if you got super serious. We'll see how they burn, if they smell really amazing I might keep this up.

In other un-candle news, today is a pool day! When Brendon gets home from work we're blowing up some floaties and lounging in the pool. Hopefully we don't die of heat exhaustion!