The Big 5-0!

I just reached 50 followers, so I think a giveaway is in order... Watch this space in the next few days!

In the meantime, I wanted to share a few cool links I've stumbled across recently.

Dolly Donations for Haiti. Sarah started this wonderful program to send dolls to less fortunate children all around the world. Her current project will send 181 (or more!) dolls to children in Haiti through the Abundant Ground Foundation. Her site provides a free patterns and tutorials. She's shipping the dolls to Haiti on March 31, so if you want to help out, get cracking! I'm planning to make one or two and have my daughters pick out their clothes.

This tutorial for binding a quilt, by Amy at Diary of a Quilter is one of the best and clearest I've seen (and I've looked at a LOT of them!). I still haven't attempted it, because I'm a big fat chicken, but when I do, this is the tutorial I'll use!

Here's a nifty trick for making a pillowcase! I can't find a blog for the maker, but her YouTube name is scruplesanddrams.



So there's your random assortment of cool links for the day! Keep an eye out for the giveaway, it will appear in the next couple of days!

The Bag Lady

That's what my sewing teacher calls me! I do love making bags- They are useful, you can use funkier fabrics that might be too much to wear but that are too pretty to pass up. And best of all they don't have to FIT anyone!

Here are a couple of my most recent efforts. First is McCall's 6045, view A. I love the size of the bag, and I'm pretty pleased with how the zipper turned out- It's my first bag with a zipper top. The inside has exposed seams that you are supposed to hide with bias binding... I tried and got angry, so I am using it just the way it is, exposed seams and all. And I am OK with that! I also got a little creative with the handle placement.


Second is a pattern that's been in my collection for ages, and it took a reorganization of the fabric stash for me to finally get moving on it! It's the Amy Butler Birdie Sling bag, and I used an Amy Butler print for the body. I LOVE how it turned out though I was shocked at how big it was! I guess I'd have known if I'd looked at the pictures more closely, but I just somehow wasn't expecting such a roomy bag. I love the curved gussets, I don't know why I've never seen that done before! I think I'll be doing that on some of my basic totes, too. I added a button and loop to the top so that things don't topple out when this is rolling around the floor of my car, as all my bags eventually do.


(I should just add an apology for the poor pictures to my default signature.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you had a great day with your loved ones and that there was plenty of chocolate involved! I had a lot of fun with my hubby, my girls, and my in-laws and adorable niece. I even got some sewing time in. My husband conquered his fear of fabric stores and bought me a gift card to Joann... Even though we said we weren't getting each other gifts and I had nothing but a little bag of candy for him! I'm making a list of Simplicity patterns so I can catch the last day of the $1 sale tomorrow- Have a favorite bag, skirt, or little girl pattern? I'd love to hear about it.

Today I made eight pillowcases for the One Million Pillowcase Challenge. I used one of the free patterns on the challenge website, and I figured out after the first few that it was much faster to go in assembly line fashion. I got it down to about 15 minutes per pillowcase. I have to admit, all the straight lines and repetition got a little boring, but it's a good cause and I think the cases are really cute! I'll drop them off at Stitcher's Crossing tomorrow. Last time I was there they had just gotten Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley in stock, so maybe I'll pick myself up a little reward while I'm there!

A Skirt for My Valentine

Allison (my five year old) had her first school Valentine's Day party today. I always loved Valentine exchanges, in school and later at work, so I was as excited as she was! I let her choose her own valentines, and offered to help her make some handmade ones, but she chose the little cardboard Princess Tiana cards with a pencil attached. I can't blame her, I always loved those little cards. I try to limit licensed characters for the girls, but the Disney princesses seem to have somehow become exempt from that goal.

I'm a big fan of dressing for holidays- not dressing up necessarily, just in keeping with the theme of the day. I always wore pink or red on Valentine's Day, green on Saint Patrick's Day, pastels on Easter... So now, while they're still young enough to wear what I want them to wear, my girls dress for holidays too!

I made the Easy Peasy Skirt that comes with the ModKid Nina pattern. I really need to make that shirt, I love it, just haven't found the "just right" fabric yet.

So here is Allison's Valentine skirt. It really is easy peasy and I made it in about 15 minutes.

Unfortunately I could not get a picture of it on her because she would not stop spinning and twirling. Did you know that Valentine's Day in preschool now involves a LARGE quantity of candy? When I was a kid I remember a stack of little cards and envelopes- Apparently that has evolved into a massive pile of cookies, lollipops and m&m's... Hence, the spinning and twirling. As I write this she is tossing and turning in bed, wide awake.

Did you make something special for Valentine's Day? I'd love to see it!

Baby gifts, pillowcases, and embroidered buttons!

I seem to be in an unfinished project zone right now- That shirt I mentioned the other day is still not fixed, but at least now I have a plan. This week I started a skirt that needs some fine tuning- some darts, finishing the hem and side slits... simple little things. So what did I work on tonight? A completely unrelated (but much more rewarding!) pair of projects.

My friend Julie has the sweetest little brand new twins- a boy and a girl. I hear that baby boy is quite the spitter, and Julie mentioned a favorite type of burp cloth. She showed me a picture and I took it from there- I made five in "boyish" flannel and two for the girly-babe.


I also pulled out a bunch of fabric to make pillowcases for the One Million Pillowcase Challenge sponsored by American Patchwork and Quilting. The pillowcases will be donated to children's hospitals, women's shelters, nursing homes- Anywhere a little something special might be needed. My local quilt shop is a drop-off location, so I won't even have to mail them! As I understand it, the participating shops donate the pillowcases locally, so I'm helping right here in my community! Love that.

Here's some of the fabric that I pulled from the stash for potential pillowcases:


And tonight I signed up for the Embroidered Button Swap at Feeling Stitchy. I haven't posted about embroidery here, but before I started sewing I was way into hand embroidery- It was really my gateway into sewing! I used to buy plain boring bags so I could embroider them, and I had to learn a bit about bag construction to take them apart enough to embroider. Then I decided I should just learn to make bags myself, and off I went! But I digress... The swap looks like a lot of fun and I can't wait to see who my swap partner is!

Quick-Piece Squares Pillow Cover

Ever since my friend Julia mentioned this awesome Quick Piece Squares tutorial, I've been wanting to try it. After a disappointing finish on a shirt (I'll share more about that later, after I make an attempt to salvage it), I needed a fun, relatively simple project- And it needed to be something that didn't need to FIT anyone! So I decided to try this patchwork and see what it became. I let my five year old daughter (She turned 5 last week! Happy Birthday Allison!) pick out the squares, and I think she did a good job! This didn't make much of a dent in scrap mountain (and oh, how it's grown since that picture!), but it was a lot of fun! They started out as 3" squares, and the trim is more of that awesome shot cotton, in Ginger.

Now, for some reason, pillow covers never go very well for me. I never get that nice tight fitted look. I started out making this for an 18" pillow insert and it was just floppy and weird. I happened to have a 20" insert as well, so I stuck that in there and it's a little better but... Meh, I just don't know. I am in a sewing slump and I need something to come out really really well, soon!

Here's the pillow, I'm happy with it, since I know it will primarily be used to break the fall when my girls launch themselves off the couch, or as a headrest for the pampered pup who rarely sleeps without her head on a pillow. And it's a bright spot of color, which is desperately needed as we head into the, "OMG is it STILL winter???" phase of the year.

ModKid Emma and... Another Buttercup Bag!!!

Pink Day is coming up at my big girl's preschool, so I wanted to make something cute for her to wear (since I totally spaced out on Red Day. Bad Mama.) I have a backlog of ModKid patterns that I want to make, and I LOVE the Julia skirt I made for her a while back, so I decided to give Emma a try.

I used quilter's cotton for all the pieces. It's cute, but would definitely be cuter with something floofier. The pattern suggests making only 6 or 7 petals if you're using cotton for the whole thing. I made 6 petals for this one. If you don't have a serger, I think this would be a fairly frustrating project-- Hemming all those petals would not be my idea of a good time. But a rolled hem on a serger is a cute and quick finish for the petals. I made this from stash fabrics and threads so I was limited on serger thread colors. I used white on the pink petals and pale pink on the butterfly petals. It would be really neat with contrasting colors on the edges! I think I'm going to make a shirt to go with this skirt by appliqueing a butterfly onto a store bought t-shirt.


So... I might be a little bit addicted to these Buttercup Bags! They are just so fast and easy and endlessly customizable and use so little fabric. A perfect instant satisfaction project. Here's my latest. I think I'm going to add a nice wooden button to it.

Another Buttercup Bag and I won!

I love the blog over at Sew, Mama, Sew. They have awesome tutorials, pattern reviews, and giveaways- I almost always enter the giveaways and today I won a yard of free fabric!!! Yay!

Tonight I sneaked away from the cranky teething two year old and made another Buttercup Bag. This one is also a refashion! I picked up two placemats at Goodwill (a fantastic fabric resource). I also got an awesome vintage sheet with orange flowers, two yards of neutral batik, and two incredibly soft flannel pillowcases with the cutest blue flowers- The pillowcases will soon become skirts for the girls!

But I digress- back to the bag. The placemats were woven like Kaffe Fassett shot cotton (another fave of mine!), the warp was one color and the weft another. In this case the colors were dark turquoise and wheat. When I first assembled the bag I topstitched the band with a contrasting thread. I decided I didn't like it after I'd already sewn the two sides together. So rather than take it all apart, I decided to hide it with my first attempt at decorative trim! I think it looks really cute- Far from perfect, but I don't know why I shied away from trims for so long!

This blog is called Sleepytime Sewing, so you'll have to excuse the fact that all of my pictures are wonky and dark. We get so little sunlight here anyway, that even if I could sew before 10pm, the pictures wouldn't be much better!

I love the crafting community!

First of all, I have to send out MAJOR kudos to the folks at Craft Hope. As of this morning, the Craft Hope for Haiti shop has raised... are you ready for this? More than $20,000. All through donations. In less than 4 days. That is incredible. More than 1300 items have been donated, ranging from soap to clothing to bags to quilts to jewelry and everything in between. Absolutely incredible. There's still lots to choose from, check it out by clicking the Craft Hope button over there ------->

I love how the crafting community feels so small. Looking through the Craft Hope donations I saw so many crafters I recognized because I follow their blog or have admired their work somewhere. And today, while feeling all warm and fuzzy about this small world, a prize I won in a giveaway arrived! Confessions of a Sewing Dork offered up this adorable dress a couple of weeks ago- It's so cute and would fit both of my girls, so I entered and I won! It arrived today and looks incredibly cute on my big girl. The little girl hasn't tried it yet but I know it will be lovely on her, too!


I also wanted to share something I made for ME this week. It's the Sew Liberated Schoolhouse Tunic in a linen blend. I made the shirt version and I LOVE it! I am debating whether it needs some trim or something to jazz it up, but I think I need something simple like this in my wardrobe- I can jazz it up with jewelry and a fun skirt! It has two pleats in the front and one in back and is so comfy! It's obviously made to wear a camisole or tank underneath- Which is great for me because I always layer my shirts and I have TONS of tanks in every color imaginable.

I am planning to make another one with my hoarded stash of Amy Butler's pink coriander. It looks better on a person than it does on a hanger, but I hate having my picture taken. So for now, this will have to do!

My big girl turns 5 this Saturday, so we are off to order a birthday cake! Have a great weekend!

Craft Hope for Haiti

Last night I completed a bag to donate to the Craft Hope for Haiti Etsy shop. They are getting so many wonderful submissions, and lots of great crafters are working hard behind the scenes to keep up with listing everything. As of this posting they have already had 406 sales and there are currently 104 items for sale and they have raised over $7,000 for Doctors without Borders. In TWO DAYS!!!

Here's my little contribution- A Buttercup Bag, using the awesome free pattern from Made by Rae. She wrote back so quickly when I wrote to ask permission to use the pattern for this donation! Edited: It's up!!! (edited again) and it's sold!!!


Lots of great raffles and other giving opportunities are still going on!