Spiderweb Skirt

Halloween is around the corner and it's time to start thinking about costumes. I usually don't both with anything, maybe an embelleshed shirt at most. But this year, I saw a really cute spiderweb skirt in a catalogue and thought, "I can make that!"

 

It was really easy. The original was an appliqué, but I didn't feel like all the cutting and sewing.  I didn't have enough heat transfer vinyl in white and also figured there would be too much matching and ironing (and cursing) if I went that route. Finally, I decided on white fabric paint.

I got some black bottom-weight fabric 1.5 the width of my hips. I used my tailor's chalk and a yardstick to draw the web. I drew the longer strands out from the center and randomly drew connecting segments. I painted over the chalk with my fabric paint.

For the spiders, I downloaded a spider design from Silhouette, cut it out of card stock, and used it as a stencil. 

Then, I hemmed the bottom, sewed up the side, and made an casing for an elastic waist.  It was really easy and quick. It took longer for the paint to dry than any of the other steps.

I'm going to wear it with a black shirt, black-and-white striped stockings, black shoes and a witch hat. Not a costumey costume, but enough to get me in the, erm, "spirit".

Rumi Quote Quilt

I got the inspiration for this quilt from Denyse Schmidt's Proverbial Quilt pattern.  Instead of making the quilt elements into geometric shapes or houses, trees, etc., the quilt design is a quote (or series of quotes), proverb, whatever words strike your fancy.

My friend, J, loves the writings by the poet Rumi, so I went through and found a quote that spoke to me, and that seemed like it would fit onto the size quilt I wanted to make.  The full quote is "Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of that which you really love."

 I didn't want to piece my letters together and quilt over them, so I made each letter an applique and quilted in the leading spacing.  I cut out the letters in freezer paper using my Silhouette, ironed the paper onto starched fabric and cut them out, including a seam allowance, as I needed them.

The quilted sections were just randomly sewn, I changed direction every few stitches and made sure to wander back and forth in the space.

It was definitely a lot of work.   I did all the applique and quilting by hand, which was fun, but next time I do this (and I certainly will), I think I'll cut out the letters on the Silhouette with fusible webbing on the fabric and quilt the outlines of the letters.

Happy birthday, J!

Decorated Purse

Now that we've started to reach the stage where a true diaper bag is no longer necessary, I found myself needing a larger, but not too large, purse. One that will fit my wallet, keys, phone, etc., but also a few diapers and wipes, plus some sippys and small snacks. Target, a mom's best friend, has some, but I wanted something I could customize and make my own.

I found a cute, basic purse at Joann's (mom's other best friend) and decided to have some fun with my Silhouette and the heat transfer vinyl. This two-layer (or even three-layer) design was interesting, but would go with a lot of different styles and gave me a chance to practice layering more.

Not bad for a $10 purse, $3 worth of vinyl and 20 minutes of my time.

More fun with Silhouette

The Bean is slmost done with this year of preschool and she has had a blast. Teacher Appreciation Day was a couple weeks ago, so I decided to make fun gift bags with (store-bought) cookies in them. I decided to go off a "growing" theme, and put some layered flowers on one side, with the words "Thanks for helping me grow" on the other side. And a robot, because the girls looooove robots.

I think they turned out really well. I used adhesive cardstock for the grass, stems and words and just glued on the flowers and robots. I got some flower and ladybug cookies at Whole Foods to put inside. They were a big hit.


The Belly is starting to be a big talker, but still can't pronounce some letters correctly yet. Our favorite is "nuggle" instead of "snuggle". You can hear our hearts melt when says "Nuggle you?" and wants to be picked up. After many requests for "Nuggle you", the Boy thought it would be cute if I made a college-style shirt, like "Nuggle U".

I downloaded an outlined collegiage font, then added "Est. 2009" (they year she was born), under the words. I printed it out onto heat-transfer paper and ironed it onto a plain white shirt. When the Boy came home and saw it on the table, he burst out laughing because it was perfect.

Girly Robot T-Shirts

I have extremely girly girls. They don't like wearing pants, only skirts or dresses, and they have inherited my "sparkly shoe fascination" gene. Yet, we haven't hit the "princess phase" yet. Instead, both girls love robots.


I think it mostly comes from Plex on Yo Gabba Gabba and Wall-E. I found the movie Robots on massive sale at Target and it's been The Bean's most requested thing to watch so far. (It doesn't make my ears or eyes bleed, so that's a bonus for me, too.)


Thanks to the crafty evil influence (and that actually is a compliment) of my friends S and V, I bought a Silhouette cutting machine. This thing is awesome--you can make iron-on transfers with your ink-jet printer, amazing cards and paper crafts, and even iron-on appliques. As if JoAnn and Michaels didn't get enough of my money already...


My first project was to make girly robot shirts for the girls. I got some hot pink heat transfer vinyl and a robot template from the Silhouette store and plain white shirts at Target. I sized the template to a good size, sent the heat transfer through the machine, took out the extra pieces and ironed the robot shape to the shirts.


I got massive "mom points" for a fairly easy and quick project.







This is The Belly smiling. I love the scrunchy eyes.

The Bean, giving me her best "I love this shirt" pose.