Gingercake

Holiday Gifts Sewing Series: Endlessly inspired sews a Waste Free Tote!

The sewing inspiration continues!   Jennifer Young of Endlessly Inspired brought her sewing machine out of the closet and sewed up an adorable Waste Free Lunch Bag for her 2 year old.  Jenn's blog is more about crafting and parenting than sewing, but we may make her into a convert after this adorable creation!  She can do it all!  Head over to Endlessly Inspired to see more of her cute bag and leave a comment for a chance to win the Waste Free Lunch Bag pattern for you!

Holiday Gifts Sewing Series: By Mary sews a vintage inspired Owl Bag!

Today we have Mary Emmens sewing up a really fun Lola Owl Bag.  Mary has sewn up several of my patterns in the past and I always admire her beautiful attention to detail and vintage style.  Her quilting and piecing are amazing!  If you are a quilter, you need to start following her blog!  Mary sewed up a great looking owl bag from the Lola Owl Pillow sewing pattern.  Head over to her blog to see the details and leave a comment for a chance to win your own Lola Owl Pattern!

Holiday Gifts Sewing Series: Lego Lunch Box from Girl Like the Sea

I am having so much fun with this sewing series!  Today we have Tara Fauls from Girl Like the Sea.  Her blog is fresh, natural, a little bit funky.  I have really enjoyed looking at all her sewing lately!  Tara is crazy talented.   She made the coolest lego Love Your Lunch Box pattern for her husband.  Go over to her blog and check it out!  Leave a comment for a chance to win your own copy of the the Love Your Lunch Box pattern!

Holiday Gifts Sewing Series: If Only They Would Nap sews her boy a Penguin

You may not even know that I have a boy in my house with all the girly things I show here on my blog.  But today's sewing guest is all about boys and she does a beautiful job.  Jess of If Only they would nap has FOUR boys and she is all about stitching up fun and unique things for her little guys.  She chose to make an Annie's Penguin for her lower middle (I can say that because I have a lower middle too!).  Go check it out over at her blog!

Holiday Gifts Sewing Series: On the Laundry Line gets Owl Pretty

I punned!  Did you notice?  Laura from On the Laundry Line is a punner too!  She made the most beautiful owls for The handmade Gifts series.  She is a talented, funny and creative blogger.  Go check out her version of Max the Owl and be sure to leave a comment on her blog to win your own copy of the pattern.  thanks so much Laura!

Holiday Gifts Sewing Series: Skirt as Top sews for her Spider Man Lover!

I was so happy that Kristin from Skirt as Top agreed to be part of my handmade gifts series!  She is so stylish and talented!  Her kids clothes have so much personality and I knew she would create something unique and useful.  I love the bag she made for her little man-  a great take on the Love your Lunch Box!  Head over to her blog so see more pics of the bag and leave a comment for a chance to win the Love Your Lunch Box Pattern!

One for the Boy...

My poor boy.  His sisters get new stuff from Mom all the time but the last time we went somewhere, he had to pack his stuff in a reusable grocery bag!  If you have a boy, you will know that they just don't seem to care about that kind of stuff.  At all.  They care a lot if their sisters get more bacon than them on their breakfast plate, but not so much about sisters getting new handmade clothes or duffle bags.  He needed this one though-  Our lake trip is only a week away and now he can pack his bathing suits in a duffle bag instead of a grocery tote!  

The fabric is  AnnKelle's new funbots in royal.  It is so so so cute and fun.  Kelle's fabric makes everything adorable and the kids are always so happy.  I swear, all the favorite kid things are made from AnnKelle fabric.  AND- Cal loves the new bag!

 

Cal's backpack

When I picked up Cal from preschool on Tuesday he actually asked me to make him a backpack. WHAT??  He is not interested in my sewing for the most part- except actually the machine itself.  He likes that a lot!  So we came home and I fawned all over him and we chose fabrics together (aka I picked out the fabrics and he happily agreed).  In a couple hours we had a cute backpack!  This morning, we walked the girls to the bus and I took pictures of him.  He was so proud.

This is the toddler backpack from made by Rae.  I have lost the actual instructions and now only have the pattern pieces left.  They must have been on my old computer.  After making this I realized that the last time I made one was for Elsie going to Kindergarten.

The blog post about Elsie is here.  That was my second blog post ever and I laughed when I saw my formatting troubles.  She looks so little in those pictures and was so excited about her first day of school.

 It would have been nice to have the instructions and I am sure if I had emailed her, she would have sent me another copy but Miss Impatience decided I could handle it on my own.  No serious problems but I am sure that clever Rae has it all worked out perfectly.  

I added a simple zipper panel to the front.  I used some more of my AnnKelle fabric.  So so cute!  The sides are green duck cloth and the striped is a decorator weight from the Joann clearance section.

Thank you all for your help on my bunny!  I replaced the eye with smaller buttons and I am now playing around with embroidering a nose.  I also bought some BEAUTIFUL fabric from Amy and I am working on another version of the 3 layer clutch.  I don't have that pattern out of my system just yet.  I just love watching it all come together and this Heather Ross fabric is making such a pretty spring version.  What are you making?

Hooped Valentines

Whenever I see embroidery hoops at the thrift store, i gather them up in my basket.  They are addictive!  I have too many now and it is time to start using them up.  I thought Valentine's day would be the perfect time to get started!

These are on our stocking nails which I thought was the perfect place.  The idea began as just hearts with fun fabrics and I could practice my embroidery stitches.  I then changed them into including envelopes to encourage valentine notes (more about this later).

I made Cal's first.  I also tried chain stitch for the first time.  Remember when I made the quilt I said I was trying to flex my crafty muscles?  Well this is about doing that again.  The stitching is a little messy and the fabric choices are a little more country than I usually like.  I was going for boyish though so this is what I got...

Not bad.  He likes it- especially the truck.

Next came Elsie's valentine hoop.  She is 7 and loving purple, pink & girlyness in general (You would never know she loves getting dirty in the garden and pushing kids over on the soccer field).

Again, I wanted to practice some new things here so I used Jessica's felt flower tutorial (fun and EASY) and worked again on the chain stitch.  It turned out nicer this time!  Loving the chain stitch.  I also told Amy recently that I didn't know how to use trim so I stuck some trim ribbon in the corner.  Hmmm?  Not sure about that choice but I DID use some trim!

Finally came Anne's which is my favorite.  She wanted (after my suggestion!) a rainbow theme.  I tried all sorts of different ways to get the look I wanted and then remembered this technique that I saw on pinterest.  It worked great and I loved the final look.

The rainbow and thrifted crochet doily took up the entire hoop so I added this simple duck cloth envelope to the bottom.  The heart is made from wool felt and then I used my embroidery threads to do a simple stitch to mimic the rainbow colors.  Whole lotta cuteness.  

And one more shot of the rainbow.  Wouldn't this make the sweetest baby quilt on a biger scale?  

The kids are really excited about these.  Valentine making and giving has been at an all time high.

Aren't they cute?  You would never know with all this love going around that I had a crazy meltdown last night after I had to clean up yet another HUGE valentine making mess.  This time included glitter EVERYWHERE.  I yelled at them that I was going to throw it all away and that I was done with all of this!  They looked at me with shocked little faces and then we (aka Me) decided to create some valentine making boundaries- no more paint or glitter and only small pieces of paper.  Of course Anne's painted and glittered one up there is so beautiful that we all know I am going to crack and open it all up again.  YACK! 

What do you think?  I liked the idea of having the valentine giving be constant the next couple of weeks.  Compliments and lovey notes are pretty fabulous really- especially in the dead of winter when we are all cooped up in the house together.  The kids are asking where my hoop and their dad's hoop is.  Hopefully I'll get around to that!  

Here are some details- I used 10" hoops.  I used the full embroidery thread-all 6 strands.  On Cal's and Elsie's I made the top with cotton fabrics and wool felt pieces.  I did not use interfacing on the envelopes although with Elsie's fabric envelope it would have been better if I had since it is a little thin.  I backed Elsie and Cal's tops with 100% cotton fusible interfacing to firm them up.  Anne's blue "sky" fabric was lightweight and when I used the interfacing it puckered around the name embroidery, so I just backed it with an extra layer of white cotton fabric and it worked fine too.  For the back of the hoops, I ironed the fabric back and then glued it down.  Easy peasy!  If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me and I will try to answer!  

What do you have cooking for V day?  Are you trying some new techiques to flex your crafty muscles?  Let me know about it so I can keep up my work out!

This little boy doesn't care about sewing equality for all...

I know I am not the only one to say this, but I almost never sew for boys.  I get requests to make things for boys and I kinda cringe since I know I will have to search and search through my fabrics to find something that is boyish enough and not ugly or boring.  Usually I just say no, but about 2 weeks ago, 2 different people requested items made for boys.  AH HA!  An opportunity to buy fabric!  I  bought some Henry Alexander 2D zoo I had been eying up and added some plaid and solids for a cute combination.

I set up to take a picture of my newly made crayon art folio and art caddy tote and Cal happened to be walking by.  I noticed that he matched the photo shoot.  So, I asked him to come over and look at the things I made.  I figured he might pick up the crayon hold and try to take out the paper pad.  Not so!  It was hilarious.  He is TOTALLY un interested in anything I sew for him.  

I had to ask him to touch a crayon so it at least looked like he liked this "boy" stuff.  He agreed but only if he got to keep holding his new zamboni and steeler beads.  

I said, "drop your beads and zamboni in the bag and get them out."  He looked at me like I was crazy.  Why in the world would he put his new beads in that silly bag?  I said "I'll look at the new tractor catalog with you if you put the beads in the bag and then take them out."

In an ad, the caption would read  "This little boy just can't wait to check out what is in this adorable zoo fabric art caddy!"

  I am hoping the artist bug will hit him soon.  Right now his favorite thing to play with is his big plastic sword and a discarded bungie cord.  The latter has to be taken away from time to time since he tries to swing it at people.  No matter!  He is my baby and I love all this about him.  Moments after this rejection of my sewn items, that quirky little fellow had me wrapped around his finger as we gazed over the new tractor catalog and he told me all the different types of machinery and brands of tractors he likes best.

Here are more pictures of these 2 cute items...

This fabric was super stinking cute.  I can't wait to make more items from it.  Maybe a lunch box and an extra crayon holder to go in the shop.  Do you have favorite boy fabrics that you love?  I also like this vintage car fabric and this guitar fabric too.

 

But honestly, don't start expecting to see the boy stuff hanging around here.  My girly fabrics are here to stay!  But who knows?  A few primary colors here and there aren't going to hurt anything, right?