Fun with Felt: A Pair of Crowns

Earlier this month I spotted this Birthday Crown party hat design in one of Embroidery Library's Stitchers Showcases.

Isn't it cute? I thought of my young nephews with birthdays in January and February who just needed me to make them their own birthday crowns.

The design is part of a pack of party hat embroideries - I only purchased the Birthday Crown, since it was on sale for being in the Stitchers Showcase.

I stitched this first crown on red craft felt, using a heavy tearaway stabilizer in the hoop. When the design called for metallic thread, I also changed out my embroidery needle for a metallic one and it stitched out great! I still need to stitch out a second birthday crown for February.

I changed the construction of the hat a little bit from the project directions - I didn't want to use elastic and I wanted to cover up the thread on the back of the design. I used a piece of tan felt for a backing (I ran out of the red felt) and using a long stitch I sewed about 1/8" away from the embroidery on all sides, then trimmed close to the stitching. In place of elastic, I attached cotton belting to the crown along the lower edge, stitching along the side edges to secure it. To make the size adjustable, I added some matching blue velcro on the ends of the bands.

The Birthday Crown turned out so well, I went back to get the Princess Crown party hat. I stitched this one on white sparkle felt. This design calls for silver metallic thread and it really made it sparkle!

Here's a flat view - The finishing construction is the same as for the Birthday crown, with matching white felt for the backing. You can see that I added a similar banding to this crown using purple cotton belting.

I sent this off to my niece who likes purple for testing to see how it holds up to Princess dress-ups. I'd like to stitch this again in gold with darker jewel tones, to make it masculine-looking enough for a Prince.

Snow Bunny Fleece Shirts

For my nephew's January birthday, I embroidered this pair of matching fleece pullover shirts for him and his little brother:

The Snow Bunny embroidery design is from Urban Threads - I omitted the text. I bought the Jumping Beans shirts from Kohl's during one of the Christmas sales.

I stitched the larger version over the left chest of the larger shirt. For stabilizer, I lightly fused a piece of black polymesh to the inside of each shirt. In the hoop, I used washaway adhesive stabilizer and Solvy water soluble stabilizer as a topper.

On the smaller shirt, I used the smaller version of the Snow Bunny.

It looks like there will be plenty of winter weather this year for them to wear these shirts.

Winter Decor: Embossed Snowflake Fingertip Towels

I wanted some fingertip towels to dress up my powder room after all the Christmas decorations were put away and until it's time to put out the Valentine's Day decorations:

At Christmas, I used the same embossed snowflake embroidery design on some fleece scarves. I decided to stitch them again in white thread on these purchased fingertip towels.  I think the icy blue color matches my powder room very well and lends to the snowy theme.

Considering the amount of snow we've had so far this winter, it seems appropriate to have a few snowflakes in the powder room, too.

January's Bag

This was a fun bag to work on for my first project of the year!

A few weeks before Christmas, a friend asked me to make a special 'hospital bag' for her daughter, who is expecting her third baby in a few weeks. She wanted a tote bag for carrying diapers, blankets and other necessities to and from the hospital after the baby is born. And it had to have the baby's 'code name', January, embroidered on it. We discussed the size and style of the bag over lunch, but the colors and designs were left up to me and my imagination.

Hoping to be inspired by the fabric, I began by reviewing my stash for suitable fabrics, looking for some kind of theme that reflected 'January' and 'baby'.

How lucky was I to find two snowflake fabrics in pastel pink and blue that complemented each other so nicely? Both fabrics have been in my stash for years and I had just enough of each color to make the bag.

I decided to pick up on the snowflake theme by adding an embroidered applique design along with the name.

Here is a close-up of the embroidery on the pink snowflake fabric, done in blue thread to coordinate with the blue snowflake fabric:

Just in case January turns out to be a boy, I made the bag fully reversible. The blue side is embroidered with the same design as the pink side using white thread. I think the blue print is sweet enough to be suitable for a girl, too.

The snowflake is a free applique design from Planet Applique. I added the text using 4D Embroidery software's Curlew font.

The design of the bag is a simple tote with boxed corners, finished size about 13 inches wide by 18 inches high by 4 inches deep. To help support the bottom of the bag, I used the blue snowflake fabric to make a sleeve and covered a piece of scrap mat board, cut to size. When the pink side is facing out, the support matches the lining; if the blue side faces out, it makes a sweet contrast.

Here is a close-up of the embroidery on the blue snowflake fabric:

Here's a closer look at the straps - I stitched 5/8" satin ribbon to the 'blue side' of each strap before attaching them to the bag. They are long enough to carry the bag over the shoulder.

To construct the bag, I essentially made two individual bags, folded vertically on one side with a seam along the other and each bottom. The embroidery placement was determined before anything else. After both versions of the design were stitched out, I attached the handles to the top of one side, then joined the two tops to form one large rectangle. The side and bottom seams were stitched, with an opening left at the bottom of the blue side for turning right side out after the corners were boxed. On the right side, the top edge was pressed and topstitched about 1 inch from the edge, both as a design detail and to help secure the straps.

After the tote bag was finished, I was cleaning up my sewing area and a bundle of diaper fabric caught my eye. I'd bought several yards of it a while ago after making some burp cloths from purchased cloth diapers.

Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, to make a burp cloth for January? I found some snowflake flannel in a pretty blue color at JoAnn Fabrics, and using the same font as on the tote bag, I stitched it on top of a heart shaped applique, a free design from Five Star Fonts.

I followed the instructions in Five Star Fonts' free Banded Burp Cloth tutorial to make this burp cloth, folding my diaper fabric in thirds to look like a purchased cloth diaper. I cut mine a few inches longer and used the serger to join the interior seams.

If I make more burp cloths I think I would tweak the size and order of construction ... but that depends on feedback I get from the moms.

Here's a closer look at the heart applique and embroidery:

Christmas 2010: Reusable Gift Bags

This is the final installment in the series of blog entries about Christmas projects I worked on in December.

In early November, I read about The Green Grocery Bag Challenge, a project to encourage sewists to wrap their holiday gifts in reusable cloth grocery bags, thus reducing the amount of wrapping paper entering the waste stream. (Read the wrap-up post over at Sew, Mama, Sew!)

This idea appealed to me; for several years I've been trying to wrap gifts in alternatives to paper, boxes and bags. One year my nieces' and nephews' gifts were wrapped in pillowcases. Unfortunately, I didn't actually participate in the Challenge, since I didn't get around to making my gift bags until a few days before Christmas. I was on a deadline, working down to the last minute and to be honest, I forgot about it.

Instead of grocery bags, I made decorated felt gift bags for everyone on my Christmas list. Each bag was made of craft felt from my stash.  They are basic tote bags with boxed corners and matching handles, similar in size to most paper gift bags.  Except for the first sample bag, all the embroidery was done before each bag was assembled. While one design was being embroidered, I stitched up the side seams of another bag using my serger. The handles were all sewn and attached at the end, assembly line style on the sewing machine. Ribbons, buttons and other embellishments were added to each bag.

Each recipient was challenged to do one of the following with their bag:

• Re-use or Re-gift it next year;
• Re-purpose it for keeping Christmas decorations or other storage;
• Re-style it by adding more embellishments or turning it into some other Christmas decoration;
• Return it to me.

First is a purple felt bag embroidered with a large Silly Rudy applique design from Five Star Fonts. The reindeer's face and antlers are felt and the shiny red nose is metallic red fabric. I added red sheer metallic ribbon along the top edge with a bow to dress it up for my niece who loves purple:

This dark red felt bag is embroidered with a large Whimsy Gift applique, a free design from Five Star Fonts. I added the lettering with one of the built-in fonts on my embroidery machine. The gift applique is shiny metallic red fabric. I added blue sheer metallic ribbon at the top for embellishment:

On bright red felt, I embroidered two designs from Embroidery Garden - Christmas Guy (no longer available) and Christmas Legs applique designs, with text added using a Curlz font. I added green sheer metallic ribbon to this one:

This bag in dark red felt, was inspired by Embroidery Garden's Santa Boots Towel Legs design. I left out the boots and stitched a strip of black felt across the front of the bag for Santa's belt, then embroidered the buckle design:

The designs on the next two bags were both freebies from Embroidery Library to their Countdown to Christmas Club members. They are part of a series of "Tangled up in Christmas" designs that includes a Polar Bear, Pup, Kitty, Santa and Mrs. Claus. I selected the Tangled Up in Christmas Penguin and Reindeer for my bags, trimmed with some white ric-rac along the top:

The next bag features a Vintage Tree Trio, another design from Embroidery Library. The applique trees are made of craft felt. I added two decorative buttons:

A Very Merry Christmas Tree design from Grand Slam Designs is stitched on this green felt bag. Green sheer metallic ribbon was added as trim:

The blue felt bags were my first two sample bags. The bag on the left has a trial stitch-out of Embroidery Garden's Christmas Guy. Using 4D Embroidery software, I tried to enlarge the original design from a 4x4 to a 5x7 size; the sample stitch-out on green craft felt was a test to see whether the re-sized design would stitch correctly. To apply it to the bag, I cut around the design and zigzag stitched it to the front of the bag. The bag on the right with the Christmas Legs design was another experiment where I sewed the bag together so that the seam allowances were on the outside of the bag, then trimmed with a curved rotary cutter:

I stitched this Holly Jolly Reindeer vintage-style design from Embroidery Library on tan craft felt as a sample stitchout. Later, it was zigzag stitched onto this bright red felt bag, and two decorative buttons were added for embellishment:

I really liked the way each of the bags turned out, but would have liked to have had more time to add trims, beads and decorative stitching. I'll just have to try to get started earlier for next Christmas!

Christmas 2010: Insulated Water Bottle Carriers

This is the 5th installment in a series of entries about the Christmas projects I worked on in December.

Back in September, I posted about the first batch of insulated water bottle carriers I made over the summer; in October I shared another carrier and matching lunch bag I made for myself. After I made the first few carriers, I found a half dozen colorful stainless steel water bottles that I thought would be perfect for birthday gifts for my nieces and nephews throughout the year. But I missed the deadline for one birthday, and then another, so decided the water bottles and coordinating carriers would all be Christmas gifts.

I collected the bits and pieces of hardware, fabrics, cords and other components over several months, intending to get an early start on 6 insulated water bottle carriers. As it turned out, I didn't really get started on these until about the 2nd week of December. But working on six at one time allowed me to complete a number of steps in the process assembly-line style.

The first three carriers were made for the Girls who are age 13 and older:

Using the color and pattern on each of the bottles as inspiration, I chose fabrics, designs and thread colors that would coordinate with the bottle and capture a little something personal about the recipient.

The pink bottle was for my eldest niece, because at one time it was her favorite color. (I hope it still is!)

I was able to find a paisley style design in my collection that mimicked the lotus-style flowers on the bottle. The design is embroidered in shades of pink rayon thread on black nylon fabric.

The adjustable shoulder strap is pink nylon webbing with black grosgrain ribbon sewn on one side to tone down the ultra hot pink.

The green bottle was for my second niece, again because she likes that color.

The embroidery design is from Embroidery Library, called Daring Eagle Damask. I chose this design because her high school mascot is an eagle, and the damask style complements the leaves on her bottle.

The embroidery is stitched on green denim-like fabric. The strap is tan nylon with green grosgrain ribbon applied to one side.

The brown bottle was for my 3rd niece who once told me she likes chocolate brown and light blue.

She also likes penguins, so her water bottle carrier is embroidered with this Penguin at the Beach design (yet another from Embroidery Library) on dark brown cotton fabric.

The strap is tan nylon webbing with chocolate brown grosgrain ribbon attached.

Next is a close-up of the three girls' straps with the ribbon embellishment.  This turned out to be a nifty way to personalize the webbing and match the colors without needing to search for or buy too many custom colors.

To apply the ribbon, I used Washaway Wonder Tape to temporarily attach the ribbon to the full length of the webbing. Then I stitched along each side of the ribbon with invisible thread in the needle and bobbin, using a topstitch needle and a lengthened straight stitch.

Believe it or not, the idea to use the ribbon this way came to me while I was putting Christmas collars on my two dogs.

After the ribbon was attached, I assembled the shoulder straps and other tabs the same way as usual.

The Boys, who are all age 10 and younger, received less elaborate designs on their water bottle carriers:

All three are made of blue nylon fabric with black nylon webbing for the shoulder straps. I don't recall where  I bought the individual embroidery designs; I acquired them very soon after I began learning to do machine embroidery and I didn't keep very good notes back then.  I believe they came from Embroidery.com, but can't be sure exactly.

The orange-ish water bottle went to my eldest nephew who also happens to be a NY Mets and Brooklyn Cyclones fan.

The baseball applique design embroidered on his bottle carrier is stitched with orange rayon thread over two layers of white nylon fabric on a blue nylon background.

The blue bottle went to a young Giants fan. The applique on his carrier is in the shape of a football helmet and was stitched over a piece of licensed NFL cotton fabric.  

I fussy-cut the fabric so that the Giants logo would be centered on the right side of the helmet.

The red bottle went to the younger brother of the Giants fan.  His carrier sports a football applique, stitched over a piece of marbled brown cotton fabric.

I intentionally made this bottle carrier shorter than the others because of feedback from one of my sisters-in-law -- she recommended a shorter carrier for the smaller boys because they don't typically use such large bottles. This one is shorter to accommodate a toddlers' covered sippy cup. (I hope that's the right description for it!)

These insulated water bottle carriers have been well-received so far, and I expect I'll be making more very soon. You can see more photos in my Insulated Water Bottle set on Flickr.

*****

There's one more blog entry in this series -- the last entry will share reusable Christmas gift bags

Christmas 2010: Embroidered Shirts & Mets Keychain/Card Holders

This is the 4th installment in a series of entries sharing my Christmas sewing projects.

Last September, I made matching shirts with Halloween appliques for two of my nephews, sized for both the big and little brother. I had extra blank shirts that I'd saved for Christmas in dark brown and bright red.

On the dark brown shirts, I stitched a Robot applique design from Planet Applique. The 4x4 version of the design is stitched on both shirts; on the smaller shirt, the design is centered and on the larger shirt, it's on the left chest. The fabric used for the applique is a pale blue stretch terrycloth.

Because the Robot has a heart on his chest, I thought these might be a more masculine shirt to wear for Valentine's day. It's so hard to choose designs for boys that aren't too cutesy.

Selecting a design for the red shirts was another challenge. Then I remembered their dad is a Red Sox fan, so I used 4D Pro embroidery software to create the lettering.

I used the Baseball font and a slightly arched shape, and scaled each one to the width of the shirt so that the letters look the same on both.

Now they're all ready for Spring Training!

Speaking of baseball and spring training ... a friend of mine (who is also a Mets fan) requested that I make something special for her son and daughter for Christmas. Her children are adults, so instead of the Penguin key chain card holders, I thought I'd make these monogram key chain card holders from Embroidery Garden using some of the licensed MLB fabric in my stash. This is another clever in-the-hoop design.

The photos were taken with my LG Chocolate cell phone, so please excuse the quality - they're just good enough to show the finished items. I fussy-cut all the pieces for the front and back to try to get as much of each logo centered on each side. I tried to use as many scraps as possible, but I still ended up with more waste than I'd like, because the size of the logos just doesn't match this particular project. So - if I make more of these in the future, I'll be using a novelty baseball fabric for the front and only use the Mets logo for the back; it's just too precious to waste even a few inches, and I only dip into my stash for very special people.

For the first cardholder, I followed the instructions included with the design files, matching the tackdown thread to the blue ribbon before stitching the D monogram in white. On the second holder, I changed up the colors a little, using orange thread to tackdown the blue ribbon and to embroider the V monogram. I like them both! For both backs, I changed the orientation of the fabric so the Mets logo fit nicely along the pocket.

These were really fun to do! The designer included an option for adding a snap closure, but I need to improve my skill at installing snaps before I add that feature.

*****

There are two more installments in this series of Christmas sewing projects ... stay tuned!

Christmas 2010: Chalkboard Fabric Place Mats & Drawstring Totes

This is the 3rd installment of a series of blog entries describing my Christmas 2010 projects.

I can't really remember when I first heard about Chalkboard fabric - it might have been in a newsletter or on a sewing blog or fabric website ... but when I spotted a bolt of it in JoAnn Fabrics last summer, I bought 2 yards for my stash, thinking it would be fun to use for Christmas gifts for some of my nieces and nephews. JoAnn calls it 'blackboard fabric'; I refer to it as both chalkboard and blackboard fabric.

Since I couldn't remember where I'd seen the original article, when it came time to sewing with the blackboard fabric, I was at a loss for what to do with it. I tried searching the internet for ideas and found some very interesting projects, but not what I had in mind. Then I searched Flickr -- and found the perfect inspiration for making chalkboard fabric place mats. If you'd like to see the photos that inspired me, they are saved in my Flickr Favorites list.

The boys I wanted to make the place mats for are all fans of Disney's Cars; I'd used up most of the Cars fabrics in my stash on previous projects, so a trip to JoAnn's was in order. I found a new (to me) Cars print on sale and end of the bolt:

For my niece who loves purple, I had plenty of lavender fabric still in my stash:

For each place mat, I cut the chalkboard fabric 14x18". Since I made four mats altogether, this used up a full yard, cut into quarters. I cut the background fabrics 2 inches larger on each side, or 18x22". I considered padding the place mats with a thin batting between the layers, but when I tested writing with chalk on the padded fabric, it was much more difficult than writing on the unlined chalkboard fabric.

To make it easier to line up, I used a Chaco chalk marker to mark both 1/2 inch and 2 inches from the cut edge on the wrong side of the backing fabrics. I folded up the edges on the 1/2 inch marked lines and ironed well to make a clean edge hem. Then I centered the chalkboard fabric using the 2 inch marked lines, wrong sides together with the chalkboard facing up. To keep everything from sliding around, I sprayed the backing fabric with temporary adhesive spray before smoothing the pieces together

Next, I marked 1-1/2" lines with chalk on each edge of the blackboard fabric, making sure they were at right angles. These were my guidelines for folding the backing fabric in place on the front. I used Washaway Wonder Tape to adhere the backing fabric in place on the front of the place mat, mitering the corners along the way.

The last (and easiest) step was the actual sewing -- I used an edge joining foot (which has a guide down the center) and a topstitch needle and a long straight stitch to sew just inside the folded edge of the backing fabric. Then I did the same thing in each mitered corner and around the outer edge of the place mat to finish the edges nicely.

When the place mats were finished, I experimented with ways to roll them up for storage and transporting, and considered several options for attaching some sort of holder for chalk.

In the corner of my sewing room was a sample of a drawstring backpack for kids. Someone had given it to me a while ago, and I'd only kept it to use as raw materials for some future project.

That's when the light bulb moment occurred -- and I used that little sling-backpack as a pattern for constructing these drawstring totes to carry the rolled up chalkboard mats.

I didn't have enough of the Cars fabric for all 3 of the boys, so I substituted some Route 66 fabric for one of them.

Each tote is slightly different; the first one was cut from 2 pieces of fabric (because that's what I had left) so there were two side seams. The others were all made from a single piece of fabric, folded on one long side with one side seam. So I had to pay attention to placement for the pocket and loop for the cording. The bottom of each tote was boxed slightly.

These are fairly simple drawstring bags with a few enhancements. The first tote was difficult to slide the mat in and out, so on the other three I fused Heat 'n Bond vinyl to the wrong side of the fabric before doing any sewing, to make the interior a little slicker. I added fabric screen pockets to the front of each tote for holding chalk and a piece of flannel for erasing. The top of the screen is covered with bias trim and the other three sides were simply zig-zagged in place. There are black velcro closures sewn in to keep the pockets secure. If I were to do this again, I'd probably fold the screening vertically before attaching, to make the pocket more pouch-like.

At right is a close-up of the drawstring of one of the totes - I sewed a buttonhole on the front of the tote where the drawstring channel would later be formed. On the others, I used a metal eyelet (see below).

The cording was threaded through the channel from the back seam, looped out through the buttonhole, knotted with a lanyard hook added, then returned to the channel to the back. One end of the cord was threaded through the loop at the bottom of the side seam and the two ends of the cord were knotted.

At left is a closer view of the loop and knotted cord for the drawstring.

Finding chalk was another matter. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right places, but I finally found some at the local Toys 'R Us Express. I included one package of colored chalk and 2 pieces of white chalk for each mat.

I still have a few pieces of white chalk left over and one yard of blackboard fabric -- sooner or later, there will be more mats!

*****

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Christmas 2010: Fingertip Towels, Fleece Scarves & Penguin Gift Card Holders

I've been trying to decide the best way to share all the Christmas gifts I worked on in December and keep the blog postings from getting too long and photo-heavy. So I've decided to write a series of entries over the next week or so, grouping a couple of projects into each post. Including the previous Christmas entry, this is the second installment in the series.

*****

Christmas Fingertip Towels: I needed an inexpensive grab bag gift for a family party early in December, and couldn't find anything I liked in the local shopping center. I was tempted to buy decorated holiday kitchen or bath towels, but the quality of both the towels and the embroidery were inferior (in my opinion). Instead of buying the cheap stuff, I used a couple of coupons and purchased two sets of REAL fingertip towels and embroidered them myself.

For the first pair of towels, I stitched an Embossed Reindeer design from Embroidery Library (the design is part of a pack called Christmas Whimsy Embossed - Small; I did not buy the entire pack, just a few of the individual designs.) I used RA rayon embroidery thread that almost perfectly matched the towel color for both the needle and bobbin and mirror imaged the design on each towel.

Because the embroidery thread was such a close match, it's a little difficult to make out in my photo - I've tried to enhance it as much as possible. The towels looked really impressive in person.

The embossed embroidery technique is really starting to grow on me. I know it's been around for a while, but I didn't try stitching any embossed designs until I did the Halloween fingertip towels a few months ago. I really like the effect created when using contrasting threads as well as when matching the thread to the fabric. (More embossed designs are below.)

I liked the reindeer so much that I wasn't sure I could part with them, so I stitched up a second set of towels using the Holiday Fa and Holiday La designs (also from Embroidery Library).

Both sets of towels were purchased at Bed, Bath & Beyond; they are from the Palais Royal Hotel collection of towels and are nice and thick.

Eventually I decided to gift the red reindeer towels for the grab bag and kept the Fa and La for my powder room. When someone asks "where are the other La's", I tell them they're silent.

Embossed Scarves: The embossed designs made quite an impression on me and I was inspired to try the technique again, but this time I stitched snowflakes on fleece scarves for a couple of my nieces. The purple scarf is a slightly fuzzier fleece than average; the red fleece is very thick and plush, and I added a quick matching hat.

Both scarves were cut twice as wide as desired, from selvage to selvage. Example: for a 6" finished width, cut 13" high by the full width of the fabric, in this case about 58-60" across. Then, using a dual feed foot, they were machine sewed with about a half-inch seam along the long edges. I left the short ends un-finished. Quick and easy!

For the embossed embroidery I used RA snow white rayon thread in the needle and bobbin, hooped water soluble sticky stabilizer and centered the scarf in the hoop. I used blue painter's tape on the fleece to mark the center of the design to help get it lined up correctly. After the hoop was attached to my machine, I added a layer of Solvy to the top. To keep it in place, I first sprayed it with temporary adhesive spray, then used the Fix function to baste everything together prior to stitching out the embroidery design.

They turned out very nice, if I do say so myself. I did have a few issues with thread breaking, but when I switched to a new and larger embroidery needle, that problem resolved itself. I can see more embossed snowflakes in my future (which I prefer to ACTUAL snowflakes).

Penguin Gift Card Holders: In my previous Christmas post, I showed the first few batches I made of these little cuties. The machine embroidery design is from Embroidery Garden and they are made completely (and very cleverly) in the hoop.

When the time came to start assigning them to gift card recipients, I found I needed 3 more for the flock. This trio was made for some of the young boys on my list. The scarves were each stitched with the same red thread but I used a variety of scraps of Christmas-y cotton fabrics. They were a big hit.

*****

Wondering about the status of my Burda Coat? The pieces are all cut out (except for the lining). I had to put this project aside at Thanksgiving and haven't had a chance to get back to it. The plan is to get it done by the end of January. But that could change ...