The Traumatic Fix

My sweet little Pretty has two sleep items, the bunny and the blanket.

But as much as she loves that bunny, it's really the blanket that is important. Whenever I check on her in the middle of the night, the blanket is being snuggled, while the bunny is tossed to the side.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the blanket had a hole. I put it on the mental list to fix, but didn't worry too much about it until I saw Pretty playing with the hole. So I decided to fix it right then. Pretty wasn't too happy with me taking her blanket.

Here she is throwing a fit on the floor.

And here she is pulling on the end to get it back.

I decided to do a cute circle patch using Heat 'N' Bond. I traced two circles onto the paper side of the Heat 'N' Bond.

Then I cut loosely around them and ironed them onto the back of the fabric. I picked a scrap piece that had similar colors and tones as the blanket.

Then I ironed one circle on each side, centered over the hole, matching them up as close as possible.

I should have sewed the hole together first, but a bit of a distraction that kept me from thinking clearly. Here's Pretty, tugging on the blanket and crying.

The last step I took was to sew around the circles by hand to add a bit of security. I decided on sewing by hand, rather than machine, to purposefully give it that home-fixed look. And, of course, I had to do it quickly and deal with Pretty tugging and crying the whole time.

So it turned out a bit more home-fixed looking than I wanted, but I still think it is cute.

She was so happy to get her blanket back, she went right into playing with it.

I have mixed feelings about needed to repair it again. I kind of hope I need to so there's more than one lone spot, but I don't want to go through that again. This is much better:

And that's just awesome.

Birthday Card Quilt

Wow, it's been a good while since I posted anything. I have excuses, but the most relevant one is that I'm busy enjoying the summer with my kids. But I did want to post about this project.

At the beginning of the month I mentioned that I was machine quilting my first quilt. Well, it was this big "Birthday Card Quilt" for my mom. 

As you can see, my mom just turned 50. Our family always has a pot luck breakfast to celebrate the 4th of July. This year, we turned it into a surprise birthday party for Mom! 

Everyone ate, played and of course, signed the quilt.

It was my mom who taught me how to sew and to piece quilt. I knew she would appreciate the work it took to make. It was a fun project for me because I was able to take ideas from blogs I love and sketch out a one-of-a-kind blanket just for Mom.

Don't you love the crazy scribbles of sketching? Ignore the math...

After I figured out just how I wanted to do it, I made the back first. I kind of based it off of this beautiful quilt over at Noodlehead. (I actually took a lot of advice from this post by Anna, about her quilt.)

And the front was based off of this adorable baby quilt by V and Co.

I used picnik.com to print out the letters. There were large enough, and enough of them, that I needed two pages. The first one, I printed normal and had to trace on the back of them to get the backwards on my Heat 'n' Bond. But then I remembered that picnik has a feature where you can reverse the images. So I did that for the second page. It just makes it less likely to mess up if they are already backward for you.

Anyway, I traced the letters backward on the Heat 'n' Bond, then ironed them onto the wrong side of my fabric.

 Then I cut them out, peeled the back, pinned and then ironed them into place.

Because Heat 'n' Bond will eventually dissolve, I stitched the letters down with the blanket stitch function on my machine.

I used the sandwich tutorial from Oh Fransson! to make this:

So many safety pins! I used regular safety pins, instead of "quilting pins".

I then used this tutorial for straight-line machine quilting. I used masking tape, and spaced them 2 inches apart, because it was easy with my 2-inch-wide ruler.

I sewed along the edge like I was told...

When it came to the words, I taped right across them, and then just back stitched at the beginning and end, just skipping over them.

For the binding I used this tutorial by Crazy Mom Quilts. The tutorial was easy to follow, and I chose to hand quilt it for a nice clean look.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you!

Guess who's one?

Happy Birthday, my sweet Pretty!

Dana's 90-min-shirt

No Sew ABC Fabric Art

A few months ago, my sister-in-law had a baby boy. I wanted to make her some nursery art and this is what I came up with. 

They were pretty simple to put together. The hardest was coming up with the design. And I kick myself for not keeping it. So, I'm very sorry that to recreate this, you will need to draft your own, but please feel free to try to copy mine as best you can!

What you need:

• 3 - 8 x8 box canvases
• 1/2 yard of background fabric
• fat quarters or scraps for other fabric colors
• Heat N Bond
• iron / ironing board
• glue gun

To start, I drew out my designs and made sure they would fit right by laying them down on the canvas.

Next, I traced the pieces in groups of what color they needed to be on the Heat N Bond. Make sure to trace it backward and to iron it onto the wrong side of the fabric. I cut out pieces as I needed them, that way I didn't lose the tiny buggers.

I cut the background fabric 10 x 10 to ensure  enough overlap.

Next, I cut out and laid the pieces on the background fabric with the canvas behind to make sure I was inside the edges.

When I was happy with the arrangement, I slid the canvas out and ironed on the pieces in layers. Iron on the bottom most pieces first.

Then add the detail pieces on top.

I used hot glue to secure the design to the back of the canvas. Make sure the design is centered. Glue one side, then pull the fabric tight and glue the opposite side.

To glue the top and bottom, I folded it like I would a present, gluing in layers.

My last step was to trim all the fabric inside the wood frame.

"A is for Airplane"

"B is for Boat"

"C is for Car"

I was trying to give the illusion that the airplane and boat where moving.

Disclaimer:
I made these before I was fully aware the amount of detailed pictures a tutorial required, so feel free to ask any questions you have.

Ladybug Buddy Tutorial (bug 2 of 3)

How cute it he? The way the pieces meet in a triangle makes this adorable bug look like it has a sad little frown. Makes me think of the adorably grumpy Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. I love Winnie the Pooh. . . 

But I'm getting sidetracked.

Let's make a Ladybug!!

Supplies:

• Small amounts of black and red fabric.
• Small amount of Heat N Bond (or wonder under)
• 1/2" button (for nose)
• 5/8" black satin ribbon (for feet)
• Small amounts of white and blue felt (for eyes)
• Bug Pattern Pieces (this will give you the pattern for all 3 bugs)

Ready? Start by cutting out all pattern pieces. (Don't forget to cut out the piece for the antenna 6"x2")

Take the face pieces (triangles) and fold over 1/2" on the long side. Press down.

Pin the triangle face pieces onto the red body pieces with folded side down. (There is no flipping here) Sew close to edge on all three sides. Trim off over hang from fold.

Make the spots by tracing a spool of thread onto the paper side of Heat N Bond. I did 3 spots, but you can do more or less.

Trim around the circles, but don't cut them out yet. Iron onto a small piece of black fabric. Allow to cool before cutting the circles out.

Peel off the paper and place the plastic-y side down. Arrange spots where you want them. Don't place them too close to the edge (you will take a 1/2" seam). Iron on. 

This will make the spots secure, so I chose not to sew around them. You can for added strength or for a design element.

Make antenna by folding the long sides to meet in the center and press.

Fold in half again and sew down the the long side. Then tie a knot on each end.

Fold antenna in half so knots are together and place on the black face next to the red body.

Pin the two red body pieces together on one side with antenna in between. Sew with a 1/2" seam starting a stopping at the dots on the pattern piece.

Cut 6 pieces of 2 1/2" of ribbon for the feet.

Pin feet onto black body piece making sure they will line up behind the black face pieces. It will help to lay them next to each other while placing the feet. Baste the feet on.

With right sides facing, pin the black body piece to the red ones. Leave a 2" opening at the back end of the body for turning and stuffing. I like to place 2 pins close together to mark where to start and stop so I don't accidentally sew my opening closed.

Finish up your Ladybug by turning and stuffing. Then hand stitch the hole closed. Add the face by placing the button nose on the point where all 3 black pieces meet and making eyes from the pieces of felt and hand stitching them on.

Enjoy your adorable Ladybug buddy!

And don't forget to make his buggy friends: 

Bumble Bee Buddy and Spider Bug Buddy!