KCW Day 6- Monster Tee

I was crossing my fingers the whole time I was sewing this shirt, hoping and hoping that it would fit over the noggin’!

And it did! Not even a struggle! Woo Hoo!

I also have a huge problem finding cool knit fabric for the boy. So I finally resorted to online. I found a few great ones at Banberry Place. Including this monster fabric by Lillestoff, a European import. Please explain to me why cool knits are so hard to find in this country??? I love Lillestoff! Love! It’s so nice and soft and the design is COOL!

My original plan was to use the Flashback Tee again. I used it once before and it was a bit tight, so I wanted to try it again the next size up. But then I was like… Well, maybe I reuse the Winter PJ top cause it fits so well. But the head thing… The winter PJ’s top goes on easy, but it’s kinda hard to get off.

So I went with the original plan to use the 4T Flashback tee pattern. And it’s perfect. Easy on. Easy off. Cute. Fast. Not too tight. Love.

I even remembered the tag! The kiddo was pretty excited about that!

And he wanted to be sure we showed the back of the t-shirt. Since it’s so different from the front….

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Some Special Brown Fuzzies!

I’ve shown you my Ghosties before (here and here are two versions)… I used to make them A LOT. I sold them in quite a few stores around Seattle. Then the economy started falling apart and a few of my shops started closing and I honestly didn’t feel like finding new shops. Honestly, I had made a lot of these little guys!

But, I love them. As I make them, I turn them right side out and they each seem to have a little something different and a little something funny about them that makes me smile. So making them is always happy! I had a request to make another one and I never say no to a Ghostie!

A good friend is adopting a son (fingers crossed everything goes as planned) and she always gets Ghosties for baby gifts. Of course, her own needs one too! When she called I knew exactly what fabric I was going to use. I already had it in my head and when she mentioned brown, I was floored, because that’s exactly what I was hoping she’d say! This guys face seems a bit lop-sided to me, but the family thinks he’s just right, so he’s staying just like he is.

So this little guy is made of this brown blanket scraps I had received from my ’recycled’ source. (I have an upholsterer friend who gives me all the scraps my husband will let me bring home!) And then I had this pile that was shedding all over my work space, but I hated to throw it away. It’s soooo soft! But all the leftover pieces were skinny strips… Scarf?

So I called my son and asked him if he wanted another Stay Put Scarf and even though he barely wears the other one I made him, he got SUPER excited about this one.

He pulled out all his fabric scraps and wanted to make a patchwork one. I didn’t agree to do the WHOLE thing as patchwork, but we decided to do a little bit. And he picked the scraps and laid out where they were to go!

I used the edging of the blanket for the loop on the scarf.

And I just love this picture of him and how serious he looks. Maybe it’s me being his mom, but doesn’t he look like a real model in this picture? Not just a crazy kiddo??? hehehe…

And if you’re not wearing the scarf, it can always be a blanket for the Ghostie!

 

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A Rainbow Christmas Flag

Yep, I’m still going on with the Christmas presents I made. Well, kinda. This is another one that ‘Santa’ made!

Most everything on my son’s Christmas list was super hero related. And he got tons of that. I just didn’t make it. I mean ‘Santa’ didn’t make much of the super hero toys. Mixed in with the super hero toy requests was a request for a Rainbow flag!

So a rainbow flag he got!

While I was discussing this project with Santa, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to do the stick part. Then to my surprise, we found these flags for 19 cents at an office supply store! My son was excited, he has a thing for flags. obviously. And so was I, but I was trying to play it cool, while inside I was jumping up and down with my score!

I didn’t want to make the flag just a typical rainbow flag, so I knew I needed to come up with a little something different. That’s where the slanted vertical lines come in with the polka dots on each end.

I sewed the strips together and the folded the seam under and sewed it down.

A simple project. A loved project!

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Project Run and Play- Boys Style

OK, just a little warning… This week’s outfit is pretty silly! (And so is the model)

Once again, I’m playing along with the Project Run and Play challenges. This week’s challenge is Boy’s Style! And we took that to be The Kiddo’s Style. Remember last week when my son got bummed when he saw his sweatshirt and it wasn’t red and blue and green and yellow and orange??? (The week we won the reader challenge???) Well, I promised that this week he would get his color! And he did!

We had fun wandering around the fabric store picking out all the colorful pieces we could find! He said he wanted stripes. So he got stripes.

And polka dots. Our last color that he said we needed was purple, so we decided to go with purple pockets. Then he wandered around and found this great purple polka dot fabric! I added the pockets and was excited to figure out how easy they are to add. I also realized how I want to do them next time!! I’ll show ya soon!

The pants are an adaptation of Dana’s Basic Kids Pants. I actually enlarged the pattern a little bit since I have a growing son, but kinda wish I hadn’t. I wanted them a little bit skinnier than they ended up. But all in all, it’s probably best that they ended up a little baggy. The kiddo seems to like the baggier, comfier fit!

And the shirt!!! I’m so excited! The shirt is pretty much my first try at knit that turned out pretty right on! This is actually a pretty stretchy knit, not really a t-shirt knit. Very stretchy…. But it worked! The pattern is Made by Rae’s Flashback  Skinny Tee pattern. And it takes no time! It took me longer that it should have, but only because I read every word of the instructions looking for all the tips on getting it right. Next time… Maybe an hour, if that long. It’s perfect!

You’ll be seeing more of the scarf with some other news I have coming… Hehehe… I know, on the seat of your chair, huh???

Unfortunately, this week was CRAZY. I totally overbooked myself on things to get done this week, so we didn’t exactly finish the outfit! There’s a red sweatshirt with matching light purple trim missing…. Soon!

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Some Stripes and Some Dots

Update!! We won! We won the Reader Challenge for this outfit!! Yea!!

This week’s Project Run and Play challenge is Stripes and Dots. So welcome to my Stripes and Dots upcycled sweatshirt! This project might remind you of another upcycled sweatshirt I made for the kiddo. I don’t know why, but I love the oversized hoody look on my son!

I had a plan for the sweatshirt, pants and a scarf, but didn’t quite get the whole ensemble! I’ve been working on some other fun stuff that I can’t wait to share!!! Anyway… back to the challenge at hand!

I’ve had the idea floating around in my head for a few weeks now, since the challenges were given out back in December. But it didn’t quite come together as I planned. I knew I wanted to use this old brown sweatshirt. But I also wanted to use some other orange and brown shirts that I have in my recycle stash. At the last-minute I decided that they didn’t go together and I had to scramble to pull something else warm and soft together.

We found the dot fabric, but nothing to go with it, so for the pockets I pieced together the same color flannels that are in the dots to get my stripes!

As I was looking through the pictures I realized that the pockets are a hit. In almost all of the pictures he has his hands in the nice warm pockets!

One thing about the sweatshirt is that it was ripped down the front. I think it was too tight around the neck for my husband so he made it into a ‘slit neck’ sweatshirt! I wish I had taken a picture of my first fix. well, maybe I don’t, it looked really bad! Then I found Errant Pear’s tutorial on binding a slit neck. OK, so mine doesn’t look as fantastic as hers does, but it looks 100 times better than it did! Trust me!

When my son first saw what I made him, it was, ‘Awwww… Man… That’s not what I wanted. I wanted blue and red and orange and green….’ But then while we were taking pictures he said, ‘I do like it after all!’ A crazy face, but a double thumbs up! Sweet kid!

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Party Dress Turned Ninja Costume

It’s time for Project Run and Play! Season 6! Are you sewing along?? I never have, but I love to watch and Vote! I’m always amazed at the pieces the contestants produce!! And this year, I have decided to sew more clothes, for both myself and my son, so I’ve decided to sew along.

This week’s challenge is The Party Dress Remix! The pattern is a beautiful dress from The Cottage Home! And if I sewed for girls I probably would have made a beautiful dress, but… I sew for my son. And he and his Dad might be kinda weird about me dressing him up in a dress.

My son is SUPER into Super Heros, especially Spider-man. For Christmas he also got a Ninjago Alarm Clock and he loves it. His older cousin is SUPER into Ninjago characters, so now my son likes them too. So… When I saw the party dress, I also saw the little Ninjago character….

image via RedsDirt

This really is a remix! Let’s start with what I kept from the pattern. I kept the bodice. And I kept the gathered skirt, kinda. I kept the button back. Ok, that was fast…

Now for what I remixed…. I added sleeves. I lengthened the bodice. I super shortened the skirt. I narrowed the waist strap and added a tie. I replaced the fabric button closure with painted red elastic. OH, and since it’s a costume, I chose not to line it.

Once my son got it on and looked in the mirror he was convinced that this isn’t what a Ninjago Ninja looks like. So I had to take him downstairs to the computer and bring up the picture above on the computer. He was coming around and starting to agree with me, but he stuck to his guns. He pointed out that he didn’t have the yellow face and the round black hands weren’t like his costume….. Ummm… I can sometimes go to great lengths to get things just right, but I wasn’t going to chop off his hands and add round, lego hands or paint his face yellow today…. Once we cleared that up, he was on board that this costume looked like a Ninjago!

My little  Ninjago has his eyes on you…. (I’ve still got to finish the hat/mask thingy… I forget the real name for them…)

Even Dad was pretty impressed with the remix. He definitely had his hesitations when I told him I was making our son an outfit out of a dress pattern! This has now opened up a whole new way of looking at all the little girl clothes out there. Boys kinda get the shaft sometimes when it comes to the clothes options. But I feel a little free-er after this project. Free-er in knowing that just because it’s for a girl, doesn’t mean I can’t change a few things to make it more BOY!

And how would you remix the Party Dress?? Are your kids obsessed with Ninjago? Mine isn’t obsessed yet, but it seems to be an extremely hot toy with the boys!

 

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Dear Santa, I Have a Printable Letter for You!

Have you been to see Santa yet? Have you written your letter to Santa? We did both today!

This year I made a fill in the blank letter to Santa. My son was able to fill out some parts, but others, like the gift list, I filled out for him. He was quick to mark the Nice and not the Naughty box!

If you haven’t already written your letters, click Here to download the PDF of this one!

I’ve been on the fence about fill in the blank thank you letters lately. So I’m not sure why I decided to make one for his Christmas letter, but I did and it worked out perfectly! He’s loving learning to write his letters so it was not only a cute looking letter, but a learning experience as well!

And then he got to read it to Santa. they really had a good chat about everything on his list. One thing he’s obsessed about is Spider-man and most of his list is Spider-man related toys. Santa had a good question… If he gets the web thrower, is he ready to pick up the webs it throws? He told Santa yes, but he told me that Spider-man doesn’t pick up his own webs… hmmmm… I’ll have to talk a little further with Santa on this one!

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Hot Dog Day Vest Tutorial!

This is a re-post from a post I did back in July for Narelle’s blog Cook, Clean, Craft when she hosted the series Boy’s Own Style! I thought now that people are thinking about Halloween this could be a fun little project to share!

Enjoy!

First off, I have to say Happy National Hot Dog Day! Maybe it’s a US thing, but everyone can play along right??? Thanks for stopping by to join me here on Narelle’s blog! I’m Louise from I’m Feelin’ Crafty!

Who doesn’t love hot dogs?? And who doesn’t love dressing this kids up like a hot dog??? When Narelle asked me join in on her series, of course the first thing I did was say yes. Then I looked at the calendar and knew I had to join in on National Hot Dog Day! My husband and I brainstormed for an idea and he actually came up with the idea for a hot dog bun vest. At first I was like, no way! Then the details started coming to me and I fell in love with the idea!

So here’s how I made my vest!

Step 1- Gather materials: Red and White fleece, khaki colored denim, yellow buttons (for the drops of mustard ya know!), thread and the pattern. My pattern is for somewhere between a 3T and 4T.

Or you can make your own by tracing a vest that already fits (which is basically how I made mine…)

Step 2- Cut out all your pieces. Denim for the outside, Red Fleece for the inside, pockets, buttonhole piece and collar and White fleece for the mayonnaise pockets.

Step 3- Sew in the Pockets. 1, position the pockets about 4.5″ inches from the corner of the armhole at side seam, right sides to right sides. 2, Sew the pockets on the seam side only. 3, If you want to topstitch, do so now! Here I folded over the pocket and did a little topstitching. 4, Iron open the pockets, but be sure to not iron the fleece directly (put a cover over it before ironing)! 5, Stack the front and back pieces, right sides together, and pin. 6, Sew a continuous seam from the armhole to the bottom hem edge going around the pocket. If you did add the topstitching, it adds a little funkiness to the laying out and stitching the front and back together, but you just have to move it around a bit and be careful to not stitch over the topstitching.

Step 4: Add the mayo!  First turn over the top of the mayo and stitch. Sew on the mayo squirts on to the right sides of the front flaps of the inside pieces of red fleece.

Step 5: Sew lining. Sew front sides to back, right sides together. Leave a 4″ hole in one of the side seams to pull it all through later.

Step 6: Collar. Sew the two collar pieces together, right sides together. Only sew the two short sides and curved side of the collar. Trim the corners and turn right side out. Topstitch the three sides.

Step 7: Buttonhole strip. Just like the collar, sew the short sides and the curvy side together, right sides to right sides. Trim the corners, snip the curves (so that they fold over easier) and turn right side out.

Step 8: Add the buttonholes. Honestly, I am not a fan of buttonholes. On my machine, the buttonhole function doesn’t work. I need to get that fixed…. So please excuse my not so perfect buttonholes. Anyway, for this project, I added the buttonholes and I didn’t line them up on purpose. Have you ever seen a compete straight line of mustard drops on your bun? Me neither! So neither are my mustard buttons!

Step 9: Put it all together! First off, sew the shoulders together for the front and back, right sides to right sides. Pin the collar and the buttonhole strip to the front of the vest, right sides to right sides. Next, pin the inside of the vest to the outside, again, right sides to right sides.

Step 10: Sew it all together. Sew all the outside edges (but not the armholes! I got carried away and forgot to NOT sew the armholes and had to pull out the seams at the armholes!!!) Don’t forget to trim the corners!

Step 11: Pull it all through the hole you left in the lining and topstitch all around the edges, including under the collar.

Step 12: Sew on the buttons. I had an extra button, so I added a drop of mustard to the inside of the vest!

Step 13: Close the armholes. Fold over the outside and the inside towards the inside about .5″ and pin. Then pin the two together lining up the shoulder seam and the side seam. Topstitch!

And WAH-LA! You’ve got a little hot dog!

And we’re off to have a hot dog! Thanks again, Narelle, for having me!  While you’re eating yours, be sure to visit me at I’m Feelin’ Crafty!

 

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Let the Games Begin!!!

We started our Olympic excitement with a Melted Bead Ring Wind chime and Medals! As I was hanging the pieces to make our little wind chimes the other day, it came to me… Olympic Rings!! My son is really into gymnastics right now, so we’ve been watching the USA Team Trials on OnDemand and are really excited to see the team in action!

So using the same technique we used to make the sun catchers, we made the Olympic Rings and medals. Put the beads in a muffin tin, cook at 400 degrees for 25 minutes (with the fan on), pop out of the tin and drill holes. Yep, easy as that!

The wind chimes make a great little tinkling sound as they bounce around in the wind. And trust me… I heard a lot of it as I tried to take these pictures on a beautiful, yet windy, day

And then the medals!!! What kid doesn’t want their own medal? And the are fun to make!! Ok, I think I’m having more fun making the melted bead projects than my 3-year-old. He loves playing with them, but making them… He kinda looses interest. Like he ditched me and my bead craft for a water balloon battle with Dad… hmmm….

The Gold, Silver and Bronze! Ok, so the silver is actually clear, but I didn’t have any clear grey or silver beads…

The kiss of Gold! Sweet Victory! What’s your favorite sport??? We’re so excited about gymnastics… Did I mention that already?? Go USA!

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Winnie the Pooh…. Kinda

Every time I take my son to the fabric store with me, he always wants to get a fat quarter, or as he calls them, ‘little pieces of fabric.’ When I tell him we’re going to the fabric store, he always asks if it’s the one with the little pieces of fabric. Usually he gets one! I try to say no, but I feel like I am hindering his creativity, so I usually end up getting him one. So what does all this have to do with Winnie the Pooh, you ask…

The last piece of fabric, a brown polka-dotted piece that he got, he decided to he wanted to make a Winnie the Pooh doll with it. I agreed and tried to find pattern for a Winnie the Pooh doll, but found that they aren’t easy to find. As in, I couldn’t find one…. And I am usually pretty good at finding patterns online…. I decided to use this bear pattern from Cut Out + Keep. I didn’t realize when we started that it’s actually for a jointed bear. I didn’t make him all jointed, but it was the most hand sewing I’ve ever done for a little stuffed animal!

I did convince him to make the body out of yellow fabric, like Winnie the Pooh. And that’s about as close to Winnie the Pooh as we got! No red shirt, we had to use his new piece of fabric for the shirt. The kiddo really wanted to use buttons for his eyes and nose. I tried to convince him that we should use something smaller, but he wasn’t into it. I also tried to get him to wait until the next morning to add the mouth and eyebrows so we could get some embroidery thread. But no. We had to finish his face before bed.

The kiddo actually really helped me make Winnie! He was making all the detail decisions, picking out the right buttons, getting the pins and thread I needed, and stuffing. I love the very last picture, If you’re waiting on a stuffie to be made, you can always use the legs for a phone call… When we got to the hand stitching, I did kinda loose him to a computer game, but I was totally impressed with how long making this stuffie kept the 3 year olds attention!

I colored his shirt red to see if that helped him look any more like Winnie the Pooh… Kinda, but not really…

I think he looks more like a mouse than Winnie the Pooh, but the beauty is, I made him with my 3 year old son and he loves him and keeps telling everyone that he’s Winnie the Pooh! We have store bought versions of Eeyore and Tigger, but now the kiddo wants to make Piglet, Kanga and Roo. If you have any ideas where to find a pattern for these guys, please let me know!

 

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and this one, too…