I made one a few years ago, but after two moves it seems to have gone missing. I had no idea this fabric was so hard to come by now. I only had a small bit left, so I had to settle with the cookie pattern oriented in this way. It will still hold what it needs to. You can find the tutorial to make one similar here. The only real change I made besides the size was that I didn't make a square bottom on mine because I wanted it flat for money.

arm sling

arm sling, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.

My 10-year-old daughter broke her forearm on Monday. She has a splint on now and will get a cast next week. She came home from the ER with one of those plain dark blue arm slings, so we decided to fancy things up a bit. She picked out her fabric and the color of bias tape and webbing she wanted and it definitely shows her taste!

For guidance, I referred to this post at Welcome to My Chaos. It was a pretty easy project. I would add, though, that if you are going to pick a directional patterned fabric like the cupcakes, don't forget to make sure the front side is going the way you want. If you cut the sling on the fold on the bottom, the part of the sling facing the body will have a pattern going the opposite direction. I made sure to keep in mind which side was front as I went along. I cut a 7-inch piece of webbing for the female side of the buckle. Sew one side onto the front fabric of the sling, slide the buckle on, then sew the other end to the other side of the sling. I used the rest of the yard of webbing and sewed it on the elbow side of the sling with reinforced stitching (a big box with an 'X' in it). Figure out how the male side of the buckle goes on the strap so that you can adjust it, then "hem" the end of the strap so that it can't be pulled out of the buckle when being adjusted later. Also remember when you're sewing on the bias tape to sandwich the fabric in it so that the wider edge is on the bottom and will be caught in the stitching. You might already realize all of these things, but I know we've all been on autopilot at some point and not thinking about what we were doing and then had to break out the seam ripper. ;) One of the must-haves for her new sling was something to keep the strap from irritating the skin on her neck. I used some of the leftover cupcake fabric and cut a couple of rectangles that when folded in half would be slightly wider than the webbing. I sandwiched them with a layer of batting in the middle, right sides out, and basted the edges. Using some of the green bias tape, I edged the two shorter sides of the rectangle sandwich. I folded the rectangle in half and stiched. Turn it inside out and slide the resulting tube onto the strap. This not only protects the neck, but it makes a place to tuck in the tail of the adjustable strap as well.

Here is my model!

Disney shirts and ironing board cover

We went on a family vacation to Disney World in December and the kids wanted me to make them a couple of shirts. Between work and getting ready to go, I didn't want to make the shirts from scratch this year, so I got some blank t-shirts at Target and embroidered/appliqued/bedazzled only.







The embroidery and applique patterns were purchased from an Etsy seller who no longer seems to be listed there. If I seem them reappear in the future, I will link them up here.

Another sewing project was from this evening, and that is a new ironing board cover. The ironing board is always out when there is sewing going on, so I decided it was about time to cover that old, stained up cover that was currently on it. I used the tutorial found at Sew Spoiled. It worked out great, was easy, and I think it looks a lot better now. It's a great way to use stash fabric as well.

Before:



After:



Fabric closeup:

Halloween bag and luggage tags

I don't have a picture of the Halloween bag, but I did make one! I basically used the cloth grocery bag pattern that I had made previously, but this time I used skeleton fabric. It made a rockin' Halloween bag that can hold a ton of heavy candy. Always a win as far as my son is concerned.

Today I made a luggage tag that my daughter claimed. We are going on vacation soon and I was looking for a quick and easy project to do on this long Thanksgiving break. This was both. The only trouble I had was not having a teflon foot and sewing on the plastic. It was doable but not perfect and if you look too close you can see I sewed it on a little bit crooked. It serves its purpose, though, and my daughter is pleased so that's all that matters, right?

If you're interested in making one or a few of these, you can find Morah's tutorial here.

This first picture appears cut off on one side when I insert it onto Blogger (click it to see it full-sized at Flickr), but you get the point:

Just in time for Mother's Day

Sew4Home has a cute retro-style apron tutorial up today. I'm totally going to make this!

reusable grocery bag

reusable grocery bag, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.

The bag is lined and has gussets enabling it to hold more. I put a box of cereal, a roll of paper towels, and a big thing of oatmeal in there for the picture.

You can find the free tutorial here. Have fun!

For my pattern, I used a Target bag and that worked perfectly.

reusable grocery bag, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.

Here it is after being folded into itself with the pocket on the front.

Our Christmas elf

Our Christmas elf, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.

This is our very own elf that the kids named Elfie Hot Santa. He appears in a different place of the house each morning, and the kids love to search for him when they wake up. The boy loves this elf so much he has taken him to school to show him off.

You can find the elf pattern and tutorial at Make Baby Stuff.com here.

Advent calendar

Advent calendar, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.

Finished it just in time!

I went on a search for an advent calendar tutorial without pockets. I wanted something different than the norm, something that I wouldn't have to think hard about what to put in pockets. I'm too lazy for that (and cheap).

I came across Wee Folk Art's Advent Tree tutorial and went for it. I liked the hand sewing aspect, which allowed me to stay warm by the fireplace while working on it. I also was able to use up a good bit of a box of 1" buttons I'd bought a while ago that I never used.

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but the star has a button hole, and it starts at the bottom. Each day, a lucky kid (in our case) gets to move it up to the next number. They are already stoked to begin. :)

Clothespin bag

Clothespin bag, originally uploaded by pearljamfanatic.

I found another use for a couple of snaps! This is a clothespin bag I made using a tutorial from My Lucky Chicken. It was very simple and fast, and now my clothespins have a real home.

Kiddie snuggle blankets

The kids saw that commercial for the blanket with sleeves and wanted one for themselves. I'd gone on a fleece buying spree a few years back and was happy to find a reason to use it up. Note the sideways flames on the boy's "snuggie". I was not impressed when I discovered the printing was sideways (not my fault - it was actually made that way). The boy was a little disappointed that his didn't come with a free book light. I handed him a flashlight.

The tutorials and templates for both the adult and children's versions can be found here.

A couple of years ago I bought way too many snaps from the Snap Source (love them!). I have more snaps than I know what to do with. So whenever I find a cute and easy project that involves using up some of my snap stash, I'm all for it!

Last night I was cruising the sewing and craft blogs and came across this cute needle book tutorial. I had the perfect fat quarter of some Japanese canvas Little Red Riding Hood fabric that I knew would be great for this.

I love the way it turned out, even if I did have to decide to close it the opposite way of the tutorial. That'll teach me to not pay attention to the direction of the fabric pattern when I'm cutting something out. Next time I'll be on the ball, I swear.



Here is my first version, because I'm definitely making more of these, the Little Letter Needle Book:

Motherload of bag tutorials

If you're in the mood to make a bag, start here!

Teacher appreciation week

This coming week is teacher appreciation week. On Friday the kids brought home a paper that gave them ideas for something to do for their teacher each day of the week. Monday's idea is to bring a little treat for her, so we came up with a couple of cute things that I could sew and they could give.

First up is this cute patchwork apple made from more of my Moda Uptown scraps. I used the basic instructions from the tutorial at The Wool Food Mama's blog here. I did the leaves a bit differently. The girl is happy to give this to her teacher tomorrow!



The other item is for the boy to gift. We bought a composition notebook and made a cute cover for it as in this tutorial at Joy's Hope. It was easy and fast and is super cute. I want to make some for me!

Happy Easter!

I just came across photos of these fantastic fabric Easter eggs on Flickr and retro mama has been generous enough to post a tutorial on her blog. You must see these - so cute!

We're back from vacation to Disney World and had such a great time. With the warmer weather coming I'm sort of in the mood to clean my sewing room. Whether or not it will get done is another story!

Today I'm going to try out this ear warmer tutorial. Yep, I said ear warmers. The kids both have soccer games tomorrow and for some reason lately it's been really cold on Saturdays around here. Their league never cancels games and I don't want a repeat of the day we went to watch our kids play in weather that was 34 degrees with the wind chill. It was awful. So we'll see if I can get 3 pairs of ear warmers made today.

Car organizer

We have an upcoming car trip. A reaaaaalllly long car trip. I'd been meaning to make a set of these car organizers for some time, and there's nothing like a long trip to kick me into gear.

I used the tutorial as a guide but did the construction a bit differently. For once thing, I used my serger to finish the raw edges and then folded over, pressed, and stitched instead of the double folding of the hems. This was so that I could cut down on the bulk significantly. Also, instead of hemming first and then adding the pockets, I added them first and then hemmed the whole thing with all the layers together.

What I don't like is that mine isn't hanging very well. One reason is the car has a sort of plastic bar thing across the back for the passenger to hold on to when I take those crazy corners. Another reason I think is that my daughter put a bulky stuffed animal in one of the pockets. I think another tie or something about midway down wouldn't be a bad idea. The only thing is, the front of the seat is concave and I wonder if a tie across there would be annoying on my back as I'm driving.

Another thing I might do differently is round the corners at the top. Rounding the corners would need a bias binding for the edges instead of hemming. I wonder what that would look like. Hmm.

Does that Snow White doll scare anyone else?

I have a son that can't seem to wear a pair of jeans more than 5 times without ripping holes in the knees. Everyone says that's just what little boys do. Well, long pants weather will be gone very soon. I really don't want to buy more jeans in his current size for him to only be able to wear them a few times before the colder weather is gone!

I wanted to find a way to patch his knees that was different. I came across this video tutorial on Etsy's handmade blog, The Storque, and I gave it a shot.

Here are my results.



What I like about this technique is that it allowed me to avoid hand sewing the patch on. His pant leg was just big enough to fit over the free arm of one of my machines (whew).

He wore the fixed up jeans to school today and hopefully he doesn't come home with a new rip!

The top 100 tutorials of 2008

The Long Thread blog has posted a great list of links to the top 100 tutorials for 2008. It contains everything from baby and kid items to things for the home. Definitely check it out when you're in need of some inspiration!

Advent calendar tutorial

It might be a little to late to get a start on a handmade advent calendar this year, but I'm definitely keeping Purl Bee's tutorial in mind for next December.

How cute is this?

Burdastyle

BurdaStyle is a wonderful open source sewing site. There are tons of free patterns to download as well as a blog, forum, how to's, and user creations. Burda is a well known pattern company, so when they came out with this site a while back, it was very exciting! The site has evolved to involve a lot more of its users' content and that is just cool. Check it out!