Making bows from thrifted clothes

Just a quick post today!
I was checking out a local thrift store and came across a pair of brightly colored floral capris. I'm not a huge fan of that many flowers decorating my bottom half, but the cotton material and print size called out to me anyway!
It would make the perfect material for hair bows!

I took one of the legs apart and cut off a short length of fabric. I hand sewed the edges and created a loop which I gathered in the middle and tacked down with some thread. Then I wrapped the center with a small piece of a mango colored fabric froma  thrifted skirt, attached a hair pin, and voila!

A perfect little bow with a pop of color as we limp through the gray days before spring finally makes its way to Michigan. We had a beautiful day in the 60's yesterday, and a gray day in the 50's today, but we'll be dropping again and whisperings of snow have been floating through the air. I really can't wait for spring...it's not usually such a big deal for me, but this year I really have cabin fever! How about you?

One last thing...I wanted to share a picture that my son made at school. We had the school book fair last week and as I was setting up, I looked up and saw this on the wall. I love their art. :)

I made a tent!

I mentioned yesterday that I was searching thrift stores for sheets (and ended up finding lots of other goodies!). I wanted to share what I needed those sheets for. I found this great A-Frame tent on the blog by cakies and have been itching to try it out.

It's so simple to make, and perfect for little kids to dream away an afternoon. I'm proud to say that I built this myself (with my hubby holding the moulding down while I drilled) yesterday and today it went off to the home of a little girl who was celebrating her 3rd birthday. I was happy to see her crawling into her new tent as we were leaving the party. :)

If you are looking for a fun, easy project you should give this a try! I have another to make...my daughter was enjoying this one too much not to give her one of her own. :)

Embroidered Pillow

I meant to post this a while ago, but things just got away from me...big surprise. :) I did share this over at my YouTube channel, so feel free to check it out there also! Check out what I made!

I made this pillow as a little Mothers Day gift for myself - isn't it cute? If I would have had more time I would have made them for the kids grandmothers also, but as it is I only had time to make one. I love it!

I found the idea via Rubyellen over at Cakies - one of my favorite crafty blogs! I love her use of vintage materials and how she repurposes things for her home. I have found lots of great ideas there, which is good because my little house is sorely in need of revamping on a shoestring budget.

Anyway, I couldn't find the actual post when I saw the picture so I kept the overall idea in mind and went to the local St. Vincent de Paul on my home from work one day. It's a small shop but I find some really great things there. I'm still kicking myself for not grabbing the wicker chairs I saw there a few years ago...sigh. Anyway...I knew I wanted to make my pillow out of linen, so I dug through ladies jackets and came up with a solid lined and a patterned linen. Score! I think they cost me around $7 for both. I got home, measured a pillow form my mom had given me that had been sitting in the basement waiting for a purpose and went to work. I cut the pieces from the back of the jackets and sewed them together, leaving an opening at the bottom. The opening was actually too small and I really had to work to get the pillow in later (rookie mistake!).

I inked up the kids handprints onto copy paper and cut them out. I pinned them to the pillow (something that was actually more hassle than it needed to be) and used black embroidery floss to outline the prints. This went very fast actually...I only used a simple running stitch and didn't get too worked up if the stitches weren't perfectly spaced (though I was careful...I admit I couldn't abandon my perfectionist tendencies completely). I then added the heart in red, and the year at the bottom, stuffed the pillow case and sewed up the bottom. And done!

The pillow pops up in various rooms courtesy of my children, who love to move pillows all over the house depending on where the latest fort or cuddle party is. :)

I wish I had done this years ago, when they were smaller...even at 4 and 6 yrs old their hands were big enough to fill the square. I wonder if I could find various handprints of theirs from over the years and create a collage of these on linen in simple black frames...like a growth chart of handprints. Hmmm...

Crazy week!

We are winding down a very busy week. As I mentioned before, the Emancipation Proclamation came to The Henry Ford Museum. It was a crazy event...people stood in line for as long as 8 hours to see this document - just an amazing outpouring of community around this incredible piece of history, over 21,000 people came to see it!

Following two 20 hour shifts we jumped right into the prep for my daughters first dance recital. Dress rehearsal, then 2 performances. She loved it, but she is definitely feeling it now. This morning she slept until 10:30 am! She loved dressing up in a costume and stage makeup, forgot most of her steps, and is so proud of her flowers which have a honored place on her dresser next to her bed.

Beyond that I have been working on a T-shirt quilt for a friend. The squares are cut, interfacing applied to add stability to the material and now begins the process of deciding the final layout of the shirts and the sewing. I'm enjoying the process very much and cant wait to complete it so I can give it to the family it's destined for. Even Jewel cat is enjoying the project, especially when the scraps make the most comfy impromptu kitty bed ever!



Hmmm...I'm still very tired and haing trouble putting coherent sentences together. Hope you are all well! :)

On a crafty roll!

Tonight I give myself a pat on the back. I was given a sewing machine in 2000 by my best friend and used it now and then. I guess it was because I was a little afraid of this strange piece of machinery because in my high-and-mighty high school years I was offended by the thought that I should take Home Ec. I was a liberal feminist darnit and I wasn't going to fall into stereotypes of what girls should learn! (Ah, the good old days). Which is funny because I always loved working with my hands, and actually did want to learn how to sew. I would watch my mother make our Halloween costumes and would be fascinated by strips of green sequins or the rustle of satin fabric or the tiny script on the tissue paper of dress patterns. But I had an obsession with "old fashioned" notions of sewing and wanted to sew by hand. I studied vintage encyclopedias that did stereotype what girls should be learning and pored over the instructions for embroidering hankies and the like. I was such a confused child and my mother must have just shook her head knowing how stubborn I was when I was sure I was right (something I still struggle with as an adult, I admit it!).

So as I grew I had to learn how to sew a button, and if a hem came out of my pants I resorted to stapling it in a pinch until I could get it to the tailor. And here's an ironic thing. I worked in a tuxedo shop for years in high school and college and I can hem a pair of tuxedo pants on the hemming machine like nobody;s business. I still can eyeball a guy into his suit size pretty accurately, I'm proud to say!

Now that I'm a mom and have a little girl I'm trying to find my inner sewer. So I broke out the old sewing machine and decided to try making a skirt for her. Being four, she is obsessed with skirts and would wear them every day if mean old Mommy would let her. Alas, Michigan weather sides with me during the winter so she is doomed to wear pants for the past several months. Now that it's getting warmer I'm not only agreeing to the skirts, but now adding to the collection. :) I found a great pattern courtesy of Dana. Check out her blog, it's good reading. I picked up a half yard of cotton fabric at Joanns and went to work. I'm happy with how it turned out...took me a little longer than it will for someone who is familiar with their machine, but once I got in the groove, I was able to finish it in a couple of hours. (The sewing was easy, but getting an even cut was driving me nuts!) Needless to say, it was super cute, my daughter loves it and I figured out some things about my sewing machine. There were some scraps left over so I even made a quick skirt for her Bitty Baby! It was fun, and I'm already planning on making a second skirt for her, but not tonight. Now it's ridiculously late and I really need to sleep.

Goodnight! :)