Sew Sew Chic

May 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Bianca

Didn’t our grandmothers get together and sew quilts? I am pretty sure it wasn’t with mimosas and I’m guessing it was more of a pot-luck, but I certainly felt a little retro cool to be invited to a sewing party. I couldn’t miss it since it was at my crafty super swell friend Bianca’s house.

Bianca

As I was heading out the door, the hubs donated one of his shirts to have Bianca “demonstrate the button feature” on the machine. He’s really thoughtful like that. Especially since he says that it took me 5 years of him asking for me to sew his shirt buttons back on another shirt – and when I did, they were in the wrong place. Not a great look for lopsided button collars. He hasn’t asked ME again, but take note that he has faith in Bianca.

Don’t we all.

I was hoping she’d teach us all how to sew – or if I was the only sewing-challenged one there I was prepared with my self-sacrificing laugh at my own lack of talent.

This was one of those “House Parties” (I did one about a year and a half ago for UL Labs – if you aren’t familiar, click through. They’re fun) sponsored by Singer. We all had the opportunity to take a spin on this amazing new sewing machine – aptly named the “Confidence Stylist” — which by the way is infinitely better than my hairball spitting thread chewing demon that I have been using. And by taking a spin, I mean by making, you guessed it – a CRAYON ROLL disguised as a brush roll.

Sigh. [Read more...]

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Planning for Party – the mini series: Episode 3 – Ready, Set, Sew!

April 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
IMG_2450
Thanks for tuning in, this “mini-series” will be the daily play-by-play, panicked countdown of a mom on a mission to pull off an original and memorable birthday for my soon-to-be three year old. I’ll take you through the last week of planning, because of course, that’s the fevered crunch time. And naturally when everything goes awry…

T minus 10 days and counting…

I had researched instructions for my crayon roll online. And after making the sample version,

I opted to combine two great tutorials to come up with my own design – nothing elaborate obviously as I am certainly no seamstress. But making a sample first allowed me to assess what I liked (the feel of the batting) and didn’t want to do (like sewing buttons). If you’d like my instructions, click HERE to see The Mommy Upgrade version of the crayon roll.

So remember, I work. Getting this project done would have to happen at night and weekends.  I spent the past Wednesday and Thursday evenings cutting fabric. Loads of fabric. It was exhausting. Little did I know at the time, I bought way too much fabric. I just kept cutting and cutting and cutting… I did get “smart” (really? after jumping in with way too much fabric?) pretty early on in the process and make a foam board pattern which I found to work much easier than actually measuring each piece. Particularly when you have a mound of fabric and my invisible pen was exactly that. The package said the ink would stay visible for 24 – 48 hours. Uh, try 24 – 48 seconds. It literally disappeared before my eyes. Lot of good that did me.

The weekend arrived and Friday morning I had a renewed sense of spirit about what was quickly appearing to be a daunting project. But by Friday night – I was a Big Fail, I chose to be a vegetable rather than a hip new age seamstress. I made the executive decision to veg out with the hubs watching The Tourist (love Johnny Depp – how could I resist?).

So Saturday greets me and I am ready, set, go! But wow, I didn’t account for the massive amounts of ironing that would also be a requisite for this project. An unscheduled set-back. Getting the permanent crease out was time-consuming to say the least.

I spent my free time ironing and pinning the pieces together. Because I have so much “free” time with an almost 3 y.o. who wants to do EVERYTHING with Mommy – even though Daddy is within arms reach. “Mommy, can I see? Mommy I want to heeeellllpppp,” as she climbs up on my lap with the speed of a mountain goat.

I take the assembly line approach to this. Being very goal-oriented, it helped to see the pillars of pinned half-done rolls in a pile to assess my progress. Keep in mind, at this point, I still haven’t keyed in on that I have TOO MUCH fabric.

So Sunday was finally sewing day and I was excited at my newfound skillful crafty talent. Visioning a whole new category for the blog titled, “Sewing creations,” I set to work. Tah-dah! I really honestly believed with one focused day, I could just whip them out.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Now, I am not ruling out user error but I had presumed my machine was fixed – until I started the insurmountable project of sewing the pockets into the rolls. Ay Yi Yi Yi. Let’s talk about broken thread, tangled bobbins and what the heck else could go wrong? I was confident the bobbin was loaded correctly – Bianca gave me an excellent tutorial so it had to be something else. (Me?)

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about putting the serious bloddy gash in my finger threading the stupid thing. Yes, I said threading it. And no, I didn’t get it caught on the needle. That would be entirely too obvious. These machines should come with biohazard stickers.

After 5 hours of sewing the inside pockets, I threw in the towel for the evening. I demand to know who’s freakin’ idea was this anyway? I had barely made a dent in the pile. The boys pile. Argghhh.

The clock was ticking…

 

Filed Under: OMG I sewed it, Planning for Party Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to make a Crayon Roll

April 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
boys crayon roll

Mommy Upgrade version of crayon rolls

(Special thanks to The Pleated Poppy and Prudent Baby for the great foundation for this project.)

Crayon Rolls are the perfect thing to throw in your purse so you are prepared when you go to a big girl restaurant and they don’t have any crayons available, or they only give you four colors to work with, or you are trapped in a situation where there’s nothing to entertain your hyper little monster when you’d really like to have a conversation with another adult and be able to complete a full sentence in it’s entirety without losing your train of thought. Love them, and your munchkin will too – if even just to pack and unpack the crayons.

Here’s what you need:

  • (2) pieces ofcute fabric cut to 5 inches by 16 ½ inches – these are for the outside and inside of the roll
  • (1) piece of coordinating fabric cut to 6 inches by 16 ½ inches – this is for the inside pocket
  • (1) piece of batting cut to 5 inches by 16 ½ inches – this is for the lining. I like the extra padding, but you can also use flannel.
  • (1) piece of ribbon 22 inches long (I used 18 inches but it was too short to make a bow, too long to just tie a knot – use your bestjudgment. You can always cut it shorter.)
  • (1) box of 16 crayons
  • invisible ink fabric marker or chalk.
  • If you aremaking several of these, I highly recommend also getting a piece of cardboard or foam board big enough to cover both the 5” x 16 ½” inches  and the 6” by 16 ½” to make a pattern pieces to measure your fabric. Then you can trace it onto the fabric with your marker or chalk.
  • Chopstick or bamboo skewer or knitting needle.

Here’s how you do it:

1)   Cut out all your fabric pieces.

2)   Iron all your fabric pieces – except if you are using batting. Don’t iron that, but do if you are using flannel.

3)   Take the pocket piece (the 6” x 16 ½” piece) and fold it in half with the printed side out. Iron this.

4)   Lay the flannel/batting out. Put one of the 5” x 16 ½” pieces on top, with the pretty pattern side facing you. Then put the ironed pocket piece on top of that, lining up the edges. Put the folded part of the pocket piece up towards the middle of the project. Pin this all together.

5)   Measure 8 ¼ inches from the left or right side. You are going to find the middle and draw a straight line from the top to the bottom. This is the center and you are creating the first little crayon pocket by sewing on this line – after you make additional lines every inch from the center line, on both sides. Do this until you have all 15 lines drawn. Each side should have a little extra on the ends to allow for your seam allowance.

6)   Start sewing! Start with the center line that you drew in the last step. Backstitch where you start and finish each line. Sew over all 15 lines that you drew.

7)   Trim threads. I did this as I went – probably too time consuming, but I was having a lot of hairball issues and there was a lot of thread flying around. It was easier for me to have fewer opportunities for tangling.

8)   Now take your ribbon and fold it in half. If it’s printed ribbon, fold the printed sides TOGETHER so you are looking at the back side of the ribbon. (I didn’t do this and had to twist the ribbon to make the right side show when it is rolled up. No one else in the world will take the effort to do this so sew it the right way!)  Sew it to the middle of the edge of the right side of your project. Remember to back stitch and go over the whole ribbon several times. It will have a lot of tugging so you want to make sure it’s secure.

9)  Take the remaining 5” x 16 ½” piece and put it on top of what you’ve just sewn, right sides together and pin it at each corner.

10)  Sew the pieces together with a ¼” inseam/margin. Start on the left end (the one without the ribbon) leaving a 2-inch (or a little bit more) of an opening. You are going to have to turn this inside out so you need enough room to do this, especially if you are using batting.

11)   After you sew around the edges, clip the corners so they don’t get all bunched up when you turn it inside out. Be careful not to cut your thread!

12)  Turn the right side out and grab a bamboo skewer or chopstick to gently (I mean this. I poked through two when I got too aggressive!) push each of the corners out.

13)  Remove your invisible lines if they are still showing. Most will remove with water, but check the instructions on your pen. (Mine did not.) If you iron it before removing them, they become permanent.

14)  Iron the project flat. Tuck the edges in of the opening. I pinned them too.

15)  Now, start on the end with the ribbon and start sewing around the perimeter of the roll, close to the edge. Sew up the opening.

16)  Tah-Dah! Grab your crayons – I organized them by rainbow color. Your child will likely never do this.

17)  Roll it up and tie the ribbon around it.

18)  Admire your handiwork! Soooo cute!

You can modify this project to be a brush roll just by making the fabric longer than 5″ and 6″ high. Any other ideas on how to modify this for other uses?

 

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