Saturday, September 24, 2011

Crafted gifts part deux




I just unpacked this next item, which I must have swiped on St. Patrick's Day to add some more fabric around the edges so it actually fits on a human head. Steve drew this during the cousin gift exchange for Christmas 2010. It inspires me to do something for myself for March 17. I love the flames!

Crafted gifts





Guess who found her camera cord? So I'm thrilled to post some hand-crafted gifts. I love the sweatshirt embroidery - the fan dancer is on the back. Front is all freestyle stitching, obviously since the sides don't really match. There is a little more orange accent around the hood, but I forgot to take pictures :)



I'm really proud that I sewed the fan dancer backwards - the pattern wouldn't show up on the back so I ironed it on the inside and stitched from the reverse side. Plus, the sweatshirt was on clearance at Old Navy for $3.50.

Friday, September 23, 2011

More Nesting: Valance and Pillow

Years ago, when I was on a trip to one of my favorite fabric stores--this one happened to be in Paris and I apologize to whomever came with me that day--I found this orange check fabric that I just loved. So, naturally, I bought 3 meters of it. And it happened to be about 3 meters wide. When you have a chunk of fabric so large, it's hard to cut into it. Luckily, this project didn't take too much of this precious commodity, but I think it was still a lovely use of it.

I am really proud of myself for the valance. I measured a lot to make it. I measured the 1x2 that holds it up, I measured to install the 1x2, I measured around the velcro that I attached to the 1x2 to hold up the valance. I measured the fabric I cut; I measured the hems and the tucks that make the valance look tailored at the corners. And I measured all those things more than once.

This valance even has a box pleat. Look:

Turns out box pleats are REALLY easy to make. I almost even matched the fabric at the pleat. Close, but not exact. Maybe next time. Next time I'll even remember to hem all the fabric BEFORE making the pleat. It got a little ugly, and next go 'round I would just use my seam ripper to un-pleat, hem, then re-pleat. But it still looks okay.

And with this close-up, you can definitely see the cording I put in along the top of the valance. Cording was also really easy on the valance.

After my success with the valance, I moved on to the pillow, which also is corded. I should have used The Google to learn more about making pillows with cording, because there is definitely only one presentable side to this pillow. And the cording is certainly not as tightly wrapped as I would have liked. But it looks okay enough, and a baby is just going to get bodily fluids all over it, which reminds me that I need to Scotchgard it pronto.

And since I'm on a roll here, I'll just show you that I was successful with making changing pad covers, too. I followed directions on aloadofcraft's blog to MAKE A PATTERN and it worked. You can see that the pad cover is contoured to the shape of the pad. Fancy, eh?
Okay, so that wraps up my crafting surge that will most likely come to a screeching halt in the next few days.