Category: Sewing

Sewing projects

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So many things to be inspired by today

I came out on the porch this morning, and realized I’ve been taking these pretty morning glories for granted. I went back in an grabbed my camera.

The morning glories have been blooming here since we moved in, and we’ve never planted any new ones.

I love to see what flowers look like from behind. You never see those views in the garden books. The sun is shining through this one.

I had another custom “Name your own slug” order, and I noticed I didn’t have all that many pinks or purples in my fabric stash. Well, now I do! Hehe. I just ironed all of these.

I had some trouble finding pinks I liked. The last place we stopped was at my favorite Raleigh quilt shop, Carolina Sew-n-Vac, and they had plenty of pinks. Yay! When we got to the counter, the couple who owns the shop started joking about how he tells her she buys too much pink. She was happy to hear she’d filled a need. She told us to tell everyone she has pink!

I added some pink, purple, and blue to my embroidery floss collection too. I’ve been trying to sort my fabric and my floss by color so I can keep better track of what I have. Before I did that, I kept thinking I was short on yellow fabric, and then I’d buy more yellow fabric. After a while, I wasn’t short on yellow fabric, but I had no idea. Having everything organized by color makes coordinating fabrics for projects much easier too.

I picked up some more yarn and socks as well. I must be ready for anything now. I get excited just looking at all these supplies.

And with perfect timing, just after I amassed my new pile of socks, Stray Sock Sewing Too: More Super-cute Softies to Make and Love by Daniel, arrived in the mail. I pre-ordered this book as soon as I heard it was coming out, because I love his first Stray Sock Sewing: Making One-of-a-kind Creatures from Socks book. I got mine on sale from Crafter’s Choice book club.

Both books are adorable. The dolls, the photography by Liao Chia Wei, and the narratives in each are clever, sweet, and charming. Even if you don’t sew, it’s just so much fun to look at them. I can imagine children would enjoy them also. But if you do sew…there are great tips in each one. This new book has instructions for fourteen new sock creatures, and I can see any one of them as such a nice handmade gift. The instructions don’t require the use of a sewing machine either.

Most of all, for me, they are full of wonderful stepping off points to create my own creatures. I find once I try one technique, before I am even finished with a doll, I have tried something else that came to mind. There is so much room for being creative with these.

In other creature news, this is a meeting of Ducks Against Pills. Some time around Labor Day weekend, Mr Duck decided he’d about had enough of antibiotics. What a challenge! I had a terrible time trying to catch him, falling gracelessly to the ground, nearly hitting my head on the fence, very humiliating! Ha! I did my best and we did manage to get that last pill in him. For his part, he did plenty of wiggling and spitting his pill out. I noticed someone came over to the blog looking for directions on how to give a duck a pill. An avian vet is the best at showing you how to do it, and of course, you wouldn’t want to give medication to any animal without consulting a vet first anyway. It’s a lot like giving a pill to a cat, only you really need to wrap the duck’s body carefully in a towel first. Their beaks open just like your cat’s mouth opens, when you reach over the top of the head, pressing gently behind the corners of the mouth/beak, while tilting the head gently back. And, just like your cat, they can push their pills out with their tongues, and they learn to wiggle too. It takes some patience!

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Emily and Edwin make their first appearance

Meet Emily, Max Bailey‘s and my latest one-of-a-kind, original, folk art ginger tabby cat doll.

Emily’s elephant friend is named Edwin. Emily is hand sculpted from paperclay on 100% cotton cloth, and is button jointed at her shoulders. Edwin is made of wood. Both are hand painted in acrylic paints and varnished with matte varnish.

As the story seems to go of late, Emily is still waiting for the rest of her outfit to be sewn. Edwin is just waiting for his wheels to start rolling. He’s very patient, which is good, because they don’t actually roll. Fortunately, he has a string to help pull him along.

We managed to re-photograph Max’s three new kitty figurines this afternoon. After some photo editing, color-correcting, cropping, etc, we’ll get to work on their web pages over on the Ruffing’s site. The figurines will eventually appear on the art doll figurines page, and Emily and Edwin will find their way over to the jointed cloth and paperclay dolls page of our online doll gallery…after Emily gets some clothes on.

I got this fun book in the mail, Stray Sock Sewing by an artist named Daniel. I’m crazy about it. It’s full of the cutest original sock creatures I think I’ve seen. There are plenty of sewing tips, and even instructions for making a few of your own. I’m getting so many ideas. I drew out some sketches when I got up this morning. I had a bunch of designs I had drawn, while waiting for my mom at the dentist’s, a few months ago, but I wasn’t entirely sure how best to construct them. So, this is great. Definitely enough information for me to spring off in my own directions. The eight creatures he shows you how to make would make super gifts too. So adorable. Love it.

The book is published by North Light Books, which has put out very nice art instruction books for years. I have quite a few painting and drawing books from them as well. I just read that the book club they’ve had for as long as I can remember is closing, but it sounds like they will still be offering their books through some special offers, in addition to still offering them through retailers. I got my copy of Stray Sock Sewing through Crafter’s Choice Book Club. They have some good deals sometimes, but I have trouble remembering to tell them not to send that monthly selection, even with an email reminder. I’m happy with the books I’ve gotten from them though, and I was glad to find they had this one.

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Handmade gifts, a retrospective

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving and that you are enjoying your holiday weekend. All this talk of shopping got me thinking about holidays past, and I thought it might be fun to share some of the gifts I made and gave to friends and family over the years. In most cases, the patterns I used are old and discontinued, but many can be found through eBay, or similar patterns can be found and substituted. I’ll suggest alternatives where I can. I almost always made the gifts I gave, finding what I could use in my fabric stash, sometimes adding something new.

Doll dresses, like the one above adapted from Vogue 9641 and designed by Linda Carr, are always great fun to make for little girls. Linda Carr designed many wonderful doll and toy patterns for Vogue Patterns. She also had a book, Classic Cloth Dolls, that had an 18 inch doll pattern and clothing. It can still be found on eBay too. The clothes fit the popular American Girl series of dolls as well.

Vogue still has a couple of similar doll dress styles in their Vogue 7564, 18″ (46cm) Doll Prairie Clothing Package . I also would highly recommend Brown House Dolls both for doll dress patterns of all types and sizes, and for cloth doll patterns. Bev Brown does a fantastic job making her patterns, and there are so many designs to choose from. The doll patterns in her international cloth doll series, which can be found under “Cloth Doll Patterns” on her site, come in an 18 inch size. They are a good alternative for anyone wishing to make a cloth doll like the Vogue dolls shown here.

I made this doll back in 1996 from Vogue 8336, also a Linda Carr design. Vogue’s currently available 7418, 18″ (46cm) Rag Doll & Clothes could easily be substituted for the pattern I used.

I hand painted this doll’s face with acrylic paint, using my own drawing. I believe I made her dress from a skirt I once had! I attached fabric flowers to her bonnet.

And I made lots and lots of teddy bears over the years. I made the baby bears below in 2001 from Vogue 9643, another Linda Carr design. Simplicity currently has two similar patterns for clothed teddy bears that are very cute. Check out Simplicity 5247, Vintage 15 and 18 Inch Stuffed Bears, and Simplicity 5461, Classic 18 and 22 Inch Stuffed Bears with Clothes.

I made these cuddly guys from baby blue chenille and white flannel. Boy did that gunk up my machine! Be sure to clean out the lint, from your bobbin case area especially, when you are sewing with chenille and other fuzzy fabrics. Fake fur does the same thing. I used Velcro to close their diapers. I hand embroidered their recipients’ names on their bibs using a chain stitch and some pearl cotton floss.

This ma and pa bear set below was huge! I don’t think I realized just how big they were going to be when I read the pattern envelope. I made them back in 1989 from Vogue 640 and they were 32 and 40 inches tall! Yikes.

I made them from fake fur which I had trimmed, using a pair of scissors, around their muzzles, paw pads, and inner ears. The Simplicity patterns I mentioned above could be made up in fake fur, or, if you’d like a more classic teddy, Vogue currently has another Linda Carr bear design, Vogue 7534, Teddy Bears With Anniversary Medallion Package.

I used plastic safety eyes which are actually very easy to attach. Again, I used pearl cotton for their noses and mouths.

There are just so many teddy bear patterns out there, it’s hard to pick just one or two to show you. Any one of them can be made from a variety of materials for a totally different look. I can easily see the Simplicity bears I mentioned above in the random calicos I combined for these bears below, back in 1993.

These bears were made from McCall’s 6814. This is probably the pattern from which I learned to machine sew. I made every animal on it, the bears, the dog, the cat, the seals, as far back as the seventh grade at least. Before that I had experimented with Barbie and other doll clothes, but I think this was the pattern where I learned accuracy on the sewing machine.

These were made from scraps of calico cottons I had in my stash. It amazed me how many parts I could fit on my tiny scraps. They were a great deal of fun. I just love that feeling of “making something from nothing”, just like scrap quilting.

I made covered buttons for their eyes and noses.

I gave them lace collars.

Below, you can catch a glimpse of the famous Red Bear, made from this same pattern back in 1984. Babies are intrigued by bright colors, as you can see. Red Bear was kindly donated by this little boy to his baby sister when he had grown up a bit and it seemed she would appreciate him more.

This sweet bunny was made from Simplicity 7718, back in 1993. McCall’s currently available M5078, Country Rabbits would easily do as a substitute. I made my bunny from wool I had left over from a pair of pants. Her eyes are black plastic safety eyes, and her nose is appliquéd on by hand. I made her entirely from scraps from my stash.

As you can see, there is no end to what you can make, often just using what you have already. Sometimes it is a very satisfying challenge to make something using what you already have. It sparks your creativity.

Other gifts I used to enjoy making were handmade holiday cards. I went overboard in high school, trying to give all my friends cards that I printed and then hand colored with colored pencils. I didn’t want to leave anyone out, and it got out of control. I couldn’t get them all done, and mailed some out uncolored. It led to a few awkward moments, especially when a couple of the boys thought maybe I made a card only for them and mailed it out special. Oh dear. Well, what fun is it if you don’t get in over your head once in a while?

One more gift that may not be handmade, but always makes a hit is a pot of catnip for kitties! Not all cats respond to it, but as you can see, many do!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and happy crafting!
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Sewing and soup-ing

I started sewing our kitty doll bodies today on my new sewing machine. I’m still getting used to the buttons I need to push instead of dials I need to turn. So far, it’s great. I really like the “fix” button that ties the thread off, and the “needle up/down” button, which I used a lot when I was pivoting around tight corners. I borrowed my mom’s Ott-Lite and put it right over my fabric so I could see better. The newer machines have stronger lighting, but that’s okay. It worked out fine. Incidentally, I hate that I look like I have big, old man paws in that photo! Foreshortening does some odd things.

We were so cold today that it seemed like a good day for some homemade soup. I made some vegetable soup using a hodgepodge of ingredients. I had some stock I made and put away in the freezer maybe two years ago! I thawed it out and everyone told me it tasted fine. None of us have come down with botulism yet. So, I think it was okay too. I added a can of diced tomatoes and a little chopped onion and garlic, and then I put about five cups of other vegetables into the boiling stock, about a cup each, adding them in order according to their cooking times. I used fresh carrots, fresh parsley, frozen cut green beans, frozen peas, and frozen corn. I also added a cup of whole wheat macaroni, and some salt and pepper.

I probably could have used more stock in my stock-to-vegetables ratio. As it is, my soup came out more like a stew, using about six cups of stock. Closer to eight cups might have made it more soup-like, but it was hot and warming, and we were cold, as I said. So, there were no complaints!