Time to Play!

Now that I'm done with Halloween costumes, I've had a chance to breath.  The best part is, I have no projects that HAVE to be done...well I do have a baby quilt I need to get started, but they don't know I'm making it so I'm not in a huge hurry.

Earlier in the week I decided my almost 2 year old grandson needed a placemat.  He's such a messy eater, aren't they all at that age?  The problem I had is even with a regular placemat he would still get the area between him and the placemat dirty.  For some reason I could never keep the placemat at the edge of the table.

So I decided he needed a placemat with a little flap that went over the edge of the table.  I made my own design and made it smaller than the typical placemat.  His bowls and plates are smaller than adults and the big ones just looked way to big for him.

Right now he's in love with Mickey Mouse so I found some cute fabric at Walmart.  This was an experiment so I figured cheap fabric was the way to go.  But I've said it before, I'm sometimes pleasantly surprised that I find better quality fabric than I expect at Walmart.  Now, I haven't washed it yet, so we'll see how it holds up.

I bought a yard of each Mickey fabric and two yards of the black polk a dot fabric.  I plan to make different designs just to practice making placemats.  This was my first placemat and I was surprised how quick and easy it was, without a pattern no less!

I was surprised how easy it was to come up with my own pattern.  The little flap worked exactly how I envisioned it would.  It's definitely sparked something in me to branch out and not just follow patterns like I typically do.

You will notice it is already dirty in the above picture.  I couldn't wait for him to try it out and forgot to take a picture before he used it! From the looks of it, I need to get busy making placemats, we'll probably need a clean one for every meal!  Let's see that's three a day for seven days...hmmm 21 placemats??? 


I've told myself for years that I'm not creative, I just like making things.  Maybe, just maybe there is a little creativity in me!  So I've set a goal.  Before the end of the year, I'll design another pattern.  I'm not sure what that will be yet, but I have a few ideas swirling around in my head.

Have you made your own design?  What was your process?

Happy Sewing!

Lori

I survived Halloween!

When my children were younger, I made all their Halloween costumes.  I haven't done that for several years, but now that I have grandkids, I've started back up again.   Last year I made a Little Mermaid costume for my daughter.  She found a crab costume for her son (his name is Sebastian) , she has red hair so she thought it was the perfect costume!

This year she wanted to do characters from the movie Frozen.    Sebastian was Olaf, Abby was Anna, my daughter Paige was Sven and my granddaughter was Elsa.  We really had to do some talking to get Paige to go along.  She's not really in to dressing up, so her costume had to be very simple.


I started with Olaf.  I found a pattern on the internet, but I'm not going to add the link because I was not at all impressed with the directions.  I think someone that did not have any experience with sewing would have a very difficult time. Fortunately it was a free pattern and  I was able to figure it out.

 

The pattern said to add a zipper but I simply put on a kam snap.  The edges were unfinished which is fine since it's made out of fleece and won't ravel.

Next up was Elsa. I neglected to take any pictures of the process. It went together fairly easily.  I think the biggest problem was trying to find fabric.  I searched online and every local fabric store, but couldn't find what I was looking for.  I finally found the fabric at Walmart.  I used  Simplicity pattern 1233  I do buy all my patterns either at Joann's or Hobby Lobby when they are on sale.  Sometimes I also find them at Walmart. I found this pattern ran true to size.

I saved Anna for last, not sure why since it was the most difficult of the three. I used Simplicity pattern 1215.   I have an interesting story about the sizing on this pattern. Last year when I made the mermaid costume, it ran true to size and I had no problems.  This year for some reason I decided to check the size on Abby when I was cutting out the tissue.  Of course I didn't think to check BEFORE I cut the whole pattern out (just the tissue, not the fabric).  I put the waist band around her and found it was way too small.  I thought maybe it was the tissue, so I cut some scrap fabric and tried again and still too small.  So I pondered for a few days, then saw this video by the Crafty Gemini, in it Vanessa talks pattern sizing. She said if a person usually wears a 6, in patterns they may be a 14.  Oh boy was she right!  I measured Abby who is usually a size 4 and according to the pattern, she's a size 14!  I had to go buy a new pattern and start all over.  The good thing is once I got the correct size, it fit her well.

 The whole family even got involved and helped.  Even my 27 year old son!

I don't have a light box so I used my french doors.  At some point there wasn't enough light so my husband shone a flash light while my son traced the pattern onto Heat n Bond.

This is what we had to trace, except that is just a small portion.  There are 10 panels that have applique the length of the skirt, plus what goes on the top.  Needless to say, there were lots of appliqueing to be done.

I learned how to insert boning.  It was definitely a  learning experience.  The bodice came together fairly quickly.  The skirt was another story.  I have to mention here that I was running short on time.  I had known about the costumes for over two months, but hadn't had my weekends to work on them due to other circumstances.  By last Friday I everything pretty much done except for the skirt.  I worked on the skirt all weekend and still was no where near done...there is A LOT of applique!.  I had Monday afternoon and all Tuesday off work so I figured I would have plenty of time.

If it wasn't for my youngest daughter (who wasn't even getting to join in on the Halloween fun because of work) helping, I wouldn't have finished in time.   We didn't even stop to take photos!

Aren't they adorable?!!!

Sven was easy, well sort of.  I guess brown is not "in"this year because I had an awful time trying to find a brown sweater.  Finally at a second hand store I found a brown North Face jacket.  I got the brown jeggings and antlers at Walmart and the scarf and boots at Target. Paige was happy because she wanted brown boots and I figured since I worked so hard on the other costumes, she deserved the boots:)

Do you sew for Halloween?

Happy Sewing,

Lori