Playground Love

I’m not sure this really counts as a Zero Cost Challenge project because I started this ages ago but….

I’ll include it anyway because I’m just completing it now. I began this when A was still in her crib, hence it is sized to fit a crib mattress. Well- months later, it will make a lovely throw. I’ve never been inspired to try quilting, but was intrigued after a friend made an incredibly hip and modern quilt with truly lovely fabrics. M’s aunt also does a pretty kick-ass job and I thought I’d give some of the techniques a try:

While I’ll credit Handmade Home and Weekend Sewing Projects with inspiring me to start this, I think the blanket is definitely a creation of my own.

• You probably won’t have to do this step, but because the blanket was used as a poncho, I needed to sew up the hole in the middle of the blanket. I finished some edges of a fabric rectangle and sewed it to the good side of the blanket over top of the hole. Next I used the fabric strips (instructions below) to cover and make a pocket over top of this.

• Next- I used Heather Ross’ excellent instructions from “Weekend Sewing Projects” to make the letter A using fusible interfacing. Sew on applique when finished. These same instructions can be found in this post.

• Take an  old sheet and sew it to the blanket. I liked the thought of re-using such an old piece of M’s childhood and the melton was nice, but a bit scratchy. I think that sewing an old sheet to the underside gives the blanket some versatility. We’ll probably use this alot in summer, when A’s comforter will be too hot. Since my blanket looked the same from both sides, it didn’t matter which side I sewed it to. I did sew the sheet good side facing out though. Don’t worry about the raw edges as they will be covered with fabric strips used like blanket binding. Trim excess away along seam.

• Next- measure each edge of the blanket and total it up. Add on 8 inches to the total for  a seam allowance. Take fabric scraps and cut them different lengths but to all the same width. Sew them all together until you reach your total length measurement. I varied all the lengths of each individual fabric piece because I liked the random look of it. Press each seam flat- this is really important to get a smooth finish!

• Cut each fabric strip to match in length with each side of the blanket adding 1 inch  on top and 1 inch for each panel on the bottom for a seam allowance.

• Next, Fold  each strip in half, (to give you a long skinny strip) press and use  a hem gauge to hem 1/2 inch to each raw edge. Press again.

• Pin top and bottom of each panel down by 1/2 inch press and fold down another 1/2. Sew. You now have finished ends for each of your panels.

• Open up fabric strips and lie raw edge of blanket into fold. Fold the fabric strip over and pin. Sew.

• Repeat for all 4 edges.

I love the way this turned out.  It’s a nice way to personalize a blanket. You can always use old remnants of burp clothes or any other special fabric to trim a blanket to make a lovely keepsake!

Cost:

$20? New fabric:  can’t really remember because it was so long ago, but probably close to this

$0 Interfacing- already had on hand

$0 wool blanket- was M’s old Scouts poncho

$0 sheet- already had on hand

$0 other fabric- part of thinning out my stash

xok

So last week I introduced the idea of a Zero Cost Challenge which would involve making over A’s room for zero cost (financially, speaking of course. I forgot to mention how much it costs me physically to try to get the zillion things swirling around my head into action!) I’ve been madly selling items on CL and at work and have been repurposing all sorts of items from other areas of the house. I’m really great at starting things, but not so great at finishing…. So I am happy to present 2 projects that I have completed!

1. Patched up old holes in the walls, puttied, sanded and re-painted the whole room. I could only accomplish this with A away at her nearest grandparents. Thanks guys! Cost= $0, reused old (VOC-free) paint.

2. Rainbow pennants. Cost: $12 for wool felt, $0 for all other fabrics and other acrylic felts. So fun and easy and they really brighten up A’s room. Here’s how I did them.

• First I made a cardboard pattern. Essentially a triangle  with a  base measuring 5.5″ and the pointy tips 6.5″ long. Then I trimmed each of the corners near the base back about 1/2 inch so now the pattern looks more like a dart.

• So you can see the cardboard triangle pattern above. I used a straight edge and my cutting tool to get really nice clean lines when cutting out the pennant pieces. I measured the distance across the ceiling  in A’s room and estimated that I’d need about 16 per string with 9 across the curtain rod. (You may have noticed those are not up yet in the picture). I cut out 41 triangles in total.

• I folded over 1/4″ of the base in order to make a casing so that I could thread the string through and make a chain of pennants and pinned.

Folding the base edge over 1/4 inch to form casing

• Stitch the casing. Repeat.

• I also added some fabric to some of the pennants in the string as well. I used my new best friend- fusible interfacing- to get a really nice clean triangle without fraying raw edges. I cut out  the dart/ flag pattern as above and placed it good side down onto the soft side of the fusible interfacing. I sewed the interfacing all the way around to the fabric.

• Cut out each sewn interfacing + fabric triangle.

• Next- Make a small cut with scissors into the interfacing being very careful not to cut the fabric. This cut will allow you to turn the fabric right side out and have a clean finished seam instead of a raw edge.

• Flip the fabric right side out. You can use a blunt pencil to help poke the tips to get a pointier tip.

• Iron the fabric. The interfacing fuses to the fabric- aha! Genius.

• For the next step- Pin and sew the fabric triangle to an already stitched felt triangle.

• Turn the felt flag over and follow the casing seam and sew over this in order to make sure this will still be threadable.

• The final step involves threading a pre-determined length of string. Tie the string to a safety pin and began inching the pin and string through each casing making sure to have the seams of the pennants all facing the same direction. A helped me choose the colours by throwing them up in the air and letting them land on the floor. She handed me various colours and I did some minor corrections to make sure two of the same colour didn’t end up next to each other (oh the horror!)

• Because today was a bit of a miserable day, it was great to get these up and hanging on her ceiling. I tied the strings to white and clear coloured tacks and tacked them to the corner of the wall and ceiling.

A fun project to pick up an otherwise rainy west coast day.

xok

My posting has been very sporadic lately! I’ve been recuperating from Olympics let-down and trying to organize my thoughts and sort projects into do-able tasks. We’re nearly done reno-ing our kitchen and with all of our meagre savings earmarked for a new appliance, I decided to set myself a décor challenge in A’s room.

Several things led to this: Ages ago, we put a humidifier in her room, which is a bad mistake if your walls are lined with plastic to keep the wet out. Her walls were actually dripping with water the one time we used it and actually left gross-looking water marks. I’d been wanting to do another coat of paint to cover these up, which lead to another project: a bed. Once A started climbing out of her crib (at night! In the pitch dark!), we converted it to a toddler bed. She is pretty squirmy and soon needed some more space, so I looked on craigslist and found a twin bed with loads of pull-out storage underneath.

Now the dilemma is that A’s room is a very small space- the smallest in the house. With the enormous twin bed and her dresser, there’s not a lot of room for anything else. I’ve been eying some pretty fabulous rooms on oh-dee-doh and design*sponge for inspiration and decided to set myself the challenge of remaking A’s room for zero cost.

How does zero cost work? It’s quite simple. I need to sell some items first and use this money to either buy vintage or new items for her room. I cannot spend a cent I did not earn from getting rid of other items. This also doubles as an effective way to spring clean. I can also reuse and repurpose items from other rooms or things in storage. Let the purging, creating buying and DIY-ing begin.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks to see how my zero cost challenge is coming along. I’ve got at least 8 projects earmarked for A’s room and then I am hoping to submit it for the world to see at oh-dee-doh when I’m done!  Oh- and tutorials for the projects will all be included.

Behold step one of the makeover: Owl pillows!

xok

There are stores that I love going into just to admire the way they display things. Front & Co on Main in Vancouver has a really great knack for this and while I was longingly perusing their fancy wares a few weeks ago, I came across a binder that was really quite stunning. While clearly lovingly crafted and hand-stitched, the price tag was a bit steep, so I set out to make one of my own…..(my obsession with owls continues)

You will need:

• 1.5-2  metres of fabric
• 1.5 metres of double fold bias tape
• 34-36 inch zipper
• thread
• fabric scraps, felt
• 3-ring binder

1. I set the binder open on top of the fabric. I traced the binder shape and then added on 1/2 for seam allowance. Cut and set aside

2. Trace the binder open on the fabric again while the fabric is folded. Trace only the “sleeve” of the binder page. Add 1/2 all around for the seam allowance, cut and set aside. Finish the seam along the straight edge of each panel (the edge on the right hand side of each panel).

3. While the binder is closed, measure it from the top, around the right top, down the side and around the bottom, to the far left of the closed portion of the binder. No matter what width of binder you choose, this will measure up to around 34 inches.

4. Measure and cut fabric 36 inches (34 inches plus a very liberal 2 inches for seam allowance) by 2.5 inches (my binder was a 1.5 inch so I added on .5 inches to each side). Cut down the middle so that you will have two long pieces of fabric measuring 1.25 x 36 inches.

5. Place good sides together, baste down one side of the pinned fabric. Press seam open

6. Place zipper face down on pressed seam and pin. Sew zipper to fabric. Top stitch when done. Pick open the basted stitches so that you can access the hidden zipper.

7. Embellish the fabric on front portion of the binder cover- I decorated mine with a felt tree and some birds.

8. Sew each sleeve to the front cover of the binder. Match bad sides of fabric together and pin in place. Because the raw seams will be covered over with bias tape, there is no need to worry about a finished edge, hence matching bad sides together. Before you go on, make sure you can slip the binder in and out of it’s unfinished cover. Adjust the stitching if necessary.

9. Now comes the tricky part- attach the panel with the zipper sewn in. Start by pinning the fabric to the fabric of the cover. I did this while the cover was around the binder- I found that it helped to keep the shape better, especially as getting everything to line up properly was tricky with the zipper already in place. Sew.

10. Pin one edge of unfolded double fold bias tape to raw seam all around the cover. Sew. Fold the tape over the seam and pin all around the cover. Sew.

Now I have a cover that can keep all of my hand crafted patterns, tracings, and cut outs in one easy location that looks great on my shelf!

There’s more to come later this week (hopefully): a blanket and flag banner for Amina.

Enjoy!