Playground Love

The No-Sew Tutu

Credit for this idea goes to my friend Stephanie who showed me this awesome idea.

You will need:

• enough ribbon to comfortably tie around your child’s waist (or elastic- I used 19 inches)

• 22 metres (not a typo) of  6.5 inch wide tulle (I was fortunate to score mine at an Abbotsford MCC for $2 total)
• scissors

1. Measure your child’s waist and add on at least a 16 inches.  Cut ribbon to this size. You could also use elastic and tie a knot around it that approximates the measurement of your child’s waist but I wasn’t happy with how bulky that looked, so I actually sewed mine. This is also because I wanted A to be able to pull the tutu on and off herself.

2. Cut tulle 24 inches long. Repeat until you have 36 lengths of tulle.

3. Wrap ribbon or elastic around the backing of a chair. Take a length of tulle and fold it in half. Slip the tulle behind the elastic/ribbon so that the loop is at the top. Feed the ends of the tulle up and around the elastic/ribbon and pull through the loop made by the tulle. I don’t know what kind of knot this is called- a slip knot? , but it’s a pretty easy one.

4. Repeat the process, knotting the tulle around the ribbon or elastic until you’ve used up all the tulle. If you are using ribbon, work your way out from the middle and make sure to leave at least 8 inches on each side so you can tie it up. You may need less or more tulle depending on your child’s waist measurement. My daughter is a long and lean 2.5 year old and her waist is 19 inches if that helps you gauge the fabric requirements for your own child.

5. Wrap or stuff into a stocking and enjoy watching your child play with it for hours on end!

Super Easy Shrug

This is for all the knittas out there who like to knit, but cannot progress beyond squares and rectangles. I.E. People like me. Thanks to Baad Anna’s for this idea:

You will need:

• 50 grams of lovely yarn- I used a mottled nylon by Moda Dea- Eden in” serpent”
• size 8mm needles (UK size 0)
• 16 inches of ribbon- cut into 2-8 inch pieces

1. Cast on 40 stitches (for a slender 2.5 year old). You may need to eyeball this and adjust accordingly to your child’s size.

2. Using garter (knit) stitch, complete 8 inches

3. Cast off.You should have a nice rectangle now. Lie your piece flat in a  “landscape” orientation.

4. Join the top left and bottom left corners- sew them with left over yarn, or knot them with one 8 inch ribbon piece.

5. Repeat with the top right and bottom right corners. You have just created the arm holes. Super easy and functional!

Pair the tutu and shrug together for a really fun time or play/wear seperately.

Despite being side-lined with a sinus infection for weeks now, I’ve actually been able to complete quite a few crafty pieces. I can’t tell you what they are because many of them are going out as gifts and X-mas presents, so you’ll just have to take my word that I’ve been busy. Hoot, hoot (wink, wink).

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was trying to define a physical space for my crafting in our tiny home. I gave myself 8 square feet + wall space to do this in . Here is the before.

Here is the after with a re-painted sewing table, recovered sewing stool (with hinge and space to store notions) and a re-loved mid-century sewing machine. With sewing table folded up:

With sewing table extended:

I’ve had a lot of fun sourcing out vintage suitcases and have learned the hard way that buying on e-bay is never a good thing when it comes to things 40+ years old. They will probably always smell. Oh dear.

I’ve been storing my fabric inside the suitcases which is a good way to hide them and display things effectively, but have had to add scented things to mask the old smells. Am currently coveting all sorts of small, train-case and hat box type cases. Sigh. (If you are interested in where I’ve found these locally, let me know and I’ll pass on the secret).

Here`s a fun way to show off your yarn:

When I do cutting, I use the dining table that you can see poking out in some of the pictures. I’ve recently bought a wheel and cutting mats and do they ever make things easier and faster! I no longer have to worry about the non-hard-wearing surface of my dining table. Protected from markers, scratches, etc when I use the mats! I duct taped them together to make an extended mat that folds and made a duct tape handle to carry it around with- a là my father.

I also covered part of this metal board from Ikea (below) with left over fabric from the stool and colour coded my buttons (whoo, organized. for now…) into magnetic jars that stick to the board.

I also took some inspiration from how Erin from Collage Collage has displayed her lovely kid’s art supplies and started to put Amina’s craft things together on the book shelf also in the dining room. Kids craft supplies always look so bright and lovely!

And that’s the space! I am amazed at how quiet my new (old) sewing machine is. GG’s: Thank’s again for passing it along to me  and for taking such good care of it. Each time I use it I am reminded of you both and all the people so dear to me but so far away in winterpeg and elsewhere.

Now that I’m feeling better, I’ll hopefully get the blanket I am making for Amina finished along with all of the other projects I am excited to tackle. Plus X-mas things on the way! I’ve never been big on buying gifts and am pumped to make most of the things I am giving this year. Look for popcorn-covered pinecone ornaments, fruitcake and pipe cleaner angels coming your way. Just kidding!

Stay tuned for more awesome craft projects and how- to’s coming later this week.

xok

Whoa! It’s been way too long since I’ve written! And it’s not been for lack of creativity that’s for sure. The cooler weather seems to have ushered in all sorts of crafty ideas and I am having trouble finding the time to get all my ideas to materialize! I picked up some extra hours at work but that seems to have settled  for now, so I’ve got some time to spend catching everyone up on what’s being crafted.

Our kitchen upgrade is complete. Check out the before and after photos of the cupboards and painting done. Now that the cupboards look so good, it sort of makes the crappy countertops and flooring look even crappier. Who uses granite floor tile on a countertop anyway? Gross. Our long term plan is to replace the countertop before Christmas and then cash in on the home reno tax credit for the kitchen upgrades and bathroom gut jobs we did and buy a new stove with the proceeds. Then we’ll have a kitchen that feels clean and nice and lovely. Send comments, I’d love to hear what you all think! (P.S.: Sorry about the wonky picture attachments)

Before

Before

After

After

With space at a premium in our household, I never really considered a permanent spot to set up my sewing things. But now that I seem to be back in the groove, setting up and taking down each night is a big pain in the butt, so I put my designing skills to the test and gave myself a whole 8 square feet of permanent sewing space. If my husband can have a whole room for guitars and keyboards, surely I can have 8 square feet?

This has meant relocating a number of household things, which just seem to landslide into moving other things and then other things….. I’ve been really trying to organize and get sorted during this process but it’s taking up a lot of time. Time I don’t really have when trying to put a fiesty toddler to sleep, keep the house “clean” and generally take some for myself, when I can find it. Oh- and quality time with my spouse. That’s important too! Except now I have to do battle with guitars and Lego. Don’t get me started about the Lego piles on the floor, the Lego robots on the bookcases and the Lego towers I topple over every time I move in the living room. I’m not talking about my daughter’s Lego, by the way. This is all my dear husbands!

First up: brought GG’s sewing machine into Mason and they are taking a look and giving it lots of love. The machine is a beaut but cannot straight stitch so I think a setting is slightly off. Thanks to my other GG for taking such wonderful care of it. Who knew the man of the house did all the sewing? A man truly ahead of his time.

Second: need to sell two things to make room for the sewing table. We have a cavernous but lovely asian sideboard that used to house our electronics and tv. It’s been storing sewing machines, fabric, notions and all sorts of things that we want out of sight. Now that has to go and I am trying to find new homes for everything it was hiding. Am coveting all sorts of antique suitcases and hat boxes on ebay. Who knows what I’ll end up with!

Third- taking the opportunity to re-paint the sewing table and paint and recover the stool that comes with it. Treated myself to some lovely Marimekko fabric yesterday and will place lovingly on top of the stool once the paint job is complete.

I will send photo’s once the space is complete, but thought I’d let you all know what I’ve been up to.

Crafting wise, I’ve been making:

• several wool diaper covers out of old sweaters (awesome way to recycle sweaters- I will document this in detail in an upcoming post because they are so easy to make!)
• diaper/ wet bag (instructions to follow in this post)
• knitting needle satchel (will not even try to explain how I made this as I kept changing my mind and redoing parts so that the stitching wouldn’t be visible. Definitely a challenge-and then I burnt with the old iron. Grrrr.) This was inspired by a satchel I saw at Collage Collage, an art studio I’ve been taking A. It was so lovely, I thought about how I could make something similar for my needles. You could store a lot of things in here- crayons, markers, make up brushes, etc.
• knitting a diaper cover that I’ve ripped out twice so far. Will the third time be a charm?

Here’s some pics and a how-to to make your own diaper/ wet bag:

Needed:

• 1 Meter PUL (polylaminated urethane) or other waterproof material like a really heavy duty nylon
• Matching thread
• 12″ zipper or one that spans the width of the bag
• 6 inches webbing

1. Fold material in half- this will give you enough to make two bags from and cut. Alternatively, put two 12″ X 14″ pieces of fabric together, good sides facing.

2. Place good sides of material facing each other and pin along the top where you want the opening and zipper to go.

3. Baste along the top- leaving about 1/4″ seam allowance. (Basting means a really wide straight stitch. This is so that it is easier to rip out, which you will see why in a moment).

Baste stitch top edge

4. Press open. With the PUL it was very hard to press- I just had to hold it open for the next step.

5. Place zipper face down on the pressed open seam. Pin to each seam. Sew in regular straight stitch. You can use a zipper foot for this, or if you don’t have one, you just need to do a bit of extra finagling around the zipper head. Leave the end near the zipper head unsewn. When you have stitched the zipper in, undo the zipper down to the other end, and the stitch in the part that still needs to be attached.

Zipper face down on sewn and pressed seam

6. Flip bag right side out and use a seam ripper to unpick the basted stitches used to make the original seam. Now you have a really nicely concealed zipper. Top stitch around the zipper to finish.

7. Place good sides of fabric facing each other again. Pin and sew each of the three remaining sides together. I added a bit of webbing to hang the bag up. If you want to add webbing- fold 6″ of webbing in half and stick in between one of the side seams about to be sewn and hold in place with a pin. Make sure that the webbing is inserted in between the good sides of the fabric- when you turn the bag right side out, the webbing should be sticking out.

8. Sew- turn bag right side out.

Now it’s good to go for holding wet bathing suits, wet clothes, dry or soiled diapers. Yay!

Another Homespun Salon coming up this weekend and Halloween to start planning for. A is dressing up as a butterfly!

Here are some books I’ve been getting inspiration from:

knitting, knitting, knittin + knitting

Well, it is with great excitement and inspiration that I write this latest post about a lovely and creative event I attended this past weekend. New + Green mama Bonnie hosted what we all hope with be the first of many “Homespun Salon’s” at her home. The idea is to set dates a month in advance so that all of us busy, multi-tasking moms can book the time away from our families to happily chat, drink tea/wine, knit, craft, sew, read, and be inspired by each other for a few hours each month. The first salon was held Friday. I met a great bunch of ladies and started work on two projects. First the pictures of the Salon:

Crafty ladies at the first Homespun Salon

Projects being worked on included: knitting scarves, sweaters for children, sweaters for selves, and diaper covers, creating antiqued fabric flowers, sewing baby playmats/blankets and knitting a wool boob. Sorry if I missed anyone’s craft.

It was great to get some help with my project knitting A a wool diaper cover. I was having trouble purling, but Bonnie straightened me out.

Check for http://www.thehomespunsalon.blogspot.com/ in the near future where I am sure many neat craft projects will be featured.

Awesome fabric from Wineberry's in White Rock

Antiqued flower

OK- so what I worked was making an Owie Owl. Its pretty much past scraped knee weather now, but I’ve had the idea for a while. I thought what I’d make is a cold compress/ bag for the next bump/scrape/sprain A endures. This is what I started with: 1 small piece of really light weight denim. I folded it in two- good sides facing each other- and sketched out the shape of an owl with ears. Next I cut out the pieces.

Lightweight denim fabric, cut in shape of owl, good sides facing.

I turned one over and sewed felt eyes and a nose onto it using embroidery thread. Placing the good sides facing together, I hand stitched around the owl, leaving the feet portion (or about 2 inches at the bottom) unsewn. That’s about as much as I could do at the salon, but I finished the rest today by using my sewing machine to re-stitch what I had handsewn. As this is filled with barley, I thought it best to make sure the stitches would be as small and consistent as possible to avoid the owl losing it’s lunch. I turned it right side out and ran my finger over the seam to make sure there were no holes. No holes! and then hand stitched the wings on with a blanket stitch.

Blanket stitch up close

I picked barley to go inside the owl because it’s been sitting inside my pantry for over two years. I will never use this stuff, so I thought it might make a good cold material for healing bumps.  I used a funnel to keep the barley from scattering, filling it from the feet area that I had left unsewn- used about 1/2 cup.

Voila! The Owie Owl Completed!

Next I sewed up the bottom and added some feet (which didn’t show up very well in the picture). I wanted to sew velcro in the bottom so that I could switch out the barley if I needed to wash the owl, but didn’t leave enough room to sew- so if you want yours to do up with velcro, leave about 4 inches unsewn at the bottom. I placed this in a ziplock and it’s in the freezer, ready to be called into action (hopefully not too soon!) It’s a shame it’s hiding in the freezer because it’s so cute! If we had a microwave, we could probably heat it up and use it to soothe muscle aches and pains as well.

I am now working on my next project which is a knitting a wool diaper cover for A. I love wool covers. There is nothing that beats them for breathability, and they are really low maintenance. I’ll write more of a glowing review once I actually finish the thing, but I am really inspired to push myself a bit more this fall. This is the first knitting pattern I have ever followed, which is a big step for me. I’m not a pattern following person! Here’s a link to what I am using: http://www.ottobredesign.com/en/print/pdf/wool_diaper_cover_en.pdf

I can’t wait for the next Homespun Salon! So much to make, so little time!

xok