Dolly Donations

September 22, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / 1 Comment

I stumbled across a cool opportunity to touch young lives through crafting! Dolly Donations collects handmade dolls for children who have nearly nothing. Here’s a brief mission statement from Sarah, the founder:

“My mission is to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate, especially orphaned children around the world ……. to provide them with a source of comfort …… to send them love, one dolly at a time!”

I love this idea. There are so many ways that children need help, and I have dolls who need homes! I can’t wait to participate (I just missed a drive that closed 3 days ago, but they hope to do another before Christmas) and I’m hoping to encourage others to join in! You don’t have to be great at sewing and Sarah provides free patterns and tutorials. (Make sure to read the FAQ section and the Mission Statement. They definitely accept dolls that are different from the provided pattern, but they request that you send multiples so that doll doesn’t seem like the “special” doll. Also, the request dolls and not animals or monsters etc because studies have shown that children respond better to dolls, providing comfort to the child.)

The free pattern is designed to use up scrap fabric, so that’s perfect for you stash busters out there!!

Training Pants Prototype & Tutorial

September 21, 2010September 12, 2011 / lemonwoodclock / 35 Comments

I’ve had a hard time finding training pants for Dexter, and because I like to make things, I decided to give training pants a try :). I browsed a little for tutorials before deciding to just do my own thing.

I will preface this by saying they didn’t fit very well, so I’m going to make some changes. However, I think this tutorial will be a good one when I work out the kinks. I deliberately chose a knit fabric that had very little stretch… I was worried they’d become floppy. It turned out to be a mistake because I had to work really hard to get the pants over his chubby legs and booty. Next I’m going to try a knit with more stretch, and make the cuts a little roomier. Since the center panel is non-stretch I now know they do have to be cut bigger.

Onward!

Supplies

Undies to use as a template (until I upload a pattern) {UPDATE: Amber at Mom Road has created a printable pattern using this tutorial! There are a few modifications with her pattern, including a PUL layer!}

Prefold diapers

Knit fabric (I used an old t-shirt)

Cutting

Step 1: Choose undies to use as a template. (After I perfect my pattern I will upload something printable in case you have no undies to work from) I used 2T-3T undies.

Step 2: Lay undies on folded diaper, centering undies on the thickest part. Cut diaper so that when folded it’s as tall as the undies. I chose the width by cutting about a half an inch past the thick part of the diaper. (BTW how CUTE are those undies???)

Step 3: Put the folded and cut diaper inside the undies to determine leg-hole cuts. Mark about a half an inch from the leg-hole for seam allowance. Do this for the front and the back.

Step 4: Make leg-hole cuts. One of mine looks a little sloppy, just focus on how pretty the one on the right is 🙂

Step 5: Make the stretchy side panels. Fold knit fabric vertically. Lay undies on top with the side against the fold. Lay diaper on top of undies, letting the edge overlap the the edge of the knit fabric. This takes care of your seam allowance. (Does that make sense? If this step is horribly confusing and/or the picture doesn’t make sense, leave a comment and I’ll try to do better!!) Cut 2 of those.

Step 6: Make the waistband. Fold vertically, line one size of your undies up with the fold. Cut the waist band about 3-4 inches wide to allow for folding over and the seam allowance. (I think I prefer a wider waist band, and next time I will cut closer to 4 inches.)

Step 7: Create the leg bands. I forgot to take a picture for this step. but basically I flattened the leg-hole of the undies to get the length of my strip. I cut to a width of about 2 inches.

Here are all my cut pieces to give you a reference for how big each one is and where they they should go:

Sewing

Step 1: Sew side panels to the back of the diaper, right sides together so that the seam will be on the inside (unless you want the seam on the outside. I considered that, it might be more comfy for your toddler). Line the top of the diaper up with the top of the panel, leaving the extra fabric at the leg-holes. We’ll trim that later. I also used a straight stitch for this step.

Step 2: Sew side panels to the front of the diaper (also right sides together, seam on the inside).

Step 3: Trim excess fabric to shape the leg-holes.

Step 4: Sew ends of the waistband together to create a loop, seam on the inside.

Step 5: Fold the waistband in half, wrong sides together.

Step 6: Turn your pants right side out. Pin your waistband to the outside of the pants with all raw edges together. I also made sure I pinned the seam of the band to the back of the pants, because it would have made me crazy if I didn’t 🙂

Step 7: Sew on waistband. IMPORTANT: USE A ZIGZAG STITCH!! If you use a straight stitch for this step the threads will pop when stretched… boo, we no likey.

Step 8: This is actually a lot of steps combined. Follow steps 4-7 for each leg-hole. Don’t forget to use your zigzag stitch!!!!

And now you have a pair of training pants!

They look a little funny here with all the threads and stretched-outedness. In theory, you’d clip the threads and be done. But in reality, I tried them on Dexter and they just didn’t fit. Sure, I managed to get them on him, but, as I said before, there was just not enough stretch. But they sure are cute!!!

Nursery Decor WIP And Bad Photography

September 8, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / 7 Comments

Sometimes I have good photos on my blog. This is not one of those times. I need a different lens for what I wanted to do. And today was bad for natural light. AAAAAND I’m impatient and I want to do this blog RIGHT NOW. So you must suffer through ugly pictures.

Dexter’s nursery has never been very well decorated. It’s a blank slate with some furniture and toys thrown in. I’m working on making it more visually interesting.

Recently I found some flash cards in Target’s dollar bin. Dex LOVES them. So I decided to hang some over his changing table. I just sort of eyeballed it, and they look good, but they’re a little too low. He grabs them while I’m changing him, and that’s a battle I just don’t want to deal with.

Before we moved, I made his name letters for over his crib. I’m really glad to have those up!

I made them by fabric letters onto contrasting fabric, then stretching them into round embroidery hoops. This creates an insta-frame, and I was able to hang them by just pushing a pin through the frame opening!

There are definitely areas of his room that need work, and unfortunately I was unable to capture the whole room (or even whole walls) to give an idea of what the space is really like. I would have loved getting feedback and advice!

I am on the hunt for an inexpensive but child-safe bookshelf, if anyone has any ideas. Currently I’m storing his board books on the window ledge, which looks ok, but isn’t ideal.

And then there is the unsightly vision of his toys in random baskets along the wall.

The color of the room is just the standard-issue taupe that came with our apartment. It’s not great, but I’m not offended by it, and since I don’t know how long we’ll live here, I’m not willing to paint it. But I hope to get a few pictures hung up on other walls, and maybe some fun stuff for him, like low mirror and a chalk board.

I’ll leave you with a cute but blurry picture of Dex taken just before my battery died 🙂

Men’s Shirt Refashion (In Progress)

August 29, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / 1 Comment

I’ve wanted to modify a man’s button-up shirt for forever, but I was too intimidated. I’ve been learning a lot about drafting my own patterns, and so I decided to finally tackle the project.

It’s been both fun and frustrating. It’s kind of like playing mad scientist 🙂 I have all the parts to cobble together, and the possibilities are endless. It’s great! But there’s a lot of trial and error involved, and I’ve had to take out quite a few seams. One downside of shirting is that it’s not very forgiving of needle holes. I’m hoping when I’m all done they won’t be extremely noticeable.

So far I’ve cut down the body of the shirt and fitted it with darts and seams and I’ve created gathered sleeves.

Right now, those sleeves and that neckline look like the prairie-style dresses my mom made in the early 90’s, and homie don’t play that. (Sorry, mom!)

I plan to V the neck a little and top it with a mandarin collar. Then I’m probably going to try my hand at some ruffles. I think they will be raw edge ruffles. I’m using the existing cuffs from the original shirt. they’re wrist size, so they’re too small to completely close around my upper arms (boo.) The cuffs will just stay open on the outsides and be for decorative purposes. The sleeves will have to be a little tighter to accommodate those cuffs. And I’m shortening them because I tried the cuffs below my elbows and it was too irritating.

I’m pretty happy with how the back turned out. I created a seam down half the back to fit it better, leaving a little gather at the waist. I like the way the existing yoke looks, but it has some gathers the feel weird. Next time, if I notice the original shirt has those, I will take it apart. But I’d gotten too far into the process to stress about that.

The sides will have splits at the bottom for comfort and ease of movement. I hope I enjoy wearing this shirt! I hope to have it done by the end of this week, but it’s been slow-going. I just work on it til I get too annoyed and I pick it back up when I wish I had a new shirt 🙂

Impulsive Sewing Project: Design-It-Yourself Tunic

July 21, 2010March 21, 2011 / lemonwoodclock / 2 Comments

I’ve been getting antsy to take a break from my (many…many…MANY) current projects in order to make something cute and comfy for myself. I decided at about 9pm tonight to start something! That usually leads to disaster, but so far, it’s going great!

I decided to use one of my vintage sheets because it’s soft and I liked the retro print for the tunic style. (The shirt I’m making is the red one up in the left corner.)

The idea behind Design-It-Yourself Clothes is that you draft your own patterns from your measurements or from existing clothing, making changes to design new styles for your body. I’d already used the book and some internet resources to make my perfect tee pattern. I used that pattern as a guideline for this shirt.

I lined my pattern up along the centerfold, adding about an extra 2 inches to create the gathers at the waist. I also decided to use the hem of the sheet as the hem of my shirt. It won’t round up at the sides, but I really don’t know how much that matters. As you can see, it only makes about a half an inch difference.

I then marked where the placket should go. (Placket??? New to me… it’s basically where the buttons go. Google it if you want a better definition 🙂 ) I went ahead and marked this on my pattern in case I decide to make this shirt again.

This is where it gets tricky. The book gives very unclear directions for a lot of steps. They understandably assume that if you’re ready to design your own patterns, then you’ve obviously made many a placket in your day. So, there was not really an explanation for creating said placket, at least not one that I could really understand. So I felt my way through that one. I had to cut 3 different versions before I even came close. The one pictured above is wrong. It’s just the scraps from the shirt and was way too small. You need, as far as I can tell, 2 strips that are about 2 inches long than the opening and about twice the width of the opening if the front was unfolded. Here’s a really crappy drawing to illustrate. Just pretend the lines are straight and that it was not done in a hurry at 11:30 pm. The dotted lines indicate that you will fold there, or that you have cut those placket pieces on the centerfold.

Next I cut out my back using my tee pattern. This time I cut right on the fold, because I didn’t want any extra material in the back.

Then I pinned my shirt together from the outside and tried it on. That hurt a little… I guess not every pin was pointing out 🙂 But I figured if I could slip it on with pins in it, then getting it on without them would be a breeze. I forgot to take pix as I pinned it and sewed it, but here is a picture of it put together before sewing: I sewed the placket sides first, starting with the left side (if the shirt was on). This is the side with the buttons. Then I sewed the side with the button holes. I did it in this order because you’ll want the button hole side to overlap the side with buttons. Then I created the gathers by sewing across the edge and pulling the threads. Then I folded the bottom of the placket pieces under and overlapped them the way they needed to be. I pinned it all together and then top stitched the bottom. Tomorrow I will actually topstitch around the rest of the placket, but it was just necessary to get this part done. This was probably the hardest part, because it requires a lot of agility. it’s a small space and a lot of overlapping bits that want to slide around. Also, you want to make sure you have enough overlap for those buttons and button holes. I barely did, but I was afraid if I made it any tighter, the shirt would be uncomfortable.

Then I easily sewed the side seams and shoulder seams. This is where I decided to stop, because all that’s left are the sleeves and the collar. I want to think about what sleeves I want. I’m leaning toward a loose 3 quarter length with slight gathers at the shoulders, but I’m also really tempted to do sleeveless.

Here’s the shirt on my duct tape double: There’s a lot of extra room around the neckline. The neckline will curve when I’m done with it, so hopefully that will take out some of that bulk. Also, I’m going to do a little work to the back which should also help. but I’m really pleased with the front view!

From the side, it’s annoyingly shapeless. But I’m very small on top and my butt sticks out. so that happens 🙁 I’m hoping that by making darts in the area indicated in red that the fit will be more flattering. It’s not bad from the back either, but once again, it could benefit from some reduction in the upper back.

At any rate, I’m very happy with how it’s turned out. Especially for a spur of the moment decision 🙂

Monster Hats, Photo Shoot Bloopers, and The Few Tips I Have

July 6, 2010March 21, 2011 / lemonwoodclock / 3 Comments

I’ve been planning to make monster hats for my Etsy shop FOREVER. But I kept putting it off. I finally got the motivation to do it, and I’m loving them! I have 5 listed in my shop so far, and almost 20 more started.

Shooting them was so hard, though. The older Dexter gets, the harder it is to photograph him. He was all over the place. Plus, even though he has been an active hat-wearer since birth, he felt it was an injustice to his soul to have to wear these hats for me. (Am I allowed to say, “I carried you for 9 months, the least you can do is let me exploit your cuteness to sell hats!!”?)

“But Mom, it’s JULY!!!!”

“Ok, I’ll be still, I just need to blow some kisses first!”

He spent most of his time running around on the far side of the room with my camera’s lens cap in his mouth.

I made the mistake of making him think we’d go outside, just to lure him closer to the natural light… drama ensued.

The best tips I can give are these:

1. Shoot when your baby is comfortable (not tired, not hungry, not wet, not too cold, not too hot…)

2. Distract, distract, distract! He chose the lens cap and my phone, and then I tried pulling out a mirror so he could check out his hats. But in the future I’m going to find some props that I won’t mind ending up in the pictures.

3. Do your best to get natural light so you can shoot without your flash. My pictures aren’t the best, but that really brings them up several notches. Just keep in mind that if there’s not enough light, your pictures will look blurry.

4. WORK FAST! If you have a digital camera, don’t get picky. Just focus and shoot as fast as you can, because those babies are quick. You may be able to use a quarter of the pictures you take 🙂 If you’re lucky :).

In the end though, if you can get just one drooly, lovable picture of your dude, it’ll be worth it 🙂

Tutorial: Turning onesies into shirts

June 18, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / 4 Comments

These were done for my awesome twin nephews, Ty and Micah. My sister loved the shirts, but neither of us really like onesies for our boys now that they’re past the tiny baby stage.

This was a really easy modification. It probably doesn’t even require a tutorial; it’s more to show how something you don’t like as much can be recycled into a piece you’ll use. For example: you don’t want your baby to look like a dork with his polo shirt tucked in.

In picture, the shirts are already complete. But I cut as close to the legs as possible so the shirts would be long enough.

This up-close shot shows how I just turned it under and zigzag stitched the hem. As you can see, there is a little waviness to the bottom. It’s hard to tell how much is because of wrinkles and how much is because of warping. But I read recently that you can run a steamed iron over the wavy hem and it will help it relax. I’ll know more after they’re washed too. However, I feel like the shirts are fine for the little boys 🙂 They actually turned out better than I expected. The only thing I’d change if I could is to be able to fold the hem again for extra unraveling security, but I was just afraid I’d lose too much length. Hopefully I’ll get a picture of them wearing them this weekend!

Tutorial: Half Hour Skirt

June 17, 2010June 17, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / Leave a comment

This is *sort of* a repurposed project. I started a skirt a few weeks ago using the Angry Chicken 5 Minute Skirt formula. But for some reason it didn’t work out at all. Maybe I did my calculation wrong, but the skirt was HUGE. (However, I LOVE Angry Chicken 🙂 I feel confident that I did something weird, or my body shape just didn’t work for the pattern, because a lot of people really like that tutorial and I have no ill will toward it 🙂 )

This tutorial can be done using new fabric, or too-big skirts or dresses. The fabric needs to be stretchy, as this is a pull-on.

The I used fabric is odd. It’s cheapie Wal-Mart fabric, I think it was $1.50/yard. I thought it was a knit, but after I started sewing, it turned out to be a stretchy woven. I have no idea what it’s content is…

So, what I decided to do was use a recently purchased skirt as a template.

I cut slightly bigger than the skirt. I left a little more at the top because at the time, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about the waistband. I’d originally planned to cut a band and sew it on like the neck of a t-shirt. It turned out not to be necessary, but I plan to try that with a skirt in the future.

Next I zigzag seamed the sides.

I only turned the hem under and zigzagged it. I’ll watch how it reacts to washing and then reevaluate. But as of now it seems good enough 🙂

For the waistband I turned it down about 2 inches. For a better fit, the fold is wider in the front than in the back. I wanted it wide enough so I could put a drawstring in if (I mean WHEN!!) I lose weight. I didn’t want to bother with that now because the skirt stays on just fine as it is.

Ta-da! Finished skirt in roughly 30 minutes. It’s more or less straight at the top and bottom, I’m not skilled enough to round things without a pattern 🙂 I plan to wear this to my husband’s birthday dinner tonight. I’ll have him take some pix of me wearing it and I’ll try to post them tomorrow!

Pattern: Owl Appliqué

June 14, 2010June 17, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / 1 Comment

This quilt will be my sister’s Christmas present. It’s not a surprise, she’s an active participant in the process 🙂

This pink square is in bad need of ironing, but it’s a good example of how I currently piece my crazy quilts. I sew the strips onto muslin, a habit I hope to soon break. I’m going to eventually try true paper pieces, but I’m just scared and I’ve been relying on the stability of the muslin.

The finished quilt will be 12 12”x12” blocks sashed with dark brown. The back will be from a pink and brown sheet (you can see that fabric in one of the squares). I’m going to attempt a birch tree on the back similar to Elizabeth’s at www.ohfransson.com (one of my favorite sites!) I’ll have a little owl peeking out of a hole in the tree 🙂 This will be the first time I’ve attempted to make the back of a quilt worth looking at 🙂

Well, I’ve pledged to show my process, and the roughly sketched owl pattern definitely shows that! The odd smaller owl shape across the center is where I started working out my owl but decided I needed a bigger one. I saved paper by just flipping it and starting again 🙂 I didn’t bother making a template for the eyes and beak. I just eyeballed them and cut!

When it came to sewing on the appliqué, I just sewed around the edges with a tight zig-zag stitch. I left some raw edges showing because I want a worn, loved look for this quilt.

One day I want to try appliquéing the owl pattern onto a t-shirt or something.

I think you can just click to enlarge the picture to print. If you save the picture onto your computer, you can resize it! Leave a comment if it doesn’t work well and I’ll see what I can do to make it more printer-friendly! Also I’d love to see anything made from the pattern, so feel free to leave a link in the comments!!

*This pattern is free for personal use. Please link to the pattern on my blog if you use it and post it. Thanks!!

Blue Scrap Quilt

May 20, 2010March 21, 2011 / lemonwoodclock / 1 Comment

I just completed my blue scrap quilt. Ignore the fact that the quilting is pretty awful and that no threads have been clipped! In the future I want to focus on becoming better at quilting, but it was nice being able to just zip through a quilt.

Creating this quilt was such a soothing experience. There was virtually no planning involved. I chose blues and greens as my palette. I then went through my scraps, selecting pieces that were big enough to cut blocks that were 4 inches wide with varying lengths. The fabrics are from leftover projects, hand-me-downs from my Grandma Ona’s stash, and recycled clothes. I just cut pieces until I was certain I had enough. Then I started sewing the blocks into strips.

In the middle of sewing, my husband claimed the quilt 🙂 He’s 6’9, so I ended up making the it about the size of the top of our king size bed. It’s the largest quilt I’ve ever made. Sewing the top was no problem, it was very relaxing. However, quilting the mammoth was not. I definitely want a long arm sewing machine now :). The quilting is ugly, but I think the pattern hides it well. All that matters is that Alex loves it 🙂

Lemonwood Clock

Creativity in chaos

Repurposing