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!!!

Progress Report: Pink/Blue Owl Quilt

September 13, 2010 / lemonwoodclock / Leave a comment

I’m both excited and frustrated… I’m extremely happy because I completed all 12 of my squares!!! But I ran across lots of problems. Namely that I apparently cut my sashing strips too short, boo, and I can’t find my scrap material to add to the strips, extra boo. And by the end, I was having a lot of sewing trouble and I’m going to have to rip some seams. A break was called for.

I am LOVING the way it’s looking with the sashing. I can’t wait til I work out the kinks. I added a little plain chocolate brown to the length , hopefully it won’t be too distracting. I’ll have to do this on every wide strip and at the end of all the border pieces.

It’s really coming together! The tree on the back will be the next challenge 🙂

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 🙂

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 🙂

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 🙂

Grumpy Quilt

October 24, 2009March 26, 2011 / lemonwoodclock / Leave a comment

I’m very close to finishing the first quilt I’ve made for myself!! Such a nice feeling 🙂 Usually I only make quilts to give away. We have one that I made for a charity auction… my husband bought it because he didn’t want to part with it 🙂

My Grumpy Quilt is actually a crazy quilt. A few years ago I decided I wanted to make a quilt to snuggle in when I was grumpy (hence the name), made of tons of red, pink, and orange scraps. The quilt includes pieces of clothing I used to love, and bits of fabric from other projects I’ve done.

It’s taken me a while because projects for myself tend to take a back seat to projects for other people and purposes. But I sewed a bit here and there. It was a great stress reliever because there is no rhyme or reason. The only rule I made for this quilt is that all my scraps fit into the color scheme. Beyond that, the crazy quilt offered a really nice change of pace. I was able to just sew for the fun of sewing and seeing something come together without worrying about “messing up”.

Then last week, I realized I’d finally made enough blocks to complete my quilt! I pieced them together with bright pumpkin orange and backed it with a shade a bit richer than hot pink. Looking at it nearly makes my eyes burn, but I love it!

Right now I’m busy doing freeform quilting all over the orange areas. Hopefully it will be officially done within the next few days!! But for now, I offer a sneak peek phone-pic for your viewing pleasure!

Lemonwood Clock

Creativity in chaos

Scraps