Quilts for Kids!
I’m so excited that I’ve finished my first quilt today! I’ve always wanted to make one, I’ve just never been able to decide on a pattern or color scheme. Not for lack of ideas though – rather the opposite – there’s so many ideas that I want to make, I can’t make up my mind on where to start! Or where to find the time to start! This quilt gave me the answer to these 😀
I came upon this super awesome non-profit on Pinterest that donates quilts to children with life threatening illness and children of abuse. Quilts for Kids has partnered with both Children’s Miracle Network and Downy in addition to many other celebrities and companies to carry out their mission. Get this though – they will send you a kit to make a quilt!!! All you have to do is send them a money order for $6 (to cover the cost of shipping the supplies) and they will send you a kit with all of the fabric you need, already cut, and the instructions on how to construct it. It makes it so easy to sew a quilt, all you have to do is follow the directions and put it together. The one thing you have to provide yourself is the batting for the inside but that isn’t super expensive and you can always use one of those 40% off reg price coupons at JoAnn’s if its not already on sale.
Here is the result of the quilt I put together and just finished today. Its not perfect – it really is the first quilt I’ve ever made – but I’m happy with it and happy that I can send it off and a child in need of comfort will get it.
So busy!
Wow, can’t believe its almost been two weeks since I last posted on here! I have been super busy lately between work and sewing for Etsy – oh, and going back to CrossFit! I haven’t done much else than sewing the wrist wraps and coming up with new colors/ideas for those. I’ve done a little cross stitch that isn’t done yet (rest assured I’ll post it on here as soon as I’m done!) and a little crochet when I get tired of sewing. I realized just how out of shape I became in my two months out of CrossFit with these last few workouts – each one has left me sore but excited to get back in to it. And people are buying wraps at the gym and have given me some ideas for new ones! These are a couple of my attempts at customizing solid ones:
New Wrist Wrap color!
Finally got around to making more of the wrist wraps I made awhile back and was the first thing I sold on Etsy! Batman this time and they came out good! Getting a little faster making them too so that’s good. There will be one pair on Etsy for now till I figure out how many I need locally…I might be able to have them at our local box Crossfit Duval!
Canvas Tote
So this has been half done and sitting in my sewing box for like 10 years. Wow! I stopped when I got confused at one step and never got back to it until now. Of course once I looked at it again this time, it all seemed so simple! Love the classic look of this canvas tote. Super durable and lined with one pocket on the inside. On my Etsy shop too! I made from an old Butterick pattern (#P316). I modified it to have longer handles because I liked that look better on the tote!
Snap On Bowtie
Oh man!!! I’ve been wanting to make shirts with appliqued bow ties for the boys for a really long time. I thought they were so cute at the store, but I knew I could make them for less than half of what those cost and in the colors/patterns I wanted. On my mission to do that today, I was looking for patterns online for the applique. It then occurred to me that I don’t know how to applique. Yet. Either way – I wasn’t a big fan of any of the patterns I saw.
I went back to my Pinterest sewing board to check it and see if I could find any ideas on there. I still wanted to do something with the super cute star fabric I bought. Lo and behold…I found a tutorial I had pinned not too long ago here.
The perfect instruction on how to make a super cute faux bow tie! It was just what I needed. The only problem was that this bow tie was held on by a nice piece of elastic that would normally just go under the collar of a shirt. Perfect for button downs, but not the casual tee look I wanted. I decided to make it anyways and I would just figure out how I was going to attach it later. I was just going to sew it on to the shirt instead of sewing it on to a piece of elastic – problem solved! But then I thought…what if I need to wash it? Will it keep its awesome form or get all crazy in the washing machine? They are boys so I know the shirt is going to get dirty…that’s just a given. I started rummaging through my sewing box and found a package of snaps! Brilliant!
Now I can snap the bow tie on and take it off to wash the shirt. I can always hand wash the tie if I need to but it would have been a pain to hand wash the shirt every time. At first, I only sewed one snap on…it kind of flopped down a little instead of keeping up straight like a real tied one would have done and it could twist around. To solve that, I just added another snap right above it. Now it stays up just fine and is always straight!
I also worked on another craft today which I will write a post on another day once I complete another (or a couple more). This one didn’t turn out quite as I planned but its still super cute, just a lot smaller than I was looking for. Here’s picture of the one I finished. You can get the tutorial here. At this point, its just big enough to hold some band aids. Since it wasn’t quite what I wanted, I didn’t finish it and do the lining. It still works, its just got the raw seams on the inside. Which is fine…I will probably just give this one away. I want something a little bigger for myself to be able to stick in my car or whatever I decide to use it for. Just bigger. 😀 In fact, if anyone wants this one, leave me a comment below! I will pick a random winner in a week and send it out!
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