A Quick Sewing Lesson Produces A Stack of Pillowcases

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:41:53 +0000

Friday afternoon, we had a group of friends from our local homeschool group over to sew pillowcases with us! I think everyone had a great time, and we turned out a slew of pillowcases. The kids each made two pillowcases, one to keep and one to give. My hope is that the pillowcase that they kept will remind them to pray for the sick child who receives the matching one.

Folding

Cutting

Pinning

Sewing

(I love this one of me sewing with Jamie!)

And, the kids, each showing off one of their finished pillowcases:

We used the Hot Dog Pillowcase Tutorial with a French seam to make these, and they turned out great! The donated pillowcases will go to ConKerr Cancer’s Miles of Pillowcase Smiles project.

{this moment}

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:00:05 +0000

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama

Monkeying Around with Cupcakes: Pillowcases 25 & 26

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:57:07 +0000

Pillowcases 25 & 26 are ready to go:

I used the Hot Dog Pillowcase tutorial from the Conkerr Cancer website to sew these two, finishing them up with a french seam. The group of beginning sewists who are coming over to sew pillowcases this afternoon will be using sewing machines rather than sergers, so I thought I’d try this method out and see how it works. It is so cool! I think the kids are going to really enjoy it.

For more information about my personal challenge and to find my 9 1/2 Minute Serged Pillowcase Tutorial, check out this post: Pillowcase Challenge.

A Little Local Quilting Store Love

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:17:36 +0000

We headed out after our book-work was done this morning to do some shopping and a little on-the-road learning. This Friday afternoon, we have a group of moms and children from our local homeschool group dropping in to sew pillowcases with us for the Crafthope pillowcase project. I thought my kids and I would enjoy a trip to Historic Downtown Carrollton to pick out fabrics for their pillowcases at The Old Craft Store.

We did a little math on the way. “If you need 3/4 yard of a main fabric and 1/3 yard of a trim fabric for one pillowcase, how much do you need for two pillowcases? How many inches is that?”

The kids did a great job picking out their fabrics. I was so surprised that Allen was the quickest, and Samantha took the longest! (I’ll post pictures of their finished pillowcases on Friday so you can see the fabrics they chose.)

This sweet quilt shop is packed full of beautiful fabrics, and I’m in awe of the projects that they have on display. I think I could spend a whole day wandering around gathering ideas to add to my sewing list. The ladies who run the quilt shop are amazing, too–they were so encouraging and so patient with my littles. It’s so nice every so often to just drop in to a place where you can shop and chat about your love of sewing and enjoy some comraderie with fellow sewing enthusiasts.

Moving Right Along: Pillowcases 21, 22, 23 & 24

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:56:28 +0000

Four more pillowcases on my way to 40 for Craft Hope’s latest project . . .

Kitties in the Garden

Pink Elephants

Monkey Business

Just Fluttering By

{this moment}

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:41:59 +0000

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama

Halfway! Pillowcases 17, 18, 19 & 20

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:53:34 +0000

Hoot!

Bearfootin’

Under the Big Top!

Ladybugs & Friends

For more information about my personal challenge and to find my 9 1/2 Minute Pillowcase Tutorial, check out this post: Pillowcase Challenge.

To see all the pillowcases I’ve done so far, click here!

Pillowcases 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 Are All Boy!

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:55:18 +0000

I’ve fallen a bit behind, but my birthday is coming quickly. It’s time to get moving! I read somewhere that ConKerr Cancer receives considerably more girly pillowcases than boyish ones. Since I’m the mom to four boys, I decided to make sure that I make plenty of pillowcases that little and big boys will love! These six are great examples.

The Aliens Are Coming!

Play Ball!

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting . . .

. . . I think I’ll leave you singing that for the rest of the day. Maybe it’ll remind you to go sew some pillowcases! Seriously, one pillowcase takes less than 10 minutes, and it’ll bring such joy to a sick child. Here’s the tutorial again: Pillowcase tute

Shopping Cart Cover - Simplicity 4225 Pattern Review

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:22:59 +0000

I used Simplicity 4225 to make a shopping cart cover for my friend, Tiffany, about three years ago and swore I’d never make another one. Three years have gone by, though, and we really needed a cart/highchair cover for Charlie, and, of course, I couldn’t quite remember why I found this pattern so difficult to sew.

Things started out well. Before I began, I decided that I would modify the pockets. Instead of the one layer, pleated pockets that the pattern includes, I did two-layer elasticized pockets. Two on the right side and one on the left.
I also modified the toy loops. I used fabric, rather than grosgrain ribbon, and made them complete loops, and planned to add plastic toy loops when the cover was finished. Things were still going well.
This was the point where my memory started to click in . . . was there something odd about the leg holes? Hmmm . . . the instructions say to pin the seat sections together, sew around the area where the leg opening will be, trim away the fabric in the opening and then turn the seat right-side out. Here’s where you get to laugh at me, because in spite of the fact that I knew this was impossible–I even had a conversation with my husband about how this was impossible–I tried it anyway. I can now say beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is impossible–I tried it. Here’s where I got frustrated. A quick google search turned up a few terrible reviews of the pattern including one that said the sewist had given up on the project after multiple tries to get it to fit a cart properly. I was almost ready to shove the whole project into a box. It’s possible that I even browsed etsy for someone else to make one for me. I took a break for awhile. I think you just have to do that sometimes. I wasn’t really ready to give up altogether, though.

I had noticed that the cart covers on etsy all seemed to have binding on the legs, so I decided that’s what I would do. It was a bit of work because sewing binding onto a hole is the opposite of binding a finished project like a quilt, but after a bit of seam-ripping and a whole lot of pinning, I managed to get it done reasonably well.

Some of the reviews I’d read of this particular pattern pointed out that the way the instructions have you sew the sides of the seat together leaves the unfinished seams showing when you put the cover in a cart. This part was easy to solve. Instead of sewing the inside and outside pieces of the seat together to form the corners, I did the inside and outside separately. Then I slid the inside into the outside, hiding all the unfinished edges between the two layers.

I followed the instructions for sewing the ruffle onto the seat, except that I serged it on. (You can actually see my serging on the back of the seat in this picture. Without the serging, you’d see an unfinished edge here, too.)

One other suggestion that I read in another pattern review was to reduce the length of elastic. The elastic that I had on hand was in 54″ segments so I just used that amount, and it worked perfectly.

I’m really glad that I pushed through the difficulties and finished the seat cover because I really like it now that it’s done. The pictures above were all taken in a Joann’s shopping cart which is smaller than a cart that you might find at Walmart, but I think there’s plenty of room for the cover to stretch to fit a bigger cart. The pictures are all clickable, by the way, in case you want to see them bigger. This cover is definitely not very cushiony. There’s no padding on the ruffle part at all, but I’m happy with the fact that it’s less bulky this way. I haven’t yet tried it out in a restaurant highchair, but I’ll report back when I do. Like always, I’m happy to answer any questions. If you’re working on this pattern and need someone to hold your hand, just post a comment, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

Just Slow Down and Enjoy the Moments

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:07:32 +0000

I need that reminder so very often. It’s really been too hot here to play outside lately, so I’ve been letting Jamie put a little water in the sink to dive his Lego guys in and out. As he has every day this week, he asked if he could play in the sink this morning, and I was busy trying to finish up a project, so I said, “Sure.” He knows that he’s only supposed to put in about 2″ of water and then turn off the faucet. I could hear him happily splashing away while I worked. Suddenly, though, he came running out yelling, “Mom! The pretty rugs are getting all wet!” And, here, my friends, is one of those moments where I had a decision to make . . . do I choose to get frustrated with the mess, fuss at the little guy who made it, throw down some towels and clean it all up . . . or do I stop for a minute, smile, grab the camera and capture this moment in the life of a preschooler who before I know it will be grown?

All too soon, my carpets will always be dry and those sweet little toes will be attached to size 11 feet with no desire to hang out in my bathroom playing in the sink with little Lego guys. For today, though, he’s three, and this is so much fun!