Teacher Gifts Part 2: Roll-up Tote Bag & Coffee Cozy

O. didn't really have any ideas about what he wanted to give his teacher, so I suggested this roll-up tote bag along with a coffee cozy.  He came along to the fabric store with me and immediate picked out a grey and yellow print, which I loved.  Well done, O!  It was conveniently grouped with other coordinates, so he chose a yellow to go with it and we found a matching polka dot in the remnant bin.  He also chose a yellow flower button for the cozy.

Construction of the bag was pretty standard.  If/when I make another one, I'll probably use a slightly longer piece of elastic cord.  This one seemed to be stretched to the limit when the bag was rolled up.

Teacher Gifts Part 1: Aprons & Coffee Cozies

School ended last Tuesday, so as one would expect, I spent most of Monday desperately sewing.  I had decided a while ago to make E's teacher and para each an apron after they raved about the raffle apron, but I was waffling about her therapists and O's teacher (whose gift will comprise of Part 2).  I don't think I came to a final decision until Sunday afternoon, and then I had a fabric crisis when one of the pieces I bought had a big flaw that I couldn't work around, so I had to make a mad dash back to Joann's before they closed Sunday night.  Clearly, I'm never going to learn to do things ahead of time.

E's teacher and para both commented about how they liked that the neckline of the earlier apron I'd made wasn't straight across like so many are.  That was from a pre-printed panel, though, so I looked around for quite a bit trying to find one with a similar neckline.  I ended up buying the Urban Wrap pattern, which has the added bonus of being very adjustable size-wise.

They sewed up quickly, probably took me just a bit longer than an hour for each one. The instructions were thorough, and she also included a handy one-page quick reference.  I think there was only one step that I needed to refer to the more in-depth instructions. 

This is the first one I made, for E's para.

I  made her teacher's red, since she wears a lot of red.  I'm hoping it's because she really likes it and not just because it's the school color.  Ha.

I'm starting to look a little crazed in this one, as I still had loads of sewing to do and it was getting late!  Plus, I feel like a dork posing, but I always like to see things on a person.

I also made them matching coffee cozies and one for each of the therapists as well.

They were quick too, and fun to sew up. I used Insul-Bright instead of batting.

When I was buying gift cards, I asked the woman for empty cups to put them in, but I didn't notice until I got home that they were smaller than the Tall, so the cozies are a bit large on them. 

Tiny Suspenders

A few weeks ago, Ray and his mom were talking about how our newest nephew is the spitting image of his dad (the baby's dad, not Ray's dad), who always wears suspenders.  My MIL told him how she thought it would be hilarious to give him baby suspenders, which led to us saying, "Oh, we can find those online!"  Turns out you can't find them for kids under 9 months, probably because it's kind of silly to have a baby who's just laying around all day wear suspenders.  Are his pants really going to fall down?  I think not.

Fortunately, there's a tutorial for everything, suspenders included.  I asked around on Facebook for someone with a 4-6 month old to get some measurements for me, and sewed up some itty-bitty suspenders.

In the off chance that you should ever need to make tiny suspenders yourself, I cut the elastic pieces 21" long.  I know my SIL thought they were funny, but I'm not sure if he's actually worn them (those buckles seem uncomfortable for a baby!), so I can't vouch for the fit.

Daisy Welcome Wreath

As soon as I saw this wreath on Pinterest, I knew I needed to make my own version.  I would be barefoot all the time if I could (darn winter!) and daisies were my mom's favorite flowers.

I wanted to make mine a bit bigger, so bought a 12" wreath form and also used fake flowers instead of daisy trim.  I'm also still mildly obsessed with buntings, so I wanted to put the wording on one instead of the flag.  It took about a skein and a half of Fun Fur, and much more time that was necessary to wrap the wreath, since I'm way too picky about ridiculous things that make no difference to the end result.

Then I had the seemingly brilliant idea of sticking the flower heads onto sewing pins, so I could reposition them easily.

Several flowers ended up falling off the pins as I worked with it, so I went back and hot glued the flowers to the pins, which worked well.  I didn't want to totally commit by gluing the flowers right to the wreath, so this was a good solution.

Then I printed off this bunting.  My original plan was to stamp the letters on with one of the alphabet sets from my stamping and scrapping days, but all my sets were either too small or too big, so I had to suck it up and write them on with a Sharpie.  This was a bit nerve-wracking, as I have the world's worst handwriting.  I taped the flags onto some embroidery floss and tied it to pins to attach to the wreath.  At that point, I realized that the bunting was much too big to fit all of "Bare Feet Welcome" on it without looking crazy busy.  I was bummed, since that was one of my favorite things about the original!  I was not about to start over and have to redraw all those letters, not to mention cut out the flags again, so I decided to simplify it to just say "Welcome." 

Despite that minor disappointment, it's pretty fun for a spring/summer wreath.  I think my mom would have liked it.

Doodle Swim Bag

One of my nieces had a birthday earlier this week, and my sister suggested that she could use a bag like O's for swim club.  I was happy to oblige.  I've probably mentioned this before, but one of my favorite things about blogging is that it's so helpful for gift ideas for friends and family.  That and my project notes are in one permanent place instead of scribbled on scraps of paper that I subsequently throw away or lose.

My niece is still into peace signs, so I was excited when I found this fabric that looks like it's been doodled.  Isn't it perfect for a tween? I thought the black background would be good for the dirt and muck potential of a locker room floor too.

I made it almost the same way as I made O's, but I did make the changes to the drawstring casing that I mentioned wishing I'd done.  This time I cut the two outer pieces to 14x20" (2" longer") and the one PUL lining piece to the same 14x35".  I left openings in the side seams of the outer between 1 5/8" from the top and 3/4" further down.  When I sewed the lining and outer together, then turned and stitched in the ditch, it created a casing just of the outer cotton turned to the inside.

As I'd hoped, this cinched up much more tightly than O's did with the PUL in the casing.

PUL-lined zipper pocket

The drawstring straps are probably too long, but that's easy enough for my sister to customize for my niece.  She can just retie the strings a bit shorter and trim the ends.

Star Wars Cargo Shorts & Pool Noodle Lightsabers

In addition to his Captain Rex tee, O asked me to make him cargo shorts with crossed lightsabers on the pockets to wear to his birthday party.  So I did.

I used the Hot Scott Cargo Shorts pattern.  Honestly, I wasn't crazy about it.  She notes that the sizes run big, which I found unusual for an independent pattern company.  I measured O and found that he was just slightly bigger than the 5T (he wears a 7 or 7X in RTW), but there was a huge jump in sizing for the 6, so I made the 5T with a 3/8" seam allowance instead of 5/8".  This proved to be unnecessary.  The shorts are big.  Very, very big.  Hopefully he'll still be a fan of Star Wars for several more years.  I also thought the directions could have been more clearly written and that using plaid fabric for the black & white instructional photos was a poor choice.

That being said, O liked the shorts.  I used leftover fabric from his swim bag for the hip pockets.  It amuses me to have Vader peeking out of the one.

I intended to sew down the lightsabers on the cargo pockets, but when I realized how tiny I'd made them  and just how late at night it had gotten to be by that point, I decided to take my chances with Steam-A-Seam 2's claim of a permanent bond.

Back

In action

I also made some of the ubiquitous pool noodle lightsabers for the guests.  I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy it was to make them.  Usually the projects that I think will be fast take the longest!  A serrated knife cut the pool noodles in half easily, then I used shiny silver duct tape cut in half lengthwise to cover the bottoms (in Xs, kwim?) and clipped the ends of the tape so it'd curve nicely.  Then covered about 7" up the length with the silver for the handles, added two stripes with black electrical tape and drew on a power button with a red Sharpie.  While I was doing that, O was cutting out an assortment of masks from here and here that we'd printed onto cardstock.

The lightsabers were a huge hit, and most importantly, were painless when you got whacked with one!  They also made a cool -- loud! -- noise if two of them were banged together.

KCWC Day 7: Retro Captain Rex Tee

It turns out O had very specific plans about his tee.  Not just any clone trooper helmet would do, it had to be Captain Rex's, and he wanted to be able to wear it to his Star Wars birthday party next week.  I was thrilled.  He's so picky about his clothes being plain, I'd thought our days of special outfits for birthdays were long over!

Captain Rex's helmet has blue accents, and in my stash there are a few yards of super soft heathered blue knit that has a great vintage feel to it, just calling out be made into a ringer tee.  Yes, another one. This time I used the Fishsticks Designs Charlie Tee pattern in size 6.

This was my first freezer paper stencil attempt and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  There were a few spots I was going to touch up, but I was instructed to leave them, as Rex's helmet is scuffed up and stuff from battle.  My mistakes make it more authentic, I guess.

 
O usually loses interest in sewing projects soon after we finish the design process, but this time he was all over it.  I think the paint was a big factor, and perhaps some fear that I might screw up his beloved Captain Rex.  Ha.

I think the helmet could've been placed a bit higher, but O still said it turned out even better than he'd imagined.

And that's it for me for KCWC!  In each of the three previous challenges, I've sewn three things, so I'm excited that I managed four this time, especially considering how busy this week was.  A big thanks to Meg of Elsie Marley for hosting KCWC.  It's such a great motivator, especially seeing what everyone else is making in the Flickr pool.