Quilt in the works

I've got the quilt bug right now.  It's been a while since I had it, but it's definitely bitten now.  I also am on a batik thing right now so I chose batiks for my quilt, though the background will probably be white.  You likely cannot guess from my fabric choices, but I hope you at least find them pleasing.

All ironed and laid out, ready for me to cut.

The first pieces cut and assembled.  You might be able to guess what I'm making now.

Can you guess from my drawing?  I thought about acquiring a book for it but I had an idea already in my head of how I was going to do it, and so when neither my MIL or the library seemed to have it, I finished the drawing I had already started.

If you didn't guess already, I'm planning on making a broken lone star quilt.

My calculations for how big to make the quilt in total and then how big the pieces were from this.

So the sides of the lone star are going to be 12 inches and then since I had the 7 fabrics picked out, I decided to make the pieces three inches on each side of the diamond.

Now, I just need to find enough time to actually do it.

Pants and Shorts are Easy

Pants and shorts are easy, at least with elastic waists for your little ones that have no curves.  I promised a few people that I would show just how easy it was and while it may have been quite a while since making that promise, here it finally is.

Pants and shorts are basically four pieces, two identical front pieces and two identical back pieces.  You can find quite a few patterns for little ones that are actually two pieces, where one is a right side and one is a left side.  If the side of shorts or pants is a straight line, I will combine them into one piece so that I don't have the extra seam to sew and save a bit of fabric in the process (for that you overlap the pieces so that both pieces meet where the seam allowances are).

Here are the four pieces all right side up.

First, you place one front piece to one back piece and sew the inseam.  In the picture below, the wrong side of the back pieces are on top and only the bottom two pieces have been sewn together.  You will read in a lot of places that you need to sew knits with a zig zag stitch or only serge.  While I have serged these here, I think that a serged or zig zag stitch is only necessary on horizontal seams or the seams that have stretch (so for shorts and pants, really you only need this at the hem and waistband).

Then you take the two pieces you just sewed and place them right sides together so that the two front pieces face each other and the two back pieces also face each other.

Match the sides and sew the inseam.  In the picture the front pieces are on top and the back pieces are facing each other on the bottom.

Then you flip the inseam to the inside and now you have one front piece and one back piece on top, right sides facing together and one of each on bottom.

Sew the side seams down.

Then hem the bottom and finish the waist seam and you are done.

For the waist seam, you can make a casing and thread the elastic through, or what I did here was make an elastic loop the size of my daughter's waist and zig zag it to the edge of the waistband and flip it inside and sew it down, either with a zig zag or coverstitch.

Making ties

While everyone else was apparently watching the superbowl, Q was entertaining the girls outside of the house so that I could get some sewing done.

I have about five dresses that are now cut out and at the beginning of assembly and I got to the ties.  I absolutely hate turning ties and so do just about anything to avoid that.  I thought I would show what I do so that I avoid it.

First I cut the straps as the pattern indicates.

Next I sew the very end up to the straight area.

Then I trim the corners.

I turn that area and bring out the points as best I can.

Then I iron while turning the seam allowances in (in this case 5/8")

Here is the strap ironed out.  You get a glimpse of the bodices from the upcoming dresses.

Then I just topstitch the whole thing.

I also do this with double fold bias tape.  I did not use bias tape here for two reasons:  one - I didn't have the right colors, and two - the straps needed to be the exact width (or really close to it) as the band across the bodice).  For the bias tape, I turn it inside out to do the end and sew the angle.  Then I flip it back inside and continue as above.  I'm not sure my method is really any less work, but it is less of a hassle to me and as I suffer some from arthritis, this is a lot easier on my fingers and hands.

Hip Stability Shorts tutorial

Kids with Down syndrome have low muscle tone.  This means that they do the splits very easily.  When our children are first learning to crawl and walk, they often need some hip support so that they can keep their legs together while learning the skill.  They sell various types of shorts to do this, including Hip Helpers.  They are fairly inexpensive to buy (starting at $16.00/pair), but much cheaper to make, and they aren't that difficult.

I made the bear cub's when she was learning to crawl and didn't think I would need them again after she was up and going.  Today, the drama princess is having a birthday party at the skating rink.  We bought the nerdlet adjustable roller skates a few weeks ago and tried them out on all the girls.  The nerdlet and Darth Monkey took to them right away, but the bear cub started to immediately do the splits each time we put them on her, so I decided to make her a pair of hip stability shorts.

Here is what I did.  I measured the bear cub's waist, hips, the length from waist to knees, and how far up her legs that I wanted  the stitching to come.  I added an inch to the hip measurement for the width of fabric and two inches to the length.  I used a knit with good recovery, but I have used swimsuit fabric for more support when she was learning to crawl.  I used 1 inch elastic and cut it to her waist measurement - 1 inch. I had two small pieces of elastic so I just sewed them together for this.

I sewed the elastic to the wrong side.  Here I used a three step zig zag stitch, but you could just serge it to the top.

I folded the elastic over to the wrong side.

And folded the right sides together.

Sew or serge the sides together.  If you don't have a serger, make sure you use a strong thread and zig zag stitch so that it will stretch when your child moves instead of snapping the thread.

Hem the bottom and turn right side out.

Draw a line halfway across the measurement you took for how far up the leg it should be.

Sew a straight stitch on this line and secure both ends.

It was pretty easy and fast to do.  I tried them on the bear cub and she immediately tried to do the splits in them.  She simply pushed the leg parts up her leg until they were bunched there and she could have full movement again.  Luckily babies that are learning to crawl and walk haven't figured this out yet.  We'll see tonight if the bear cub will leave them down while we try her on the roller skates.

Star Wars Shrinky Dink Buttons

Remember Q's star wars shirt?  When he wore it into work, he apparently got a comment about it needing Star Wars buttons.  When I tried to find them online, the only kinds of buttons I could find are the pin on your shirt type of buttons.  So I decided I needed to make them.  I considered polymer clay, but I wasn't sure that I'm up for 3D types of buttons.  I ended up going with Shrinky Dinks.

As part of Q and my date night last night, I dragged him to Jo-Ann's and used my coupon to buy blank shrinky dinks and a 1.5 inch fiskar hole punch because the wise people on the internet said that they shrink to 1/3 of the size and I was looking for 1/2 inch buttons.  I don't advise if you try this yourself that you waste your money on the hole punch as we could not get it to punch the shrinky dink out.  I would trace around a 1.5 inch washer or something.  On a small kids sheet, I could get 15 1.5 inch disks.

Then I found a sheet of Star Wars drawings that I planned to trace here.  Apparently my printer is out of ink and the ink I used to replace it was the wrong type so I ended up having to freehand it.  I just drew them with pencil and colored them in with colored pencils.

They didn't come out as nicely as I wanted, but they aren't too bad, especially considering that I planned for the first ones to just be a trial.

I used a 1/4 inch hole puncher to punch the button holes and placed them on a foil lined sheet.

Then I popped them in the preheated oven.  Supposedly, they are supposed to bake for 1-3 minutes, but it took over five for them to lay flat.

I think they came out pretty well.

I'll let you know how they do after going through the wash a few times...you know after I sew another Star Wars shirt for Q.

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

I got a note in the bear cub's backpack saying that this past week was Teacher Appreciation week and telling us what we could do to show our appreciation that week.  It also listed their favorite colors, snacks, and drinks.  I decided to make them bags and spent last weekend making them.  I actually finished them Tuesday night and they went with the bear cub to school Wednesday this past week.  Two of these are actually for the nerdlet's teachers, but the bear cub has six teachers.  There is the main classroom teacher, the special education teacher, the speech therapist (the only therapy the bear cub gets is speech), and three aides.  I can't really express how pleased I am with how much care and attention that they give the bear cub and how well she is doing so I felt that this was more heart felt than sending a soda one day and a candy bar another.  These are the bags.

I also took a bunch of pictures so that I could post a tutorial.  I think this is about as easy as you can get for a lined, reversible bag and I'd love to know how if you think you can do it with fewer seams.

 First cut two fabrics: the first 18 x 42 inches and the second 18 x 35 inches.  Before actually cutting, I would measure the width of your fabrics because some fabrics that are supposedly 45 inches turn out to be less than 42 and if that is the case, you'll want to use that one for the shorter cut.  In the event they both are you can reduce the height of each of these by the same amount until you have enough fabric.

I use the leftover ends for the handles shooting for two pieces as close to 4 x 18 inches as I can.

 

Fold this piece in half wrong sides together and press.

 

Then I fold both of the raw edges inward and press again.

 

Then I topstitch both sides 1/8 inch from edge.  I made two of this bag and the two bags had different fabric for handles.

 

Now onto the bag itself.  Fold them both in half and sew the bag pieces 1/2 inch from the edge along the length so that your two pieces now measure 18 x 17 1/2 inches and 18 x 21 inches.

On the longer piece, cut out 5 1/2 inch squares from the seam and the bottom fold on each side (so the rectangle is actually 5 1/2 x 6 inches). 

From the other piece, cut out 2 inch squares from the seam and the bottom fold on each side (so the rectangle is actually 2 1/2 x 2 inches). 

At this point, you will want to open one (and only one - you'll be using the other one to turn the bag) of the 2 inch squares bringing the corners out to make a straight edge and sew 5/8 inch from the edge.

 

 

 

 

 

After sewing the first seam 5/8 inch from the edge, sew another 1/8 inch inside that seam.

 

Only one side is done at this point.

 

Open the 5 1/2 inch corners the same way.  Sew them both 5/8 inch across and again 1/8 closer to the edge.

Place the bags one inside the other right sides facing.  Match the seams of one bag halfway between the seams of the other bag.

Pin the handles in between the two layers.  Mine were three inches to each side of each seam.  Check to make sure the handle pieces lay in the same direction so that you handles do not twist in the final bag.

Sew around the top of the bag 1 inch from the edge.

Open the bag and pull the bag all the way through so that you only see right sides.

 

 

  

 

Almost there.  Now at the edge bring the bottom of the inside layer to the edge of the opening.  Fold one edge of the opening over the edge of the inside layer (I find it easier to do this with the seamed edge of the opening.  Fold the other edge inside touching the other folded under edge.

 Press and sew 1/8 inch from the edge making sure to secure the beginning and ending of your stitching.

 I match the other bottom edge of the inside layer to the other bottom edge of the outside layer and sew this side also 1/8 inch from the edge. So that both outside edges look like the bottom bag in this picture and both inside seams look like the top bag.

 

 Press the bag opening with one layer slight above the other.

Topstitch 1/8 inch from the edge and again 1/8 inch from the first seam.

Here are what the two sides of your reversible bag should look like.

 Your final bag should be super sturdy as none of the inside, supporting seams match up.