Horse Plushie Tutorial

I'd meant to post this yesterday, but DH surprised me and took me to a Pre-4th party (with fireworks and everything), so I never got around to writing this post. I am very excited to share this tutorial with you, though, so I do hope you'll forgive the tardiness!

The newest addition to my plush-making adventures

A year ago, I decided to make a stuffed animal for my sister on her birthday (yes, she's an adult, but even us adults like something cute once in a while). I made a little giraffe, as it's her absolute favorite animal, and it stands proudly on her little worktable in her room now. The difficult part -- other than finding a nice pattern that wasn't too child-ish -- was figuring out how and in what order to sew all the pieces together. I'd never made a stuffed animal before! Recently I've been getting requests to make plushies for friends again (a horse, this time), so I decided I'd photograph the process and share it, to make your lives a little easier, too.

Potholders Here, There, Everywhere!

Happy Humpday!

Wednesdays are usually pretty good for me, despite the aforesaid moniker. I mean, back when I was in high school or college, yeah, Wednesdays weren't so cool. They just meant 3 long days until the weekend. But now? Wednesdays are practically lucky. No long lines at stores in the mornings, no one at the pool in our apartment complex until the evening, it's just dandy by me!

Wednesdays are also a good day for me to get some of my smaller projects done. I don't have the time to do anything super big or time-consuming (save those for the weekend), but I can always do something small with a new technique I haven't tried yet. Like potholders.

Lots of Pockets Apron Tutorial -- Part 3

Hurray! It's the final stretch of this fantastic stash-busting project!

Alright, if you felt a little overloaded from last time, let me preface by saying this one will be shorter. Although still pretty photo-heavy. Enjoy!

Starting with the back apron pieces, line them up so that they will coordinate with your front pieces. So, if you did a rainbow like me and went in order from left to right with purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red? Your back pieces should be arranged (right side up) from left to right as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. When you connect them, the purple will be on the backside of purple. and red on the backside of red. Sound pretty obvious? Guess who had to unpick a whole bunch of stitches to remember this lesson.

Pin pieces together at the corners first, then add pins in between

Lots of Pockets Apron Tutorial -- Part 2

Welcome back to Part 2 of the Lots of Pockets Apron Tutorial!

Fabrics should be cut out, too, of course!

We left off with all of the pattern pieces drawn and cut out, so now we'll get on the the assembly of the front of this apron. The basic idea is to get the chevrons attached to the main fabric pieces, and then make up the pockets and attach those. Just a heads up, this isn't necessarily a super long post, but it does have a lot of photos to help you along each step. It might be overkill for more experienced sewists, but since I taught myself when I was younger, I want this to be doable from a newbie's perspective.

Lots of Pockets Apron Tutorial -- Part 1

Hi Everyone!

Today's special. It's my first tutorial! DH and I just got home from California, where we were visiting family for a bit (boy are people happy to see you when you live a few states away), and inspiration hit.

Let me preface this by making a small confession. I love chickens. Like, really love chickens. I have a coop planned and everything. Well, DH's aunt has chickens. So when we visited them, I helped collect eggs. And I couldn't help but notice that they didn't even use a basket to collect them. Just hands. That makes closing up the coop doors behind you once your hands are full of eggs super difficult! Since I've been looking for projects to drastically reduce the crazy amounts of fabric I have in my stash, I came up with the idea of an egg-collecting apron in lots of colorful prints and with nice pockets for eggs. They don't have a lot of chickens and they collect eggs twice a day, so they didn't really need space for more than 3-4 eggs, but I figured I'd give them as many as I could. The final product:

Lots of Pockets Apron using rainbow quilting cottons collected over the years

Welcome to Straight Eight's!

Backpacking in the Sierra Nevada in college

There are things you do because you feel obligated, and there are things you do because you're feeling selfish, right? This blog is definitely the latter, for me. And selfish isn't bad, it's honest. I could say that "I feel happier" or "I'm fulfilling my dreams" by sewing and writing about it, but I feel happy doing a lot of things, and I certainly never dreamed of starting a blog when we did career day in elementary school. Did blogs even exist the way they do today back then? But it's still a little selfish of me to leave cooking dinner tonight to my dear husband in favor of testing a new pattern I'm working on. I don't do it every night (although he's clearly a better cook than me), and I'm still responsible for helping him clean up. I feel justified.