Felt purse for Colleen!

For Colleen's Christmas present, I decided to make her a felt tote. Well, more like a small version of a tote.

I'm not going to go into the details on this one because I did use a pattern to start the design and then made some adjustments according to what I wanted my end product to look like.
Basically, I saw some other projects on the internet (Etsy to be exact) where a solid color color (like charcoal) is backed with a bright color (orange, lime green, turquoise, etc) that is exposed by cut outs in the fabric.

Here's an example:



I used pattern # 3715 by Simplicity for the basic shape of the purse.


For the purse basics, the decided to use a wool felt. Wool felt, unlike polyester felt, has a lighter color and doesn't stretch. So nice.

Because Colleen owns an orange Vespa and it's one of her favorite colors, I decided to go with orange felt.

For the orange felt, I cut a piece the same size as the gray fabric. I used some glasses in a variety of sizes to make the circles on the gray fabric (I used a fabric pencil). After cutting the holes out, I hand-stitched the orange running stitch around the edges of the circles and then down to make the "stems."

Next, I simply sewed the purse together using the instructions with one more minor change.

I wasn't too fond of the purses straps. Mostly because I sewed them together and it was SO HARD to turn the felt inside out. Instead, I just used a larger stitch on my sewing machine (more like a basting stitch) and sewed two strips of felt together with 4 equal stitched lines in them to make the straps stiff and sturdy. I used the orange thread on this to add that touch of orange color.

My final change was that I didn't like the closure on the purse. I ended up putting a magnetic piece inside of it (matching the turquoise of the flashy interior color) to hold it closed. Although it's a bit strong, it works like a champ!

For the inside of the purse, I wanted something cute and flashy. I went to my favorite fabric store, Sarah's Fabric, in Lawrence, Kansas. Sarah's has an amazing selection of cotton quilting fabrics. Perfect for purse projects!

I had two issues with the final project. Too OCD, I believe.

First, I disliked the way the inside fabric met the outside felt. It wasn't sharp because of the thickness of the felt. I wanted it to be precise, not blurry.

Second, the purse has a tendency to slouch. Next time, I will add some stiffener to the sides (like I kept telling myself to do the whole time I was sewing it) so it will stand up on its own.

I think that overall it turned out really cute!

Baby Mobile - Hooty Hoot Owls!

Earlier this year, I went with Farrah to our favorite little gift shop in Columbia, The Butterfly Tattoo. They specialize in cute gifts for girlie girls and funky baby products.

Trent and Kara were expecting their first baby and Farrah had heard through the grapevine that Kara had fallen in love with a particular crib bedding at the boutique. It was the perfect solution to their office gift.Of course, as soon as I saw the print on the crib bedding, I was in love. Infatuated is probably a better word. "Silly Owl" by LittoKids Inc. is the bedding. And boy, oh boy! It is adorable!

Inspired by retro designs, it features this cute little owlie (I named him Arnold) surrounded by a kind of fleur de lis meets mid-century pattern in orange, white, gray and brown. It rocks. So super perfect for a little baby boy (or girl).

With that in mind, I decided to give them the gift of handmade: an owlie baby mobile.

The first step was to find a usable image of the owl. Harder than it seems, LittoKids has very few closeups of their bedding. Silly company. I finally found an image that some dummy like me had uploaded :) Yay for dummies!

The image had a few issues so I used photoshop to touch it up and mirror it to use as my owl pattern. Cute!

When doing any kind of hand-stitching project with numerous matching felt guys, I advise you to make one first and figure out what you are doing before moving on. That's what I did!

Owlie Parts (Cutting):

My first step was to decide what kind of parts I needed, in what color and to make a pattern for those parts. After making the pattern from the original image, I cut out all the little owl body pieces.

Here's what I ended up having:

2 - full body - brown

1 - breast - orange

2 - wings - orange

1 - eye foundation - orange

2 - eyeballs - white

2 - owlie corneas - black
(not shown)

1 - beak - black

2 - feet - black

1 - heart - orange

Wow. That's a lot of little pieces! And a lot of little pieces leftover too! If you're a packrat like I am, you end up keeping all those little pieces for weeks until it drives you crazy!

After cutting out the little pieces, I assembled the front of Arnold's body.

Owlie Parts (Sewing):

First, I added his little orange breast using a running stitch. I used 4 strands of a matching orange embroidery thread to attach the breast to his little brown body.

Next step, I attached the wings and orange eye foundation in the same fashion.


Now for his eyeballs. I used the normal 4 strands of (white) embroidery thread to attach the whites of his eyes using a running stitch.

Finally, add his little eyeballs with black!

I nearly forgot to stitch his beak and heart on last!

After I put Arnold's front pieces all together, it was time to give him some dimension.

Starting at his right owlie ear, I began attaching Arnold's back to his front using all 6 threads from a matching brown embroidery skein. At his bottom half, I had to remember to add his cute, little legs into the stitching. His legs are just single pieces of black felt.After binding Arnold together everywhere but the top of his head, it was time to add his stuffing.

The hardest part to stuff in the owlie was his little wings. I stuffed his bottom half, just a tiny bit of stuffing at a time. After he was pretty plump in his southern region, I added a little bit of stuffing into his wings. I had to use something (a pencil) to get that stuffing to the end his little wing tips.

After stuffing my owlie, I stitched up his head. Arnold the Owl's body is all done!


I was able to successfully add a ring to the top of Arnold's head for adding his hanging string. Yay me! I just used a couple of black embroidery threads and stitched in on there firmly. Finally, I added a string to hang him to the mobile!

Then I finished Arnold's 3 brothers!

I'm pretty sure little Clark likes them since in the picture below, I was told he fell asleep on his belly and rolled over to look at his owlies during the night! I'm sure that was the reason...

Baby Mobile - Weiner Mobile!

Super Lesley, a Columbia friend of mine, had a cutie patootie little girl earlier this year named Rosie Eileen. One of Super Lesley's many quirks (many, I say! - just like me!) is her true love of all things Dachshunds. Her and her husband, Don, own three little girl doxies: Lulu, Bird and Sheba.

Before Christmas, when I was doing all my felt creature research, I found a girl on Etsy who makes felt Dachshunds. I knew as soon as I saw them, I knew I had to make one. Or two. Or four.

Four because that's what fits on a baby mobile!

Puppy Body (Cutting):

I began by "borrowing" a picture from the earlier mentioned website to have a pattern to cut out my felt doxies.

I cut two identical doxie bodies in a brown felt.

I also cut out two ears in brown and a square piece of light pink for under the ears.
Later in this post, I will discuss Doxie tails, but for now, here is pic of the puppy's brown body pieces.


Puppy Ears (Sewing):

Using 4 strands from the embroidery thread (same color as the brown felt), I used a running stitch to stitch the brown felt to the pink felt. After knotting the end of the thread and snipping, I trimmed the pink felt closely to the edge of the brown felt.
Puppy Eyes (Sewing):

For the puppy's eyes, I took the puppy body and lightly dotted in the outline of the eye because I'm a much better seamstress when I have a line to follow. Please note in the picture below that I used tracing paper...a luxury us architects keep around the house ;)

I then took 4 strands of black embroidery thread to make the line of the eye (closed). I used a simple back stitch, following the slight curve of the eye. I ended up doing two rows very close together to simply make the eye show up better. I then took 2 strands of the black thread and sewed on the eyelashes. You can make these as long or short as you wish!

My doxies are all girls, so I went for mid-length eyelashes.

Repeat for the opposite body side of the puppy.

Puppy Tail (Cutting):

Let's just pretend that if you are making felt doxies, then you have been around doxies. Therefore, you should know that most doxies have skinny, long tails that curve slightly upward. I didn't use a pattern for my tails and just cut them out based on how the tail looks. It took a few tries for the first tail but once I got it out, the other three were much easier! I didn't do any sewing to the actual tail piece since I used only one thickness of felt.

Puppy Body (Sewing):

For each puppy, I used pins to hold their cute, tiny bodies together while sewing them. I started around the ear area and worked to the tail then to the underside of the body and back to the tail. Once again, I used a simple running stitch.

Don't forget that when you get to where the tail should go, to add the tail! I forgot once and had to pull and restitch my puppy's behind!

Once I got the back foot stitched, I went ahead and stuffed it with some polyester filling. Otherwise, it would be too hard to get the filling deep down into the foot area as it's pretty tiny. As I stitched more of the puppy, I would add filling to the finished part to keep the filling more evenly spaced. It has a tendency to bunch up in a ball.

Puppy Ears (Sewing onto Puppy):

My first suggestion for the ears would be to make sure that they line up perfectly on each side of the head.
Starting with one ear and 2 strands of embroidery thread, begin attaching the ear by hiding your knot under the ear. Once again, use a simple running stitch to attach the ear. Do the same for the other side/ear.

Puppy Nose (Sewing):

For the nose, I used 4 strands of thread and used a stitch similar to a satin stitch. Beginning on one side, using future stitches to hide the knotted end, I basically looped the fabric over the end of the nose/felt and came back through near the original stitch from the backside. Do this several times until you feel you have a likable nose size!

Puppy Bow:

I used a different color 3/8" wide ribbon for each puppy. I simply tied the ribbon around the puppy's neck and trimmed it to my liking.

Adding The Puppies To The Mobile:

Using a tiny jewelry circle, I attempted to attach this to the back of the puppy's back and it just didn't work.

In the end, I just used all 6 steins of the embroidery thread and sew it through the puppies. I tied a nice knot and then kept the length of the thread to use for the actual hanging part to attach to the mobile. After tying the thread around the mobile, I snipped off the extra bit! Don't want baby reaching up for that!

Felt Flowers (To Cover Up The Sad Unadorned Music Box):

Per my mother's suggestion, I checked out a link she sent me earlier this week for felt flowers. I ended up making three of them (purple, orange/yellow and red) with coordinating button middles to put on the music box of the mobile to make it prettier. I'll add some finished pictures but if you feel like making these cute and easy felt flowers, just go to this link and follow the directions!

After making the flowers, I hot glued them to the music box. Woo!

And then I sent those puppies out in the mail!

It looks like Rosie enjoys them :)

It's a hoot! - Felt Camera Case

I needed to figure out a way to protect my brand new camera! The reason for the new camera was because the old camera, after 5 years of pure torture, finally bit the dust after it made contact with a concrete floor. Therefore, it became obvious that the need to keep the camera well padded and safe were high on my list of camera priorities!

I decided to make a prototype camera case because I couldn’t decide what to make but I wanted to do something with my hands. I chose some leftover wool felt from Colleen’s purse. I cut out one single piece of felt and simply folded it over. I rounded off the two sides of the flap that would cover the opening, where the closure snap would go to give it a softer look.

Then, I made a HORRIBLE decision to add the embellishments after I stitched the bag closed. Like I said: prototype.

I used a blanket stitch to close the sides of the bag. If you are like me and have never done a blanket stitch, I would suggest practicing a couple times. It’s easy but a little confusing at first. Go here for instructions on how to do a blanket stitch. I used all 6 threads of the embroidery skein for the stitch. In a contrasting color to make it pretty.

After completing the blanket stitch, I added the snaps to the bag. This is where I discovered that I had cut the bag a little too small. Once again: prototype.

I made a little owl that Jono named Oliver to put on the front. Overall, he was put together with felt and fabric glue with only 2 threads of embroidery thread in a running stitch on his cute, tiny wings.

I also made a couple of felt flowers held together with fabric glue and a contrasting button as the center of the flower.

I added the flowers and the owl with fabric glue. Then, this is where my stupidity kicked in, I decided to add some flower lines using a contrasting back stitch.

Anyway, here’s some pics of the finished project. I will be redoing it in a few weeks to make it a little bigger and to add my flower and owl embellishments BEFORE I stitch the sides together.

Holiday Wreaths

Hi!

I don't know if you're excited about a craft post, but I certainly am!

I have been spending some time at my mother's house for the last two weeks. Of course, what do Mom and I DO when we get together? We craft!

Since it is so close to the winter holidays (i.e. Christmas) we've been working on various Christmas projects. We've been working on Christmas presents and decorations. This post will be all about wreath making!

I actually stole my idea from an Etsy project that I fell in love with a few weeks ago. I have an adoration for owls and decided to look around for an idea incorporating owls and wreaths. I found this wreath by Red Marionette (for $55 - 75). Cute!

Here is a list of what you will need for this project:

12 - 14" styrofoam (rounded) wreath
yarn
hot glue gun
hot glue
felt
embroidery thread
embroidery needle
popsicle sticks

Optional Items:
white pom poms
garland or ribbon
foam snowflakes
holiday decor (bells, Poinsettia sprays, Holidays leaves, berry sprigs, flat ornaments such as snowflakes)

First, unroll a whole bunch of yarn by winding it around your palm.

Take one end of the unrolled yarn and attach it to either the back or top of your styrofoam wreath using a dab of hot glue. To keep from burning my fingers, I held each side of the yarn and pulled it down onto the hot glue, holding in it place until it was dry. Then I snipped off the extra.

Wrap the yarn tightly around the wreath until you run out of yarn and lightly glue the end.

Repeat until the wreath is completely covered. It took me about 2 hours!

I'm sorry I don't have pictures of the finished yarn wrapped wreath!

The next step is to make your cute little felt guys. I chose the owls, as I stated above. I made a template so my owls would be similar in size (and symmetrical).

After I cut out the cute little felt owls, I sewed them together by hand using the embroidery thread (matching closely to the felt color) and needle.

I then took some fuzzy yarn and wrapped it around the bottom of the wreath where the owls would sit to make it look like snow.

Before mounting the owls to the wreath, I wrapped silver garland around the wreath to add a little bling to it.

My next step was to secure a piece of the popsicle stick to the back of each owl by sewing them on. I then mounted the owls onto the wreath using hot glue.

I then arranged various faux holiday flowers and stuff around the wreath until I looked like I wanted. I also added white pom poms around the owls feet to look like snowballs. I went a little crazy on mine. Oops. I also added some foam snowflakes for fun.

As you can see from the pictures, Mom made two wreaths with blue yarn and snowmen. She made a mini wreath (with a shorter snowman) and a larger wreath.

We also made a wreath for Mema using red, gold and green. We made a red felt dove with a gold and red beaded tail and glittery feather wing.

Oh. And my all green owl is Bernard. The green owl with purple wings is Gertrude. I can't wait to welcome them to my front door!