Happy Halloween!

 

Happy Halloween!  Do you have any cool halloween traditions?  We went to a pumpkin patch yesterday and Aiyden picked out a huge pumpkin for us to carve today.  I found a recipe for pumpkin black bean soup for dinner tonight and then we'll be off to trick or treat, we go around to our neighbors and then to my parents neighborhood.  You can't have too much trick or treating, right?!

Aiyden is a robot this year.  He obsessed with robots and I didn't want to go the cardboard box route with his costume so I made it out of felt.  So, for any procrastinators out there or to file away for next year, below is a tutorial on how I put it together.  It was pretty simple, basically a sandwich board for his chest.  I made pants but you could easily go with sweatpants:)

First I cut out the felt for the sandwich board pieces.  I did (4)10"x14" pieces out of dark gray felt and (2) of the same cuts out of heavy weight fusible interfacing.  the interfacing is not absolutely necessary but I wanted the boards to be pretty stiff.

After cutting, iron on your fusible interfacing to two pieces of felt.  If you haven't used fusible interfacing before, you will notice that one side is shinier and rougher in texture, that is the glue side and should face down onto the back side of your fabric. Be sure to press and hold rather than sweeping the iron.

Then I took my other two cuts of felt, pinned the edges and stitched around the edges with about 1/4" seam allowance.





Now for the fun part!  I picked up some craft felt pieces at Joann's, along with some ric rac and pipe cleaners.  I sewed most of the pieces onto the sandwich board but you could easily use fabric glue instead.

 I used ric rac to create the "tv screen" portion of the front.  It is sewn onto a hard piece of craft felt.

I zig zagged a white felt border around the "tv screen" and then glued orange circles in the corners.  I laid out the rest of the "dials" and "meters" and stitch them in place.









Then I added some more ric rac to the circle and cut some pipe cleaners for the other piece.  This is the fun part so go wild!

 I didn't want to leave the back blank so I used an alphabet stencil and some fabric paint to write out "aiyden bot" onto white felt and then cut out each letter to go on the back piece.

 Here is where you could go with sweatpants and be pretty much done!  I had gray felt leftover so I made some pants.  If you don't have a pants pattern, Dana over at Made has an excellent pants tutorial here  I left the front pant panels extra long and curved the bottoms so they would act like shoe covers.  Then appliques whatever you like onto the legs!

The cap was a little tricky.  I basically held up a piece of paper to Aiyden's head and created this football shaped cap.  The important thing is to stick the pipe cleaner antennas in before you sew up the cap.  After it was sewn I added some elastic cord to go under his chin.





And there you have it!  The goggles were an afterthought.  I cut two circles out of the stiff craft felt and zigzag stitched them together, then glued buttons on and ran some elastic cord.  Of course, no smiling could happen in the picture below!  He's a very serious robot!

Snack Pouches with French Seams

So, after after a year of grossly neglecting my blog, I have recommitted. For my first tutorial, I would like to introduce you to the snack pouch. It is simple to make and so very useful! I use them for my son's dry snacks for preschool, cheez-its, goldfish... but they could also be used as a wipes or diaper pouch, for little travel toys, the possibilities are endless. They are made from cotton and can be tossed in the washing machine. We will also go over how to do a french seam. It requires an extra step but is definitely worth the effort, nobody wants strings of fabric in their snacks! Say goodbye to ziplocs and let's get sewing...

First, you need to cut your fabric. I cut 7 inch squares of my directional fabric and a 7x14 rectangle of the dinosaur fabric since it is not directional.

Now, with a french seam, you start with WRONG sides together and stitch three sides of your pouch, leaving the top open. I use a 1/4" seam allowance (or the edge of your presser foot.)

So you end up with this. trim your seams pretty close, about 1/8".

Next, turn your pouch inside out so that right sides are together, give it a good ironing and stitch again around the three sides with 1/4" seam allowance, sealing in your raw edges.

And, voila! You've done a french seam! Looks the same on the outside and super clean on the inside. If you have a serger, you could have serged you seams but I like the look of the french seams for these pouches.

Now we just need to finish the opening. Iron the raw edge to the wrong side 1/4". (Please excuse my ugly ironing board cover in these pictures!)

Fold again about 1" and give it a good ironing.

Stitch the hem fairly close to your fold. I use the left edge of my presser foot with my needle in left position.

Last step! Pin and stitch velcro to either side of the top of your pouch. I get 2" velcro in bulk so I cut mine down to 3/4" wide. You can use a package of 1" velcro from the craft store. I cut it to 3/4" because I don't want it to be too hard for little hands to open. The strips are 6" long, leaving about 1/2" on either side. Depending on what you will be using the pouch for, you could use a shorter strip of velcro. For snacks it needs to be pretty long so nothing can slip out.

And there you have it! Washable and super durable snack pouches!