Maternity Pants Tutorial

Sample Pants From The Tutorial

What you need:

A pair of pants

Stretch knit material

A sewing Machine

Sew it yourself. Maternity Pants are very expensive and unless you are planning on having a LOT of kids you probably won’t be using it much. I can usually fit my old clothes for most of my pregnancy so I don’t start NEEDING maternity pants until later in the second trimester. In this tutorial you learn how to turn regular pants in to comfy maternity pants. Adding much more variety to your wardrobe for much less. She suggests buying a few cheap pairs of pants at a thrift store so you don’t turn all your regular pants into maternity ware, after all you will need clothes after baby is born. I’ve tried this tutorial and it is simple and pretty easy. I love the pictures.  I always need pictures. She obviously uses a Serger to do her ends, but I used a traditional home sewing machine and alternated between straight and zigzag stitches. So far I’ve transformed two pairs of old pants and it turned out great with minimal frustration

Simply Recipes

Christmas Cookies from SimplyRecipes.com

This is a great cooking site with a wonderful collection of simple recipes for home cooked meals for the family. I believe home cooked meals can definitely save a family money. The problem is What to cook? I often get bored of the same old dishes and when I try to find new recipes they are much too fancy for my skill level and require ingredients I’ve never heard of. The recipes on this site are easy to follow have a short prep and cook time, and are absolutely delicious. I’m going to try the cookie recipes for Christmas Gifts this year.

Make your own Modeling Wax Tutorial

Modelling Beeswax sold on Etsy

I saw some modeling wax on sale at Etsy. It’s a fun alternative to playdoh. The great thing about it is that is never dries out. Yay! I was pretty hard to find a tutorial about it but I found one here at naturenest.wordpress.com. I haven’t tried it yet and I wonder if it will turn out like the ones sold on Etsy. I’m also not sure where to look for these ingredients, lol.

But if you don’t want to make it you can always buy it on etsy. Aren’t the colors beautiful?

More Tutorials and Pictures to Come

Dear Martha:  Sometimes you are just so creative!  I have to say I was quite impressed with the sewing-themed Christmas decorations (Whimsical Workshop) I recently spotted at my local Kmart store in NYC.  Who would have thought to use a sewing tape measure with balls of yarn as tree garland?  Too clever!

Not to mention your other garland of grosgrain ribbon, spools of thread and lots of button!  Ingenious!

Love the mini wreath made with spools of thread and tied with a sewing tape measure!

I giggled when I saw your sewing basket ornament complete with knitting needles!

Loved the Button Christmas Ornaments, too!

And that flocked velvet ribbon with images of stitching and buttons—too cute!

However, my excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I realized my sewing room is PINK, Black and White.  Seriously, I dislike anything RED for Christmas.  The Chartreuse Green I can live with, but not the RED.

Looks like I’ll have to make my own sewing-themed decorations for my Pink sewing room.  But Martha, thanks for the inspiration!

Christmas isn’t even here yet and already I’m thinking of January birthday gifts! I just received this quilt in the mail (it only took a week!) for my Mom’s birthday. The three oldest kids in the fam are going in on buying it for her and we just know she’s going to die when she sees it!

Check out QuiltLover’s shop  for more absolutely amazing creations!

Ask anyone who really knows me and they will tell you that I am not a big pet person.  That is not to say that I don’t have pets, I live with pet people.  I don’t mind the dog so much, but I have never really loved cats, no good reason why not, other than they scratch my furniture, they shed and they can be dirty.  With all that being said my husband and mother are big time cat people.  There are two cats that live in and out of my house that I tolerate.  We live on a rather large piece of property (by Southern California standards) and my husband is always rescuing the neighborhood cats.  I told him that he could have as many as he liked so long as they stayed outside or in the garage (which is not attached to the house).  Anyway, he has quite a collection of cats that he feeds and pets and generally looks out for and I have to admit some of them are quite cute.  Well there was tragedy on the ranch last night as a couple of neighborhood dogs attacked the cutest and smallest of the bunch.  We brought her inside and have been nursing her ever since.  The outside cats don’t normally get named, we call them “the grey one” or “the one with black spots”, this one now has a name.  My daughter named her Angel, and I announced that if Angel lives she could be a house cat!  Wow, I hope I don’t regret that.  I have decided after what went down last night (including my daughter’s sobbing) I would need to be nicer to these furry friends.  (Not that I am mean, just that I avoid them, they avoid me).  So in an effort to be nicer I decided to make Angel a soft bed to recuperate in.  And therefore the tutorial. I wanted it to be inexpensive and easy to throw in the wash.

I hope you enjoy and have a great day!

We will be holding a Hat Knitting workshop this coming Saturday, December 5th, from 1-5pm. Our knitting teacher, Anne Marie, is amazingly talented…(see below for some of her knitting work — she will also be teaching our Mommy+Me knitting, as well as fashion knitting!)

This workshop is part of our Gift Series — participants will walk away with a finished adult-sized hat to give as a present, as well as the knowledge of how to recreate this gift over and over again!

Details:

Hat Knitting, Saturday, December 5th, 1-5PM, $45  (materials will be available for purchase – kit $20)

320 2nd Street (between 4th + 5th Ave), Park Slope Brooklyn 11215

718-369-0222     www.textileartscenter.com

Halloween and Thanksgiving have passed. Now it is onto Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s Eve. Every year, I find it hard to imagine that time truly moves this quickly.

There are presents to buy, trips to schedule and meals to plan. Oy! It can make the cheeriest person feel like the Grinch. 

That said, with a little planning, it doesn’t need to be too difficult. My friend Shasta Grant, an amazing sewer and writer, blogs on The Lovely Nest about making lists and homemade holiday gifts. I hope you’ll spend a few moments on her blog to check out the coat she made for her toddler son and more. I can only imagine my fingers being nimble enough to make something like that!

Fellow Portland Mama, Heidi, from Humble Luna, makes these adorable and durable costume tails that every and any kid would love. You may remember her from my Monday Must Have: Children’s Halloween Costumes post last month. Well now she’s offering up a Dragon Tail from her shop to one of you! How cool is that!?!

Heidi loves sewing and drawing. She started making children’s costumes 8 years ago when her daughter Sophie was born. (Isn’t it interesting how many of us start on our crazy crafting journeys when we have kids?) While designing costumes as an intern at the Portland Children’s Museum, Heidi came up with the idea for these Dragon Tails. They are a safe, easy to put on dress-up toy that also appeals to both boys and girls.

If you are local and would like to buy one of these great Dragon Tails check out Piccolina on 26th and SE Clinton or Plue on SE Woodstock and 44th. You can also find Humble Luna at Milagros‘ (5433 N.E.30th Ave) fundraiser for Mercy Corps. This Holiday Bazaar is on December 5th from 11am-3pm.

Everybody else can check out her etsy shop. Make sure to check back often! Heidi is planning on adding hand painted butterfly/fairy wings and other costume pieces soon. Just write The Handmade Experiment into the seller’s notes and receive a 20% discount!!

Now for the giveaway!

Just leave a comment here before Sunday the 6th, midnight PST. Tweet about this giveaway for another chance at winning, then leave me another comment letting me know. Remember to subscribe to my blog for upcoming giveaways. I’ll be having another one on Wednesday as part of the Sew, Mama, Sew December Giveaway Day! I’ll announce the winner on Monday the 7th. Good luck!

My beautiful best friend Teale Kelly married the wonderful Greg Fox on the 27th this week. I couldn’t be happier for them both! There wedding was beautiful and I was so glad to be able to be in Rochester for it. I loved that the wedding was a perfect representation of themselves. They did everything very non-traditional and pulled off an easy, comfortable, casual wedding that still had plenty of glam.

She wore a beautiful and simple off-white gown that matched her mother’s train perfectly. It was great that she was able to tie in a piece of her mother’s wedding with her beautifully apliqued train. She wore feather’s in her hair and thrift store find earrings (perfect!) as well as the big statement piece…designer red Louboutin shoes! Our good friend Sue from Surface Hair salon in the South Wedge in Rochester, NY did her hair Greg wore a three-piece suit with a pocket watch (swanky!) and a red tie to match her shoes. Sue did Greg’s hair too. They looked so great!

The wedding and reception was held at Artisan Works, an art gallery and Co-Op In Rochester. It was a really funky, unique place to hold a wedding and provided something to do for the guests that don’t dance. It was so much fun to tool around the place with the happy couple to take photos. Just outside those doors is the bar where canapes and drinks were served while the room was transformed from ceremony to reception.

Teale and Greg had one of their first dates and Phillips European, a restaurant in Rochester, where they went for dessert. They decided to go with Phillip European’s beautiful desserts instead of a wedding cake which I thought was a more sentimental…and delicious…idea. They displayed so beautifully and really beat out the wedding cake idea for me!

The Reception went until 10 and a second after-party was hosted at local restaurant and cocktail bar Good Luck. Teale changed out of her wedding gown into this beautiful party dress that was made by her good friend Kate. Kate is a seamstress and Etsy seller that makes beautiful fashion creations. This dress was made out of a vintage sequined skirt that she shortened into a dress. The extra fabric was sewn on as cap sleeves and it was all synched off at the waist with a gold ribbon. It was so beautiful with her red shoes! Beautiful work Kate!

Kate did some work on her own dress too! She’s great with re-working vintage clothes.

Kate has made dresses for Teale and I before. The first time I met Kate she had made a faux wedding dress for Teale to wear and destroy as I took photos. We took her creation to Stoney Brook Park and wrecked it under water falls in the name of art. Kate was a good sport for creating it, Teale was a good sport for wearing it in cold cold water. You’ll be hearing more about Kate around here soon!

I made my own dress for the wedding too, unfortunately since I took the photos…I dont have any of the dress! I’ll make sure I find some soon to share with you. Its made entirely of recycled neckties in black, white and gray.

Congrats to the happy couple again, and now that this busy holiday weekend/moving is through, I hope to get head first back into the shop and the blog. Remember to take advantage of Cyber Monday free shipping at my Etsy store!

I’ve been hard at work sewing together my niece’s christmas present…a felt tea party!

Earlier I gave you a tutorial on how to make felt strawberry slices, and as promised, here is the strawberry shortcake to put them on!

For this project you will need pink felt, tan felt, white felt, pink thread, tan thread, and white thread.

First step is to make the top and bottom of the cake. I took a cereal bowl that was the size I wanted my finished cake to be and traced it on the felt. The pink will be the top of the cake, the tan will be the bottom. To make perfect quarters for the slices of your cake, fold the circle in half and cut along the fold. Take the half circle, fold it in half again and cut along the fold. You should end up with 4 pink quarters  and four tan quarters like this.

The size of the next pieces will depend on the size of the circle you’ve cut. For the outer edge of the cake you will cut a rectangle out of the pink. Determine how tall you want your cake. Mine was 3 inches tall, therefore my pink rectangle was 3 inches tall. The length of your rectangle is determined by how long the curved edge of your cake quarters.

Pink rectangle = 3 inches tall x lenght of curve

The next piece you will cut are the insides of the cake slices. They will be cut from tan felt and have the same height of your cake. The length of the tan rectangle is determined by measuring the straight side of the cake quarter.

Tan rectangle = 3 inches tall x length of straight side of cake quarter.

You will need 2 tan rectangles per wedge, and one pink. Total…8 tan pieces and 4 pink pieces.

Next you will cut a looooooooong wavy strip of pink felt. This will be your layer of cream in the cake. Put two tan pieces together end to end, lay the pink strip over the top, and cut it to fit the length of each piece.  You should end up with 8 pieces of wavy pink filling, one for each tan rectangle. Stitch them to the center of the tan pieces with pink floss.

Start to stitch it all together! I started by putting the filling pieces beside the pink topping and sewing along the straight sides of the topping wedge with pink floss. From there I stitched the pink rectangle to the pink curve of the wedge.

Continue on with the pink floss to stitch the pink rectangle to the sides of the tan rectangles.

Switch to tan thread sew the point of the cake together. Stitch the tan wedge into the bottom of the cake making sure to leave a space to stuff the cake.

Stuff your cake making sure that you don’t over stuff it! You want your slices to fit together on the straight edges. Stitch it up and shape it nicely.

Next we’re going to make frosting. I went nuts with this but you can make as little or as much as you like.  You’ll start by making a paper template of a pointed leaf shape about an inch long.

This next step can be done by hand stitching one by one, or you can cheat like me! Trace out this pattern on white felt so that the points of the shape touch but don’t over lap. Fold the felt over so that you will have two layers of this shape.

On the sewing machine, sew down the center of your row of frosting.. IMPORTANT.. back stitch over every spot where the shapes touch end to end. This way, you can cut out the shapes and the stitching won’t unravel.

Cut out each shape!

The two layer piece should unfold into an “X” shape. By sewing these pieces overlapping at the edge of your cake you create frosting!

With the size of my cake and my one inch pieces of frosting, it took 5 pieces to line one edge of each slice. I frosted the top and bottom edges of each slice, as well as a small circle of frosting in the center of the top of the cake. Frost it up!

If you’ve made the strawberries as well, arrange them and stitch them into your cake. Decorate it however you like. Try red velvet! Dark chocolate! What ever your felt tooth desires

]]> http://monsieurcardinale.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/used-book-sale-and-a-giveaway/ Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:03:07 +0000 monsieurcardinale http://monsieurcardinale.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/used-book-sale-and-a-giveaway/

I found these at a used book sale yesterday.  One of the books I found was Gnomes by  Rien Poortvliet and Wil Huygen ( 1979 edition).   It has  endless illustrations of gnomes.  If you would like to win this book and you live in the continental U.S. please leave a comment by Dec. 1st 5pm e.s.t.

I was at work the other night and noticed our Brontosaurus necklace just came in – I was inspired!

Brontosaurus Applique on a men's sweater

I crocheted the Brontosaurus to be sewn onto a sweater or tee – I think I’m going to put mine onto a dress! For men or women this little guy is going to have a ROARing good time anywhere he goes.

The Brontosaurus applique

I have been busy making gifts for Christmas and birthdays in December. SPOILER ALERT! lol

I used 6 pieces of cardboard and covered them in fabric. Then I sewed the pieces together by hand to create cubes. I made one large cube that opens and one small cube that fits inside. Then I made a drawstring bag to put it all in

This would be fun for a toddler to play with. The second smaller cube rattles.

I’d like to finish blankets to go inside the bags along with the cubes. So many gifts, so many crafts, so little time!

I have plans to make 4 of these sets. But sewing the sides together by hand takes some time! And makes my hands sore after a while. But the matching little drawstring bags are so adorbale. I love this project, it has been lots of fun. The strings on the bags can easily be changed. I just used what I had avail at home for now.

I need to finish making cubes and crocheting  blankets.

peace.

You can easily make this cardigan youself. All you need is a plain cream coloured cardigan, a metal chain (diy-stores) and a cream coloured ribbon. Simply weave the ribbon through the metal chain, then hand- sew the chain to the cardigan using cream coloured thread. Don’t forget to sew small pieces  to the pockets!

I’ve been hard at work sewing together my niece’s felt tea party. I’ve used some wonderful patterns from UmeCraft on Etsy, but I won’t share her secrets! Sorry!

I’ve promised to keep you posted on the progress of the tea party and I’m currently in the middle of crafting a strawberry shortcake. This tutorial will give you an idea of how to put together the strawberry slices for the cake (tutorial to come for cake!)

For this you’ll need some red, pink and green felt. I used a cream color embroidery thread for the seeds, green on the leaves, and red thread to pull it all together.

Your basic shape is a heart! Make sure the bottom is rounded and not a point, and that the lobes at the top are nice and wide and rounded. To start off, stitch in your “seeds” scattered around the surface of the heart.

First, ignore my nail polish. Sewing is harsh on nails…and I’ve never been diligent that way. Fold the heart in half with your seeds on the inside. Start whip stitching within the dip in the top of the heart. You’re going to sew along the humps at the top of the heart from the folded side to about where my white knot is. I like to start further away from the seem at the side with the fold, and as i sew outward start placing my stitches closer to the edge. When you turn your strawberry back out again, it will make the curve at the top of your berry rounder and smoother.

Tie off your knot and turn your berry inside out. There should be a nice curve at the top! Place the berry down on the pink felt like you see here. I just cut around them but if you prefer, use a fabric pen to draw the outline of the berry onto the pink felt.

This pink piece will be sewn to the open side of your strawberry. Cut an elongated red heart to stitch into the center of the pink piece. I hate tieing knots so I try to do all of this in one swoop! Before finishing off the stitches, stuff the strawberry and seal it up.

If you like (it depends on how you attach the berries to your cake) you can and a green star shape to the top of the berry with green thread. Free-style cut them and they’ll look more organic!

I will post soon how to make the felt cake to go with these berries…but they’re beautiful all on their own!

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Want to make an inexpensive but special gift for someone special this Christmas? Or would you like to have gloves that match your coat or other accessory? Then why not make these beautiful looking “designer” gloves?

What you need – - -

Gloves. You don’t actually make the gloves themselves, instead you either recycle an old pair or buy plain ones…plain ones because you are about to decorate them.

Embellishments. Fabric such as felt. Seed beads (tiny beads). Thread to either contrast or blend. Needle & thread for a little handsewing and fixing on of beads; and of course scissors.

Instructions – - -

Using pinking shears I cut round a template I’d made from a face cream jar, twice (one flower per glove); then, using a green felt, roughly cut out 4 leaf shapes (two leaves per flower).

Attach the leaves to the flowers and then embellish the flower itself with embroidery thread and seed beads.

Decide where you want to attach the flowers to the gloves, using pins. With a few stitches secure the flowers onto the gloves.

Now you have a pair of designer gloves

I’d love to see the gloves you’ve made, I can add the photo/s and your blog link to this post.

- – - Have Fun! – - -
:p

These I made for my mum.

Detail of flower.

Warm and stylish fingys

These are quick, easy and fun to make.

After sewing real baby clothes I decided to try my hand at some doll clothes.  I chose to do pants and a shirt.  Using what I learned from following a pattern with directions, I traced a pair of doll pants we already had onto fabric, leaving room for a seam.  Then I assembled them pretty much the same way as I did the pants for the real baby.  Moxie has a dolly that is smaller than all the rest, so I made them to fit that doll.  They turned out OK.  I didn’t take the time to iron them when I should have.  They would have turned out a little better of I would have.  They also ended up being a little bit of low risers.

Then I tries to make a shirt.  I got tired before I had a chance to add sleeves so the shirt is sleeveless.  I anticipated this would not go over well with a rigid two-year old who has recently learned that you wear long sleeves in the fall to stay warm.  I didn’t pay close enough attention to the neck and so it doesn’t close all the way.  I added a large button instead of velcro so that she can practice buttoning (just don’t look to closely at my button-hole).  I feel OK about the shirt.  It was my first (doll or real baby size) and I didn’t do any ironing where I should have.  All in all I think it turned out OK.

Unfortunately, Moxie didn’t really like the new clothes, especially the shirt.  I made the mistake of putting it on the baby with the button (and neck gap) in the front.  She was not pleased.  She wanted it to close all the way so that the baby stayed toasty warm.  She almost cried when I told her that was as far as it closed.  I turned it around tonight after she went to bed and am hoping she will have gotten over it by the time she finds the baby in her bin downstairs.  Change is hard for her.

Well, This coming January I will be getting married for some strange reason I didn’t want to buy a dress…I wanted to make my own…so I spent most of last night looking for inspration. Do to the fact that my fiance will be coming home from deployment and I will be going to school and finding/decorating our first home, I must use my time well.  For this dress I’m envisioning white satin and crystals encrusted all over the bodice…and chiffon for the skirt…I need to read up on how to add a train to a dress pattern..I will most certainly be making a muslin for this dress being that I’ve never worked with these types of fabrics…Found several books I thought would be a great resource for this project. I also plan on creating a birdcage veil.

I woke up extra early to try and finish up a project that I have been working on for a couple of days. It is a lovely zipper pouch that has a lot of ruffles and detail is completely hand-stitched and takes a lot of hand-eye coordination to get the stitching just right, I will post pics when I am at a better stopping point. Instead I find myself blogging and twittering while sipping my piping hot coffee extra light and sweet.

I wanted to share my lovely pearl beaded mugs from Pottery Barn that my husband and I got on sale -(yes, a major sale – like 50% off) at the Tanger outlets in Riverhead, NY. That was back in the day when we used to live with our parents on L.I. and we would escape out “to the country” ie. Riverhead, Mattituck, Aquebogue and go look at the horses, go wine tasting at Pindar Vineyards and eat lunch at Erik’s in Southhold. They have the best vegetable panini using veggies from local farms, oh and the seasoned fries are amazing too.

Oh yes, we also always made a stop to Love Lane in Mattituck where we always made sure to by some chocolate from the Love Lane Sweet Shoppe in the tiny town.

My husband and I share a lot of memories from Love Lane when we were first dating, heck we pretty much could have lived out there because we traveled the hour drive every weekend. Ahh I love the North Fork. We will be traveling back to LI for the holidays and plan to shop our hearts out on Black Friday, especially to buy a huge case of Sweet Scarlet from Pindar.. . so sweet, so indulgent.

I leave you with a picture of my little kitty, Mayberry who is almost two years old. We got her from PAWS in State College. She likes to drink coffee with me every AM.

My oldest daughter is a tomboy. She has been anti girly since she was about 5 or 6. The words “dress” and “skirt” were not in her vocabulary.

So you can imagine my surprise when she showed me a skirt at Target that she thought was cute. I told her that I could make one very similar and that is what I did.

And of course it needs to be worn over the jeans LOL

My younger daughter was very insistent that she needed a matching skirt, so here she is also with her jeans underneath.

Lately, have been in search of ways to connect with artists in my community. Numerous blogs have pointed me in the direction of Ravelry which is knit and crochet online community. You can share projects, patterns, patterns and tips. A very useful resource if you are a beginner to knitting and crocheting. My specialty is i sewing, but I would love to learn how to crochet. That led me to a small local studio that offers classes on quilting, sewing, knitting and crocheting. I came across these fabulous examples on flickr of how simple and beautiful the patterns can be. The bold colors are delicious…

crochet pencil case, originally uploaded by cornflowerbluestudio.

Flower Harvest Crocheted Brooch, originally uploaded by lindsaystreem.

Crocheted Tea Mug Cozy, originally uploaded by KnitStorm.