Coloring Bag and Fabric Envelope

My sewing machine has stayed plugged into the wall for the past two weeks, so that I can sit down to it quickly whenever I have a free couple of minutes. Yet even so, I haven't had a ton of time to sew lately. But I have definitely been dreaming up lots of new projects. One of the moms in my moms' group showed me this thing called a quillow, which is a quilt that folds up and is tucked into a little pocket to make a pillow. How genius is that? I decided that I just had to make one (or two) so I went to Joann's to pick out fabric. So happy to see that the licensed fabrics were 50% off! So I got enough fabric to make a Star Wars quillow and a Muppets quillow. Now I just need to actually start them.

What I did do this week was make another mug rug, which apparently I completely forgot to take a picture of. What I'm enjoying about the mug rugs is that I get to try out different fabric placement choices and decisions such as which color thread to use and which color binding. For the one I made that didn't make it in front of the camera, I could have gone with a soft green or a bright teal. I actually have enough of the fabric to do both. So I did the soft green first. When I do the bright teal, I know that although the fabric may be the same, the different fabric placement and accent colors will definitely make them look like very different pieces. So I'm having fun making these. I've taken the three I've made recently to The Craft House, so I hope other people like them.

Using a tutorial, I decided to try making a mini crayon tote. I picked some monster fabrics in my children's stash. For the inside, I picked some bright colorful stripes (The tutorial says cotton twill was used for the lining. I did notice that the bag was a little flimsy so I think I might try using some of the canvas that I have leftover from another project next time.). This was a fun project and one I definitely would like to try again.

Using another tutorial, I also made a fabric envelope. This is a great project for using some fat quarters and I think I'll make more of these. The only thing I think I'll change is to add some velcro for the closure so that it will have a way to fasten. 

Today I went up to The Craft House to drop off some new inventory and I took a few pictures.

The booth as a whole. I picked this space because of this wooden structure. I liked the shelves as well as the dowel rods so I could hang stuff on them.

Much of this area contains my knitted items, but on the second shelf I have the burp cloths in a basket and the mug rugs laying down on the center of the shelf. You can see the crayon tote hanging on one of the rods.

This is where the rice therapy bags and boo boo bags are located. So far, these have been the best sellers out of my booth, so I'll definitely continue making these and plan to add some to my etsy shop soon.

Lots of Sewing and The Craft House

I've actually been doing quite a lot of sewing lately, just not very much blogging (or picture taking). I need to work on making blogging more of a balance within the crafting parts of my life.

The biggest news is that I've rented a booth at The Craft House, a shop specializing in handcrafted items. If you are in the Lafayette, Indiana area, I do hope that you will come visit the shop, which is located at 846 Main Street in downtown Lafayette (open hours are Tues-Thurs from 10am-5pm and Fri-Sat from 10am-6pm). So that means there are two downtown locations where you can find my items (the other is NPEN, which I posted about previously).

I have been spending a lot of time lately building up inventory for those locations and not as much time sewing on projects for myself. So that means that the quilt that I am making for Luke has been put aside for a little while. But I did finish piecing together the front, so I'm really happy about that and how it looks. I've been reading up on blog posts and tutorials about putting a quilt together and I think I have it figured out, at least in theory. So I do plan to actually put that theory into practice soon. I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

 

Mostly I've been sewing rice therapy bags and boo boo bags. Basically, the idea is that you can either heat it in the microwave for heat therapy or put it in the freezer for cold therapy. I add a little bit of lavender both for the pleasant and relaxing scent as well as to make it not smell quite as much like rice. (I've mentioned these bags a couple of times in previous blog posts.) I feel like I've really gotten the process of making these down and I'm quite happy with the outcome. Along with the larger bags, I've been making mini bags (these are the boo boo bags) in fun kid-friendly fabric so that parents can use them to help kids with any ouchies they might experience. The boo boo bags are also a good size for breastfeeding women who have a clogged duct or mastitis because it can be heated or cooled and placed in the bra.

It seems like these are a good idea because I've had them in the shop for just a week now and I've already sold several, so I'm really happy about that (and thank you to those who have bought them!). I've been working on creating more so that I can restock them as they sell. So I have a bunch of bags in varying stages of readiness. Some have been sewn and need to be turned right side out. Some have been turned right side out (and for the bigger ones have had channels sewn) and need to be filled. Ah, filling these bags. There have been times when rice just goes everywhere! It's definitely a challenge to fill them, but I think I'm finally figuring out a good way of doing it that, while slow, doesn't end up with rice all over the couch and floor.

Ready to be turned right side out

Ready to be filled with rice and lavender

This is one of my favorite fabrics for these bags!

The picture here doesn't capture how lovely this purple fabric truly is.

 I've been trying to decide what else to work on for the booth (as well as the Etsy shop) and I've decided that I really enjoyed making the mug rugs, so I want to do more of those. And so I've gotten several charm packs and packages of binding and I'm having a good time putting the fabric together and making what are essentially mini quilts. I've already finished two more, which I'll be taking to The Craft House soon.

Front sides

Back sides

So although I may not have been doing a lot of blogging lately, my sewing machine has been busy!

Baby Quilt Update - Four Rows Joined

I finished sewing the strips for the rows together this morning (had just one left) and started on putting the rows together. I got four rows joined and have five left to go. What I'm finding most challenging is making sure that the corners line up. And although I'm trying really hard to focus on that, there are a few that are out of line. But I don't think any are too horrible so I'm going to leave them as is. If I get something too far off on any of the remaining rows, then I'll rip out that seam, but so far it is going okay as long as I keep things slow. Here's a picture of the joined rows so far:

Items for Sale at NPEN and Start of Baby Quilt

Yesterday afternoon, I took a load of items, both knitted and sewn, to a local organization -- Natural Parenting Education Network -- to make them available for sale in NPEN's boutique (while I was there I bought the cutest sewn bib from Amanda of This and That Boutique). This organization is fairly new and has been offering some wonderful outreach programs and events for the community. A portion of each purchase there goes to NPEN, so I hope that some of my items sell so that the sales can help out this awesome organization. If you are nearby, then I hope you will visit (check website for location and hours).

The knitted items: a wash cloth, two pairs of adult socks and two pairs of adult slipper socks, two baby hats, and two pairs of baby socks.

These are the rice bags, filled with a little lavender in addition to the rice.

These are burp cloths (cotton on the front and terrycloth on the back)

Sets of 2 pacifier clips with matching carrying bag.

22 Pacifier Clips; I had so much fun playing with all of these fabric choices.

In other sewing news, I got started on the baby quilt for my son (which will be my first quilt). First, I opened up the three charm packs and set out the squares so I could see what was available. I'm glad that I got three packs because some of the patterns (such as the owls) were very limited in number, so having three packs to choose from helped me to keep the variety rather than getting stuck with some of the same squares over and over. (I think I'll make some boo boo bags -- mini rice bags -- with the leftover squares.)

It took a while to get the squares in an order that I was happy with. Actually, the initial setup wasn't too difficult. But at the end, I found one hole where I couldn't figure out which square to put in. Finally I had to start rearranging some of the other squares before I could actually fill that hole (making sure that the same color or pattern was not side by side). I completely forgot to take a picture while I had the squares laid out. I thought about it when I had almost finished picking up the squares.

Over the past three days I've sewn one strip of seven squares per day. I'm going really slowly with these to make sure my seam is completely straight. I want this quilt to be the best that I can do for my first time and I know that rushing through it will leave wonky seams and an unsatisfying project. So here are the three rows that I've finished so far.

I went to Joann's the other day and found some fabric for the border. It's a stripe pattern with browns and blues that I think will look nice. I'm not sure yet what I'll use for the backing. I think I'll wait until I have the front pieced together and then I'll go browse when I have a good idea of what it all will look like.