sewing – Page 30 – the long thread

January 9, 2010

Gocco Printed Curtains

My five-year-old and I made these curtains this week with the gocco printer. I asked her to draw some flowers with the carbon pen as you can see below.

Then we got out the gocco and made some prints on the bottom of the sheer curtain panels.

I used regular screenprinting ink, so I think it was a little watery for the gocco, but it worked fine. Making prints with a five-year-old can be kind of a messy process, but I still like the finished result. My tiny gocco screen really isn’t conducive to fabric printing. I’d love to try one of these Yudu machines. I found myself watching about 20 minutes of an informercial one morning with my kids while they were asking me to change the channel.

January 7, 2010

Baby Shoes

baby-shoes

After seeing these shoes in an Etsy shop, I decided to make some little shoes to go with the baby gift that I posted about yesterday. I mostly used the template and pattern for reversible baby shoes from Maked.

Well, this was my first attempt at making any kind of shoes. On the first go I tried to alter the pattern thinking “I don’t remember baby feet being that small.” But then I found some old baby shoes in a storage bin and realized that baby feet are that small. Adorable. Then I sewed a shoe correctly and decided that I didn’t want to fool with hand sewing the tiny thing closed and these didn’t need to be reversible, so I started over and used a different method for putting them together in the last step. I found this video helpful.

So once you get the hang of making these little slippers, they are quite fast and remarkable for something so simple. After all, who makes shoes? Factory workers in China, mostly. But that was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?

January 6, 2010

A Quick Baby Gift

organic-bib-and-burp-cloth

I’m feeling a bit absent from this blog because I’ve been sewing a lot and can’t show you what I’m working on or it would spoil the surprise! But this week I did make a little bib and burp cloth for a cousin’s baby.

I used the organic cotton mushroom print from Cloud9 Fabrics that Amy from The Fabric Bar sent me last week. And I used this extra soft and thick organic flannel from Near Sea Naturals. I love this flannel and will use it for every baby project I ever make. I used my own patterns, but if you’re looking for patterns for baby gifts, check here.

November 4, 2009November 4, 2009

Slouch Bag

linen-wool-cotton

I’d like to make this in a brown twill for fall. Wouldn’t that be nice? This is the slouch bag from Akiko Mano’s book Linen Wool Cotton. A very nice book full of simple, natural designs. If you don’t have this one, it should go on your holiday wish list!

November 2, 2009November 1, 2009

More Placemats for Kids

make-it-monday

kids-placemats-again

I just made another set of placemats and napkins for my younger daughter to use at her Montessori school. She is starting to have lunch at school and on her way to becoming an “afternoon child”, so she’ll stay in the afternoons and do some more serious learning. This is a big step for her!

Anyway, since I made some more of these, I thought I’d share again. This is such a simple project and a great one for beginners. You can use the same instructions for adult-sized placemats and napkins as well. I think it would also be nice to sew in some ribbon or twill tape to tie the placemat into a roll. And these are reversible! This time I made my version a bit larger from the original instructions, which really make some pint-sized linens. I used 16″x16″ uncut dimensions for the napkins and 12″x16″ uncut dimensions for the placemats. This turned out to be just the right size. You can find the instructions here from my post last year.

I made the placemats pictured above with some cute kokka fabrics (deer and pandas) with a gingham and a stripe on the reverse side.