Christmas Hotpad

Gather Your Materials:

around 2 sq ft of cloth (this is a great pattern for scraps)

1/8 yd batting (or more if you want a thicker pad)

One of my family members found this great piece of cloth for me. Mr. Nicholas' momma loves butterflies - and when is the last time you saw a butterfly Christmas pattern?

Step 1: Measure your cloth and batting.

Use another hot pad to measure out how much cloth you'll need. Don't forget to double the size of course :) You don't necessarily have to double the size of the batting, depending on how thick you want it to be. Since I bought the cheapest batting in the store, I decided to double it.

Step 2: Stack your cloth.

You want to have your two pieces of cloth (right sides together) on top of the batting. This is very important. Layer both pieces of the cloth on top of the batting, or things will turn out wonky and your batting will be outside the hot pad :)

Step 3: Make your loop (optional)

You know how some hot pads have a little loop you can use to hang them up? If you want to include that in your hot pad, cut out a 2 inch by 5 inch strip of cloth.

Sew it right sides together across one short edge and the long edge.

Trim your corners. It will be nearly impossible to get a nice, sharp corner if you don't get these very close to the seam (but of course you don't want to cut your stitches either!)

Turn right side out...

And iron flat (pretty :) Here's where you find out if the cloth you're using can be used for a hot pad or not. If the heat ruins the cloth, you should probably find something else to use it for! Unless you're one of those people who hangs hot pads on the wall that you don't plan to use?

Here's what not to do: (even though it looks like it makes sense!)

Instead stick your look between the two pieces of cloth. Pin the little guy if you need to make sure he stays in place. In this photo you can see again the order of your stack:

Step 4: Sew everything together, leaving a 2 inch gap.

Step 5: Trim the edges & corners.

Step 6: Turn right side out.

If you did it right, all the batting should be inside the hot pad. It works better that way :)

Step 7: Iron & close the hole.

To close the hole, sew the gap closed a little in from the edge, after tucking everything in. That may look weird at first, so just keep on sewing around the whole pad when you're finished closing the hole, making a nice border around your hot pad.

Step 8: Diamond Quilting. (optional)

I guess you could technically stop here and have a plain hot pad, but I like the ones that have the diamond quilting. Start with a big X from corner to corner, and then keep cutting  halves to get nice diamond shapes.

Step 9: Cut your threads and use :)

Purty, right?

Trunk or Treat

So our Halloween celebration was to go to my Mom's church's Trunk or Treating party, and it was a blast :) Remember our Fortune Teller? Here she is all set up:

 

The chandelier lit up, and there were lights and sound effects and it was great :) We had a lot of fun!

Jack and Sally Skellington

What do you think? Did they turn out perfect?

The Sally Dress

This is my Sally dress (from Nightmare before Christmas):

 

I used a regular dress and sewed on the patches of broadcloth (from JoAnn's) using a picture of Sally from the movie as a reference. I used a permanent marker to replicate the patterns on her patches. But the yellow was too bright for my taste so I tried soaking it in coffee.

 

And when that didn't get me anywhere, I tried some stronger coffee.

And I guess that worked a little bit...

But I still wasn't entirely happy, so I brewed up a potio...I mean, I threw some stuff in a pot...

Which included several tea bags, strong coffee...

Food coloring, red wine vinegar, and cocoa powder. It was marvelous! Just kidding, it smelled awful, and it didn't look much better.

 

And so this is how my dress looks now (after a good rinse to get rid of the smell. And the taste. Not that I tasted it.):

Let's do a side by side comparison, shall we?

Weird, if I didn't know better, I would say nothing had been done at all :-/

I'll be sure to update with photos from Halloween day, so you can see how I look standing next to Mr. Jack Skellington :)

Fortune Teller

Mom and I made this together for her car when we take it Trunk or Treating (for the kids at her church):

 

Hat from the dollar store halloween aisle; mop head from the dollar store cleaning aisle; cool glittery shawl from Mom's collection (maybe something similar could be found at JoAnn's?); jersey cloth from Mom's personal stash (stuffed with batting [also from her stash] and sculpted with stitches coming in through the back of the head); gloves from Mom's costume box; purple skirt and yellow top from Mom's costume box; pillow (body) tied around the middle to form a waist.

I'll be sure to take pictures of the whole car once it's put together-- Mom's made the coolest crystal ball, and she plans on putting up "curtains" using black plastic. Too bad our candles aren't secure enough to travel, huh?

Mom mentioned that this is similar to the method we used to make our own scarecrow one year (before I was old enough to remember) but using old clothes, straw, and a paper bag (for the head) instead of the above supplies. Kind of a fun fall activity :)

Hot Pad (what a mess)

Do you, by any chance, remember the hot pad that I made and was going to felt? Well since I have access to a washing machine at Mom's, I went ahead and gave it a try. And got this...thing:

Clearly not going to work for it's intended purpose. So I mangled it further:

And then reassembled the pieces, so now I have an oven mitt.

Not quite how I imagined this project turning out, but it works quite well, and is actually pretty cute. I guess that makes it a win?

Park Blanket

Here's the other birthday gift I made: a waterproof park blanket for my Step Dad! The linked tutorial tells all about how to make the blanket, and here's the result:

This is the only thing I changed about the tutorial. While the designer put in a clip for her keys, I thought it would be more useful to have a zipper pocket, for a wallet, cell phone, and keys. At the same time I bought the table cloth and blanket, I also bought a cosmetic bag, and sewed it into the seam between the two layers. Simple, but very useful!

And since the whole thing can be wrapped up into a small package, it's easy to throw it into the trunk to have any time it's wanted.

I was really happy with how the blanket turned out, and with his first grandbaby on the way, I think my Step Dad will get a lot of use out of it!

Sleeping Shorts

My cousin gave me this pair of sweat pants that turned out to fit like this:

...which was not particularly comfortable. So I cut them off at knee length, and stretched the jersey tight while I was sewing a zig zag along the edge, which resulted in:

Much better :) They're a child's size large...but that seems to work out just fine.

Also, I joined this site called My Sewing Circle, and it works a lot like Ravelry, except that it's more difficult to share patterns. Anyhow, if you're into sewing, it might be a good thing to look into!

Tea Cozy Sachet

Back when I made my Tea Pot Cozy, I decided to make the version that had a small pocket in the bottom of it for a scented sachet. On a walk through town I picked some lavender from the side of the road, and I let it dry in my kitchen window. When it was dry, I crunched it up and pulled out an old cloth napkin:

I cut circles out of the napkin that were about the same size of the pocket:

Last, I sewed it up by machine and tucked it into the cozy:

 And so now every time I make myself a pot of tea the smell of lavender fills the kitchen :)

Kitchen Window Treatments

When I first moved in, I didn't have curtains that fit the kitchen window, and the sun coming in during evenings (right as we're washing dishes, usually) was absolutely blinding. To solve the problem temporarily, we put up a fitted bed sheet.

 

(P.S. You can see my air orchid hanging in the window-- I have two of them, and they're the only house plants I can keep alive!!)

So originally the plan was to take some of the floor length curtains I had and make it into Austrian Blinds...without buying any supplies. Needless to say, I had to find a new plan after failing miserably.

So when my Oma came to visit, she helped me make these instead:

 

 

This was really simple: we just took two store bought, floor length curtains that matched and cut them to the length of the window, plus a couple inches. We hemmed them, and hung them. Now I have an open window when I want the light, and a closed window when I'm blinded while doing dishes. Perfect!

Tee Shirt

There were holes in my tee shirt.

  

And now there are weird bumps.

 

I just zig zagged over the holes and thought that would be less noticeable, but now I'm thinking I will have to get rid of this top :/

(File this one under how not to do things)

The Bag

Guess what I almost forgot to show off? My friend's swap gift! The bag looks like this:

And it has six big pockets inside:

I had so much fun making it, and I'm glad I went for it, even though sewing isn't my strong point!