Category Archives: sewing

Tote #1 finished . . . .5 months later!

Posted on April 19, 2010 by SewTara| 1 Comment

Remember this? That I was soooo excited about? Yeah, it’s been sitting neglected in my craft area all this time. That’s a little embarassing. Last night, for a change from taggie blankies and juice pouch totes, I picked it up and finished the little sucker.

The handles are made from a belt I thrifted and the main white fabric with the brown plantlike print was on crazy sale for $3 for a big huge remnant. I love the little detail of the brown inner fabric peaking out at the top. I’m pretty happy with the results considering it was my first attempt.

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Posted in repurposing, sewing

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Why I shouldn’t sew in my black pants.

Posted on April 12, 2010 by SewTara| Leave a comment

I had to chuckle at Sewing Dork‘s post the other day about discovering a giant white thread on her butt!  I feel her pain.  Usually I sew at night when the kiddies are in bed, so I change into jammie bottoms and get those all full of thread and bits and pieces.  Tonight in my eagerness to go downstairs (and create 5 taggie’s I might add!)  I didn’t change.  Lesson learned.

Ignore the toys and mess . . . and picture quality, it’s hard to take a photo of yourself all by yourself!

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Posted in sewing

Playing with photos, happy mail and up late once again!

Posted on April 5, 2010 by SewTara| 5 Comments

Signed up for a Picnik account yesterday and I’m loving this 1960’s effect they have.  I’m also having fun adding text to images.  Prepare to see funner pictures from now on!  There’s me (finally) hiding behind a morning tea.  I was worried it would take longer to post but it’s really fairly quick and easy to use.  It’s almost making me want to go back and repost all my pics . . . . almost.

I also received my happy mail from Christina.  She’s got this really cool website Craftee (lovin’ the name!).   She sent me some fun stuff, including a really beautiful journal with matching pens. It made me want to doodle and pushed me over the edge into the ‘yes please!’ camp for Elsie and Rachel‘s Tell Your Story class.

Thanks to Indie 2.0 I learned how to make my very own little widgets. I’m so excited. Now I just have to get them up and out there, which will be thanks to my techie hubby. I made a few, any opinions?

I’m going to have a table at this show on May 1st and I’ve been going crazy sewing like a maniac to get a huge pile of things to take and sell.  Since it’s my first show I’ll be getting a feel for what sells and what doesn’t.  There’s less than a month left now and I’m starting to feel the crunch.  Fingers crossed all goes well!  And on that note, 1am is probably a good time to go to bed.

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Taggie madness!

Posted on March 31, 2010 by SewTara| 1 Comment

I’ve been working on taggie blankies the last few days.  For a change of scenery last night I made some crayon cosies instead, THEN I cut fabric for more taggie blankies.  Hoping tomorrow to get the ribbons pinned on, possibly on my lunch hour at work, so I can sew them together tomorrow night.

I really like the brown one, it’s a Heidi Grace fabric from Joann’s.  The white cuddly stuff on the back is soooo soft.  I might have to make myself a king sized taggie blankie for our bed!

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Posted in kid fun, sewing

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Steggie #2 and some great buys.

Posted on March 29, 2010 by SewTara| 1 Comment

Finally finished Wesley’s Steggie a few days ago, orange and blue as he requested (I’m such a nice Mommy).  Here are the 2 Steggie brothers just hanging out.

He turned out pretty cute.  Not sure I want to attempt another one right now, I’m taking a Steggie break.  I’ll move onto a different One Yard Wonders project now thank you very much!

More fun exciting handmade mail arrived for me!  I figured with my growing collection of sewing and craft books I needed some cute bookplates.

They’re one of the many wonderful creations by Cabin and Cub.  I’m totally in love with this piece but really need to wait on making yet another purchase.

While on my cross border shopping spree I picked up these 2 cute fabrics, can’t wait to make a bag or tote of some sort out of them!  The green checkered one with the little apples was on sale for $3 a yard!  I should have bought more.

And while I love this little forest wristlet from Hot Butter I just ordered a bag from her, and it’s awesome and all but pretty soon I might have to seek professional help for my bag/tote/purse buying.  Instead I found the cute mushroom fabric while at Joann’s and picked up a yard just to have on hand in case I am inspired to make my own purse of some form someday, sorry Ashley Ann.  Shhhhh, in my mind it’s not the same as buying one to add to my collection.

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Posted in kid fun, other crafts, sewing

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Nate’s cloth counting book – all done!

Posted on March 28, 2010 by SewTara| 3 Comments

I spent some time this weekend finishing the book I started for Nate.  I just had little bits and pieces to finish and was sort of procrastinating on it.  But last night I set to work and got it all done!  Then I set it out for him to find in the morning.

He absolutely loves it!  I’m so happy.  He’s really into touch and feel books right now so I guess it was well timed for now.  He loves the 8 page which has buttons on it.  Here’s a glimpse at each page.  It’s a bit different than the one I made for Cassie.

1 robot and 2 apples

3 blind mice and 4 triangles in a kite.

5 fingers and 6 button tires (which Nate also loves).  Wesley said there was a taxi car on this page, total fluke but cool he thought that.

7 colours of ribbon in the rainbow and 8 buttons.

9 clouds in the sky and 10 fishies with button eyes.  Despite the button eyes Nate’s not too impressed with this page.

Apparently the button page is tasty too.  Good thing the book is washable!

I’m going to start making these to sell, just have to get around to the Etsy custom listing.  I’ve already got a request for 2, if anyone else wants one for their little one or someone else’s little one let me know!

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Posted in embroidery, kid fun, sewing

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One Yard Wonders strikes again . . . and again?

Posted on March 22, 2010 by SewTara| 1 Comment

I finished stuffing Steggie and sewing him up today.  He’s a bit wonky though.  I think maybe I’m a better make it from scratch person than a pattern follower.  But, wonky or not he was made with love!  Nate was trying to pull him off the table this morning before he was even stuff so clearly he likes him already.  I’m still not sure I did the darts correctly, and his feet seem to be a little misshapen.  Oh and one leg is somehow a bit shorter . . . *sigh*

I love the fabric, it’s Heidi Grace and has little hearts on it and is so cute.  I found it challenging to sew the feet and they’re a little more uneven than I would have liked.  Of course Wesley asked if I would make him one tomorrow.  He even specified ‘orange with blue spikes’.  Choosing complementary colours already?  That’s my boy!  Guess I’m trying Steggie again.

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More Steggies and how I work.

Posted on March 21, 2010 by SewTara| Leave a comment

So I decided, in the spirit of dinosaurs to make Nate a Steggie from One Yard Wonders.  So I set to it tonight.  I learned I’m not too good at following a pattern, and when I didn’t know what the instructions meant about making a dart I probably should have Googled it after all.  So our poor little Steggie needs some tweaking tomorrow but he’s still going to be a cutie.

There’s been a lot of talk on my online course about how people work, and manage their time.  With 2 little ones at home, and a job it’s been challenging for me to maintain a blog and start an Etsy store.  Now I’ve also added a craft show in May so the pressure’s on.  When I started my blog to help me be creative I hadn’t returned to work yet so it was a bit easier with the extra free time.  However, it did set a sort of standard for crafting and now I try really hard to keep up the pace with posting and creating.   That said, here’s my new system.  I escape downstairs, either while the kids are sleeping, hubby watches them or after they go to bed and I load something to watch up on my desktop computer, put on my headphones (which allow me to hear over the noise of the sewing machine) and get to work!  Yesterday my husband watched the kids a whole bunch, hence my productiveness, and the headphones help block out the sound of the kids which would either distract me or annoy me.  Ignore the mess, and the glare from the OttLight but here’s what it looked like when I left just now.  (That’s deflated Steggie lying next to the book)

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Posted in kid fun, neat spaces, sewing

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My productive day with taggies and steggie!

Posted on March 20, 2010 by SewTara| 3 Comments

Well I managed to get some time to myself today and was a mad sewing . . . machine?  I made 3 taggie blankies, and I must say working with that soft wonderful minky stuff is a bit of a pain.  Then I made my son a shirt.  I’ve had the plain white one sitting there for ages and ages.  Since I was in a taggie sort of mood I whipped up a taggie steggie!

This was the last taggie blankie I made and words cannot describe how totally soft and wonderful the white fuzzy side feels!  Plus the fun bright retro fabric is pretty cool too.

Got a few things lined up to work on while watching a movie.  Let the productivity continue!

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Posted in kid fun, sewing

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Sew Liberated, and some cute shoes too!

Posted on March 16, 2010 by SewTara| Leave a comment

Wesley went to a March Break camp today for half the day, which is kinda funny since he doesn’t go to school so it’s not really March Break for him.  But it is for me!!  So I took Nate to the mall, where we somehow managed to waste the entire 3 hours.  Had enough time to pick up some lunch and retrieve Wesley at noon.

I went to the mall for new running shoes.  Which I found . . . . along with a new sewing book and another pair of shoes, and some sale items at Old Navy.   It was a productive and eventful morning.

This is the pile of juice pouches my cousin saved for me, thanks to her 6 year old’s sleepover this weekend!

When I got home from enjoying some time at the park with the kids the mail had arrived.  There were 2 fun things!  Greetings from one of my Happy Mail pals and some fun gifts from Peptogirl, once again.

When we got home at noon I brought up a bunch of stuff to do in the kitchen while Nate napped, but I did other stuff and then we went to the park.  So  now to get cutting all this fabric for taggie blankies and crayon cozies!

These are the running shoes I picked up, which I’m beginning to think I liked because subconsciously they reminded me of my slippers.  Note the well worness of the slippers compared to the shiny newness of the runners.

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Posted in other crafts, sewing

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