"He's All Boy" Blanket

Travis has a special affinity for soft fuzzy things.  At the sewing store he wants to spend hours in the minky aisle.  Whenever he pets soft things, he has to suck his thumb at the same time.  It's pretty cute.

When I saw this blanket tutorial on This Mama Makes Stuff during Celebrate The Boy 2011, I knew I found a great idea for Travis' upcoming birthday. 

Here's my version:

    I used black minky (the swirly type) because, well, that's the only type they had that day, so I decided to make it work.  Considering the dragging around it will have to take, black might be a smart choice.

This was a very quick/easy project, it took only a few hours!

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And because I'm such a sucker, I let him have it early...

leprechaun outfit with reverse applique tutorial

Just had to make our mischevious little resident leprechaun a new outfit for St. Patrick's day.

The shirt is another Tee for Two, a pattern that I've gotten quite a bit of use out of lately!  My other versions are here.  I love making basic knit t-shirts, so easy and fast! Then I can embellish them too. For this shirt I made shamrock reverse appliques and then used my Silhouette (iron on heat transfer) to make the words. Bonus: these fabrics were both from the old shirt pile.

I added the reverse appliques like this:

trace the design onto the knit (t-shirt) fabric

pin contrasting knit fabric scrap to the underside of your design.  Be sure it covers the whole traced design with room to spare.

Sew on your drawn shape on the right side of the shirt.

Now trim about 1/8" on the inside of your stitching.  This is the fun part!

A super simple way to embellish a shirt!  This also washes very well since t-shirt fabric will roll slightly on the edges in the wash but won't fray.

I've also used reverse applique to highlight a design on the shirt:

And last but not least, I made these pants following Dana's flat front kid pants tutorial .

I added some pockets on the front and back.  He actually LIKES these pants. 






Instant Leprechaun!

**Update:  I'm so excited and honored that Shelly and Karen of Pattern's by Figgy's posted my mini-tutorial on their website, and they added a downloadable shamrock template so you can make your own!

Linking up here:

Happy 5th Birthday Ivy!

Today we're going to a birthday party!  My friend's daughter is turning 5.  Here's what I made for a gift:

It's the Warhol Dress.  Dana has the free pattern here for sizes 6-12 and 3-4 years.  I had to draft this pattern myself using her instructions because I needed a size 6X for the birthday girl.  The ruffle was my own add-on, it needed a little 'pop'.

I really like the yoke on this dress which ties on one side.

Materials used: interlock knit from JoAnn's and I used my Silhouette to make the iron-on transfer.

Ivy, the birthday girl, collects bikes so I thought a bike graphic would be cool and original for a dress.  Then I made a last minute tote with her name on it and added a few books.

It was fun to do some girly sewing for a change.

Future Pilot Shirt

Liam wants to be a pilot when he grows up and loves playing Flight Simulator almost every day.  I've never seen a kid who loves planes more.  He's always asking to go by the airport so he can watch the planes land.

I made him this shirt using the All the Rage Raglans pattern by the Scientific Seamstress.  I am so impressed with this t-shirt pattern.  It contains so much helpful information for every detail of construction!  I even found a new way to attach the neckline so it wouldn't stretch out of shape.  It was worth buying the pattern for that tip alone.  The neckband has been frustrating to me in the past.  It's got a much larger boxier fit than the shirts for travis, but I really love both patterns because they offer very different styles of raglans.

The airplane graphic was actually from this free font which I downloaded and printed out, then traced and cut out of freezer paper.  I used silver fabric paint in the freezer paper stencil and white fabric paint for the words.  My favorite tutorial for stenciling is here on Made.

And here is one more Christmas gift I forgot to post earlier.  This is Koji which I made using a pattern from the book Wee Wonderfuls by Hillary Lang  Liam loves him!

Have a great weekend!

Celebrating The Boy - Tees For Two

I'm finally shaking off the winter blues and getting into some spring sewing.  This year Dana and Rae are hosting another Celebrate The Boy series, which happens to be my very favorite blog series of ALL TIME.  Just like last year, I can't wait to check my computer each day to see what cool boy ideas they and their guests have.  It always gets me motivated to sew more.

I made these two Tee For Two (patterns by figgy's) shirts for Travis for spring!

  This one is made from a women's shirt (Walmart clearance) and some green interlock knit.

This Oswald shirt is my favorite!  Travis is all about Oswald.  We watch that show daily.  I just wish they made more than one season!!  Henry the penguin is my favorite (his voice is actually Squiggy from Laverne & Shirley!).  Travis loves the dog Weenie.  

I really enjoyed sewing this pattern.  It was so quick to make and fun to design the appliques.  This is the before photo:

The appliques were both made with leftover t-shirt scraps.  I used Heat N Bond Lite.  I just draw my shapes on the paper side, then iron it onto my scraps.  Next I cut on the drawn line, fuse to fabric and stitch around the shapes on my project.  Very easy!  

These t-shirt scrap appliques won't fray, so no worries when stitching them on.  Just a plain straight or narrow zig zag stitch is fine.

All we need now is some spring weather.  It's about 10 degrees here in New Hampshire as I type this!