I Heart Elastic Thread

I have never claimed originality, and I'm about as far from it as possible with this next project. But my wonderful new blog friends have exposed me to the wonderful world of ELASTIC THREAD!! I seriously can't believe I didn't know about this. But then I called my mom on the phone and she has NEVER used it - in 50+ years of sewing - so it's not so unlikely that I also wouldn't have used it, seeing as I learned everything I know from her.

I had a bit of left-over fabric from making a receiving blanket and decided to make a little smocked top and leggings.

And the best part - it was so fast and easy!! I'm not going to explain how I made the top because there are already great tutorials here or here that are far more detailed and better photographed than I could ever do. The leggings I made by takinga pair I already had a cutting a pattern off them. Too easy.
But a couple of things I did learn:

• winding your elastic thread tighter means that the fabric will gather on it's own as you sew and you don't have to pull the thread to gather it, which = BIG PAIN.
• Make sure you always have enough elastic thread in your bobbin to go all the way around, because unpicking it also = BIG PAIN.

So now go get some elastic thread and let the world of shirring open up!!

Easy Personalized Onesies

I've seen all these cute onesies on boutique websites with names/monograms on them, or even tutorials on crafty blogs about how to make monogrammed baby shirts. But the boutique shirts seemed more expensive than they were worth and the crafty blog shirts outlined a rather complicated process involving freezer paper and x-acto knives and fabric paint that I just hadn't found time to try yet. Then, the other day I came across some Avery Ink Jet T-Shirt Transfers in my stash of random office supplies and figured I could make them WAY easier.
I worked with Microsoft Office Publisher because I like the freedom it gives me to move images around, but you could probably do just as well with plain old Word and text boxes. For the first shirt, I drew a circle and the filled it in a fun color, then overlayed a letter in white.

For the second shirt I created one text box with a big inital, then I overlayed a smaller text box with the whole name, alternating the colors. I put these on the same page (with a variety of other images I found and may use later). Then you need to save the whole document (page) as an image file (.jpg) and flip it! This is very important or when you go to iron on your initials they will turn out backwards!

My printer isn't great in color so I took the file, along with my paper, to a kinko's and had them print it out. Then I just cut around the images and ironed them on! On the t-shirt I then cut a strip of coordinating fabric and made a little ruffle for the bottom. On the onesie I bought some little iron-on crystals and ironed those on as well. Voila!! So fast and easy!

There are a million possibilities for this. If you go to digital scrapbooking websites (here is one free one I've used) there are tons of great elements that can be downloaded. There is also this website with a large collection of really great fonts to play around with. And Avery makes transfers for darker colored fabrics as well.

A great project for those that like their computers more than a sewing machine!

How to Sew Fabric Flowers

As I prepare for baby girl, I've become enthralled with how to recycle as many of little boy's things as possible. It's become like a game for me. One of the things I was given when G* was born was a little kimono-style set that was plain white and boring with a little not-so-cute rabbit decal on it. When I found this tutorial from House on Hill Road on sewing fabric flowers, I knew I had found just the thing to pretty-it-up. I used fabric left over from another project (that I didn't cut on the bias) and then finished it off with a little ric-rac around the edges.

I love how it turned out so much I just may make another one!