Craft Test Dummies

Well, I’m back from the sewing expo and my head is swimming. I took four classes over 2 days this time, and a good time was had by all.

My good friend Nicole made the trip up from Charlottesville, Va, and showed up to celebrate my birthday with some serious girl time. Three days of shopping, sewing, and girl talk. Whoopee!

For those who’ve never been to the Expo, it’s a pretty gi-gundous show. It goes over 3 days and boasts oodles of hand-on classes, demos, trunk shows, fashion shows, lectures, and vending out the wazoo. Here was my agenda on Thursday, the opening day of the show:

• 8:30 AM: “Really, Really Broken Dishes” applique class with Kim Montagnese. She is a great person, designer, and teacher. She taught us to use Do-Sew to back our appliques and use a blind hem-stitch to mimic needle-turn applique. Great class. (Great person, too. I love Kim! She’s the one who took this silly picture of me.)
• 11:00 AM: Snack break and fashion show. We saw a lecture on how to open up a generic sweatshirt along the side seams and create a festive jacket. Looked cute and easy. And when they passes around a toddler version with yo-yo’s on it, I just about had a coronary it was so cute!
• 11:45: Wandering about vending floor. Made a point to get to Cotton Candy Quilts which had the Do-Sew for sale. Also picked up some really cute fat quarters with my mini-patchfolios in mind.
• 2:00: Lunched on a tuna croissant (standing up) while taking in another fashion show. Another sweatshirt-jacket take by Londa, but more upscale.
• 5:30 PM: Completely overstimulated, we head over to the hotel to check in, only to find that they don’t have our reservation. And I don’t have my confirmation number. Undaunted, we work it out and schlep up to the room. I grab a quick snack, then head back down to take the shuttle back to the IX center to get to my class. Whew. I’m getting tired!
• 6:30 PM: Take Barb Callahan’s Vintage Beaded Bracelet class. (Easy peasy. Just stitch buttons onto elastic! I know what I’ll be teaching next time we have a Young Jewelry Artist series during summer camp at Silverthorne!) Barb was a hoot, too. Hope I get to take a class from her again.
• 8:00 PM: We’re done early. My shuttle doesn’t come until 9:30. I make calls. Nicole tells me the shuttle will come early. I find out that my sweet baby girl is still running a fever. I wait until 9:15, and some complete strangers from Pittsburgh take pity on me and drop me off at the hotel. Thanks, ladies! You’ve done PA proud.
• 9:30 PM: Meet Nicole at the hotel bar. I’m hungry, damp and ready for a drink. Nicole and I share some Mediterranean quesadilla thingy, and I down 2 Great Lakes Brewery Porters.
• 11:30 PM: Exhausted and with a sore back, I hit the sack. Even the hotel bed feels good after standing on a concrete floor all day.

To read about Day Two, click here!

You can file this one under “sewing Easter baskets for Dummies”- it’s that easy. These are made from placemats, a little webbing, and a whole lotta crafty! Click on over to J Caroline Creative! and get the tutorial. These would be so cute customized for each child with their favorite color, initial, or character. (My Sweet Boy would love a Spider-man Easter basket.) Thinking of it that way, these could then be reused as tote bags. What fun!

I got a chance to get to the Lake Farm Park Quilt Show on Saturday - all by myself! It was lovely just to walk quietly through all of the quilts, without distractions from kids or hubby, and soak it all in.

Coupla things I noticed:

1. The show seemed smaller. I really think there were fewer bed-sized quilts this year.
2. There were more art quilts than traditional ones. And they were fantastic. Lots of food for thought.
3. The contributions for dolls, clothes, and bags were slim. Only 4 or 5 jackets that I can remember. (Note to self: Make wearables for next year!)

I took some random photos of quilts or details that spoke to me, and I’ve put them into this slideshow to share with you. Enjoy!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I’ve still got some felt left over from the Felted Chair Covers, so I was looking for a fun, easy way to use some up. I ran across the idea of felted needle cases from Sue Bleiweiss, and I thought I’d do a simple version of that.

I cut the white felt (the cover) with a scallop-edged rotary cutter, about 3 X 4 inches. I cut the inner piece of felt - in this case hot pink - about 3 X 3 inches. I layered the small piece on top of the larger one, folded it in half, and stuck a pin in it to keep it together. Then I sewed from the outside on the left, making the “binding.” (I used a decorative stitch for this. Why not?) I added some little hearts on the outside, hand-stitched a little accent with embroidery floss, and added a button trim.

I got 11 of these whipped up in a morning, and will be sending them out as RAKs… Random Acts of Kindess… to my ClothPaperStudio Yahoo Group sisters. Fun to give, easy to do, and uses up some of that stash!

Why not whip up a few yourself, add a few safety pins and loaded needles, and

• gift your kid’s teachers
• share with your mom, auntie, sister, neighbor
• tuck them away for holiday gifts
• stick one in your purse- you know you need one!

Get inspired by these- much cuter and more elaborate than mine.

Click on the image to visit the site- enjoy!

So I wrote about the Family Fun felt chair covers project earlier this week…and I had some morning time to myself today, so I thought I’d try them out. I decided to go with the “pocket” version (not in the instructions, but here in my head.)

I simply measured the widest part of the chair and added 1 1/2 inches for seam allowance. Then I measured the height of the chair from seat to top. I measured that length up the felt and made a small mark…. then pinned up the excess. to make a pocket on the out side. It kind of looked like an “N”…. Turned the whole shebang wrong-sides to, made two seams up the sides, turned it right-side out, and PRESTO! Chair covers with only 2 seams. I decided to add a “divider” in the pocket, so I put a seam in the middle. (Ok, that one was 3!)

Now I consider myself a sewer, but today I was lazy. I hot-glued the hearts onto the back. Why not? Maybe for the next set I’ll be fussier. In the meanwhile, I think they are as cute as anything, and hopefully they will keep the kids from scraping the wall with their chairs!

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

For a quick and inexpensive project, this gets a big thumbs up– Craftastic!

Talking with my friend Dawn today, and she was looking for some fun felt crafts for V-day. I was doing a search, and found this one for chair covers. How cute is this?!???

I’m thinking that each of the kids could decorate their own- maybe personalized with an initial.

Other ideas:

• Make them with a pocket on the back for notes, mail, or toys. (My kids always have toys at the table, and it’s a quick place to stow them when dinner is ready.
• Make them to fit the backs of wheelchairs and give some local nursing home residents a real boost!
• Make them to fit kids’ chairs for school. My son’s first grade teacher has one for each chair in the classroom, and there is a pocket at the bottom for handouts and small books.
• Stitch on a vinyl badge protector- like the ones they hand out at conferences- and use them as a changable photo display.
• You also could follow the basic instructions, but then sew the bottom together- maybe with a fun fringe (?) and then use it as a festive wall hanging.

We have a place in our living room just for seasonal quilts that I make. I’ve placed 2 3M Command wall hooks 12 inches apart, and on each wall hanging I sew 2 plastic o-rings 12 inches apart…. so I can swap them out without a problem. Clever, huh?