I decided to make a new large pin cushion for my sewing desk. I needed one that was big and heavy, one that I couldn’t lose or knock over accidentally.
I don’t know if I’m the only one who tends to lose things in the midst of a project, but I’d guess I’m not the only one with backups. I’ve got a selection of scissors, multiple packages of needles, a spare pair of reading glasses, and a collection of pin cushions scattered about. (If however, you’re the kind of person with perfect organization who always know exactly where every supply is just play along for my benefit.) Besides that, A quick and easy pin cushion project is just the thing for a blah rainy afternoon.
This is the cushion I created. It’s a basic rectangle shape with a big flower on top. I made it to fit inside this low, wide planter making it nearly impossible to lose!
After the jump I’ll share my technique for making the cushion and give a tutorial to make the petals for the flower.
I made this sleeve for a friend who lost the case for his blackberry.
I used a sturdy black canvas for the fabric and some heavy weight interfacing to help protect the phone.
The strap that holds the phone in wraps around the back so he can put it on his belt if he wants to.
There’s also a slit on the side to accommodate the charging cable or the headphone jack.
One of my favorite things about the case is the magnetic closure I used for the strap. The blackberry turns itself off whenever the case is closed because it has a magnetic sensor under the keyboard.
I love to have my music with me everywhere I go, but I hate the tangled mess my wires become when I toss them in my bag or pocket. Last night I whipped up a fun and functional solution by adding a zipper to my earbuds.
This project took me around an hour to do (perfect for catching up on some t.v. from hulu.com). The supplies are few; basic sewing supplies, a pair of headphones, and a nice long zipper. I happened to have this crazy purple and gold nike zipper I found thrifting a while ago, it seemed perfect for this project.
The first step is to pull the earbuds apart, to separate the wires all the way down to the plug.
Next, take one side of your headphones and one side of the zipper tape and start stitching the wire into the tape. Simply fold the outside edge of the tape under to the wrong side (enclosing the wire) and use a running stitch to hold it in place. A little bit of glue could be used at the top to attach the end of the zipper to the earbud, but I found that it wasn’t necessary for me.
It’s as easy as that! Zipped up, I can toss them into my bag or pocket without worrying about tangles or having them get caught on something and breaking.
Then unzip them to the length I want and put them on so much faster than having to untangle the mess!
I took a moment this morning to snap a couple of photos of my black and white quilt. The sun is actually shining today and the quilt was just begging for my attention!
The quilt is officially half way done now. It measures 70″ by 45″, once it’s done it will be a 70″x90″. There are 54 hand quilted squares there! (and that means 54 more to do, oooh).
I am still really liking the quilt as you go method for joining the squares . With this technique you never have to have more than one block’s width rolled up under the arm of your sewing machine. (the blocks are hand quilted, but pieced together by machine). I also love that it is pieced together so that it is patchwork on the front and back, too. To be honest, I am feeling a bit intimidated with the amount of work left to do. Each of these blocks takes me 45 minutes to an hour to quilt (I’m slow, but getting better!). I even toyed with the idea of machine quilting some of the squares just to keep motivated and get some of it done quickly, but a friend told me, “Don’t do it! you’ll never forgive yourself”. I laughed, but I thought about it and she was right. I just know I’ll be proud of it when I’m done and know that I put so much effort into it, and didn’t compromise my plan.
Right now I just want it done so I can snuggle up under it.
Drew Carney (from PDX channel 8 local news) was out visiting the “Breadquarters” for Dave’s Killer Bread early this morning. I’m a huge fan of Dave and his bread. It’s the best bread in Portland. Healthy and organic, local to Portland, and unbelievably sinfully delicious! But don’t take my word for it, you might think I’m biased having a handful of friends and family proudly working for the company. Take a look at Dave’s facebook and you can see what everyone else is saying. Honestly, once you’ve had this bread, you’ll never look at bread the same way again.
Anyway, when I heard that the bakery would be on the news this morning I borrowed a television from my mom and set my alarm for 5am. It was fun to see the segments throughout the news showing different parts of the bakery, and a few familiar faces (Hi Zac!), but what got me personally quite excited was right at the end. Dave and Drew were talking and standing by a table covered in the different kinds of killer bread, including one of my favorites, Good Seed:
And right on top was Good Seed, a stuffed version of the lovable logo I made as a gift for Dave from our little group.
Yes, I felt silly taking a photo of a television, but I was really excited!
I had made a set of Good Seed for myself last summer and had them sitting out as an xmas fireplace decoration this last December:
A friend of mine mentioned that Dave would love them. It thought it was a great idea, and something personal I could do to show my appreciation for Dave. He’s an inspirational person, and the opportunities this company has given to people I care a lot about has changed our lives so much. I started right away on a second set of good seed to give.
They’re a simple stuffie, made from fleece. I embroidered the faces and ended up doing a lot of hand sewing on these guys. They were just one of those projects that I totally underestimated how long it would take (and completely forgot how much time I spent on the first set). Something I thought I could knock out in just a couple of hours ended up taking close to ten hours over the course of a week! Turning those tiny limbs right side out and getting them smoothly stuffed, and then getting everything stitched together was rough. Totally worth it, though. Their sweet smiling faces just brighten the day, I think, and I was just so proud to see that Dave liked them enough to include them in their interview this morning. Thanks!
A while ago I thrifted this Cashmere hoodie that was so soft and warm and a lovely grey. Sadly, it was a little small and had a few holes along some of the seams, but I knew it would be great for a recon project. This morning my chilly toes were just calling out for some toasty socks and it clicked, I need some cashmere knee socks!
I snipped off the sleeves and cut some roughly foot shaped pieces from the hood to make the bottom of the sock. The end of the sleeve with the cuff would become the top of the sock.
I lined up the heel of my foot tracing with the seam on the sleeve. The wider toe part of the bottom lined up with the higher part of the sleeve that used to be the top of the shoulder.
Just a quick stitch around, attaching the bottom piece to the sleeve. Repeated for the other sleeve.
Sweet! Cashmere socks for under $5 and in less than 10 minutes.
I received a lot of great comments and interesting questions from people about my past post on my glow stick hoops. I was delighted to see a link posted to my blog at Hooping.org. I love that site for videos and music suggestions. The glow sticks are a great and cheap way to make a glowing hoop on a tight budget. The lights will glow all night, but there are some downsides. The glow sticks do rattle inside the hoop (although it never bothered me, I guess some people don’t like that), and unfortunately, the glow sticks will have to be removed and disposed of. It’s a small amount of waste but they can’t be recycled. I had a question about the toxicity of the glow sticks and I can tell you that they’re not harmful. I wouldn’t suggest ingesting them, but the chemicals won’t hurt you or the planet any more than household cleaning products. I actually had one break open and it made a big glowing mess on my hands, but I didn’t have any adverse reaction.
Anyway, I would certainly suggest the glow stick hoop for someone who just wants a glowing hoop for a special night or just every once in a while. If you plan on hooping at night often (and you probably will, it’s crazy addictive) an LED hoop is a must. I’m delighted to announce that I have conquered soldering and leds and made myself a couple!
It actually wasn’t that hard, and with all the materials together (including the hoop tubing I had used for the glow stick hoop) it came in under $50 for supplies. It did take me ALL day to make my big blue/green and flashing red hoop. It’s got more than 80 5mm LEDs on it’s length and glows really brightly.
(click above images to see full size)
I haven’t yet come up with a good solution for the battery, though. I used a 9 volt so I’d only need one battery, but it doesn’t fit inside the tubing so I just taped it to the exterior of the hoop with the wires going through a small hole. Before you ask, no, the battery doesn’t effect the hooping at all on the outside of the hoop. I’ve used this hoop for hours and hours now and can’t even tell it’s there. I know a lot of people use AA or AAA sized batteries and put them inside the hoop, but they also use 1 inch tubing or more. I really like the smaller 3/4 inch tubing myself. Having the wires come out of the hoop at the ends I can pull the wires nice and tight and tape them down near the connector to keep the LEDs from rattling inside. Because I’m using the smaller tubing there isn’t enough room to wrap the LEDs in bubblewrap like I’ve seen some people do.
Anyway, I’m silly happy with my LED hoops and I’m sure I’ll be making more.
Here are some long exposure shots and a short video clip with my hoop:
I strung some beads this weekend as my “laundromat project”. I think time waiting for your washers and dryers is best spent with a little project to work on, and this week I made myself a simple necklace.
I quite like it. It’s long enough to slide over my head so it doesn’t have a clasp at the back, but it does have a clasp hanging from the center front to hold the pendant.
Now I can wear my scissors everywhere! They’ve already come in handy a couple of times!
Last summer I heard about making your own hula hoops. I found out that hoops you find in the toy isle at the store just aren’t that great, and a bigger, heavier hoop can not only make hooping easier, but it’s a lot more fun, too! Since then I’ve spent many hours outside hooping it up, learning some tricks, and surprisingly getting a great workout (and the bruises and sore muscles that can come with it, ha!).
I’ve made quite a few hoops now. I’ve tried a bunch of different sizes and weights to see how they feel. Smaller, lighter ones are great for fast spinning. Bigger, slower hoops are perfect for a relaxing spin. I’ve made most of them out of cheap irrigation tubing I picked up at the Home Depot, but after seeing some cool LED hoops online (starting at $100!) I decided I wanted a glowing hoop, but for cheaper. The cheap tubing I was buying is black and opaque, so I set off again in search of a better tube. I found Pex tubing this week. It’s a white and more transparant kind of tubing intended for potable water. After visiting some home improvement stores for tubing and my friendly neighborhood dollar store to score some glow sticks I just had to wait until it was dark and start spinning light.
Glowing hoops in the grass
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a picture of the hoops actually spinning, but you’ll just have to trust me, they look really cool. The larger one is for me, and is about 13 feet of tubing and 7 glow necklaces. The smaller one is perfect for my favorite 8 year old and is 10 feet long and has 15 glow bracelets. The glow sticks work great for one night, but I’m planning on running leds through them for more uses.
The black irrigation tubing for regular hoops I get at the home depot on SE 82nd ave in Clackamas. They have it in rolls of that make about 6-8 adult hoops for around $20. I like the 3/4″ tubing and the grey connectors that fit at 28 cents apiece (you just need one per hoop) note: There’s also 1/2″ tubing that is a lot cheaper, but it just doesn’t work. It’s worse than the cheapie kids’ hoops you’re trying to replace.
These glowing hoops were made from “Pex” tubing. Besides their color difference from the other tubing, it’s also a little bit smaller (even though it’s also called 3/4″ tubing) so you’ll also need different connectors. I found 10 foot lengths of pex at the Lowes out by milwaukee for about $3.50. One of these is perfect for smaller people, but I like having 12-13 feet of length so I picked one up for the kiddo and kept looking. They only had some big rolls of it for around $45, but I wasn’t sure yet how well it would work so I wasn’t ready to invest that much yet. I looked again at the home depot, but in a different isle than my black tubing and found the pex there, too. They had one piece that was cut at 3/4″, but it was only 5 feet long. Luckily, I also found a roll of 25′ for $15.50, which is perfect to make two hoops my size!
Just wanted to share this little project I whipped up this weekend. I brought the linen and some crewel wool with me to the laundrymat to keep me busy while I was waiting for the machines to do their thing. I sketched it out and stitched up the trees and grass during the wash cycle, then decided it needed a little lamb while the dryers were running.
And a couple of detail shots:
At first, I made the sheep’s body with a double layer of satin stitch, but it just didn’t look right. I think the french knot curls lood adorable, and since I layered the french knots on top of two layers of satin stitch it really stands out and has a great texture.
Now I just need to know what to do with it! I’s about 4″x6″, so maybe a little pouch? a pin cushion? I don’t know do you have any suggestions?
