A Little Bit of Everything Crafty

Hello everyone! Since I finished the ginormous squares and frames quilt I've been kind of between quilts. I've been sewing some on my red and aqua gnome homes, just to have something to do. Here are my two latest.

My daughter is newly in love with owls, so she begged for an owl softie. She wanted it to be bigger than the ninja bat I made her last year, so here it is! I used the same tutorial from Juicy Bits that I used to make the owl ornaments last Christmas. I just cut out each piece in Photoshop and blew it up to 250%, then printed it out on its own paper. This pattern is so cute no matter what you do with it! Thank you Juicy Bits!

I've also been slowly adding to my stash of designer fabric, now that i'm a designer fabric snob in the most unflattering and haughty way. Here are the stacks of pink, red, green, blue, purple and neutral/white/multi in my Bergsbo fabric cabinet from IKEA.

And here are the stacks of yellow, orange, brown, black and grey, plus a stack of flannel backings. The solids are not good ones, just stuff I picked up a million years ago. My stash is super lacking in good kona/bella/butler solids, as in, I have none. Oh, except for that dark blue on top, that's Bella.

See anything you like?

What Did You Win?

Did you win anything in the Sew Mama Sew giveaways??? I won three things! I'm so happy. I entered almost every single one they had, like 200 giveaways!

The first is this gorgeous dress for Gigi from brownpaperpackages! I love the pieced star detail at the waist. I'm going to put it in the drawer and she will love it next year!

The second is this super cute rag softie named "Flakie" (as in snowflake) from Eerika at ragpets! Check out the sweet description of him on her blog. She describes how he can't wait for Christmas and then shows him tucked in bed and says, "Since going to bed early makes Santa come quicker, Flakey has donned his PJs and is going to sleep now in order to make the presents come faster." So cute!!! And now he's all mine - well, my two year old's anyway. He's flying in all the way from Finland to Texas. I should buy him a cowboy hat!



The third thing I won is this sweet little lunch bag from adelaidelemonade! I love that Farmer's Market flower and of course the Mendocino kelp stripe and seahorses. It's about 7"X8" so the perfect size to take my lunch in every day. If you want to make one for yourself, she has a tutorial here. You can make one too and we can be twins!

Edited to say: Wow, I was calling it an "easy" tutorial before but I just really looked at it and I can't believe the amount of work that went into this bag! I take it back, it wasn't easy! I appreciate it more now.

Thank you all and thank you too Sew Mama Sew!

And if you'd like to win some stuff, you still have a chance! Hop on over to Sew-Fantastic! She's only on the seventh day of Christmas, and besides, you can enter the first six right now if you want. Check it out!

Just a Little Monster

My husband is a fabulous cartoonist and he is always drawing little characters. He drew this guy really quickly and asked me to make a stuffed animal for him. So I did!


Here he is, brought to life! He gave me a heck of a time turning those skinny arms and legs out, and trying to get stuffing to go into them, but I won that battle! I even used a fat quarter of monster fabric from a lot that my husband bought me at the quilt shop for a surprise. If you click on the photo you can see the scary monster faces in the fabric.


By nightfall, the monster had been taken over by my six year old and installed in his rightful place, next to all the other monsters and toys I've made. My sister makes these minky pillows for kids to tuck dolls into, aren't they great?

My son said the monster looked lonely, but he sure doesn't anymore, does he? He's got his arm around Ninja Bat and Ninja Bunny and he's smiling to beat the band.


So what do you say, have you ever made a stuffed toy? Want to try?

Going Batty

Okay, I'll admit, I've gone a little batty lately making toys, but I really like it! My 24 yo daughter Heather asked me to make this bat for her.


See, here is her sketch of what she wanted me to make.


....And here is what I made! Pretty close! I think it was drawn as a bat ninja, hence the sash tie on the right and the crosswise thing (a bow case strap?). I was going to add the cross strip in felt, but it interfered with the bat signal detail at the waist.


He's coming to get ya! The only thing I would improve is the stumpy wings. She had them drawn stumpy and I am running out of felt, so I only could make stumpy, but I feel like the body needs bigger wings to balance it out. Next time.


The end.

Enjoy! Wendy

A Monster in My Closet (Plus a note about the Monster in My Closet quilt pattern)

Who's that peeking out of my son's closet door???


AAAAAAAGHH! It's a monster! A monster in the closet. I had such fun making the birdies that I decided to just cut out what I thought a monster would look like without a pattern and see if it was a disaster. I gave him some scary teeth and a belt buckle (?). I have to say, I'm very pleased!


My son is also very pleased! I told him that it was a monster whose job it was to scare away bad dreams, but he would only go to work for the person whose name was written on his back. My son said "but that's my name!" I also love the tail and the blockiness of the letters.

Edited to say - If you're looking for the quilt pattern for the "monster in my closet quilt", I noticed a lot of people were finding this post while searching for that pattern, so I scanned in my copy I'd saved from years ago and will send it to you. Just click on my profile to get my email. I'm glad to help!
Edited to say - It's 2016 and i'm still getting requests for this pattern : ) It's still available btw.

I Made Toys!

Look at me! I'm a toymaker! I didn't know I had it in me. You know, the inspiration from all of you out in the blogging world is really opening me up creatively. I was only a quilter until I started reading blogs and now i've made pot holders and toys too. I'm slowly branching out.

I promised twohippos that since she paid it forward to me with the beautiful apron, I would pay it forward to others by making toys and leaving them for strangers. I chose an easy toy to make from this great tutorial. I love the blog I found it on, mollychicken. I liked that it had some felt and some fabric, plus the interactivity of the baby in the egg in the pouch.

I'm pretty proud of it! It's so cute! Here is the baby out of the pouch...

And here is the baby out of the egg. Well, I loved this little birdy, but she looked pretty lonely sitting there in her tree...

So I made her some family members! I enlarged the pattern and made bigger ones. That's daddy in the blue on the left with Junior in the front carrier, and that's mommy in the middle. I'm going to enlarge the pattern even more and make one medium teddy bear size! I can't seem to stop making these!

The End(s).