I made a...

QUILT!! I made a quilt, a legitimate quilt. I pieced a queen sized quilt last year but chickened out when it came to actually 'quilting' it. For this one, I was determined to do it the right way. I used a template and a rotary cutter to perfectly square up all the pieces, pressed all the seams open, and used hundreds of safety pins to make sure that the layers of batting, backing and top were smooth and flat before quilting. Bingo!

I used Jay Bird Quilts' "Large Dot Party" pattern and it was really simple. I used all prints instead of a single solid color with a few contrasting prints like the directions recommended. I'd like to try that too.

You can see here that P's room is still a work in progress. Lamps with no shades...nothing hung on the walls...no rails on the 'big boy bed.' We are slowly transitioning from crib to bed, I'm waiting to see how he does at night with baby brother's room right next door before I give up the luxury of having him contained. I love, love, love the bed! It's exactly how I imagined it (think Downton Abbey hospital beds :). It's from Pottery Barn Kids if anyone is interested, I snatched it up when they went on sale a couple of weeks ago.

The quilt is backed with a soft, black and white ticking striped, cotton duck (on sale at Hancock's right now) and I used a super low loft batting. I love the back almost as much as the front and will definitely  use both sides, depending on what sheets are on the bed, etc...

One of the things I adore about quilts is how they look after being washed and dried, I think I'll love this one even more after a few washes. There are raw edges around every circular shape. I think it will add a lot of softness and a vintage feel when the edges fray.

P had a ball pointing out animals and toys and colors. I am wild about every single print and tried to keep it playful and boyish, he will be able to use this for years. I used so many prints that I'm not going to list them all, if you have a specific question just leave it in the comments section.

The only shortcut I took with this quilt was to use the backing for a self-binding, instead of cutting bias strips and all that. I like it and don't think it takes away from the look or the quality at all. I totally finished it in 3 nap times, not bad for a twin sized quilt. (Disclaimer: my little guy takes anywhere from a 3 to 4 hour nap-so maybe a 12 hour project)

1) Preparing/cutting/assembling the blocks
2) Piecing the quilt top
3) Laying out quilt sandwich/pinning/quilting/binding

I think he likes it! Cozy!

"Tie-in'-It-Up" Tee

My blog has a new home, visit Toddler "Tie-in'-It-Up" Tee

Tutorial: Simple Button Placket

My blog has a new home. Visit to see my popular Button Placket Tutorial.

Aden and Anais Swaddlers Tutorial

My blog has a new home! Come on over to see my Hand Stamped Swaddlers and Tutorial.

Boy Belt in a Snap Tutorial

Since P has gotten a little bigger and is wearing more pants with beltloops, I've been wanting to make him a belt. Toddler size belts are in limited supply out there. The other day, I noticed this one of my husband's, it gave me a few ideas.

Source

You've probably seen belts like this, made of simple woven cotton belting covered with fabric and sometimes sports insignias. I thought it would be a relatively easy thing to reproduce with some neat variations to make it a little more young and fun. I went with a striped, linen look fabric, but it would also be really fun to use a bright print, embroider designs or use fabric paint to stamp or stencil.


I've included two different 'routes' in this tutorial. Both are very quick, less than an hour, but one is much simpler and the other is a little more involved. Either way, you'll end up with a great toddler belt that no one will believe you made!

Here's what you need:

Notes:
     *If you want to take the simpler method, use two, one inch d-rings and no snaps.
       If you want snaps, also pick up some gel super glue or liquid stitches.
     *I used one inch wide belting, you could go a little wider for an older child (with
       bigger pants ;).
     *I just realized the picture below could be a bit confusing, the cardstock is three
      quarters of an inch wide and for the belting length take your child's waist plus 5 or
      6 inches.

Prepping the Fabric
Take the fabric for the belt front and back and the cardstock strip to your ironing board. (P.S. If you're going to be using the snaps, choose a fairly thin cloth, mine is really thin, linen-look. I only needed 1/8 yd). Center the cardstock on the fabric, fold the edges over and iron.

Do this for both pieces of fabric, now you have two lovely, straight strips of single fold bias tape (although it's not cut on the bias) that are exactly 3/4" wide.

(Sooo...obviously what I should be sewing is a new ironing board cover...)

Attaching Fabric to Belting:
Take the shorter piece of fabric, starting at one end of the belting, center the fabric and pin in place.

Set your machine to a dense zig-zag and stitch across the raw end as shown. (I tucked the sides in a little so that the stitches will be hidden behind the fabric on the other side.)

Return to a straight stitch and edgestitch all the way around the shorter fabric piece, attaching it to belting. Next, take the longer fabric strip, center and pin in place on the other side of the belt. Sew around the edges. Trim ends if needed.

End Tab:
Now grab your 2" x 2" square, it's going to be a tab to cover the raw end of the belt that has fabric on both sides.

OK! If you are taking the simple route, this is your last step!! If you are going it the other way, you're almost to the tricky part :).

SIMPLE ROUTE (D-Ring Belt Buckle):
Thread the raw end of the belt through TWO one inch d-rings (photo below only shows one, but they're attached the same way).  Fold the raw end under and sew across the fold, forward and backstitching securely. That's it! You have a cool, grown up boy belt with tons of easy variations. Different colored belting, bright fabrics, you name it! To fasten, thread tabbed end through both d-rings, then (reverse direction) around the first d-ring and through the second. Easy to adjust and it keeps those pants up around the waist instead of the knees!

SNAP CLOSURE ROUTE:
Attach ONE one inch d-ring to the raw end of the belt, shown below. On to the next step!

(Ignore the fact that I started out using a 1 1/4" d-ring here)

SNAP PLACEMENT:

I recommend starting with one snap stud and decorative prong cap on the tabbed end of the belt. The side with the shorter piece of fabric is what will show when the belt is pulled through the d-ring then back over itself to snap closed. So the decorative side will be on the shorter piece of fabric. Go ahead and set this snap. (See my tips for snap setting further down the page).

Now, try the belt on your child, while he is wearing a pair of pants with belt loops. Pull the end until it fits, make a mark where the snap socket side should go (this is going to be the tightest setting on your belt). Go ahead and set the socket snap in place

Where you add the other snap sockets so that the belt has adjustable lengths is up to you, tape them in place then experiment before you set them. I used decorative prong caps (with sockets or studs) anywhere that they would show. I like the look of them across the front of the belt.

*The bottom belt was my first sample, see how the Dritz snap setter indented the cap? I like the top belt better, using matching prong caps where they show turned out nicer.

Snap Setting Tips:
1) Don't try to use the Dritz snap setter recommended for size 24 snaps. It only works for one side and bends up the snaps horribly. Go with the spool of thread/hammer method described on the snap packaging. I found that if I started with light taps as I rotated the spool of thread (the snap is only in contact with those four plastic spokes) the snap closed more evenly and securely. Then several hard taps, still rotating the spool.

2)  The snaps are the part I love most from my original idea/sketches of this belt, they look so cool and industrial. BUT...there are a few limitations and endless variations on snap placement. The problem arises when a snap hits squarely at the d-ring. There are ways around it, but it limits the adjustability of your belt (this is a little hard to explain until you start fiddling around with snap placement, you'll see what I mean). If you decide to depart from my recommendations below, definitely tape them in place and experiment before you do anything permanent.

3) The belting is quite thick, but the snaps go through it pretty well. Thin fabric helps, but I had some snaps pull out of my first belt trial. After adding a few little dabs of super glue to the prongs, they worked perfectly. The gel is good because it doesn't bleed.

Rather than setting all the snaps at once, you could just add snaps as your child grows...although I could see myself doing that and having a Sunday morning that goes a little something like this :

Husband: "Are you ready yet?"

Me: "Yes, just one second, where's the hammer?"

Husband: "Hammer, what are you doing? We're going to be late and P's pants are falling down."

Me: "I. Know. That. Just get in the car, I'll be right there."

So cute! I'm going to have fun experimenting with patterns and colors. This could be a great women's belt as well!

P.S. If you make one, let me know how it went. Leave comments or add photos to the Flickr pool, "You Sewed!"

(I was browsing Elsie Marley's tutorials and saw she posted a really similar belt for boys on her site. I swear, I think the third belt down in the first photo is the same fabric! I like her solution to the snaps...)

"Bring-Me-Some-Spring" Reversible Coat

I've been completely fascinated by this season of Project Run and Play, the things that these ladies are whipping out week after week is amazing! They have such great ideas and even better, they are able to execute them! This week is outerwear and since I had snagged the perfect fabric (I've been eyeing it for weeks and waiting for a sale. Finally got it for $3.99 a yard! Yes!) I decided to go ahead and sew it up so that I could "Sew Along."

I'm so happy with how it turned out. I call it the "Bring-Me-Some-Spring" Reversible Coat, because while it might still be a little sober, dark and gray outside, the bright colors and sunny, blue skies of spring are just around the corner...

(Get it?  Reversible coat... ;)

I love this lightweight, gray suiting fabric! It is soft and sturdy, warm but not bulky(bulky is bad for the ol' carseat) and machine washable. I saw it on the shelves in the fall and thought it was perfect for a boy coat. The line of bright blue is still playful enough for little guys and the dashed white line gives it a 'ticking' stripe feel. Both sides of the jacket have welt pockets (with a fun, contrasting color inside).

The fall and winter side has corduroy covered buttons. The underside of the collar is bright blue and because this coat is size 2/3 the sleeves are a little long but P will be able to wear it all through next year-I like the cuffs and pop of color that they add.

The spring side is a soft, baby wale corduroy in what I refer to as eye-popping blue. The buttons are flaming red stitched on with sunny yellow thread. I love the colors and I think P will wear this a lot during the cool spring months when we are all craving warm weather but it's still too cold for warm weather clothes.

Shoo, catching this guy in one place was a chore! I kept standing him where I wanted then sprinting away to snap a few photos then repeating the whole process again. It's worth it!

I used the 2-in-1 Reversible Coat pattern from Figuerosa and LePage's book Sewing for Boys but I added welt pockets to both sides. It's a really great pattern with lots of room for adapting to your own taste and style. I kept it pretty simple to reduce bulk and because I like simple clothes for boys!

"Sewing For Boys" Follow-Up

I had a couple questions from a loyal reader (my friend H ;) about the Sewing for Boys book that I posted about HERE. A few more facts:

1) This book has contains 24 different patterns! That's a great value, one book, 24 patterns, 24 sets of great directions and tons of new techniques and basics that you'll use again.

2) The clothes featured in this book are wearable and they look like boys clothes-not girly.  Some are really simple (like sweat pants and raglan t's) and some are for special occasions. There are sizes 0-6 for a few things, but most are size 2-7. That's a lot of years to cover in one book! A lot of years when boys are rolling around in the dirt...a lot of ruined clothes needing replacement...

3) I like how the book is organized. It's "A Year in the Life of a Boy." The first four chapters are the four different seasons, with 4 clothing projects in each season-from a great pair of PJ's to swim trunks to a reversible coat to a hooded pullover. Everything has directions for beautiful, professional finishing, but the book is still really practical. The fifth is all fun things: a playmat with a racetrack, a lego carrying kit and more. The last chapter shows you some techniques for recycling old t-shirts: applique to cover up stains, fishing hat, patchwork blanket. Tons of great ideas!

So, if you have any other questions just post a comment! I am going to be working on a super lightweight spring/fall jacket for P using this book so I will post that soon!

If you haven't already, get on over to Project Run and Play to see the great designs for Boys Week!