Home remedies, recipes, and VooDoo.

Materials:

• Ribbon or bias tape
• Scissors
• Needle and thread
• ¼” Elastic
• Book or journal

Ribbon Option:

Create a rolled ruffle about 2 inches longer than the book or journal. Need help making a rolled ruffle? Learn how to make one here.

Fold under each end of the ribbon.

Cut a piece of elastic to fit the book or journal. I used 6 inches here. Insert the elastic at each end on the underside of the rolled ribbon. Sew the elastic in place (a couple lines straight across the elastic, better seen in the bias tape option).

Insert the decorative bookmark in your favorite book or wrap it around your journal.

Bias Tape Option:

Cut a piece of bias tape the length of a book or journal. Unfold one end of the bias tape, fold the end inward, and fold the bias tape back. Cut a piece of elastic. I used 6 inches. Insert the elastic into the end of the bias tape and sew the elastic in place with a couple of lines.

You can use them as bookmarks or book decorations.

Double up on one book for more personality and fun!

Or wrap the strap all the way around a journal to keep it closed.

For this project you will need:

• Paper pattern pieces cut from the Stuffed Dinosaur sewing pattern Page 1 of 2 and Stuffed Dinosaur sewing pattern Page 2 of 2. To print properly to a full A4 you need to Download the images then print them. Each of these pattern pieces is an A4 or standard letter size sheet. Join the sheets along the dotted line and cut the pattern pieces. A seam allowance of 0.5cm (1/4 inch) is given, add more if you like.
• Fabric- I used good old quilting cotton here but any non-stretchy material will do, although heavier upholstery type fabrics will be harder to turn right side out. Use a fun contrasting fabric for the scales along the back or even a multitude of colours.
• 1 pair safety eyes- these are easy to find in craft store, fabric stores and on the net but you could replace them with felt eyes, fabric paint eyes, buttons etc.
• Stuffing- I used fibre fill but old pillow stuffing, sewing scraps etc could be substituted
• Scissors
• Thread

To begin:
Cut all your pattern pieces like so-
Note the blue scales at the bottom are two pieces of fabric each. For the scales I used three of the larger scales, two of the medium and one of the smallest. Remember to cut two of the sides of the bodies and only 1 of the underside of the body. You’ll need four of the circles for the pads of the feet.

With the fabric wrong sides together, sew the all scales along four sides only, leaving the bottom edge unsewn to enable turning right side out, as shown below:

This seam allowance is only 0.5 of a cm else the scales get too bulky. At each corner snip away the fabric as shown so that the corners are pointy when we turn them right sides out.

Turn all the scales right sides out (and press with an iron if you wish) and place to one side.

 Next by matching up the leg pieces and starting at the feet sew the underside of the body to the side of the body. Note- DO NOT sew up the bottom of the feet. The photo below shows the three seams- front leg to chin, back of front leg to front of back leg and finally back leg to underside tail. Also note that the underside body only reaches to the chin and stops before the end of the tail.

Sew the other side body to the piece created above using the same method of starting at one of the legs. Here is a detail shot of what should happen at the the tail. It looks very similar at the chin. DO NOT at this stage sew along the back or around the head, Only sew the underside of the body to the side pieces. Not the side pieces to each other.

Take your scales and line them along your dinosaurs back. I placed mine largest to smallest.

Flip each of the scales towards the inside of the body, sandwiching each scale between the side body pieces. Pin these in place since they tend to move about.

I didn’t get any photo’s of the next few steps.
Sew the body closed by starting at the chest where the underside of the body piece ends, around the head and to the tail. The only opening should be the undersides of the feet. Sew three of the four feet circles into three of the four leg tubes to complete them. For help on this see “Making the Feet” in the Baby Elephant Tutorial. Use the remaining open foot to turn the dinosaur the right way around.
At this point  I loosely stuff just the head to get a feel for it and mark where I want the eyes to be. Then I remove the stuffing and insert the safety eyes according to their instructions. You can skip this step if painting or sewing on the eyes later
Beginning at the head and tip of the tail stuff the dinosaur firmly. If he is too soft his neck will flop from side to side. Once the stuffing is completed sew the last foot pad circle into the last open leg to close it.

What you will need:

• 2 to 3 socks (depending on how long they are. I used 3.)
• quilt batting or polyester fiberfill (I used the stuffing from an old pillow)
• popcorn kernels (you could also use dried beans, peas)

Starting with the popcorn kernels, alternate adding layers of the two materials. I used a small plastic cup with the bottom cut out to facilitate pouring the corn in (but I still managed to get it all over the floor!)

I think each layer of corn kernels ended up being approximately 1 cup, but I didn’t measure. Each layer of “stuffing” was comprised of a couple of big handfuls of the stuff. There is no precise measuring here…you just want about a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture.

The popcorn is used for weight and won’t go rancid like some other dried goods. The batting/stuffing helps give the sock some shape and insulates against the cold air. Pack each tube all the way to the end, with the final layer being the stuffing.

Repeat with 2nd (and 3rd?) sock(s). Now attach the sock sections to each other by simply overlapping the open end of one sock over the closed end of another. Think of it as “putting a sock on” your sock! When the sock sections are fitted snugly together, a few hand sewn stitches will keep it all in place. Or you could even use some fabric glue if you are allergic to needle and thread. :-)

What you need:
One adult t-shirt in any size, I used a male medium.
Baby Shortall Pattern size 6-12 mos
sewing supplies and sewing machine

1. Lay out your t-shirt and place the neckline of the pattern on the neckline of the shirt.

 

2. Pin through both layers.

3. Cut out. At the neckline cut straight up then cut across into the neck hole at the top of the pattern. (If your neckline is really big, you might not need the whole neckline.

 

4. Cut out the other pieces. When cutting out the sleeves, place the bottom on a hem so you don’t have to hem the sleeves. You should have one front and one back, four leg opening pieces, two sleeves, and one crotch piece.

5. Perfect the shoulders by angling in the edge so that the neckline ends in a point.

 

6. With the back on the bottom right side facing down and the front lying on top facing down, overlap the points by 2”.
*This is where you can alter the pattern for head size and shoulder width. If your baby has a big head and wide shoulders, overlap less. If your baby has a small head and small shoulders, overlap more.

7. Find the center of the sleeve by folding in half.

8. Line up the center of the sleeve with the center of the 2” right sides together.

9. Sew a zigzag at 1/4”.

This is what your neckline and shoulders should look like.

10. With right sides together line up the sleeve seams at the armpit. There will be a difference in length because of the size of the neckline. Also, the white arrow is point to the corner where the side should meet the sleeve. It doesn’t meet because I overlapped my neckline 2”. If you overlap yours less, I left room on the patter so that you will have more room in the sides.

11. I drew a line from my sleeve seem to my hem and pinned. (It’s hard to see in the picture.) Sew with a zigzag at 1/4” from sleeve hem, pivot under the sleeve and then sew down to the bottom.

12. Trim off excess.

13. Now lay down your shortall and cut off the excess so that the back to matches the front.

14. Fold the back and the football to find the center of each.

15. With right sides together, match the centers together.

16. Pin together. This is a little tricky because the two pieces are opposing curves. Sew at 1/4”.

This is what it should look like.

17. With right sides together sew with a straight stitch at 1/8” on the outside curve. Do the same to the other two.

18. Turn right sides out.

19. With rights sides together pin the inside curve to the front inseam. Sew with a straight stitch at 1/8”.

20. Flip over to the inside and sew with a straight stitch at 1/2” from the inseam.

This is what it should look like.

21. With right sides together pin the inside curve to the back inseam.

22. Pin up the bottom 5/8” and sew with either a zigzag or a double needle.

23. Apply the closure of your choice. I did both snaps and buttons. I prefer buttons and buttonholes.

1.  Measure the circumference of your steering wheel.  Mine was 48”.  Wrap your tape measure around the wheel like you would your hand when grabbing it.  From front to back.  This will tell you how wide to make it.  I made mine 4” wide.

2.  Cut out a strip of fabric at those dimensions plus seam allowance.

3.  The easiest way to sew is to fold over half an inch on each long side to make a casing for the elastic.  Sew those down.  You’ll want to use small stretchy elastic.

4.  To cut out the elastic to fit, stretch the elastic almost as far as it will stretch to the circumference of the steering wheel.  When you relax it, it should be considerably smaller than the wheel but able to stretch to that measurement.

5.  Feed both elastics through the casings you just made and secure on both ends.  Then sew the two short ends of the strip of fabric together to make a complete circle.

6.  Done!

To start, spread your fabric out on a large flat surface (the {clean} floor works great), measure it, and cut each panel about 10″ longer than you’d like your curtains.

Once your fabric is cut, it’s time to iron!

I ironed the reverse of the fabric just to be safe. I didn’t want my iron freaking out on me or anything and ruining my fabric. That would suck hard core.

If you don’t like to iron, you might as well give up now. You will do more ironing than sewing!

I ironed the entire curtain panel first, then I ironed both of the length-wise edges (sides). It’s much easier to sew the panels if the seams are completely ironed first.

To iron the edge, fold the raw edge over about 1/2″ and press. Do this down the entire edge of the fabric.

Once your edge is ironed, fold it over again and iron a 2nd time. This is your finished edge that you will sew in a few minutes.

Once your edge is ironed, you’ll need to iron the opposite edge as well.

Both edges should now be ironed about 1/2″, then folded over and ironed about a 1/2″ again to create a finished edge.

Now iron the TOP of the curtain fabric about 1/2″ over.

Instead of folding it over a 2nd time and ironing a 1/2″, this time fold over and iron about 3″. This is creating the finished edge of the top of the curtain.

You should now have 3 edges ironed over (twice each) and the bottom edge of the fabric left untouched.

From here, leave your curtain fabric alone. We will now prep the fabric for the lining of the curtain.

I wanted a cheap solution for the lining, but that was also good quality. My solution? Cream colored twin top sheets from Wal-Mart. They are $5 each, and I bought two packages – one for each curtain panel. They are the perfect length, and just a tad too wide. They are a great alternative to curtain lining fabric and come in a wide variety of colors.

I didn’t pre-wash the curtain fabric or the sheets. If I ever need to wash them, I will hang them to dry to prevent shrinkage.

First step to prepping the sheet (curtain lining), cut the hem off of both long edges of the sheet and the bottom edge.

Now un-stitch the top edge of the sheet.

Lucky you… more ironing! Iron the entire top sheet once the top edge is un-stitched and the other 3 edges are cut off.

Lay your sheet over the top of the reverse side of your curtain fabric making sure the top and left edge are lined up perfectly with the edge of the curtain fabric. (I am a leftie, so my tutorial is made for left-handed people. If you feel comfortable, you may want to line up the right side first. Otherwise, just stick to the left-handed instructions.)

Slowly tuck the edge of the sheet under your ironed edge on the curtain fabric. Tuck only the top and left side. Don’t worry about the right side or the fact that the sheet is too wide for your curtain.

Your top and left edges will now look like this:

Pretty, hua?! Lookin’ good so far!

Work your way along the top and left-side edges and pin them every 6″ or so. Make sure your pin attaches to the curtain inside the pleat as well.

Now {finally!} it’s time to sew! Don’t be intimidated by this step. You are only sewing a straight stitch. No curves or anything!

Sew along the pinned edges, removing your pins as you go. Sew about an 1/8″ from your inner seam on each edge. This will leave an almost 3″ gap when you sew along the top of your curtain but that is okay. You can even use that pocket to stick the curtain rod through if you choose to hang them that way instead of with curtain clips.

When you have both edges sewn, lay your fabric out on the floor again paying close attention to getting your sheet and fabric both as smooth and flat as possible.

From here you need to remove the excess sheet fabric along the right side of your panel. Carefully cut it along the curtain edge making sure to not cut your curtain fabric. Also, don’t cut it too narrow. The sheet needs to be long enough to tuck inside your curtain seam.

Once the sheet is completely cut up the right side, you will do as you did on the other edges – tuck the curtain under the pre-ironed curtain seam, pin it all the way down the edge, and then sew it.

You are *almost* done now! Yippie! Your curtain is ready for hanging (you will figure out the bottom hem in a minute. I didn’t forget.)

Attach your clips to the top edge of your curtain and hang it. To see how to hang your curtain with faux Pinch Pleats, follow this tutorial.

If you want your curtains to be exactly touching the floor, you’ll probably want to hem them while they are hanging to make sure your measurements are exact.

First, figure out how much extra fabric you have.

While sitting on the floor, take your time putting pins in along the fabric bottom (on the front of the fabric is easier) to mark where you want the bottom edge of your curtain to fall.

Once you have the front of your fabric pinned it’s much easier to pull the fabric away from the wall and properly pin your fabric for hemming. Make sure to tuck the raw edge under so it doesn’t fray and also keeps it looking pretty and professional.

After you have checked and rechecked your curtain to make sure it’s the perfect length (you may have to tweak it a few times), you can now hem them. I chose to hem them while they were hanging for two reasons: 1) I was lazy and didn’t want to take them down again, and 2) if you hand hem them you don’t see as much stitching across the front.

You can totally just take the curtains back down though and hem them across the edge like you did on your top hem.

I ended up sewing down the entire edge on the side of the curtain as well because it was kind of gaping open. Here is the finished bottom hem.

You have officially sewn a completely lined, professional quality curtain panel! Now get busy making the 2nd one.

Sorry! Did not realize how blurry this photo was til I uploaded it

Lets just pretend that this has been ironed and there is a pattern traced on it.

Cuff tucked into stocking Ribbon sewn between cuff and liner.

•  Fold the piece of ribbon in half and position it 5 cm from the corner on one of the long sides of quilting cotton, and baste in place. Place the two rectangles of quilting cotton with the right sides together. Stitch around the rectangle using a 1 cm seam allowance, leaving a 5 cm gap on one of the short sides. Clip the corners of the bag. Turn the bag right side out. Use a chopstick or turning tool to poke out the corners. Press the bag.

• Use a funnel to fill the bag with 500 g wheat, and 2 tablespoons of dried lavender. Use a ladder stitch to hand stitch the opening closed.
• If giving as a gift, be sure to include the heating instructions:

The first thing is picking out your fabric. I chose this darling flannel fabric by Riley Blake Designs called Colorful Christmas. This tutorial is for up to a size 8 kids, any bigger than that and you’ll need to buy a lot more fabric. But for little kids you can get away with just buying the length of their legs. So measure your child’s legs, add 4 inches for your waist band and bottom seam, and buy that much fabric. For my 6 year old daughter I bought 3/4 of a yard, and for my 8 year old son I bought 1 yard. For my 3 year old (pants not shown, because they are not sewn yet) I bought just 2/3 of a yard!

Next, you’ll need to get some pajama pants your child already has. These will be your template for your new pants, so pick some that fit pretty well. If you’re like me and you are using last year’s Christmas pajamas, just add a couple inches to the bottom so they will fit next year.

Open up your fabric (as you can see, my salvage end is now running along the right hand side), lay it right side down, and then fold the sides in till they meet in the middle.

So it looks like this…

Take the pajama pants you already have and fold them in half, nice and straight, and pull the crotch out into a nice point in the back. Make sure you fold it smoothly, you may want to pin to get it just right and so they don’t move around on you.

Line up the long straight edge of your pant leg with the FOLDED side of your fabric. Then cut, giving yourself at least a half inch (as you can see here I gave myself about an inch) along the other side of the pants. I cut the pants a few inches longer in the leg knowing by Christmas he’ll grow quite a bit. Also, be sure and give yourself at least 2 inches extra on the top for your waist band.
I then set my template pajama pants aside, took the leg I just cut and flipped it to the other side of the fabric, lined up the folded edges nice and straight, and cut out my other leg….

Once you have the legs cut out, open them up….

set them on top of eachother, right side together….

and sew just along that curved edge on the top. Start at the top of the curve and follow it down and off the side. Do not sew along the straight edge of the pant legs yet!
Hopefully you can kind of see in this picture, I just sewed along that curved edge and stopped.

Repeat it with the other side, just that curved edge on both sides.

After you have that part sewn, open them up and refold them like in the picture below. Line up your two sewn seams on the top of the pants, making sure they are centered. So basically, instead of those two curved edges you just sewed being on the sides, they are now the front and back seams of your pants.

**Note** if you are making the girls pants with the ruffle edge, now is a good time to sew that ruffle to the bottom, BEFORE you sew up the pant legs. Skip down to the ruffle instructions on the bottom of this post to learn how to create the ruffle. **

Now you are going to sew up the legs and the crotch. Start at the bottom of one of the legs, sew up the leg, around the curve of the crotch (see picture below) and down the other leg.

Now they are starting to look like pants, huh?! All you have left to do is sew your waist band and bottom cuffs. Turn your waist band down 1 inch, twice. Press your seam. You can pin if you like.

Sew with a 1/4 inch seam allowance around the bottom of the waist band (see picture) and leave a gap about 2 inches wide to feed the elastic through. I used 3/4 inch elastic. Measure how much elastic you need for your childs waist by wrapping the elastic around their waist before you insert it into the pants.

An easy way to feed that elastic through is to use a safety pin on one end. That way you can feel it as it goes under the fabric and around your pants. Keep feeding it through, inch by inch, till you come out the other end. Make sure you don’t lose the end of the elastic inside the pants. You may want to safety pin that to the outside of the pant leg so it doesn’t get lost inside.

Sew the two ends of elastic together…

Insert the elastic all the way into the waist band and sew up the gap. Next, fold up the bottom of each pant leg an inch, twice, like you did the waist band, and sew that down to create the hem of your pants.

To make the cute ruffle on the girls pants I skipped that last step and instead took a strip of contrasting fabric, 3 inches wide and width of fabric long (so about 44 in long), and folded it in half the long way and pressed the fold. I then lined up the raw edge of the ruffle and the bottom raw edge of the pant leg and sewed it in place, making pleats about every inch. You will not be turning the bottom of the pant leg up 2 inches like you do when making a cuff, so you will want to make your ruffle pants about 1 1/2 inches shorter than the cuff pants.

I then opened that up and pressed the pleats and my seam with a hot iron and top stiched 1/4 inch above the ruffle (see picture below)…

Once you have the ruffle on, go back up this tutorial to were you sew along the leg of the pants and finish that step. Then continue on with the tutorial, and when you are finished, you will have a cute little ruffle along the bottom of each leg.

BODY: Follow the instructions for the flower mobile phone case in black yarn. At step 6 fasten off leaving a long length of yarn to sew on the ears.

Cut out 2 white felt circles, 2 smaller black felt circles and sew them on in matching colour thread. I wanted a wide eyed look for this guy but you could experiment with different expressions – such as the one on this owl phone case. Sew on a mouth and fangs in white thread.

WINGS (x2):

Step 1. Create a magic ring with 6dc.

Step 2. Work in the back loop only of each stitch. 2dc in each stitch of the circle (12 stitches total).

Step 3. *2dc in the first stitch, 1dc in next stitch. *Repeat 6 times (18 stitches total).

Step 4. dc, *2htr, tr, 2htr, dc. *Repeat 3 times.

Step 5. ch1, turn, dc in 2nd stitch from hook, dc next 2 stitches, 2tr, dc next 5 stitches, 2tr, dc next 5 stitches, 2tr, dc next 3 stitches.

Step 6. ch1, turn, sl st in 2nd stitch from hook, sl st next 2 stitches, dc, ch3, dc, sl st next 5 stitches, dc, ch3, dc, sl st next 5 stitches, dc, ch3, dc, sl st next 3 stitches.

Step 7. Do not turn. Continuing in the same direction dc each stitch along the uneven edge to neaten. fasten off and weave in ends.

I chose to line my wings (pick a nice fabric – cut to vaguely the correct shape but bigger than the wing. tuck edges of fabric under as you pin to the wing then sew around using either black or a contrasting thread as I did. Avoid placing a stitch on the tips of the wings). You could also just leave the wings as they are with no lining.

EARS (x2): Step 1. Create a magic ring with 6dc.

Step 2. 2dc into the back loop of each stitch in the ring (12 stitches total).

Step 3. *tr into the next stitch, slip stitch into the next 3 stitches. *repeat 3 times (12 stitches total).

Step 4. fasten off and weave in ends.

Sew the pieces together as shown in the photo and pop your phone inside.

Cut out two pieces of fabric using the template I am going to share at the bottom of this post.
Sew the two pieces together (right sides facing each other).
Leave the end open (the end is the left side where the orange squiggles are in the pic)

Clip your corners and trim your edges.

Then right side out the pieces you just sewed together…

…and iron the seams nice and tidy and tuck the ends inside the little pocket you just made.

Your end should look like this.

Sew around most of the edges like this - see next pic to see what I mean by “most of the edges”
(sewing on top of the seam you just created on the right side of the fabric gives your work a nice finished look)

The only way I can tell you where not to sew is to show you…  so here goes.
You gotta fold the right side over to make the little pocket…  so don’t sew on the bottom of the fold or on the left inside corner (does that make sense???).

If you sew all the way around the whole thing and then fold it over and sew again…
…that’s just not as nice looking in my crafty opinion.

So that’s what your tea pocket should look like when done!

Oh and if you goof…  and make a tea bag holder with a left side pocket instead that’s ok too!
You can give it to your left handed friends!
(momChops and I goofed and made the second prototype the wrong way…  we always work in muslin first for just this reason!!!)

So now that you have the pocket made you gotta close it right?!?!

You can either use Velcro (which you need to sew on for best results) …  this is the sticky kind and it’s a bear trying to sew the sticky stuff on…  so get some of the non sticky for this closure method)

OR

You can get all crafty fancy pants and sew a button hole and button on.
I personally LOVE this one (MomChops took the orange butterfly and the pink one home with her and I kept the teal one…  yeah yeah I know…  me and teal).  hehehehe!

You can get the fabric version of the tea bag template below!

What you need

hooded top  |  red felt  |  scissors  |  paper or card for template  |  needle and red thread  |  iron  |  pins

Step-by-step

:: Copy and cut-out triangle template (adjusting the size if you’d prefer larger or smaller spines). 

:: Fold your felt in half and place template against the fold to cut out.

(Measure the length of your hoodie, from the front of the hood all the way round and down the back, to work out how many triangles you’ll need. Mine - size 3/4 and 6/7 yrs - used eleven each.)

:: Fold the hooded top exactly in half (along the hood and back) and iron the fold down firmly to mark the stitching line for your triangles.

:: Open out one of the felt diamond shapes, and pin it to the top of the hood, lining up the fold line on the felt to the fold line on the hood. 

:: Stitch the triangle in place.

:: Add a second felt piece in the same way, so it sits snugly alongside the first one without overlapping.

:: Repeat until the whole of the hoodie ‘spine’ is lined with felt shapes.

:: Carefully iron each diamond shape in half again to form a row of triangles.

:: Sew neatly along the open edges of each one to hold in place. 

:: Iron the whole thing - hoodie and felt spines - before wearing.