DIY Embroidered Cat Mousepad

My husband has told me that in order to not be labeled as the crazy cat lady at work, I must limit cat items on my desk to no more than two. This is cat item number one and the second is this totally awesome cat-stronaut mug I bought on Society6. Though I really think that we crazy cat people don't care if people see us as such, so you may see more cat desk items on this blog anyway. :) Here's how you can make a cat mousepad (or a mousepad in any shape, really).

Supplies
- A piece of felt. Mine is stiff felt from the craft store. You want a piece about the size of a piece of paper
- A small piece of leather or other non-skid fabric
- Embroidery floss and needle
- Washout pen or other marker or pencil for tracing on felt
- Scissors
- Computer and printer

Chair Makeover - The Remaking a Curbside Chair for Under $20

So I drove by this chair sitting out by my neighbor's curb and absolutely loved it but had no space for a green chair (or any chair) in my house. After thinking about it for the evening, I decided I couldn't resist this freebie. It may have been the half bottle of wine, but I somehow convinced my husband to walk with me to get it. Here's what we picked up:

Cute, right? Once I got a closer look at it in the daylight, though, I just about completely regretted my decision of picking it up for a few reasons:

1. The vinyl was stained. No cleaning would get it off.

2. It was really dirty. There was no getting the dirt and nastiness out of the seams of the cushions. 

3. The bottom burlap was torn and the padding underneath clearly needed to be replaced.

4. There were spiders everywhere in the underside. Eeek!

I decided that I'd take a stab at recovering it. It doesn't have arms, which I thought would make it easier, and the frame seemed in good shape. If you're planning on recovering a chair, make sure it has a good foundation. This one had springs and I decided to keep them rather than switching to plywood since the springs looked okay. I took a lot of photos taking the chair apart to make sure I knew how to put it back together. I also made sure to keep the outside pieces in good shape to reuse them as a pattern.

Then I cleaned it with disinfecting soap and got all of the spiders and spiderwebs out of the underside. Yeesh, that was gross. I then let it dry, and primed and painted the wooden legs and back support a mint color from a paint sample. After those dried, I used an old burlap bag to cover the springs. This bag was free from a local coffee shop and was washed so it would shrink and not ravel as easily.  I purchased a couple yards of quilting batting from JoAnn's using a coupon for padding the chair. I stapled one layer of batting around all sides, used three layers for the seat, and two layers on the back support. It's turned out to be really comfortable. 

Making sure the cover would fit over the batting.

Then I used the old cover pieces to make the new cover by tracing them on the new fabric with a half inch seam allowance. The new cover is made from a 6'x9' painter's canvas drop cloth I bought from Lowe's for $10. I still have over half of it left for other projects too! Then my husband and I stretched and stapled the cover to the underside of the chair, covered the back and reattached the back to the chair. Here's how it turned out!

Before and after:

It's perfect in our living room and makes it seem more welcoming than before when we had just our gigantic sectional and one chair. I'm so excited to have this pretty chair in my space, and only for the cost of some batting and a drop cloth. 

On a side note, check out this sweet compound miter saw I found at a garage sale this weekend for $60. Barely used. Guess I have some projects to get started on!

Friday Findings - Tutorials

anemone magnets :: fabric project baskets :: fake calligraphy :: crochet garland

Fabric Love - Pure by Stof House Designer

Modern designs, simple color pallet, large, simple prints .. ahh, this is my kind of fabric! Stof House is a large fabric distributer in Europe based out of Denmark. It was hard to find information on this collection specifically, but I think it was designed by one of their on-staff designers.

I'm working on my first quilt (eek!) and am using the seed heads in grey (bottom right corner) as one of the fabrics. It is beautiful in person .. high quality quilting cotton and just perfect.  I'll fill you in on the quilt soon, but as my mom said, "I've never heard of anyone starting to quilt with hexagons." Should be interesting!

To order some of this collection, which was just released recently, visit Hawthorne Threads. They have more color choices then what I have displayed above. For more on Stof and their fabric collections, click here.

Michigan Football + Picnic/Rainy Football Game Blanket Tutorial

My sister and I got tickets for the UM football game last Saturday in Ann Arbor from her boss. When we looked at the weather, we were trying to decide if we wanted to go (there was a 90% chance of rain the entire time we were there), but decided to tough it out with some rain gear and a cool blanket I made from a tutorial on The Mother Huddle. See the photos below. The tutorial is towards the bottom.

My purdy sister

It rained a lot ..

.. But we were still happy. :)

The blanket in use

I was planning on making this as a picnic blanket over the summer, like it's intended to be, but never made it and with the imminent rain, thought it would be perfect to flip over and use the vinyl side as rain protection. Here's how it's done.

Picnic or Rainy Day Blanket

Supplies
A vinyl tablecloth (mine was purchased at Wal-Mart)
A fleece blanket (I reused an old one from around the house)
Scissors, thread, sewing machine

1. Lay your vinyl tablecloth right side down on the floor. Lay your blanket on top. If any dimensions are significantly bigger than the other, cut it down so there's about a three inch border all the way around your blanket. In the original tutorial, her blanket was larger than her tablecloth so she cut that down to match. My tablecloth was too big for my blanket so I cut it down (see below).

Chopped blanket

2. Fold the extra table cloth over to create a border around the blanket and pin. The nice thing about vinyl tablecloths is they have a finished edge. If you cut your tablecloth like me, you should double fold over the edge of the tablecloth that has been cut to hide the unfinished edge.

3. Add an elastic strap by measuring to the center of one of the short sides and pinning a length of elastic there.

4. Sew all the way around, going back and forth over the elastic a few times.

5. That's it! Enjoy your non-wet-butt picnic and cozy sitting-in-the-rain blanket!

Crochet Hook Holder

If you've looked at my Etsy shop recently, you probably noticed that I've been doing quite a bit of crocheting. Who doesn't like a cute little octopus? Or some flower coasters? No one, I say, no one. *Side note: Over the weekend I told my senior neighbor that I crochet and she kind of laughed about it. I know it's kind of dorky and something stereotypically for older people, but I love it anyway! My husband would tell you that he experiences the full scope of my crocheting endeavors because they cover (and I mean cover) our coffee table for weeks on end. I've decided recently to get a little more organized, for both of our sakes. All of my crochet hooks were housed in a recycled jar covered in a crocheted cozy, which worked for the time, but the jar was knocked over often, it was noisy (metal in glass..) and I had to transfer all the hooks into my tote to go places. p.s. Check out this tote:

I made this tote almost exactly like I saw one online for knitting. And, obviously, it's just a joke! I had someone concerned about me taking this in public because I might offend people..!

Now THIS was not in the original: I made some nifty slots to put my hooks in on the go.

Moving on. I saw this tutorial online a few days ago to make a clutch for crochet hooks and supplies, and thought it was such a great idea.

I made it the same day. Here's what mine looked like:

Not too shabby, right? It looks super cute, but here are a few issues I had and how I remedied them. The first issue was that my hooks have bamboo handles and are much larger than the ones the author used.

This means wider slots for hooks, which means less hooks in the holder. It also meant that the fabric bunched up a lot more when the hooks were in the holder, making it all ripply. Not cute. The clutch was also really floppy. I decided at this point to make it like this canvas roll up storage for some of my paint brushes. I cut off the button, and rolled the whole mess up to see where to sew the button again. I like it SO much better. It's a good throw and go option too.

If you decide to make this, you can just wait to put the button on until the end and decide if you'd like it as a clutch or roll up. Just make sure to only sew the button on through the first layer of fabric.

Here's another issue I had: You'll notice in the photo above that the inner-most hook slot is empty. That is where the scissors are intended to go. This is clutch not meant to be turned upside down. The scissors fall out. And you wouldn't want to drop scissors on your cat, your foot, or like a knife into the floor, would you? (I did two of these three .. I'm not telling which) Here's my solution.

Velcro it up! I did this after the fact so it was a big pain hand sewing everything on, but if you add the little flap just after you sew on the slots for hooks, it would be super easy! I also added a little patch to hold straight pins, since I use them a lot for temporarily holding on octopus tentacles before I sew them on.

That's it! Easy storage for crochet hooks. It took me around an hour to make from start to finish .. plus a little more for the hand sewing additions after the fact. Check out Little Birdie Secrets' full tutorial here!

I Made This Swimsuit

You may remember this photo from my post ... yesterday :).

I also noted that I made this swimsuit! Honestly, I didn't know that it was going to be possible to make a swimsuit that I would feel secure enough in to wear in public. But, I can assure you, I received no strange looks and nothing came peeping out while in the water or on the beach. And I mostly winged it! Crazy, right?

I found this mustard striped swimsuit fabric on clearance at JoAnn's for $3.50 a yard. I had no idea how to make a swimsuit and had no pattern to go off of, but I love a challenge (especially one that only costs $3.50 .. and works out well in the end!). So I bought a yard of it.

I saw a cute swimsuit at the store that seemed easy to make, so I somewhat shamelessly took it into the dressing room and took these measurement photos.

Body parts are the best for measurements! I also picked up this pattern to get the front piece right. I used the top front piece from the center top image.

And then .. I winged it. I cut out two of the top front pieces from the pattern. I used my measurements and trial and error to make the tapered back pieces, using a swimsuit clasp from JoAnn's (super cheap) for closure. Since I didn't want to be all hanging out there .. you know what I mean .. I used some lining cups from an old swimsuit and made the ends of the swimsuit so I could insert them and take them out.

I made a long tube and tapered it to make the front tie. I put the strapless suit on to measure to add the halter string. Top stitched everything along the way. And .. boom. Top done. The bottoms were much more straight-forward. I used a bottom that I liked to trace a pattern and cut out an outside and lining piece. Sewed it all together .. done. If I hadn't been super lazy, I could have serged the seams to make it look better. But I only see that so it's okay.

Here's how much it was to make a swimsuit that was around $40 in the store:
Fabric - $3.50 + $3.50 lining fabric for bottom = $7.00
Swimsuit clasp - about $2.00
Pattern - $1.00 on sale
Total - $10.00

Moral of the story: Don't be afraid to make swimwear, if you know how to sew. A pattern more than likely would be easier to use than what I did, and although these patterns are in short supply (I only found one in the McCall's book at JoAnn's), they can at least get you started.

I'll end with this photo .. the photo I was considering not posting because I have horrible burn lines, the one I adjusted the color to so those burns wouldn't look so bad, and the one I decided not to photoshop to cover up my burns :). This photo is also (ironically) the best one from vacation of me having the swimsuit on!

Here I Am!

Here's some of what I've been up to since you last saw me:

With the help of my lovely husband, we transformed my hillside garden into beautiful raised beds! It took almost 200 retaining wall stones and three cubic yards of composted soil, but doesn't it look pretty?! Now onto deer control ..

Enjoyed my favorite season (even though I might not look like it here)!

Started making iPhone and iPod cases first for my new phone, then to sell on Etsy. I like the versatility that printing on fabric lends. Check out my Etsy shop here!

I've been going to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. Nothing beats going to Kerrytown and exploring the market and the stores.

Turned 24!

Studied for and took the GRE. Now I have some more free time on my hands and don't feel guilty about spending it not studying. And, no, I didn't embroider this as an ode to my GRE studying days. It's part of a Christmas gift!

Invested some time into making Mario and Luigi costumes for the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Fry!

My Sister's Birthday: Stenciled Tote Using Freezer Paper

I've been gone so long! I'm sorry, so much has been going on recently that I have not made it a priority to share. I'm actively studying for the GRE, which is very consuming both in terms of time and mental capacity :). Other things have been going on, too, that have made it difficult to write. Hopefully I'm back for good after my hiatus! I've still been working on things and documenting, so you should see a whole lot of catching up in the near future.

This project is so neat, I thought it was necessary to be shared with you. My sister's birthday was last weekend. We had a great day: went downtown to the farmer's market, to lunch then did some shopping before going to our mom's for dinner. I really wanted to make her something special because I feel like I've been lacking and last minute for everyone on the gift front this year. My sis has a totally adorable boxer who she loves very much, so I wanted to incorporate her dog into the gift. I've been looking at posts on using freezer paper for stenciling so I thought I'd give it a shot on a handmade tote bag for her gift! I know this technique has been around for ages but it was my first try and it worked perfectly. If you're going to try this, just don't believe anyone who says wax paper will have the same results. I did not have luck with the wax paper sticking to the fabric, so I had to retrace my stencil. See the results below! I hope to have the personalized tote and the patterned tote in my Etsy shop soon.

My inspiration.

One side of the finished tote.

The stencil.

The patterned side of the tote.

Pretty cool, huh? The tote is a soft linen lined with a fun cotton print, but didn't take a picture of that before I gave it to my sister. She loved it! Having her puppy on her tote is a good reminder of what's waiting for her when she gets home. She plans to use the bag to take her laptop to work. If you'd like to learn how to stencil with freezer paper, check out How About Orange's tutorial.