More bears

          I was asked by another customer to do some bears for Christmas gifts.  Doing bears is a great joy to me to be able to touch people's lives in such a tender way. The two jeans ones were for sisters and the middle one was for herself to remember their mother by. These were made out of their mom's favorite outfit.

         I ran out of jeans to do 3 bears with it, so I used her t- shirt to do a bear in. I've done another bear in a t-shirt and I never had a problem.  This particular shirt must have had more stretch in it than the other one because it lost it's shape really easily. I told the customer that this bear looks like he gained 30 lbs. :) Still cute and super squishy! :) Her mom loved country stars, so this bear got them. 

Here are the two bears next to each other. Same pattern, sewn the same way, just different fabrics. 

    If anyone is interested in having me make these bears for them, I charge $50.00 a bear. If you want the heart or shape on the chest done, it's $3.00 extra per bear. If you need shipping two and from, that will be up to you to take care of.  I enjoy making these and put my heart and soul into each bear. Each bear takes me approx 2 days to work on them if I have no other plans and if my girls cooperate. :)  Other memory bears I've seen sell for this much on etsy or blogs, but they are super simple bears with out cute faces and ears.. hands and feet. Other bears I've made can be seen HERE. I like to know some history about who the clothes came from and the family member getting them, so I can make it extra personal. One bear can be made from one L or bigger shirt and extras come from other clothing you provide.  Other fabrics work such as: jeans, fleece, sweatshirts, cotton button up shirts, flannel... etc. if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me: sewinsanity@gmail.com I am always happy to talk with you on a project or answer questions you may have. 

               I wanted to try something a little different and do the same bears on a smaller scale. I scanned each pattern piece in the computer and shrunk them.  This is how some turned out. 

                    These were bears for my girls using fabric I had on hand just to try it out.  The bear on the right is soft and made with minkee and cotton.  I would have done the nose in chenille like the other bear though.  the bear on the left is made from minkee and cotton and chenille. I ran out of chenille to do the main body with so I improvised. My girls don't care that they aren't PERFECT, they love them and cuddle them just the same! :) 

           This was a bear I made for my mom for Christmas this year.  It's the smaller size and made with flannel and chenille. (minkee for pads of feet)  it turned out so cute!! :)  This bear is also an example of what the eyes and nose are like without the white dots.  The pattern has you put them on, but I like them either way. 

The discovery I made with the smaller size is that they take just as much time to create! The cutting out part is a LITTLE faster I think, and they obviously use less fabric, but still the same amount of work and time put into them. 

Bears to remember Logan

In memory of Logan

If you click on Logan's name above you can see him on Youtube playing the harmonica 

          These bears were made for a customer who lost her son a short while ago and wanted these bears to give as Christmas presents.   I cut each piece out of his clothing and Tried my hardest to make sure each stitch I made was the best I could do. This project was a little different for me and I wanted to be thoughtful. This may sound a little odd for some of you, but before I made my first cut, I said a quick little prayer that I would be able to do a good job and feel the spirit as I did these bears.  I was very touched and overwhelmed with love for this young man that I had never even met before.  I know he was a special person and I am absolutely heartbroken that his family is without him, but I know they will see him again and that he is needed and being a missionary on the other side.

 for this project I used McCalls Craft 6135 

The pattern is pretty simple and easy to follow.  I love it and will be making more! 

I also had the fabric for the hearts embroidery done by Cover Up. 

Bear 1: 

 This was my first bear and I feel bad that he is not perfect. each bear got better and better. This one has a crooked nose and crooked eyes.  

   

Bear 2:

I wish I would have taken a before picture of the shirt.  I wanted to incorporate the shirt as much in this bear as I could because the logo was too big to use effectively. I did Sheriff stars on his feet.  I just Googled sheriff badge pictures and put the picture in Microsoft works in different sizes, printed it off, traced the design on heat and bond lite and then appliqued them on. The shirt was a baseball type shirt (raglan) and had navy sleeves so I made the arms navy to look like the shirt too. 

This was the only place I could use the logo because of it's size.

The logo on the bottom piece is off center a little because of the leg piece I cut out.  It works though. 

Bear 3:

Bear 4:

Bear 5:

This one is my favorite I think.  Just because the brown flannel I used turned out looking like leather. :) 

Jacket logo in the ear

Ruffle Butt Onesies

    For my daughter's Halloween costume I decided she would be a little calf.  I feel like a cow and all she does is drink milk and cry, so it fits. :) plus the costume is adorable.  I feel like all I do is copy other people's ideas because I don't want to pay the price to have someone else make something I could make myself If I put in a little time and energy.  This is the outfit on etsy for sale:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/108671376/cow-belle-rufflebum-halloween-costume?ref=sr_gallery_13&ga_search_query=halloween+costume&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=ZZ&ga_min=0&ga_max=0&ga_search_type=all&fb_source=message

My friend from Crafting Friends is making the hat to go with it:    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crafting-Friends/180595232008676?ref=ts

I also ordered cow print leggings off of ebay for about 5.00. everyone else wanted to sell them for double that.  I'm ordering from China.  It will take longer to get here, but it was free shipping and i'm good with that. It's a good thing I'm prepared. :)

This is the onesie I finished today:

The ruffles took me forever! probably because I had a busy day of being a mom involved there, and my sewing machine was acting up again.  I still think it turned out great! 

I grabbed the wrong kind of heat and bond in the store and the package says not to sew.  I sewed it anyway. I didn't see any problems with it.  Come to think of it, maybe that is why my sewing machine is acting up. Guess it's time to clean my machine. 

     I also wanted to make a zebra print onesie for my baby to wear whenever.  The ruffles on the butt of this one turned out interesting.  I'll explain in a min. 

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This is the interesting part.  I wanted to try this a little different than the ones above.  I zig zagged the edges, opened up the onesie side seam to tuck the ends inside and stitch it closed. The pink turned out cute, but I couldn't get the zebra stripe sot work right.  When I was sewing this, like everything else I made, I winged it all.  I didn't measure strips and because I just eyeballed it, the strip was too big and not ruffly enough to be anything but a stip really.   I was using scraps left over from the canopy I did earlier and I didn't have much at all left.  I tried to sew on pink ribbon in the middle of it, I tried pink ruffly headband material, I tried a pink zigzag stitch to make it more interesting. I hated them all.  I ended up getting another strip and making a tiny ruffle.  The bad thing is the stripes were running the other way and it didn't change the look much.  OH WELL!! don't I say that a lot?! lets just say, it will have to do because I'm done.  after working on this all day and having a screaming baby and a trouble maker daughter I should be thankful it turned out as good as it did. I'm done looking at onesies for a while now. NEXT! 

Sisters outfit

What am I still doing awake?! I should totally be sleeping because it's 1:30 a.m.

It's the only time I get to have to myself lately, although i'm usually so beat tired I can't keep my eyes open. Where is this energy coming from? I am a week away from my due date and feeling like I have things left to do that somehow have been forgotten about. I FINALLY packed a hospital bag yesterday.

            I bought fabric at Joann's pretty cheap with my coupons the other day and wanted to make some sister outfits to POSSIBLY wear at the hospital. we'll see. I was hoping to give me a project that would take up some time and make me forget about the week ahead. I can't just leave stuff for later so I started the skirts this morning and finished it all tonight. All day I was out and about so I'm pretty amazed!

            The applique on the shirts didn't turn out as good as I hoped for. ESPECIALLY the onesie! that was horrible because it was so small. don't look too close because you will think it looks as bad as I do. I just don't have the right stitches on my machine for these and it would have been a perfect project for an embroidery machine. SOMEDAY!

I might make a diaper cover for my 2 year old to go under the skirt. we'll see how I feel tomorrow. :)

           oh, for the letters, I just went into microsoft works and picked a font and printed it the size that would work well. it was at size 74 and then I printed it at different sizes like 180% or something. you just have to play around with it. Then, I held it up to a window backwords and traced it onto the paper side of the heat and bond sheet. after that, I cut each letter out rough and ironed it on to different fabrics then cut the letters out. worked great!

Icecream Applique Overalls

Something SWEET for my little sweetie!

          Let me just say.... If you know me, you know I have a thing for overalls. :) I don't know why, I just love them! I saw someone make these and sell them on etsy. The woman is so nice and sweet and is charging a sweet price for these overalls. She even told me what fabric she used! I just can't afford them myself, and I hate the feeling of paying someone else to do something I can do myself. I drew the applique templates out by hand and traced them onto fabric. I then placed and heat n bonded them on. The most time consuming thing I did was stitch them all down. I don't have an embroidery machine and I think If I did, it would take all the fun out of applique for me! Yes things would look a lot crisper, but I love looking at the finished product and seeing my little tiny flaws and remembering how hard it was to make. It makes me feel good. My new favorite thing is applique lately. I love it! Making ruffles...... Not so favorite.  I again make those the old fashioned way and seem to always break the thread over and over again. This time around I had one of those hair pulling experiences. I also made my first peasant top for this outfit! I forgot to take pictures. It was easy and looks cute! I added a ruffle to the bottom of that too. sigh. :) I love the way they look, I endure the pain! :) Anyway, thanks for reading! Have a happy day!

Tomorrow is the big day!

FINALLY! phew!

My last onesie for a while. I had another stack of onesies to do before the craft fair, but when I looked at them yesterday I just wasn't feeling it. I need to be into what I'm doing otherwise it turns out looking terrible and sloppy. I don't put out sloppy work!

My mom asked me to make her a gift for a baby shower she is going to in a few weeks. This little boy will be ready  for camping! (yes, I made two moose. I think they are cute)

This was all I got done today. :(  The binder is for people to look through to purchase my patterns and the cds have the patterns on them. Those have been a lot of work. They are costing me about 60 cents each to make too. That's not including the labels I was given by my awesome friend. She has been such a help to me for this craft fair! THANK YOU KATE! I printed each envelope with my business card and each label had to be designed and printed off and stuck on to the cd. The burning part is taking me hours! Oh how I would love a new computer. The actual buring of the cds is quick. It's the imputing new information with EACH cd. It's dumb. And after I get one pattern all burnt off and am ready to start on the next one, my computer won't let me. I have to restart my computer each time and it works fine after that. such a pain in my butt! Because of all this, You might notice my posting time. 3:30 a.m. I'm so stinking tired right now. My daughter even woke up once and I was in with her for a while. Last night I was up till 3 too. this week has killed me. I hope to be done in the next ten min and I'll hopefully finish tomorrow. sorry for whining. :) I really hope my hard work pays off. or pays something.     



Still plugging away

This is another onesie to sell at the craft fair.

These cute bunny slippers I made for Keira's easter basket. I wanted to get them out of the way so that when Easter comes I'm not kicking myself for not getting them done. I used a pattern I did a trade for on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/68451770/new-pdf-pattern-bunny-slippers-size-12  I added a casing for the elastic strap behind the ears rather than having the elastic show. I also did something different when it came to lining the shoes. I didn't want seams to show so I did the lining sole seperate from the outer sole. I left a hole in the lining to turn the whole slipper inside out. I also added a cute tail on them. They fit her but with Her patterns, they are too short on the heel and don't stay on well. I'm a little disappointed in the pattern but for a trade I'm pretty content.

My project for the day

This is another onesie for the craft fair. It took a long time to do but it turned out cute I think. :) Hungry Hungry Hippos!