I’ve been busy sewing.

One for a girl…

One for a boy…

Anyone interested in purchasing? $45 plus shipping.

My cute momma is a wonderful seamstress. Her favorite thing in the whole wide world, besides me, is quilts. She will never turn me down when I want to make a trip to our favorite fabric store… well, unless I’m taking all my kids… then she might be tempted to pass… and I don’t blame her. Ha.

I have yet to open an Etsy shop for my baby booties (thank you for all of your nice comments, by the way) but she has started one for her quilts. Check out her Etsy shop where she has a few handmade quilts for sale.

Whoo hoo! Go Grandma Debbie!

I think I just made my cutest baby booties to date. I made them for a cousin of mine who is due soon. I hated giving them away. I can’t get over how well they turned out.

I had my big sis snap a photo at the baby shower before I had to say goodbye to them. Sniff.

She put the photos on flickr here.

Okay, well, my sisters and I joked about making a pillow for every holiday but now it seems to be coming to pass. I loved my fall and winter pillows  so much that I had to try a Valentines one.

I couldn’t really find a example online that I loved for inspiration so I came up with my own. Looking all over the web has made me feel like hearts are kinda cheesy so I was going for a whimsical look. I did my best to make an uncheesy pillow.

Here is how to make it with a 16×16 pillow form-

Supplies

1. Fabric scraps for your hearts. Make sure that the fabric is bold enough to stand out on your background material. This was a bit of a challenge for me.

2. Appliqué material: I use Heat’ n Bond but there are a few other types. I’d get about 1/4 yard for this project.

3. Material for the pillow front, cut to 17″ x 17″ square. Look for something like lightweight canvas or even a muslin will work.

4. Material for the back. Cut 1 rectangle 17″x 14″ and cut 1 rectangle 17″x 10″.

5. 16″ x 16″ pillow form. If you choose to use a different size pillow you’ll just have to adjust the measurements of the pillow front and back.

***

Step 1: Trace or draw your heart shapes onto your appliqué material. Roughly cut out the hearts and iron them on to your desired material. This allows you to “fussy cut” each heart so that you can get the fabric pattern into the heart shape as desired. Iron the heart according to the directions on the appliqué material. (press & hold the iron over each heart for a few seconds) Repeat with all your hearts.

Step 2: Now with scissors cut out your hearts and peel off the paper backing. Arrange them on your pillow front material. I placed my fabric on top of my pillow so I could get a good idea of what it would look like and how far to stay away from the edges. Make sure to stay at least an 1.5″ away from the edges to leave room for sewing.

Step 3: Once your design is how you like it, iron over each heart to tack it in place. This will keep everything in place while you sew them on.

Step 4: Now you can sew along the inside edges of your hearts. A zig zag stitch or blanket stitch could work as well.

When I sew my hearts on I move my foot from heart to heart without cutting the strings so it goes faster. Afterward I’ll go back and cut the strings on the front and don’t even bother with the back side.

Step 5: To prepare your pillow back, fold one of the short edges of each pillow backing piece in 1/2″ and press, then again 1/2″ and press. Sew to hide any raw edges. These will be the edges of the envelope back. If you are confused about which edge to sew, lay out the pieces on the pillow front to give you and idea how it goes together.

Step 6: Lay the backing pieces right sides down onto the pillow front over lapping the centers. Make sure your right sides are facing towards the right sides of your pillow front and your outer edges match. Pin around the edges well.

Step 7: Sew a 1/4″ to 1/2″ inseam around the edges. Then clip your extra corner fabric off so the corners will turn nicely. Turn it inside out and stuff a 16″ pillow form in it.

Ta da! That’s it. Enjoy your pillow.

With the bulk of my big scrapbooking project done, I found some time in between making Christmas cards to make my next sewing project. My sis in law really was the reason for me being on the ball because she wanted to make one too. She came over and we went to my favorite quilting store for some funky fat quarters.

I present to you my Wintery Forest Pillow… Ta da…

I have to say it was so much fun to make and even more fun to sit and look at once it was done. I was very tempted to add a star and polk-a-dot ornaments to one of the trees and in fact cut them out and stared at them for half an hour but… I forced myself to restrain. Maybe I need to make a second one that looks more Christmasy. My only beef with my pillow is that I wish I had moved the trees up a bit so the trunks weren’t sitting right on the bottom.

My super-duper-internet-searching-sister found the inspiration on Etsy and of course made one of her own. Go check them out and feel inspired yourself.

My sister posted about decorating for the holidays, specifically for Thanksgiving. This is something I barely do. I have a few things I put up on the walls and call it good.

In my sisters search for fall decor she found this darling pillow tutorial. My mom saw the post and being the sewing fanatic that she is, loved it. She called me to say that we needed to make it and immediately went out a bought two pillow forms.

We made it last Friday and every time I walk into my family room and see it sitting on my chair it makes me happy. I think it turned out so cute. Thanks Mom.

I’m loving this pillow so much that I thought I would make a little card from it. I created this to share will my faithful digi scrap’n blog readers. I want to say thank you for downloading my templates. I am so happy to share my creations with you. I want you guys to know that I always read every comment too. Your comments give me a good idea how many downloads I get and what kind of templates are most popular.

This 5×7 could be printed out and pasted on cardstock for a quick thank you card. It could also be re-sized. I may even be tempted to drag it onto a fall layout.

To download this 5×7 tree template click here.

I used Dani Mogstad’s Falling Softly kit that I got from The Digi Files 8 to cover my template. I’m not sure if her kit it is up at the Sweet Shoppe yet but I love the soft fall colors. I created my own stitches though and now I just need someone nice to give my card to.

Now that I’m all ready for fall, the winter weather is knocking at my door step. We woke up to snow Saturday morning… Sheesh. I’m not quite ready for this.

I’ve taken a little break from the computer and have been doing a little sewing instead. I made these darling baby shoes following a pattern from Startdust Shoes. Leah has grown out of the little shoes my sister made her (which I have loved) when she was born.

The pink pair took some trial and error to figure it out. It’s a simple pattern but it’s just like me to sew things on backwards or miss catching an edge in the stitch. The second little boy pair went much faster.

It’s a perfect project for leftover fabric. I just had to get some thick soft fabric for the soles and interfacing for the uppers and waa laa… toasty toes in the winter time.

Here is Leah not really wanting to model for me. I couldn’t quite figure out how to get a good angle of the shoes without just getting a picture of her chubby legs (which I thought was darling but I’m biased. I spend hours during the day just squeezing them.) She was more interested in eating leafs and attacking my camera than giving me a smile. She’s a cute little stinker anyway.

I figured out something I could do with my scraps of fabric.

Pretty fun, eh?

I told you I had the sewing bug.

I whipped up this car seat cover blankie thing that I’ve been seeing everywhere. It was pretty easy once I had a machine that was working. I’ve wanted one for a while now… I should have been on the ball sooner though because Leah is getting to big to lug around in the bucket for much longer.

Peek a boo. There’s a baby inside. I chose this fabric because my car seat has orange accents. I don’t know why I felt like I had to match the car seat. I’m sure a pink girly one would have worked too but I’m happy the way it turned out.

Emma wanted in on the photo shoot. Ahh! Cute sisters.

I made one for my sister in law too. She has a boy but we thought this fabric from the same line would work well with her baby too. We bought these fun button kits so her buttons are made from my orange fabric. Get excited, Wend, it’s done.

(Dana, do you want one for your almost-here-wee-one?)

Yesterday I busted out my old Singer machine that I got from freecycle.org years ago. It’s a lovely old metal machine that smells like a penny but sews like a champ. When I initially got it, I had it tuned up at a small vacuum shop and they guy told me it should last forever. It always surprises me how smooth is sews.

In a few hours I whipped up a few nursing covers for some friends that are having babies.

While I was at it I had to try my hand at a skirt for Emma out of the scraps. I altered it a bit to much so it actually didn’t turn out to well. I had such a good time though, that I may just start sewing my brains out.

The wheels are turning… what else can I sew?