About Jenny

I love reading, quilting, raising my kids, and selling real estate.

A Little Link

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Jenny

I haven’t been doing much stitching, due to illness, pre-school co-op turns, and a variety of other reasons. But my aunt sent me a fun link I thought I ought to share. I don’t speak German, but it appears to be the site of a woman who crafts all sorts of clever things, from dolls to skirts.

I really like this page, with little crocheted picnic / tea sets. There are also a lot of fun pages of bright, fun children’s clothes.

The best way to navigate is the side bar on the left, with tons of links to her interesting and colorful crafts.

She also has a blog, which is Greek to me, but full of fun pictures and wares!

Tired of Naked Dolls? Me, too.

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Jenny

Do you ever get tired of naked dolls lying around your house? Me, too. My friend suggested the other day that nail polish could solve some of my woes, so Tinkerbell and her friends got camis. I find it strange that Disney can paint on some panties, but ignore other areas of concern for conservative parents like myself.

This is a cute retro bride doll my mom gave my daughter, and some small children in my house pretty much shredded her beautiful wedding gown. She is too anatomically correct to be leaving around on the ground. However, she was also a little tall to be curing with nail polish. So I made a quick spandex shirt, and a drawstring skirt.

“Hello, My name is Susan, and I have recently left the nudist colony.”

Make a Minky Monster Puppet

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Jenny

This is the little guy who was destined for the the picot / prairie / pioneer points. The picots are the spines on his back. He really likes thread for a bedtime snack, so if you make one, watch out!

Materials

Leftover Minky from your son’s baby quilt

Buttons or other embellishments, with contrast thread for the pupils. I used embroidery floss.

Fabric for inside of the mouth

Scissors

Sewing machine

Beverage or sugary vice of choice (skittles for me)

Start by cutting out two pieces for the top and bottom that are an inch or so wider than your hand, all the way around. You might want to cut the top a little big, because inserting the picots shrinks the top / back a little. Fold the fabric for the mouth in half, right sides together. Stick it in between the layers to the depth you’d like the puppet’s mouth to go, and trim the fabric to a circle. I used my hand to measure this depth so the mouth would be just my size.

Cut a slit up his back, and tuck the points between, right sides together. Pin, and sew.

I left his tail sticking out, and shmooshed the bottom up around it to hem. If you don’t want the tail to be awkward like that, match a good picot-cutting-point to the end of his back so you can hem easier.

Next, fold your inner mouth circle in half, and sew in the tongue. I just cut a little red reptilian thing out of some felt.

Ta da!

Now sew on some eyes, and any other embellishments you wish. I was thinking little stuffed horns would be fun, or some white yo-yos under the eye buttons, but I am eight months pregnant, and a girl can only do so much in my condition.

Next, lay it out with the mouth in place, right sides together, and pin from the edge of the mouth down to the bottom of the puppet.

Then you can take the mouth out, if you like, and sew those two seams. I left the mouth in while I sewed (NOT as pictured below), in case my pinning was not perfect. It wasn’t.

Lay out your inner mouth, right side up. Place the right side of the outer mouth on top, like so:

Pin, and sew a C on each side. At this point, I turned my puppet right side out to admire, and he had a serious underbite. So I went back and sewed another C inside of the first one on the bottom jaw to straighten him out a little. See:

Trim the extra, clip your curves, and give that minky monster to your delighted child. She will have a hard time being in the sun for the picture after all the bad weather recently, and will pretend to be a pirate. At least, that’s what mine did.

Continuous Pioneer / Prairie Point Tutorial

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Jenny

This post is a prep post for a little puppet I made today. The first time I did pioneer points on a quilt, I cut a bazillion little squares, ironed them carefully and pinned them individually to the edge of my quilt. It was a royal pain. Later, I learned an easier strip method, which I would like to share.

Decide on the size of points you want. I made these for a very small project, so I did two inch square points, which ended up very small. For a normal baby quilt I usually do four inch squares. Whatever square size you decide to do, multiply that by two, and cut a strip of fabric of that width by the length of points you need. I started with a four inch strip. Iron it in half, and then cut to the fold every two inches on one side of your strip.

Next, stagger it starting half-way on the other side, one inch in this case, and snip to the fold again, trimming off the first and last little short pieces. I snipped by starting each cut with my quilting grid, and then finishing it with the scissors, so I had the accuracy of the grid, but I didn’t have to try to quit at the fold with a rotary cutter. Your snipped strip will look like this:

Next, fold your points. First, diagonally from one side,

And then from the other side.

It will look like this as it comes unfolded:

Now go iron each of those little babies down so they will behave themselves. They’ll look like this after you iron them:

Fold your points train in half, with the raw edges in the center, and baste together an 1/8th or a scant quarter of an inch from the edge.

Now you have those cute little triangles all ready to go.

You can also do a two-tone prairie point by sewing two strips of different colors together, which makes them alternate if you fold each point around the next one carefully.

Next up: something fun to do with these now that you have made them.

Sew Mama, Sew Pillow Contest, Car Seat Cover, and Block of the Month

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Jenny

I think I want to enter this!

Haven’t decided what to do, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

I also finished this car seat cover recently, for my little bundle on his way in only five more weeks. Yaay! You can catch a tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew, if you want to try one. I made mine a little long, and I’m trying to decide whether to put some elastic around those bottom edges so it hugs the bottom of the car seat. What do you think?

And this is the block of the month for my quilt guild:

I think they will all be starry, and I’m going to do each one in monochrome but scrappy. We should have 12 by the end of the year. I am debating about doing two each month, one with the cream background, and one with lighter scraps and a dark gray background.