Floor Pillow

A little over a month ago, I found this diy floor pillow for kids from Living with Punks. It's her twist on the land of nod pillows. She goes step by step and gives lots of illustrations and measurements. She even has different variations of the same pillow on her blog.

I thought to myself, "Self, this looks fun and the kids would love it." So that weekend, I BEGGED my hubby to to take me to Hancock fabrics since it was a bit farther than I was comfortable driving. (We just moved to a big city and I'm from a small town) I ended up getting two kinds of fabrics. Not knowing much about fabrics. I ended up with one indoor home decor fabric and one outside home decor fabric! OPPS! But, it works and my son was super excited about the color (His favorite color is green) and of course I couldn't leave my daughter out!

Fast forward to three weeks ago, I finally decided to try my hand at this pillow. With the help of the hubby and his mathematical genesis, we made the pillow 20"instead of 17". Come to find out the majority of compasses only go up to a 12" circle. I give my husband full credit for making the circle. He went back to his old school days and used a string, a pencil and a wd-40 marker to make the circle on a brown paper lawn bag you get from home depot (they are thick and actually make really good patterns).  In hindsight, we could have just put a longer pencil in the compass. 

Who knew what kind of adventure I was getting myself into. The cutting was the easy part! Have I mentioned I'm sewing challenged?! First off we just moved so I didn't have a proper place for my sewing machine and for some reason I thought it would be best for me to do it in front of the tv. Don't laugh here's my sewing machine set up...

I think I set myself up for failure with this move, but hey, I'm a warrior right or a woman? Maybe both, Warrior woman. I can adapt and overcome. So I thought. For some reason, I forget how to wind my bobbin every time I run out. I know right? I should remember this. I tell myself," I'm going to remember how to do this with out looking at the book." So here I go.... 

Don't ask how I did this. I really don't know. Honestly!  Defeated, I looked in my book, and I'm on the right track again! Lesson: If you aren't 100% sure, look it up.

Lesson 2: A seam ripper is your best friend. If you don't have one get one. It's a must have! If you can't tell, I didn't follow the wrong sides together rule and one side of the fabric was the right side and the other was the wrong side.

Luckily, after that it was smooth sailing to the finish line. I'm not entirely happy with it. I obviously have a lot more to learn when it comes to patterns and sewing. Practice will only make me better (I keep telling myself this) or maybe I'll just be stagnant, but I'll keep trying!

Reality hit when the kids didn't really use it and it ended up being a schnauzer bed. That's how life goes! 

We're Lying Liars

That's what I'm more or less telling myself. But hey! Totally back.

(I'm attempting to post from the mobile app, though, so this may go all wonky.)

Having at least one little girl in the house means that we've acquired quite a stash of headbands. As even the boyo loves headgear of some sort it was inevitable that they'd never get around to being Put Away.

Doesn't help that I really had no good place to put it. I'd eyed a couple cylinders several times for a long time, thinking of punching holes in them and threading string or wire to just hang from hooks on the wall. This may one day get off the ground, but I did finally figure out a quick fix to keeping headbands in check:: cardboard tube.

This actually worked a lot better with a thicker cardboard tube, since what I really did was pressure fit the thing in between the shelf walls of their dresser hutch. I painted it so it so at first glance it wouldn't look so obviously like a cardboard tube stuck in a hutch, and now the girls are excited about actually putting away their headbands!

I'm pretty happy, too. There's another side I can Install (that sounds More Impressive) a tube in, so things can be all Symmetrical.

What is this, a blog post on how some lady put a cardboard tube to good use in a very specific situation? ::table flipping:: Hey, go back to the smocking post if you want something useful.

Honey Comb Smocking

Lately, I've been pinteresting (that's a verb right?) a little more than I should. I've been searching for a new project for our weekly craft day that Loree and I decided to try! See, once a week we have to send each other a picture of a craft project. Doesn't matter what it is just as long as we send a picture. It can even be as simple as taking a picture of a piece of fabric we picked out. Than the following week we post our progress or a new project. The first week was a success I must say! I found a tutorial on Martha Stewart to make a textured pillow and off to Walmart I went to find the fabric.

 Unfortunately, I was not smart enough to figure out what the Martha Stewart tutorial was talking about. (Illustrations tend to go over my head.) Who knew it was actually called Smocking (Thanks Loree for leading me in the right direction). So, off I go again, on the hunt for a smocking diy tutorial. Did you know there's all kind of smocking methods? After a plethora of you tube videos, I finally decided that honey comb smocking was an easy way to get started.(mamacaffee you tube video)

 I begin my journey into the unknown, and found out it really wasn't that bad! BUT, I did not accommodate for the shrinkage in the pillow so my 20'X20' square pillow actually ended up being a 16'X18'pillow! Opps!  Math has never been my strong suite. Did I mention crafting really isn't either?
The grid paper you see above didn't work out and I ended up using my yard stick making dots directly on the fabric every 1 inch apart. It took me about 3 days to do the smocking watching the you tube video a million times before starting! I'm sure you could do it faster but I'm kind of slow! The first day I ended up with about 1/3 of it done. This is where I noticed opps I didn't accommodate for the shrinkage.

After Three days I was finished !

Than came the easy part of making it a pillow. I actually just pinned it onto my previously cut 20'x20' back piece than trimmed around the edges to match my smocked piece. I  sewed the edges together with the right sides of the fabric together. Than trimmed the corners so the points would stand out when I turned it right side out! I left about a 4 inch opening to fill the pillow with stuffing and than stitched the pillow up and I ended up with this ( Sorry for the lack of pictures) I ended up with a beautiful pillow! 

Reading Manuals is Tasty

This is part of a sewing machine.  Huzzah for sewing machines!  Huzzah for the many things sewing machines create for us!

This is a shot of a sewing machine that now does not make scary KRRRRKKRRRRK sounds shortly after trying to make a stitch.  Huzzah for working sewing machines!

Remember to clean the fuzz out and oil your sewing machine correctly.  Also, take care not to bend mechanical parts when removing other pieces.  This can be the difference between a working sewing machine and a cleverly-disguised paperweight.  >.>

Welcome to Crafarty, where we learn basic stuff like this in an attempt to keep those creative juices flowing.  It's started as a "kick-in-the-pants" effort for all those great crafty ideas we want to do, but never get around to doing.  Expect a post every week, because that's what it's all about.