Pretty Pretty Placemats

I started making placemats back in May, and I finally finished!  I love how colorful they turned out!

I think I might make two more placemats for when we have guests (any more than six people, and I guess we're throwing a bed sheet across the table!!!), but the next two I think I'm going to just have vertical stripes.

Quilted Placemat

I wanted to make some placemats to go with our new-to-us "big-people table", so I did an internet search for inspiration and found this.  It really is very simple.  I started with a square, and then I sewed fabric to one edge, and then cut it.  I continued in a spiral until I made it as big as I needed it.  To save fabric (and time), I kept track of how big it needed to be and started only making the corners bigger once I got to that point.  (You can see how each corner has a few strips that are isolated from other corners.)  One it was big enough, I used my rotary cutter to cut it to the proper size, cut a piece of fabric for the backing (white fabric from a sheet that I used for another project), did a little quilting, and then did the binding.

I want to make a few more like this but with different color schemes, and then I might do a few with just vertical stripes.  I'll hopefully make more time for sewing once it gets blistering hot in the summer and it's too warm to do anything but sit in front of the sewing machine.  Haha!

Another quilt!

Here's the quilt that I just finished for Matthew's first cousin once removed!  It's fun!  It's pink! :)

I link to the instructions in this post.

Crafting!

Knit headband.  Now I can stay warm without
abandoning my standard ponytail.

Lamp before-ish!  (I added the blue ribbon
on the top and the bottom before I took the
picture... oops.)

Lamp after!  Some glue, some yarn, and some
crocheted circles (or closed disks, to those
of you who like to keep your mathematical
definitions straight...), and you have a super
cute lamp!

OWL PURSE!  Wicked awesome.

The pattern for the knit headband can be found here.  I made my owl by making up a pattern after admiring the owl purse found here.  If you aren't comfortable making up your own pattern, you can buy a pattern at that site.

Birdie pillow

You know what makes me happy?  Sweet little colorful birdies. Very happy indeed.  Can't you hear their hand-stitched beaks shyly peeping?

You might not realize it, but you've seen this pillow before.

Like here.  See that burgandy pillow there?   That is what has been birdified.  (The birdie pillow really is just a sham I made for the burgandy pillow.)  The pillow actually has a snowman on the other side.  The snowman gets to cuddle with the loveseat for all but two months of the year.  At some point early in our marriage, we kind of thought that we would be navy, burgandy, forest green type people.  Now I am realizing that those colors were really representing what I thought I wanted (don't they just seem like blissful middle class colors?).  However, I'm really attracted to brighter colors, and I really love having a handmade look in the home.  I have also learned that I prefer not to have much of a color scheme.  I like having things work well together, but I don't like being confined to specific colors.  A pillow full of colorful birds is perfect for me.

Do you have a color scheme in your living room?  What is it?

A quilt

 I finished a quilt yesterday!  Since I have time these days, I figured I'd make a small-ish quilt for when we have kids.  I made it small enough for a baby to play on, a toddler/young child to sleep under, and an older child to adult to wrap around them.  I think it will be easy to find used baby blankets, but I wanted to make something special that will last and be usable for a long time.  So, here you are, Not-Yet-Existent Child!

If you are interested, I used these instructions only without the gathering. I just cut out 4" squares.

This is a good project for small scraps, too.  The squares don't take too much of any fabric.  I used some scraps of my own, and I also used some given to me by a friend's mom who quilts for charities.  (Thank you!)  For the off-white borders and the blue binding/backing, I needed a fair amount of fabric, so I got a couple of sheets from Goodwill.  I had a bag of batting that was supposed to be used by a friend but ended up not being used, so I didn't have to go out and find that this time.  Hooray!

You can't have too many sundresses...

Especially ones made out of used sheets.  This particular dress was made out of a sheet I found as we cleaned out a closet at my mom's house.  Can you guess what era the sheet is from?!?!  I can't quite read the tag since it's fraying, but the copyright is definitely 1970-something.  Apparently it was my grandma's, and she ripped a corner off for some reason.  I looked at it and thought: Sundress.  Here it is!

I found that sewing this dress went a lot better than my last sundress.  It is also better sewn with a more finished interior.  Each time I sew one of these, I do something a little silly, and I make it better the next time.  I'm really close to having it just right, though.  Fortunately, a well-placed sash hides the problem area: Where the skirt join the top.

The v-neck was a last minute addition.  I had a flat cut across, but I realize that it really needed to be a 'v'.

I'm loving the criss-cross straps, too!  I wanted something a little different this time.

Silly Sun Hat

 It's summer.  It's Corvallis.  Thus, the sun occasionally makes an appearance!  Last year I learned that most sunscreens on the market contain ingredients that scientists believe cause melanoma (!!!).  This made me not want to put on sunscreen so often anymore.  I try not to spend too much time in direct sunlight, but it does happen on occasion.  This summer we gave away our collection of old sunscreens on Craigslist (if they're going to buy the same stuff anyway...), and we got a tube of Badger sunscreen which uses zinc oxide (but NOT nano-particle!) as the active ingredient.  This stuff seems to work well, and non-nano zinc oxide is believed to be safe, from what I've read.  Plus, the sunscreen has some cocoa in it, so it has the added benefit of smelling kind of chocolate-y.

Despite finding a decent sunscreen, it's still fairly expensive and it comes in a plastic tube.  Clearly I needed a HAT!  Not just any hat, but a slightly silly looking sun hat!  I found instructions here, and I made this super simple hat using leftover fabric from an apron and from a dress that I made.

The hat is reversible, which is kind of cool.

You can add a bow for ornament...

And there's nothing like making silly faces while wearing a silly hat!

Sunny Side Upcycle - June

Here is this month's Etsy creations.  All except for the whale and the bunny still remain for sale at sunnysideupcycle.etsy.com! :)

Dress Shirt Shirt Dress

It's a shirt dress!  Made out of a dress shirt!  The dress shirt was a large long sleeve men's shirt on its last legs at Goodwill (its tag color was the 50% off color this week), so I made this for $4.  It's hard to see it, but it has little white, dark blue, and light blue stripes.  I got the idea from here; however, I pretty much just changed things around to suit me.  I wanted a tie in the back and thicker straps/sleeves, so I did that.  I also found that adding darts in the back added a nice touch and kept it from poofing too much.  FUN!