Rolling Stones iPod case

I made this for my girlfriend. La di dah, la di dah, just another iPod case. It's made out of a sage green denim, has a clear vinyl front for viewing and accessing the wheel, an opening at the bottom for charging, and the ribbon tab on top (embroidered with my machine's leafy motif) has a velcro closure. Boring, right?



But no! Look who it is!

Adult shirt to toddler dress

I have seen a couple tutorials online (mostly Craftster.org -- just search shirt toddler dress there and you'll find them) for these dresses, and it occurred to me that this would be a much better use for that shirt with the weird collar that I always loved but now never wear because it's got that one stain on the shirttail ...

Anyway. I cut off the sleeves:

And the collar ...

I hacked off the bottom to make it flat and hemmed everything. Then I sewed on a simple tube of fabric with elastic inside to make it gather a little. Normally I think that fabric is really cute, but once I got it sewn on, I see that it's actually hideous on the shirt. See, even the camera wouldn't cooperate and take a decent picture of it.

I quickly ripped that out and put on a tube made out of matching fabric from a discarded sleeve. I also turned the collar area and added some elastic.

This was a gift for a friend's daughter, but she wasn't around, so I paid my 3-year-old son a quarter to pose for me. I told him he could look as crabby as he wanted to.

X-wing fighter pilot shirt

It was a lot of fleece, some fabric paint, a black shoe string, and a couple feet of gray strap.

Bowling ball bag project

While looking at Wii games at Target the other day, I saw a Wii travel bag designed to look like a bowling ball bag. "Cool!" I thought, because I'll be taking the Wii to SD for Christmas with the family. But I ought not buy a $30 bag -- no matter how cool -- that I'm going to use maybe twice a year. I ought to wrap the whole thing in a towel and put it in a tote bag -- that's more my budget right now.

But it got me to thinking: Bowling ball bags are cool. So the next time I was at Savers to drop off a bag, I buzzed through the bag section. And there it was, for $4.99!



It still had the ball ring stand inside. The rest of the inside sort of sucked -- it was just the B side of the vinyl. (Ignore the newspaper -- that was for the pattern of what I'm getting to.) I washed the bag with hot, soapy water, then zipped up a bowl of vinegar in it overnight to get rid of the vaguely room-deodorizer-ish Savers smell. It worked really well.

Then I remembered this fabric called "Atomic Ale." I first got some of this a long time ago to make a wallet. When the bolt went on closeout, I had to buy another yard. No idea what I would do with it, but I knew something would present itself.

I wasn't sure I'd have the patience to sew the lining into the vinyl, so I made a pattern out of newspaper, then hemmed a piece of the fabric to fit each section. I adhered the fabric to the vinyl with adhesive craft spray. So far it's sticking really well!

A friend asked me, "What will you do with the bag?" I said, "What WON'T I do with it?" I think I will start by making pouches and sleeves out of Reflectix or bubblewrap for all the Wii components, and then covering the pouches and sleeves with the fabric I have remaining. I think it's going to be so awesome.

Star Wars pajamas

The boys are growing freakishly fast. Asher of course has Tom's hand-me-downs, but if I make Tom Star Wars pajamas, then Asher will want some, too. So here we go. I was having trouble with the sleeves (I'm 35! I should be able to manage a damn sleeve!). So I came up with this: Use a T-shirt, and just sew "extensions" at the seam. It worked so well, I can hardly believe it.

It looks kind of dorky with their names down the leg, but I have a hard time keeping their clothes straight, and I wasn't going to make a size tag to sew into the waistband. We had these iron-on letters left over from when my ex made a project. Ugly, yes, but already on-hand, and free! :-)

Here's Asher brushing his teeth. Well, shaking his toothbrush.

Kitchen curtains

Simple, white, cheap: Everything I was looking for in a set of kitchen curtains. I bought several yards of this funny weave-y texture-y fabric on clearance for $1/yard. Oh, and it's probably best not to sew while you're drinking -- I totally messed up the hem on the right-side curtains and had to fix it once I sobered up.

Plain, plain white -- even with a texture -- was a bit blah. I had my fancy sewing machine do an embroidery stitch as a detail throughout, using blue thread that matched the cabinets.

They'll get a little less stiff as they hang there, I know -- but I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.