While I was at my parents’ place over the holidays, I wanted to do something crafty. I had bookmarked Tasha of Creation Corner‘s post on a Pointed Flower Tutorial and it seemed like the perfect quick and easy craft. My dad and I had just gone to the New Year’s Day fabric sale where I had picked up some fun fat quarters, so I decided to turn them into flowers. How awesome is my dad that he’ll let me drag him to fabric stores and better yet buy me fabric when I get there? I will tell you — pretty darn awesome.

Creation Corner’s tutorial is great with lovely photos. I highly recommend it. Here are some pics from my execution of it with notes on what I did differently.

Start by tracing out your circles. I only used 5 although the tutorial shows 6. This is because I forgot the tutorial showed 6. I would try 6 next time. I found I liked my circles on the bigger side, closer to 3″.

Cut out those circles.

Fold each circle in half.

And then in half again so it’s a quarter circle.

Gather up the rounded edge. I tried doing nice even pleats on my first tiny flower but I found it was better just to eyeball it and get as many gathers as I could. I liked the resulting flower better. Although I did prefer it when the needle entered and exited on the same side of the petal.

Repeat the above steps for all your petals, gathering them on one thread.

Squish them together and they’ll start to form a circle.

Sew the ends together and then gather them through the middle. Creation Corner didn’t do this part, but I liked the centers to touch so they weren’t visible around the button so I gathered them in the center as well.

Cover a button with some of the cutting scraps and sew it to the middle and you’re done! Enjoy your little flowers.

Tags: fabric, flowers

It’s been ages since I posted. With the holidays and an upcoming dance competition, I’ve just been swamped and barely have a moment at my computer when I’m home. But I’m currently injured so on the upside it means I have time to catch up on some of my posting.

My little brother came to visit this past weekend and decided he wanted to make candles. But of course, we couldn’t do simple melt and pour candles. It had to be the dipping taper candles. With multiple colors.

So we went to Michael’s and picked up wax, wax colorant, and wicks. We realized we needed something to dip the wicks into. Glass and plastic wouldn’t do since they’d be sitting in boiling water. We needed metal. So we went into the supermarket next door and found 20 oz Arizona cans. Perfect.

We took the cans home and used a can opener to take off the top. The first one we messed up and I removed the smooth part on the top. But the other four worked well. Leaving the smooth part is nice because then you don’t have to worry about slicing your fingers.

The biggest issue we had was getting the cans to stay in the stockpot. Since wax is lighter than water, we tried weighting them down, but we needed much more weight than we had. In the end, we just taped them down. We lined the stockpot with aluminum foil since it was nonstick and I didn’t want to scratch it, although I realize my silicon steamer would have been a better option to use. And we used aluminum foil and aluminum tape (leftover from downstairs renovation) to hold down the cans so they stayed stable.

Next we hacked off some wax from our massive block. We waaaay over bought the wax. I’ll probably use it to make Hanukkah candles later this year. We filled the cans with wax and turned the water on to boil.

Once all the wax had melted, we added the colorant blocks. We probably added much more than we needed to, but my brother wanted the colors vibrant. In fact, he wanted to use crayons originally, but I didn’t have any that I wanted to toss in.

Once the colorant was melted as well, we got to dipping. It was a pretty easy process. Just dip the wick in wax, then dip into cold water (we used the fifth arizona can for that). Repeat. It takes a little bit to build up the wax layer so have patience. Then let the candles cool. It’s easier to demonstrate than to describe it so I made a video:

When you’re done dipping (or reached your patience limit), it’s time finish the bottom.

You could either squish the candle onto the counter top to give it a flat bottom which is what my brother did. Or you could cut off the bottom which is what I did. It’s neat to look at the bottoms and all the different rings of colors.

We have a ton of wax left. I just let it cool in the Arizona cans. I’ll probably just buy some more wicks and heat it up in time to make Hanukkah candles towards the end of the year. In any case, I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Here’s a picture of my three candles:

Tags: candles

As you saw earlier, I made a witch costume for Minnie. It was loosely based off of Butterick 4885.

Basically I used the pattern for the base. I shortened the length and added the skirt which was just two layered ruffles.

I also added a ruffle at the neckline instead of the collar.

Finally, I made a little hat. What is a witch without her hat?

The hat base was made with Timtex and then wrapped with fabric that was glue gunned down.

There’s a circle of the liner fabric (the whole costume was lined with purple china silk) on the base of the hat which holds the elastic in place.

Since I bought all the fabric on Sunday, everything was already on sale so the whole costume cost less than $10.

Tags: halloween, minnie, witch

This year for Halloween, Minnie was a witch. It was a quick costume I tossed together in about 3 hours including the time it took to go to the store and buy the fabric. About 2 hours of that was real sewing.

She really looked quite adorable in it despite the fact that she really didn’t like the hat and shook it off at every possible opportunity.

I’ll post some better pictures later this week.

Tags: costume, halloween, minnie, pumpkin

Yesterday I took a class at A Work of Heart where we made a Tim Holtz style collage. This is my finished collage! I think it came out nicely. It’s not my usual style so I’m not sure where I’ll put it yet, but the thought was the kitchen.

My favorite part was the old dictionary pages. Granted, it felt a little wrong to be ripping pages out of a book, but I opted for pages that were either amusing or meant something. The left one is stitch diagrams which I thought apropos and I attached the buttons and fabric tape measure to that. The middle one is a “ruptured duck” which is apparently a symbol for discharge from the army but I was highly amused by the term “ruptured duck” so I went with it and decorated it with wings (it is a duck after all) and a crown. And on the right is a walrus which I also thought was cute. So I framed him. The rest is just random stuff.

The store looked cool and if I need scrapbooking stuff, now I know where to go! They also have lots of other classes and do private events which I will keep in mind for the future.

Tags: collage, grunge, scrapbooking

Recently I was dancing at the local Renaissance Faire. I needed an old world costume. Specifically they said 14th or 15th century. This one was pushing it a little bit since it’s technically 16th or 7th century, but qualified well enough considering some of the other things I saw there.

The pattern is from the Folkwear pattern catalog in their Caravan line. It’s pattern #108 Turkish Dancer:

I made the entari and the vest from this pattern. The pants were a self-made pattern that I’ll do in a different post. Here’s a close up of the vest:

In addition to the those pieces, I dressed it up with some sashes around the hips and as much jewelry and bangles as I could find. Plus some scarfs around the head (not shown here). I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here’s the back:

Here’s my PatternReview review of it which contains most of the details:

Pattern Description:
Pattern includes pieces for an entari (long robe), vest and jacket. I made the entari and the vest.

Pattern Sizing:
Comes with XS-2XL. I made the S based on my measurements which fit well.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it?
Yes.

Were the instructions easy to follow?
Yes.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
I liked that it was a simple pattern and easy to alter. Not much that I disliked.

Fabric Used:
I was making this wear at a renaissance faire and needed to stay fairly authentic so I needed to stick with “old world” fabrics like cotton or silk. Plus, I was going to be dancing in it in the sun so I wanted it breathable. For the entari I went with a cotton gauze. It turned out great and very comfortable. For the vest, I think it was a silk brocade. It has a very woven look to it which added to the old world feel.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
I made several alterations. I made three fit alterations on the entari.

1. For the entari, when I made a muslin first, it turned out that I had to take it in where the front meets the sleeve. It was gaping quite a bit. After taking it in, it fit great.
2. I had to take up an inch in the waist area where the darts are.
3. I didn’t actually do the darts on the entari in the final version. In the muslin the darts really help with the fit, but the gauze is stretchy and I didn’t want the seams to show. So I took it in at the sides instead, fitting it on me. I probably took out about 2″ on each side.

Other alterations included:

• I didn’t bind the edges of the entari and I cut off the extra 1 in on the inside of the front pieces since I wasn’t binding the edges. I actually didn’t finish the edges at all. 1) I wanted more of nomadic look. 2) I was worried the binding would weigh it down and I was going to be dancing in this so I wanted it to flow.
• They only had so much white gauze at the JoAnn near me, so I had to take in the sleeves a bit so they would fit in one cut. Also shortened the entari for the same reason (not enough fabric), but the length of the entari is quite variable so that didn’t really matter.
• I did not add the closure for the entari. I didn’t want or need it.
• I took off 3″ from the bottom of the vest because I wanted my stomach more visible and longer vests shorten my torso.
• I used my muslin for the vest to line the vest.
• I didn’t bind the arm holes because I ran out of bias tape. I’ll probably pick some more up and bind them. As a result, I just folded those edges over and it looked fine.
• I didn’t do the closure for the front of the vest because again didn’t feel it needed it. Wanted to keep it simple.

Except for the fit alterations all of these were completely optional and for aesthetic or practical reasons.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
Definitely. I plan to sew the entari again as a jacket in heavier material now that I’ve sized it.

Conclusion:
Great pattern! I love the way it turned out and am already looking forward to making it again.

Tags: costume, dancer, turkish

So my friend Coco is a lioness. It’s kinda an inside joke, but it’s cuz she’s fierce. I felt the need to emblazon this on a shirt for her so she could advertise this to everyone else. Plus it gave me an excuse to try out my rhinestones.

I started by laying out the words in the Silhouette software. Since I was cutting it out, I decided to cutout a few more words that I planned on making into rhinestone templates later on.

Sassafras, Awesome, and Lioness. You’ll see Sassafras and Awesome eventually. I used the letters that came with the rhinestone kit, but I did modify them to be narrower so that I could fit the longer words across the chest. I didn’t want any of them to be much wider than 8″. Otherwise the letters get stuck int eh armpits.

When you remove the stencil, you’re left with the negative space which gives you a good idea of what your rhinestone pattern will look like.

Next was placing the rhinestones in the stencil. I used the recommended technique of pouring a bunch of rhinestones on to the template with the template in the container to save the rhinestones. But I still had to move a lot of them by hand. I use the Pick Me Up tool from Silhouette for that.

These rhinestones are actually the topaz colored ones though it’s hard to see in this picture. I was going for jungle style colors.

And voila! The finished shirt. She loved it

In case anyone is curious, I got most of my rhinestones at Scrapbook Express. Some of them I bought directly from Silhouette when they were having a sale this summer, but I like shopping at Scrapbook Express for my Silhouette supplies like rhinestones and vinyl. They have great customer service, good prices and pretty wide selection of Silhouette stuff.

Tags: coco, lioness, rhinestones, tank top

Well, it’s been several months since I posted to Pigs In Pajamas, but I have good reason. During this time, we came up to the finishing stages of our basement. As part of this basement, I’m getting a dance studio and a sewing studio. I’m super excited about it! But it’s taken all my extra time since we have been doing it ourselves. (Well, technically my husband has been doing most of the heavy lifting.) In any case, we’ve passed final inspection and I’ve been assembling my desks and workspaces. I’ll be giving the grand tour of my studio in few days when it’s cleaned up. So stay tuned!

(In the meantime I leave you with a picture of the pancake I made for my anniversary. Well, one of many — one wouldn’t have been enough for both of us

Tags: pancake, return

You may recall that last week I posted about my Chicken Tikka Masala Cook-Off. One of the ways I made it special was by creating little themed tent cards to label each dish with its number.

At first I was going to cut the design out of the tent card and put a piece of colored cardstock behind. The design I had turned out to be too complicated — my less sticky mat is not sticky enough and my cardstock mat is too sticky right now so they ripped apart as I was taking them off. Instead, I cut the decoration out of vinyl and just attached it to my tent cards.

It was super easy this way. And on the bright side, it means my tent cards are now a stand alone design that I can share with you!

The font I used is Copperplate. The vinyl design is modified from Bohemian Style Border by Valerie Foster [bohemian_style_border_C20090810025834_19414]. My tent card design is below. Enjoy! I’d love to see what you do with it.

Tags: cards, tent

I was going to post about my tent cards from my Chicken Tikka Masala Cook-Off on Friday, but since this is Valentine’s themed, I wanted to give people a chance to make it in time for Valentine’s Day if they needed to.

So I needed a box to give some raspberry jam to a friend in. I wanted it to have windows so you could see the jam inside. My tiny jam jars are about 3 inches in diameter so that determined the size, but I also like my designs to fit on one page if possible.

Above is what I came up with. The top assembles with the little tabs. The bottom is in two pieces which must be glued together. In all honestly, it’s not really strong enough for something as heavy as a jam jar. I think I would need to to put something stiff on the bottom.

I added some vellum paper in the windows and it looks great. But you could also put a contrasting color which I think would also look cute. Here’s the view inside:

I just used two tiny dabs of glue above and below the window.

I also made a Valentine’s themed one given the season. I think it’d be great to give someone a gift of cookies or other small doodads in.

Here are both boxes if you’d like to play around with them. Like all my designs, these are available for non-commercial use only. If you post a picture, I would love to see. Please post a comment or a link back to my site. Thank you and enjoy!

Tags: box, Valentine's Day, window