Love, Laura Lee: sewing

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UFOs no mo

You probably never knew one seamstress could have so many projects started, work all week finishing a bunch, and still have some left! Well, now you know.

I pulled out a stack of recently and not-so-recently started pieces and stitched like a mad woman, debt-snowball style. If you're not familiar with a debt-snowball, it's a term coined by financial planner Dave Ramsey who suggests when trying to get out of debt, you start with the bill that has the highest interest rate and the least to pay off. Then when you get that one paid off, you attack the next one. Getting the smallest ones finished motivates you and frees up cash to put toward the next bill.

Let's just say I had a lot of sewing bills to pay! Lots of you played along with my little guessing game, which was highly motivating to me. I hardly set one down before I was picking up the next one to finish. It's Friday afternoon and I'm aware that I could have probably forced myself to complete another one before midnight. But I stopped. Because as Caleb would say, "I tire!" I got a lot done and finished a few pieces for my poorly neglected little baby store in the process.

So, without further ado, here we go from start to finish. Hang with me, so you can find out who won my little guessing game challenge.

Innocence

You already saw this one. I completed it last weekend. I still like it. A lot.

Eliza Jane

This bunny was a team effort. Crocheted by Lacy and dressed by me, she is wearing a little frock made from Ellee's nursery fabrics. Lacy raised the cute factor really high by adding the shrug and headband. She's the first of the Ellee creations.

Jeremiah's Alphabet Quilt

This small wall-hanging is the first installment for Jeremiah's nursery. Hannah wants a Noah's Ark, two by two theme. But the homeschool mom in me thought he needed an alphabet quilt first. Sorry, Hannah. I briefly considered stitching two of each letter, but didn't want him to be dyslexic.

The hand quilting around each letter......

....makes the back almost as cute as the front!

Maggie's Pillow

Maggie and I started this a year or so ago. Maggie did all the appliqué by machine and embroidered the words by hand. It's been sitting around needing a back and stuffing all this time. Finally, it's at home on her bed!

Frolic

I pieced this gender-neutral crib quilt top during my frenzy last fall. It still needed to be quilted and bound.

The backing is gray with tiny stars. The binding is aqua blue. 38" X 44"

It's for sale.

$80

Spring Fever

This one has been a UFO the longest. I designed one similar to this as a give-away several years ago. The pieces were all cut out and tucked in a zip lock bag, just waiting to be pieced, hand quilted, and bound into a mini quilt.

Fawn Vintage Pillow

After she discovered how much fun it is to play with colored thread, Abby went "cracker dog" with the needle and floss. She left several embroidery pieces here and told me to do whatever I wanted with them. The first I turned into this vintage nursery pillow. Hand embroidered and hand-quilted pillow slip with removable pillow form. $20.

The next is this vintage baby giraffe pillow.

Hand-embroidered by Abby, hand-quilted by me. Removable pillow form.

$20

The back view shows the envelope style closure.

Last but not least is this vintage style tote. It measures about 8.5" X 9" X 1.5". This would make a great little tote bag or purse for any little girl. I lined Abby's embroidery and made it into a pocket for the front, then trimmed all the way around the top with lace. The back looks just like the front except without the pocket. $20

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the answer to the trivia question: How many UFOs can Laura Lee finish in one week?

NINE!

So who guessed nine?

NO ONE!

Did I plan it that way? Of course not! I just worked until I couldn't see straight and threw in the towel.

Which means...I had to assign everyone a number and put them in the handy dandy number generator and let some computer out in cyberspace choose a winner!!

Alyssa Romano,

That someone is you!

As your prize, you may choose any one of the five items pictured below. Just send me a message telling me which one you want.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Love,

life will be changing! {travel changing pad tutorial}

With two grandbabies due in early June, what is a Lollee to do?

Why, buy cute fabric and start stitching, that's what!

I had an idea for making a couple travel-sized changing pads that would fit neatly into diaper bags. I wanted them to be washable, but most importantly, wipeable, for after those messy changes that inevitably occur when you're far from home. My first thought was to order some of that adorable laminated cotton that I'm seeing all over the internet. Cute prints abound, but the price is steeper than I want to pay, around $12 or $13 per yard. So for the wipeable surface, I went with another idea--flannel-backed vinyl for tablecloths.

At Joann's there were not many choices of color, other than white, which seemed completely impractical for obvious reasons. The only color that remotely worked for babies was a fern green. I purchased a 1/2 yard of that, at 52 inches wide, which would back two changing pads.

Then I ventured off to the nursery prints aisle to find something suitably boyish for Jeremiah (Brad and Hannah's baby) and girlish for Ellee (Jonathan and Abby's baby). Hannah had told me that she's thinking of using a Noah's Ark theme. She may or may not go with that, but I couldn't resist the adorable "All Aboard" animal print. Abby said she just wanted sweet, cottage-y, and girlie. I couldn't pass by this sweet pastel safari fabric for Ellee, who will be born in Africa.

I decided to do a tutorial on how I made these. Mine are a little different from the ones I've seen online, so I figured, why not? You can buy yardage or fat quarters to use for the outer fabric.

{I'm just going to warn you-- working with vinyl is not like working with cotton. That is why quilts and heirloom baby garments are made from high quality cottons, not cheap flannel-backed vinyl. It is difficult to be a perfectionist when working with vinyl. Just do the best you can and don't worry if your seams aren't perfect. This isn't an heirloom. It IS practical and wipeable, though! These can be washed in the washer, but should be air dried.}

Travel Baby Changing Pad Tutorial

What you need:

approximately 15 X 22" piece of print fabric for the outside
approximately 15 X 22" piece of flannel-backed vinyl
same size piece of polyester batting to go between the layers
about 2" long piece of sew-in velcro
basting spray (optional)

Trim all your fabrics (including batting) to the size you want. Really the size is up to you. I was striving to make mine fit out of 1/2 yard cuts of printed fabric and still have some left over to make coordinating bibs, etc.

Spray basting the batting to the flannel side of the vinyl works really well to keep it all together.

Layer the batting, then the vinyl (right side up), then the print fabric (right side down)

Pin through all the layers in the seam allowance. You don't want to make unnecessary holes in the vinyl, so pin parallel to the edge of the fabric.

Don't forget to round the corners like I almost did.

Stitch through all the layers, leaving about 4" open for turning.

Carefully turn...

...and press with a warm (NOT HOT) iron.

Topstitching around the whole pad gives it a nice finish and serves the purpose of sewing the opening closed.

Now lay the pad out and fold it where you like. I wanted mine to fold in thirds lengthwise, then fold in quarters the other way. I folded it first to get an idea where to mark.

DISCLAIMER!

I used a Vis-A-Vis marker. You DO NOT want to do that!!! I thought the wash-off marker was a good idea but it bled to the white side when I applied a damp cloth to remove the marks. The marker washed out, no problem, but you don't want to make that mistake. Exactly how you should mark it, I don't know. Maybe a fade away pen would work. I'm not sure.

Now it's going to fold the other way, both ends toward the center. I left a little space in the center so it will lay flat when folded.

Here are all the marks. It really isn't rocket science. It's pretty difficult to mess this up.

While you're marking your lines, go ahead and pin your velcro down, so you can do all the rest of the sewing on one trip to the machine. I just pinned to the printed fabric and not through the vinyl.

Now sew on all those lines, from edge to edge. This is where you apply what you learned about not being a perfectionist on this project. The vinyl is likely to slip a little as you sew. It's ok. Mine did, too.

Stitch the velcro down really well. This baby is going to get a lot of use!

Ellee's finished pad--pretty side....

...and vinyl side, where the baby will lay.

Folded and velcro'd.

Two sweet!!!

But not as sweet as they are!

love,

let's make kyle a stocking! {scrappy christmas stocking tutorial

Twenty-nine years ago, back in 1983, I made Tom's and my Christmas stockings out of fabric scraps. When baby Bradley arrived, I continued with that tradition. Each new child that came along sent me digging through my scraps again to fashion another stocking.

They are all similar, yet they are all different. I wasn't a quilter back then, so I just sewed the strips together, put a back on, added a hanger, and called it finished. Over the years, I've thought about maybe taking them all apart and quilting them. I usually entertain that notion for about two minutes before talking myself out of all that extra work.

I've had several people ask how I construct these stockings, which prompted me to do this tutorial. Really, they are very simple. I'll show you step by step what I did to make Kyle's stocking today. Last year I had three new ones to make, but only finished two. So Kyle was way overdue for his stocking.

Bad Lollee!

I used original fabrics from his very adorable nursery which Abby and Jonathan had to dismantle last week when they began packing to move to Lesotho. Since they can't take his nursery with them, I knew I would preserve some of his fabrics in his stocking.

These are the original fabrics. I cut all the strips anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 inches wide. I like to use varying widths.

These are fabrics I pulled from my stash to complement the original fabrics.

I cut all the strips and laid them out to get a general idea of color placement. I placed a completed stocking over the top to make sure I would be able to cut the right shape when I got finished.

At that point I just started sewing strips together.

Using Hannah's stocking as a pattern, I cut around the part I had completed, leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

This is the bottom half...ready to start the top half. I pretty much copied Hannah's layout, just to save myself some time. Normally, I try to make an original layout. But after eleven stockings some repetition is ok.

Because I say so.

The top strips run vertically, with a horizontal strip at the bottom. Another horizontal strip will run along the very top. It obviously needs to be trimmed along the top, using the other stocking as a pattern.

I like to embellish with some ric-rac or lace or other gender appropriate trim. For Kyle, I used this spunky ribbon that Abby picked out for another project. All the colors work with his nursery colors. I just sewed it right over a seam between two strips.

At the very top, I embroider everyone's initials. So here are Kyle's, with the St. Clair initial larger in the center.

I chose a dotty red fabric for the back of his stocking. Just be sure to lay the right sides together in order to cut the back. Now sew the front to the back using a 1/4 inch seam, leaving the top open.

Turn inside out and press the stocking.

I turned the top edge down and used a decorative stitch to hem it.

For a hanger, I just used a tie from the bumper pads. But all you have to do is cut a strip of fabric about 4 inches long and one inch wide. Fold it neatly to the center lengthwise and create a strip about 3/8 inch wide finished.