Friendship Bracelet Birthday Card

The end of the year is approaching fast which means Christmas is just around the corner. It also means I am entering a birthday season of some of my dearest friends - one of them being Kathy. Because our birthdays are a week apart, we've always shared a special bond being two of the youngest in our group of friends. Kathy is also one of the few friends that I can talk to about crafting without fear of being made fun of, so naturally, I made a birthday card for her.

As I was brainstorming, I kept coming back to the idea of giving her a friendship bracelets. Remember those? =)

Pillow Cases With Piping (Project 15)

This project was focusing on making pillow cases, but I didn't have pillows to make cases for and didn't want to go buy new pillows just for this project. Jess' old pillow saved the day. I took the filling and made myself two 16-by-16 pillowforms.

The project itself was pretty straightforward. I used fabrics squares (on sale!) and the fabric from Jess' old pillowcase to make two cases with envelope backs and edged with piping.

Hemming Jeans (Project 10)

Some fun trivia about me - I stand a towering 5 feet, ZERO inches. At that height, even petite sizes can be too long on me, so I am forced to hem all of my pants. Until this project, I've been doing all of my hemming by hand, which can be quite laborious if I go on a pants shopping spree.

The technique taught in this class is actually the same technique I've been using with an additional step that uses transparent polyester thread for extra security. I'm never going back to hemming by hand!

Fabric Storage Cubby (Project 17)

After my previous entry about how I don't work well with bias tape, what do I do? I skip straight to a project that uses 6 yards of bias tape. I was thoroughly enjoying this project (working with fabric stabilizer is kind of cool) until I had to sew all of that tape onto each individual panel.

5 panels x 4 sides/panel = 20 sides to sew!!!!

This has to be the first time one of my projects has frustrated me to the point where I felt the urge to destroy my sewing machine. Once I was done with all the panels, I decided to stop using my machine and hand sew the panels together.

At the end, I do feel this was a cool and extremely useful project. Flipping the cubby right side out was also kind of fun.

Doesn't it look right at home on my cart?

Reversible Baby Bib (Project 9)

I am still trying to figure out why a reversible bib was part of my sewing class curriculm. Good thing I have a couple close friends with babies that are still at a bib-wearing age. The bib I made ended up going to Noah (one of the cutest and happiest baby boys I have ever seen!), son of my dear friend Jen.

Some conclusions I reached after completing this project:

• If I ever flirt with the idea of becoming a baby bib maker - please smack me upside the head. I am terrible at bib making.
• Bias tape + Grace = DISASTER. It is not that easy to stitch down because if you're not careful, the sewing machine sometimes doesn't catch the other side. Hence, no close up pictures of the bias tape.