On the Go Sewing Kit

Since we are spending the holiday away from home and we have a pretty long car ride ahead of us with limited space in our car, I decided I was in desperate need of a travel sewing kit.  I have had the book One Yard Wonders for a couple years and have not ever made anything from it.  Not because the ideas are not good but because I'm really not great following directions with patterns.  I prefer tutorials with pictures, lots and lots of pictures.  However, when I saw this sewing kit I thought it would be really easy to follow and decided to give it a shot.

 

I will admit, I used the same measurements as the pattern suggested but in true Lisa fashion, I did not follow any of their directions.  Don't get me wrong there was nothing wrong with the directions given in the book, they were clear and easy to follow, I'm just really really bad at following any directions, period.  Plus I also had to change a couple things because I refused to go to the craft store until after the holidays.  Here are the few changes I made:

 

 

The directions say to use snaps but I didn't have any so instead I used velcro as closures for all three of the pockets.

 

 

I also made 2 of the needle holders placing them side by side even though the directions only call for one.  One just didn't seem like enough.

 

My one piece of advice: If you look at the picture in the pattern book it will show the top pocket holding a pair of scissors, which is exactly what I wanted to put in the large top pocket of my sewing kit, however, the pocket is too small for the pair of scissors I own.  My advice is if you too want a pocket for scissors, measure your scissors and adjust the pocket size as necessary.

 

 

This project only took me a couple hours from start to finish, and probably wouldn't have taken that long if I would have turned the darn tv off (that boob tube will suck your life away :). 

 

Peg People Dolls & A Little Girl Purse

We are traveling over the holiday to see friends and family and I'm so excited to be seeing a couple of my close friends.  I decided last minute I wanted to do a gift for each of them and one of their daughters who'se almost 3.  I've been wanting an excuse to make peg people for awhile and since I already had the wood people I thought now would be a great time.

 

I have seen some truely beautiful peg dolls all over the internet and while I know mine aren't as detailed as some or perfect, I think they are pretty darn good for my first try.  Grant couldn't stop playing with them, which of course means I have to make a set fit for a little boy next.

 

And of course I couldn't give 3 little peg dolls without a little bag to carry them in.

 

 

I made this little girl purse in about 20 minutes, creating the pattern as I went along.  I'm really hoping to figure out how the heck to make this into a pdf but until then you will have to remain satisfied with the picture.  I used velcro instead of a zipper because it's what I had in my stash and ironed fusible interfacing to the outer pieces of fabric for more stability.  The fabric flower was made using this tutorial.

 

 

There are literally hundreds of fabric flower tutorials out there in the blog world but I really think this is one of the easiest.  I figure if I can do this flower with a 2 year old climbing all around me and on me then it's a score.

 

After realizing how simple this bag was to make I now have it on my to-do list for my neice Sophie.  She has just started carrying bags around putting all her little toys and goodies inside.

 

Mickey Crayon Roll-A Stocking Stuffer

I made my first crayon roll last year for my brother's girlfriend's son.  When I was brainstorming stocking stuffers this year I knew a crayon roll for Grant would be perfect.  I used the tutorial at Skip to My Lou. I bought a box of 8 fat crayons so they would be easier for him to hold so I did have to adjust the measurements a little.

 

I used a hair elastic and a button to hold it closed.

 

 

All the measurements were the same except the length which I cut at about 10 3/4 inches with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  After turning it right side out and top stitching around the outside the length ended up being 10 1/4 inches.  This will be paired with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring book I found for 99 cents at Walmart.

 

Felt Matching Game

We are going out of state to visit my husband's family and I feel the need to create some new toys.   Nothing major just simple items.  1 of them I came across in blogland and etsy is a felt matching game.  So I took a sheet of felt and cut it into 3x3 squares.  Then took multiple fabric scraps and cut 2x2 squares (cut 2 squares of each fabric), then just stitched them to the felt square.  Super simple right?

Grant doesn't know how to match them up yet but we have been having fun making dog and monkey sounds when he picks up those squares and he also likes to stack them then throw them all over the floor, haha.