The Artsy Fartsy Files

Phish Taggie Blanket

silverstreamdesigns — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:10:12 +0000

PHISH TAGGIE BLANKET! I’ve wanted to make one of these for so long and I found the perfect old shirt and matching ribbons and fabric!

This is my favorite thing I’ve made Hannah Claire! She immediately grabbed it and put it in her mouth!

in process

YAY!!!

Something Blue

silverstreamdesigns — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:40:57 +0000

Front

Back

People-patterned fabric!

This quilt, which I call “Something Blue,” was a gift for my brother’s wedding. I used the quilt design, fabric pattern, and other things to metaphorically speak about them at their rehearsal dinner. The pattern is from Quiltville called Strip Twist. I am so in love with the people fabric. I made the back from a strip of scraps to divide it up and keep things interesting. It’s my first free motion quilt job with a real binding. While I can’t say I won’t procrastinate again, I will definitely be making more quilts!

Wet Bags with Iron-on Vinyl inside

silverstreamdesigns — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:52:34 +0000

Finally—WET BAGS!!
I’ve wanted to make these for a long time. They were good for me to practice my zipper skills.

I lined these with iron-on vinyl and then made a zipper pouch. I’m going to put dirty cloth diapers in the black and white one instead of using plastic bags. I think for the red one I’ll use it at the beach to keep my cell phone and some other items from getting wet or too sandy. They both wipe clean with solution.

I think I will make one and add a wrist strap. I could even monogram these if I figure out my machine settings. Every little Southern girl needs a monogrammed wet bag to put her unmentionables!!

The red one is 6.5×9.5 inches and the black and white one is 8×9.5. I think I will make a bigger one around 12×14 because all I had were 7-inch and 22-inch zippers in the house. I am thinking I will want more because you can use them for food, makeup, clothes, diapers–anything that you’d normally put in a plastic bag!

If I REALLY wanted to get fancy and probably even more practical, I could get some PUL, but that would be breaking my no fabric buying moratorium.

First Complete Top and Bottom Outfit

silverstreamdesigns — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:00:24 +0000

HC makes little baby elephant noises. I had a purple shirt that I wasn’t sure what to do with and several plain onesies, so I decided to make her a baby elephant outfit. It’s soooo cute!! The pants I made following the tutorial I posted in Red Hot Baby Pants post.

Itty Bitty Baby Dress

silverstreamdesigns — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:47:29 +0000

I’ve had my eye on the free tutorial for the Itty Bitty Baby Dress from Made by Rae since before HC was born. I taught myself how to gather and make piping. Here was the first dress made following the 9-11 lb size:

Oh no! HC has a bigger head than the pattern!

Next dress: Cherry sunshine

Shirred Sundress

silverstreamdesigns — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:29:42 +0000

I had some elastic thread and wanted to make a little dress and learn to shirr. I saw some shirred baby girl dresses at Saks for literally $178. After I picked myself up after passing out, I decided to follow the video link’s directions my friend Cory sent me to learn to shirr with Martha Stewart and Heather Ross. The dress will go to baby Penelope in Texas. I absolutely love the colors and fabric combination, and they all came from my huge fabric stash. I didn’t even have to leave the house to get materials.

Bumps in the process: I had set the stitch length to five and the elastic wasn’t really gathering. I switched to a 2 and it worked great. That explains the uneven stitching lines. Also, I had a hard time finishing/hemming the top and would rather attach the straps another way and hem the top before shirring. The last thing that bugs me is that this is shirring instead of smocking technically, although Martha refers to this as smocking.

This dress appears in Heather Ross’ Weekend Sewing book, although I haven’t seen a copy.

Baby Pants

silverstreamdesigns — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:11:33 +0000

HC has the most adorable onesie with a red embroidered butterfly on it, but has no bottoms to match them. I decided to make her a pair of pants out of an old red shirt that was too small and had holes in the armpits anyway.

I followed the tutorial on Rookie Moms, an awesome blog, and ended up with these in less than 20 minutes start to finish:

Burp Cloths

silverstreamdesigns — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 03:28:20 +0000

I decorated some burp cloths! They’re the birdseye cotton ones that come in 6 packs. Wash them first in baby-safe detergent, iron them, and then cut strips of cloth to fit the middle part, iron clean edges all tucked under, and sew with either a straight stitch or a zigzag around all 4 sides. Tie them up with a purty bow and you have yourself a fancypants baby shower gift set!

Girl burp cloths

patternless mocha/apple teeny dress

silverstreamdesigns — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:58:08 +0000

I am due in June and just found out that my fetus, Soda Seven (named after a Seinfeld episode until we think of “real” names) is a she.

Lawsamercy! Let the crafting BEGIN.

Behold, ’tis Soda’s first dress I made for her. Soda will be sporting this at her uncle’s outdoor wedding at the end of August, where she will just have turned 2 months old. The wedding colors are brown and green. It’s actually wider but it looks skinny in this picture. I do believe I made it too long–it’s 16 inches “tall” but I can just scrunch up her legs in there. It’s not like she will walk and trip over it!

She’ll get a hat that matches!

The brown ribbon came from my ribbon stash.

I hope it fits, at least in the top. I’m not so worried about the length. I based measurements from a 3-6mo. onesie and just made it up as I went. She can always wear it at some other time.

Wooden Letters

silverstreamdesigns — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:53:35 +0000

I bought letters to spell out Soda’s real name at Joann’s today. I painted the edges in pink and put some scrapbook paper I picked up for 29 cents a sheet and modpodged them on the letters. Each letter is a different type of paper.The nursery color will be that Caribbean blue shade running on the edge of the E’s middle prong. I can’t believe these sell for around $20 a letter! I also covered the light switch plate with the stripey paper.