Mermaid Tail Blankets

I've been able to squeeze a little more sewing in lately, and here's what I've been up to:

Fleece Mermaid Tail Blankets!  They are so much fun to make.  I've been shopping sales since fleece can be pricey.  My favorite is when JoAnn's has extra-wide fleece on 50% off, you get a lot more bang for your buck that way.  Better yet if you have an additional coupon to top it all off.

The dark green mermaid tail blanket pictured above is an adult size, and the others are smaller.  I've been experimenting with patterned fleece too, which I think is a fun twist.

I've been crocheting a bit too, but will probably switch over to making jewelry again soon.  Need to stock up on necklaces to sell at our booth.

Baby Sushi bodysuit!

When I saw this Sushi Baby Costume  on Martha Stewart's website, which was made by Carolynn Caffelle I could not resist making one for my niece/nephew-to be for Christmas a couple years ago.

 

 

 

There are templates to make either tuna or shrimp (<-- the one I chose).

 

It was a lot of fun to make, and got quite a few smiles when it was done :)

 

My brother & sister-in-law took some adorable pictures of my niece wearing this, where they had chopsticks in the forefront of the picture and it looked like they were "picking up the sushi" hahaha.

 



Knit mug koozie!

I just love knitting projects that you can complete in a short time & don't require too much thought.  (as opposed to the baby blanket I have been working on for.... YEARS haha, that's another story) Last year I was really into making these while watching TV at night.  They go pretty quick! 

 

knit koozie

 

 

This was my first time doing a cable stitch, and it was not as scary as I thought it would be :)

Sea themed Fabric book! (pg 1 & 2)

Do you have a bunch of little pieces of fabric from old projects that are too big to throw out, but too little to do much with?  Yeah, that big ol' scrap fabric stash that you know you'd have use for in the future...  Well here's a great scrap busting project!  It's so much fun reminiscing on the projects all your scraps are from too :)

 

I made a sea themed fabric texture book for my sweet little niece, and will be sharing 2 pages at a time for the next couple of weeks, so be sure to stop on by again in the next weeks to check it out!

 

I made the cover from fabric leftover from a cut chenille blanket.  The main pages are also made from leftover fabric from that blanket - all the layers of flannel!  Basically the size of the book was determined by the size of those scraps.  I left the edges raw to add more texture.

 

Fabric texture book

 

I've also been super into making Quiet Book pages, so I have tons of pieces of ric-rac, which I thought would add a little pizazz

Page 1: Whale

 

I cut out the shapes of the whale and used iron on adhesive to attach it to the flannel.  The netting is just sewn on in a few places to secure it.

 

The light blue fabric was from this dress that oops... I never finished!  All the pieces are cut...

Oh and that dark blue fabric sure looks familiar.... from Hubby's Prince William Halloween costume

The blue netting was leftover from fixing up an old butterfly net that had holes in it & also made a tutu with I believe (apparently I'm more behind on blogging than I realized!)

Fabric book - whale page

 

I wrote the words and did accents with puffy paint, thinking the texture would be cool.  But, I'm not so crazy about how the lettering came out & next time would use stencils.

 

 

Page 2 - Jellyfish

 

I used iron on adhesive for the purple part of the jellyfish and the eyes.  I stitched a line at the bottom of the purple fabric for added security that the ribbons would stay in place.

fabric book - jellyfish page

 

The purple fabric was leftover from a pair of pajama pants I made on my travel sewing machine while in college (many years ago)!  One day I'll post about that too... it was kind of funny :) 

 

The ribbon sewn on the bottom of the jelly fish was ribbon used for favors at my wedding!

 

**Pages 3 & 4 of this cloth book**
**Pages 5 & 6 of this cloth book**
**Pages 7 & 8 of the book here**
**Pages 9 & 10 of the fabric book **

Sea glass charms!

Some of my most recent sea glass charms!

 

sea glass pendants

 

I absolutely love making these :)

Crocheted face scrubbies!

I am obsessed with face scrubbies now!  I absolutely hate it when you go to wash your face and the washcloth smells like mildew because it didn't dry out... after only one use. 

 

 

These little crocheted face scrubbies are the best thing ever.  They are about 3 inches in diameter, made from 100% cotton yarn.  They are super quick and easy to crochet, & take up less space than washcloths.  Plus, when you wash these, no folding is required :)

 

Also, they only take about 5 minutes to make one, so it's a perfect little study break craft for me!

 

Winter break!

Winter break is FLYING by!  I've been crafting (and organizing!) a lot, but since most of the things I was making were gifts, I had to wait until after the holidays to blog about them.   I'm still way behind on posting from last winter too... school has been keeping me busy, to say the least. 

 

I didn't bring anything crafty to school with me last term, but won't make that mistake again.  It gets pretty sad when I have a countdown going... not for the end of classes... but for how many days until I can sew (or craft) again!  (I am even considering bringing a small travel machine with me... but will likely limit myself to knitting supplies, due to luggage & time limitations)

 

 

I did a lot of sewing and cooking this year for holiday gifts :)  We used our dehydrator to made fruit rolls, dehydrated apples & bananas.  The spiced nuts we made using a new recipe I found on-line.  I have to say, I was hoping they'd turn out better (sorry, family!) next time I'll have to do a trial batch before giving them as gifts.

 

Hubby helped pick out fabrics, and I made Christmas pajamas for our nieces, nephew, and Godson.  I'll add pictures in another post :)