Favorite Pins Thursday: Sewing & Fabric Edition

Since my trip to Missouri Star Quilt Co. a few weeks back and getting to sew with Jenny, I’m obsessed with thinking about new sewing projects. It’s mostly what I’ve been pinning this week. Not making quite yet, mind you, but pinning. You gotta start somewhere, right?

Here are some of my favorite sewing and fabric related pins from Pinterest. Enjoy!

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Original Source

diy shower curtain from fabric layer cakes
No Original Source, Image for Inspiration Only

resin fabric scraps
Original Source

poetry skirt
Original Source

stuffed animal sleeping bags
Original Source

Anya Top and Shorts by Green Bee patterns, pinned by Craft Forest

Original Source

fly to the moon
Original Source, This is wallpaper, but I think it could recreated with fabric scraps

this took forever diy tags
Original Source

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Original Source

The internet isn’t going to curate itself, so I better get back to pinning!

xo, Jennifer

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Two Videos with Jenny Doan from MSQC!!

I am over-the-moon excited to share the two new videos we made with Jenny Doan from Missouri Star Quilt Co!! We had so much fun and I learned quite a bit in her sewing studio! We made fabric fish from their Dresden template over on MSQC and paper flowers here on Craft Forest. I was a little nervous, could you tell?! Completely star struck. Oh, my goodness!

While I was in Hamilton, I picked up some new fabrics from the main quilt shop. And visited all of the others!! Oh, and we had the most amazing cookies from Poppy’s Bakery. Perfect day!

Pastel Pop Layer Cake

I’ve fallen in love with Pastel Pop and am going to use their layer cake to decorate a doll house I found for Lola at the thrift store. I also picked up a charm pack in an adorable fall pattern called Autumn Woods to make a perpetual calendar for the kids teachers. They’ll be back to school in two weeks. Craziness!

I’m off to enjoy the last bits of (our) summer! Have a great weekend everyone!

xo, Jennifer

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The 5 Minute DIY: Farmer’s Market Bags

My favorite thing about spring is the farmer’s market. I love wandering around, smelling the amazing smells, and shopping for all kinds of yummy things. But I always forget to bring bags. At a few of our markets the vendors do not have plastic bags or any way for you to carry your stuff, so you need to bring your own. I decided that if I made them I might be so full of myself proud that I might actually remember to bring them.

And guess what?! It worked. Hooray! Maybe it’ll work for you, too. Check out how to make your own farmer’s market bags from t-shirts in about 5 minutes.

You’re going to want to make a million of these. I promise you! So grab a bunch of different size t’s and get to it!

xo, Jennifer (And the farmer’s market vendors who are so thankful that you buy their stuff and bring your own bags!)

P.S. I especially love the ones I made from Lola’s old tees because they work great inside the bigger bags for more fragile items. And it’s always fun to look at the teeny-tiny stuff that she used to fit into!

 

Easiest DIY Fabic Bunting!

diy fabric bunting_mantle decor
I do two, count ’em two shoe makeovers this week for Shoe Saturday. And both ended up looking really (really) homemade. And not in a good way. Shoe DIYs can often walk that fine line between the “why did she ruin those shoes by drawing dots on them?!” to “I love those polka dot shoes! Where’d you get them?!” These would be the former. But all hope isn’t lost…gonna try, try again.  Pics of failures and reattempts very soon, loves.

But I did have a great success making a cute little fabric bunting! Everyone knows I’m a huge MSQC fan girl (I’m even  lucky enough to borrow their studio from time to time! I still can’t believe it!) and yesterday Jenny posted a new video with the simplest instructions for a fabric pennant that I’ve ever seen. I immediately wanted to make one to spring up the living room. It’s so dark and coffin-y in there.

diy fabric pennant

I had a Bungalow by Free Spirit Fabrics layer cake that I had been hording saving for sometime. BTW layer cakes are 10″ precut fabric squares in a coordinating line. I am crazy in love with this line and each one is even prettier than the last. I know this is supposed to be No Sew month, but this was too cute and too easy not to try.

Here’s what you need:
(1) Layer Cake – precut 10″ squares, or cut your own (I didn’t use a full layer cake because I wanted a smaller banner)
Sewing Machine
Scissors
Iron

Jenny can explain much better than I (though this one is pretty easy to explain!). I parked my laptop next to my sewing machine and make this right along with the video – like I usually do.

Before you get started a  few quick things to note: she’s using solids, so she didn’t say to fold right sides (or the print) together (not that anyone would sew four of these before noticing – ahem) so be sure you do that. Also, I didn’t have twill tape so I used some red ric rac that I already had, but ribbon or yarn or anything could work to hold these together.

Mine aren’t perfect, but they are cute and came together ridiculously fast. One thing I wish that I’d have done was to push the ric rac down between pennants and then only chain pieced (continual sewing) the pennants together rather than sewing across the ric rac in between.

These are the perfect “look what I made this weekend! I am a crafting goddess!” project. I’ll be making a million of these! How ’bout you??

 

T-shirt Yarn + DIY Cat Toys

delores karl hudson the cat

We are over the moon excited to welcome our new kitty home! We adopted her from a great little place called Kitty City (which Riley made a really funny jingle for, but refuses to sing to you guys). Her name was Cass, but we renamed her. Everyone got to choose a name.  And somehow our female cat became Delores Karl Hudson, or Karl Hudson for short. Cracks me up!

She was immediately comfortable and sweet. Mind you this was our second shelter cat in as many weeks. We originally adopted an older female we named Yeti, but she ended up spending the better part of two weeks hiding in a hole in the basement wall. We started calling her “wall kitty”. The foster folks were so sweet to come and coax her out and match us with the perfect pet.

fun with our new cat

All things for a reason, I guess. Anyway, we are loving her like crazy people. Lola wanted to make her toys so we made two and I went nuts pinning others to make real soon.

First we made a dangle cat toy with a piece of yarn and a stick. So simple and highly recommended by kitty Karl Hudson. And we made some t-shirt yarn and turned it into a really simple, crazy easy pom pom.

diy dangler cat toy

Here’s how to make your own t-shirt yarn for cat toys and a bunch of other crafts, too.

diy tshirt yarn crafts

First line up the bottom hem of your shirt and cut it off (this is a very forgiving project) with scissors or a rotary cutter. Then cut the top portion of the shirt off – I cut under the arm holes straight across.

fold leaving one inch_diy tshirt yarn

Next turn your shirt sideways, using one of the uncut sides as the bottom. Then fold from the bottom up leaving about an inch at the top.

diy tshirt yarn 2

Fold from the bottom again, still leaving an inch at the top. This will give you four (4) layers to cut through to make your strips.

make your own tshirt yarn

Cut through the four layers stopping at the one inch you left at the top. I cut through with scissors, but a rotary cutter would have been easier. I cut about one inch strips, but it’s totally up to you.

how to make your own tshirt yarn

Keep cutting your strips all the way to end. Remember not to cut all the way up to the top – leave your one inch uncut. Then you can open it all up to see your long strips and uncut top.

make your own tshirt yarn cutting

You’ll need to cut across the top and I found it easiest to lay it across a plastic bottle. You could put it on your arm, but this is way easier. Make a diagonal cut from the bottom of the first strip to the bottom of the second. Then keep cutting on a diagonal to the end.

You’ll find that the first strip is still attached so just cut it on a diagonal again and you’re all set. Sorry I forgot to snap a pic of the yarn laid out! We were too excited to make it into a toy, I guess!

After you have your yarn ready you can drive your cat crazy make a pom in just minutes!

diy tshirt yarn pom poms

First wrap the yarn around your hand, pull it off your hand and tie another strip in a knot across the middle. Then cut the loops at each end open. Then instant pom pom! You can give yours a little haircut if you want to get a tighter, more uniform pom. We left ours as is because she already wanted to play with it!

But she’s a smart one and refuses to have her picture taken in action. So here are some really bad pics of Karl Hudson staring at us, guarding her new diy cat toy!

diy cat toy

Hope you’ll make these two (ridiculously easy) diy cat toys! And here are some MORE adorable diy cat toys from folks way more creative than me!
diy cat toys
1. Cardboard Mice 2. Fish Head (fish heads, rollie-pollie fish heads…eat them up yum!) 3. Kitty Sushi 4. Knitted Corks

xo, Jennifer, Lola, + DKH the Cat

* Since you made it this far you might as well give us a like on Facebook + pin stuff with us, too!

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