Saturday, February 27, 2010
Little Helper
Meesa and Andrew, Derrick's sister and brother-in-law, came into town last week and took us out to dinner. Zach doesn't do well stuck in a booster chair for long periods of time so I brought some of his toys to entertain him. Not surprisingly, he got them pretty dirty. Instead of washing the toys myself I decided to get Zach involved and have him help me. I cleaned the sinks and counters really well (so I wouldn't cringe at the thought of Zach touching them) and then set everything up. Zach was so excited to help me and had a blast. We spent a good hour of the morning giving his animals a "bath". Maybe I'll get him to help me clean more of his toys? Here are some pictures of the adventure. No matter what I try I can't get him to look at the camera anymore.
Baby Shoe Tutorial
I received some requests to write a tutorial for the baby shoes I make so here it is. As I said in my last craft post, I used this pattern to make the shoes and only made a couple adjustments. I've never taken a sewing class or really been taught to sew more than straight lines so I made up some of this as I went along. As another side not, because of Zach I can only make things at night so please excuse the bad lighting on the photos :).
1.) Using the pattern in the link above (this website: http://goosiegirls.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/baby-shoe-tutorial/) cut out 4 of each piece - 2 from fabric and 2 from felt. Make sure you have pieces cut so that you'll have a left and a right shoe.
2.) Iron all the pieces of fabric.
Assembling the pieces
3.) Using an iron fold in the rough edges.
4.) Sew the strap onto a piece of felt.
5.) Cut off the excess felt and set aside. Repeat steps 3-5 for the 2nd strap.
6.) Place 2 corresponding sole pieces together with right sides facing out and sew. Repeat for 2nd sole.
7.) Place 2 corresponding side pieces together; wrong sides out. Sew leaving 1 unfinished edge so you can turn the piece right-side out. Repeat with 2nd side piece.
8.) Turn side pieces right-side out and iron.
9.) Sew around the inside of the curve, keeping close to the edge. Repeat.
Putting the pieces together
10.) I'm not sure the best way to explain this next part so hopefully the picture makes sense. I lined the pieces up as shown below so I wouldn't need to unpick part of the shoe and resew it to add the strap. Make sure you don't sew the strap down when you're going around the other side.
Due to the shape of the pieces I found that it was easier to position the pieces as I sewed rather than pinning it all in place ahead of time. The ends should overlap a little bit. There have been a few times when the side piece ended up being a little short to line up with the start. To fix this I would attach the side further in from the edge of the heel of the sole rather than lining up the 2 pieces.
11.) Turn the shoe right-side out. Because I didn't want the strap flapping around I attach it to the top of the shoe. See picture below.
12.) To make the strap into a buckle I hand-sewed on a hook and eye. Velcro also works.
13.) Embellish as you like and you've got a finished pair of baby shoes.
Here are a few other shoes I previously posted in case you would like a few more ideas for embellishments.
1.) Using the pattern in the link above (this website: http://goosiegirls.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/baby-shoe-tutorial/) cut out 4 of each piece - 2 from fabric and 2 from felt. Make sure you have pieces cut so that you'll have a left and a right shoe.
2.) Iron all the pieces of fabric.
Assembling the pieces
3.) Using an iron fold in the rough edges.
4.) Sew the strap onto a piece of felt.
5.) Cut off the excess felt and set aside. Repeat steps 3-5 for the 2nd strap.
6.) Place 2 corresponding sole pieces together with right sides facing out and sew. Repeat for 2nd sole.
7.) Place 2 corresponding side pieces together; wrong sides out. Sew leaving 1 unfinished edge so you can turn the piece right-side out. Repeat with 2nd side piece.
8.) Turn side pieces right-side out and iron.
9.) Sew around the inside of the curve, keeping close to the edge. Repeat.
Putting the pieces together
10.) I'm not sure the best way to explain this next part so hopefully the picture makes sense. I lined the pieces up as shown below so I wouldn't need to unpick part of the shoe and resew it to add the strap. Make sure you don't sew the strap down when you're going around the other side.
Due to the shape of the pieces I found that it was easier to position the pieces as I sewed rather than pinning it all in place ahead of time. The ends should overlap a little bit. There have been a few times when the side piece ended up being a little short to line up with the start. To fix this I would attach the side further in from the edge of the heel of the sole rather than lining up the 2 pieces.
11.) Turn the shoe right-side out. Because I didn't want the strap flapping around I attach it to the top of the shoe. See picture below.
12.) To make the strap into a buckle I hand-sewed on a hook and eye. Velcro also works.
13.) Embellish as you like and you've got a finished pair of baby shoes.
Here are a few other shoes I previously posted in case you would like a few more ideas for embellishments.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Watched Over
Sorry it's been so many weeks since a post. Hopefully a good update will be coming soon.
Something happened this last week that made me so grateful for good people. My little brother Garrett is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in North Carolina. For anyone in the area who might be interested, he's still in his first area, Shelby.
Now for the story. Due to some changes in the email system, there have been some bugs and we found out a couple of days ago that Garrett hasn't been getting any of our emails for the last 3 weeks. For missionaries, getting mail is pretty important so this was a big bummer for him.
On Tuesday, the wife of the stake president where Garrett is serving contacted my mom to let her know what was happening and to see about helping Garrett get some mail. My mom resent old emails to the stake president's wife and some of us wrote additional ones. On Wednesday she emailed my mom a really nice email to let her know that she printed off all the emails that morning and took them over to Garrett so he could read them during lunch. It sounded like this caused Garrett's face to light up and really made his day. She went on to talk about what a good missionary he is and that her son will be going teaching with the missionaries relatively often so they'll get to know each other well. She also said that she'll let us know if he has further problems getting our emails so he doesn't have to go so long without hearing from family. I'm so grateful to know that someone is watching out for my brother while he's so far away. So here's a shout out to good people!
Something happened this last week that made me so grateful for good people. My little brother Garrett is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in North Carolina. For anyone in the area who might be interested, he's still in his first area, Shelby.
Now for the story. Due to some changes in the email system, there have been some bugs and we found out a couple of days ago that Garrett hasn't been getting any of our emails for the last 3 weeks. For missionaries, getting mail is pretty important so this was a big bummer for him.
On Tuesday, the wife of the stake president where Garrett is serving contacted my mom to let her know what was happening and to see about helping Garrett get some mail. My mom resent old emails to the stake president's wife and some of us wrote additional ones. On Wednesday she emailed my mom a really nice email to let her know that she printed off all the emails that morning and took them over to Garrett so he could read them during lunch. It sounded like this caused Garrett's face to light up and really made his day. She went on to talk about what a good missionary he is and that her son will be going teaching with the missionaries relatively often so they'll get to know each other well. She also said that she'll let us know if he has further problems getting our emails so he doesn't have to go so long without hearing from family. I'm so grateful to know that someone is watching out for my brother while he's so far away. So here's a shout out to good people!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)